Good Grief!

THINGS ARE IN a constant state of change; and when I'm reluctant to change, something happens so I've got to in some sense. My computer has been unwell for some time, and 'passed away at its residence' yesterday afternoon. I was able to bring it back to some extent with the ancient system restore, but it turns out too outdated to run any modern software, so I'm left with a sort of adding-machine/ typewriter without printer drivers or internet. I get 1 hour a day at the library computers, so I apologise to those fellow followers whom I regularly comment to: I'm still reading your stuff, but there'll be a delay in comments. I wish I could afford another computer at this time, but it's unlikely. Ah, well. This sort of thing happens at pivotal times; so I'm paying attention to the other side of anything and everything, which is my way. I've become too used to internet and computer access, and mustn't allow it to be a dependence.

I watched the Charlie Brown Christmas this year for the first time in forever, and it struck me the way this boy feels is similar to the way many of us do during the holiday season. I wonder that this isn't to do with very different things than we're led to believe. To me it has come to my mind that having a specific time of the year in which one is supposed to be gladsome and thankful and have 'resolutions' (whatever that may mean), isn't always appropriate to the individual at that moment in time, and so it makes us feel badly like poor old Charlie Brown, who gets rocks for Halloween and brings home a tree because it needs him, and everybody says he's a fool.

I've heard that a number of folk in the north of the US went without any power or electric lights during the whole of the Christmas holiday period. Although this is terrible for those who may be harmed by the cold or become ill, it did offer an opportunity that most folk wouldn't have got otherwise to spend time when one is confronted with one's self and those whom they share their lives with—also to realise how vulnerable the human race has made itself through its dependence on technology. When these things fail, even for a short time, we suffer. It reminds me of the man who once said he won't swim or fly in a plane because he doesn't want to do anything that, if you suddenly stop, you die. Obviously not meaning including things like breathing; he meant something that you don't have to do.

Where were you during the change of years of 1999-2000? Most everybody remembers this who was alive at the time, simply because we all thought maybe the world was going to come to an end or something. My partner and I refused to put on electric lights or use anything but candles and the wood-burner. We sat outside in the bloody freezing damp cold and lit 3 very thin candles we imbedded in the snow and said nothing and didn't even move as the time went by. I can still see the flames fluttering. The wind tried to extinguish them, but they never went out. I wasn't worried the world would come to an end and mostly used candle-light anyway that winter because I liked candles back then. We decided it would be a good idea to run into the freezing cold Atlantic ocean too. It wasn't such a good idea as we'd hoped.

So I really decided to try this year to follow the general feeling of things, but it didn't really pan out quite as I thought—maybe one has to be glad in their own season and not according to an almanac. I still have had glad and grateful thoughts in these days—but the commercial narcissism of this time of year made me feel like a giant cat whose fur was rubbed the wrong way, and made me homesick for the middle of nowhere, to keep my own Holy Days and listen to my Self and the voice of the earth around me. I want to feel free again, not chained up by society to some dependence on some over-priced poor-quality building and questionable food from the supermarket. What if the lights go out here? What if there's a run on the grocery stores? That would have made no difference in past seasons of my life—now it does, though I do not wish it so. I hope I can find my way back to the way I want to live—I did it once, I only wonder if I can again. I hope so.

~

Give up learning, and put an end to your troubles.

Is there a difference between yes and no?
Is there a difference between good and evil?
Must I fear what others fear? What rubbish!
Other people are contented, enjoying a holiday feast.
In spring some go to the park and climb the terraces.
But I alone am drifting, not knowing where I am.
Like a newborn babe before it learns to smile,
I am alone, without a place to go.

Others have more than they need, but I alone have nothing.
I am a fool. Oh, yes! I am confused.
Other folk are clear and bright,
But I alone am dim and weak.
Other folk are sharp and clever,
While I alone am dull and stupid.
Oh, I drift like the waves of the sea,
Without direction, like the restless wind.

Everyone else is busy,
But I alone am aimless and depressed.
I am different.
I am nourished by the great mother.

-Tao Te Ching, XX

Season's Greetings + a rather big cat

YESTERDAY I saw a cat-picture on Tammy's site at ourneckofthewoods.net where she'd said her kitty was getting HUGE, so I was inspired to make this drawing and create an e-card for the friends & followers of my blog. Some of you already received a personalised version right in your inbox...but others I don't have the emails to, or even the names in some cases. There is, for example, someone who follows me using some feed-reader other than google's from Australia—but I don't know who they are! But to you & everybody, I wish all good wishes for this day and each of those that are to come: may you learn from everything you encounter and may you turn your experiences, no matter how terrible or wonderful, into golden words and actions. Remember that one needn't look outside themselves for strength, balance & peace, but can find them all Within.

Dreaming

SOME YEARS AGO just before my life changed forever following a dreadful accident, I began to form an understanding of Dreaming, in particular the manner of gaining insight into one’s life through dreams. (But before anybody thinks dream-imagery holds universal meaning: I really haven't found that to be true. Each thing one encounters in Dream holds specific significance to the individual who dreams it, and is as unique to you as your DNA. So if you possess those books that tell you that rain in a dream means tears and a bear in a dream means you like honey or Whinny the Pooh, I'd use them only to hold down papers on your desk, as they are works of fiction and likely to mislead you in your dreaming.)

There are all sorts of dreams; but the ones I have are mostly those that can instruct me as to issues in my life that I may otherwise be dumbfounded by; and these, I think, are the best sort. There are also what I call ‘memory dump’ dreams: everybody has these—they entail seeing apparently unrelated and absurd imagery that one may have been exposed to recently, whether we wanted to be or not. I think these are the mind’s way of playing it through and getting rid of it, like sorting through a load of junk before a spring clean-up. Another sort that few people master are lucid dreams. Everyone who mentions lucid-dreaming to me usually starts by telling me about it as though I’d never heard of it: ‘If you can make yourself look at your hands,’ they begin, ‘then you can potentially do anything.’ Yes, I tell them, Carlos Castaneda is the one who first came up with that. But as he’s been so often imitated, most have not heard of him. I follow one woman’s blog who is perhaps one of the most remarkable masters of lucid-dreaming I’ve ever seen. She can fly in any direction at any speed at will, change her surroundings instantly, and summon Benedict Cumberbatch, Matt Smith or David Tennant whenever she likes (I won’t tell you why she summons them). For some reason she has been told she’s ‘autistic’, which is society’s way of boxing up people who see reality in their own way instead of some ready-made rubbish. But not one of those who say so can fly, change their surroundings or summon their favourites at will…

‘But they’re just dreams…’ What on earth is that supposed to mean, anyway? Are dreams ‘real’? Can you see, taste, smell, touch, feel, speak, hear, interact with your surroundings? If so, then how could they not be real? No one can tell you ‘where you are’ when you are in a dream. No one can explain what it even is. Even animals dream. I believe that dreams hold the key to whatever we want to know about ourselves; especially if we dream deliberately.

By this I’m not specifically talking about lucid-dreaming, where you get to control things—rather the dreams that explain to us what is holding us back, what is behind our fears, and encourage us to take heart when we have lost hope. These are messages from our inner-self, who knows us utterly; and which our minds, as limited as they are by concepts of linier time, our own ideas about who we are and other fluff, have difficulty communicating easily with when distracted constantly by the day-to-day things of the physical world. If you try, you can understand these voices; and if you fail at first, a new dream will come along and further explain to you what you failed to get from the other. Some themes repeat for a very long time, typically changing shape either subtly or wholly, hoping that we will gain some comprehension and insight.

Often, before I go to sleep, I ask myself to have dreams that can let me understand things differently or encourage me. Sometimes, when thoroughly dejected to the point of not wanting even to get up, I have this powerful dream that pulls me through and changes my perspective, even though there is no physical change in my surrounding dilemma, I nonetheless ‘know’ that things will change and that I possess the power to change, at least how I take what happens in my life, as terrible as those things often are, and as dreaded or bleak as my ‘future’ may seem to be. To me, a person’s life is one whole thing, and concepts of ‘time’ and its passage are the mind’s way of cataloguing events. For this reason it is possible to ‘remember’ the ‘future’; but mostly we choose not to as it alters the human experience, or else our minds are too limited; however, our inner-self knows these things, and from there comes the ability to encourage our waking self.

Back when I was just starting to take deliberate dreaming to heart, I had this one dream. I dreamt I was in this group of people in the mountains of Switzerland. There were a number of us, mostly children of about 10, including myself. We had been rounded up by authoritarian soldiery for no good purpose. Each child was paired with a dog; mine was an Irish setter. The soldiers wanted to see how the children would react if they mistreated the animals. My dog rolled on the ground, started to fidget nervously and make whining sounds; I kept trying to quiet it and get him to stop, but he wouldn’t. He’d attracted attention, and one of our captors came over to us and I knew they would try and harm the dog. I stood up and was now about 16 years old. We were on this sort of platform, right at the edge, and below us were the snowy slopes of the Alps, which also towered above us, with heavy hanging snow. ‘Stop!’ I told the one approaching me. ‘We are leaving this place, and you dare not fire your guns—look above you, you will start an avalanche!’ I then slid under the fence with the dog, and we both began sliding down the side of the mountain together. I was then an adult. No one fired at us and we escaped.

Amazing to have a dream like this. I realised the following upon reflection: much of my life I suppressed my ‘wild’ or animal self. Some of this involved not valuing it, or not believing I ought to express these types of things. Moreover, there is much of that wild-aspect in creativity, and I felt at the time I had not expressed my creativity anywhere near as much as I should have been. By feeling the rigid authority of my practical self was threatening my wild self, I tried to keep it quiet. When it would not be still, I realised I had to act; I grew up suddenly and pronounced that the practical side would destroy the whole if it dared to stop the expression of the wild. When I slid away with my ‘dog’ I was never happier and never more mature. Later that same day I went into the city. When I got off the bus, I had pass by me in less than 2 minutes 3 dogs. Each was an Irish setter. That is called ‘confirmation from the world around you’. If you really are in tune, you will see the same things in your own life, as I'm sure some of you do—we just have to trust that these things are there for us too, and not just there.

More recently I was very dejected. I could not imagine how I would be able to live as I want again since my injuries were getting worse over time and I no longer had money or the ability to do what I wished. And would I ever be able to create some lasting art or complete projects that had too long lain dormant? I asked to have a dream that would somehow encourage me, as I was ready to give up completely. When I had it, it was short and beautiful. I was in this stone-paved courtyard in this beautiful garden. A number of people stood around and talked. I noticed a number of large blue-green beetles wandering about on the ground nearby. A woman who was standing nearby began to speak with me. Suddenly I started to feel some things grabbing hold of my leg and climbing it. It was a couple of beetles, gripping tightly on my trouser legs. I removed one and set it down. The other I held for a bit in my hand. I felt its legs holding tightly to me and felt a humming coming from it. I set it down. Then I looked at the beetles milling about and perceived a pattern to their movements. I did not know what the pattern meant, but knew it was something important for me. Then water began to fill the area around the beetles, and I was worried for them. I went and stood in the cool water of the pool, half-way up to my knees. The water was not harming the beetles. They began to change colour, to these lustrous silvers and golds. The water drained away. There was this sound unlike anything I’d ever heard and which contained all peace and reassurance—it was some type of otherworldly music and I knew it came from the beetles. I woke up with tears.

This was a very simple and clear message from my inner self: it told me that, no matter what, I would be able to use my creativity and make beautiful things again, and that my life had an order to it—a complex and wonderful pattern that my mind could barely perceive; and that, if I paid attention, I could indeed perceive it, and that in the midst of that perception would come a peace and assurance that I stood in the midst of my life till my thoughts and actions became precious and the song of it would sing me awake.

Everybody who knows me well knows how much I adore two animals, the rat and the fox. The other night I had a very disturbing dream of being in the house I grew up in. There was a storm and a hole had broke through in the ceiling above my head as I slept. When I awoke I was looking up into the attic and saw two huge black rats staring down at me insidiously. They wouldn’t go away. I thought of taking the three lazy cats I had there up to the attic and shut them in, but thought the rats could harm them. I then imagined the rats biting me. I woke up quite upset, as I love rats: so why such a dream? I knew if I waited and asked for another on the same theme I’d get it. (Try this yourself and see.)

Next night I dreamt I was leading this group of peasant soldier up a steep hill that was wooded. It was night-time and very dark except the moonlight filtering through. My strategy was that we would move silently up to the crest of the hill, then fall on our enemies from above having higher ground. There was at least twenty paces or more between each person and everyone had swords or bows. I was at the end, guarding the back of my comrades. I suddenly looked back and flanking me were any number of these creatures, something like large foxes. They had two tails each and were a sort of silver white and they never blinked. Each was equal distance from each other and moved along basically in tandem. I was sure they meant to attack us, though none came at me as though they would. Horribly, I decided to attack them; but even then, they refused to attack me. I came upon a sort of derelict old steel shopping cart, inside of which was the only different fox: a smaller one and very agitated. I stopped to listen to it and it was chattering away at me, moving all around. I did not understand the things it said, but knew it was trying to tell me not to fight the other foxes: that they were important and not trying to harm me. They came very close then and I awoke.

In both dreams my inner self did something it had never done before: used creatures I love and consider friendly and wonderful as seemingly frightening or dangerous (to my thinking in the dreams). This took quite a good deal of pondering, but I can now see that using things I’m frightened of to try and shock me into action wasn’t working—so I can perceive the subtlety of my dream-weaver aspect in choosing what I take solace in to scare me instead. It was a similar theme of setting aside my wild-nature and creative force. The rats, though big and scary, were not enough—but the foxes wore the guise of the spirit-fox from folklore, which has multiple tails and is a magical creature. Very importantly too, it showed very clearly that I divide myself within, placing too far a distance between my different aspects, like the difference between a single large mirror’s reflection, and that of a series of smaller mirrors. I think in this western society we often think of ourselves as different bits that are barely related. We’ve got to think holistically (or whole-istically) when it comes to the Self. That’s confusing, as I’m concerned of losing my ability to do physical things more over time—losing one aspect. Perhaps it is that I have to imagine that all my aspects are Me, and that just one is not all there is.

In every society I’ve lived in I take a different name or different version of my name. My Native American name is Dream-Dancer. I like that name because, although just now I cannot dance in the material world, in the dream world I can do anything: and I’d rather dance than most things; and life itself is a dance anyway. A complex and beautiful dance full of wonder and horror and incredible feats.

This has been a long post—thank you for reading it! Obviously, Dreaming is important to me. How about any of you? Do you have some marvellous tales (or tails) of your dreams and things you may have learnt from them?

Kindred Spirits

I DO LOVE the phrase 'Kindred Spirit', which I picked up from Anne Shirley, a very different sort of person who changed her world (though fictional) just by being in it. Whenever I see somebody who could benefit from a gesture of friendship, it is second nature to me to offer it. This never really dawned on me until some of the people I had met had come up to me and somehow reminded me of whatever gesture I had shown them.

The western society that I live in is far from treating others with respect. I wonder that this is part of the 'human condition' or if that is some sort of cop-out that we use in order to excuse ignorance and insensitivity? It has always struck me: the way people around me treat others or myself. This culture has taken breeding the Narcissist to some sort of selective breeding in the gene-pool seemingly. When I see anybody who isn't like that, I immediately try and befriend them. Some might think this is because I seek some sort of company; but I suppose it's really my concern for them.

One time I was on this bus. It was called the 'homeless bus' because it stopped at a homeless shelter, in addition to the awesome health-food store that I frequented at the time. This one fellow got on, in his early 20s maybe. He had a suitcase with him that he could barely manage. The driver was pretty mean to some of the people on there, including giving this guy a hard time about his case, which he said he could barely lift due to some injury to his back. She told him if he couldn't lift it and get it out of the way that he shouldn't have it, and was otherwise quite mean. I went and had a few words with her about this and gave him my place to sit down; though only after he had picked the case up (which he could barely manage to do)—though I tried to stop him.

Months later after I'd been injured severely in an accident, I met him on the street nearby where I lived at the time. When I told him what had happened, he was truly concerned for me and, standing at a busy intersection, he stopped to say one of the most sincere prayers I ever heard over me. 'Every time I've seen this person,' he began, 'they always try to help me in some way; and when I see them, it is like I'm meeting some great friend of mine, which is how I will always remember them...' and he went on to recount different incidences (which I could barely recall) of my helping him find work or get a place to stay. He was an immigrant from some 'territory' or other, and had met me that first day on that bus.

There was this one lady who used to ride around on a tandem bicycle by herself. She was ruggedly beautiful and always very neat and wore a neck-scarf. Most people didn't speak to her much, but I did. I think she had some difficulty with her thoughts, and so would start rambling on about disconnected things—though I knew she couldn't help it. I'd let her do it a bit, but always seemed to have the knack of drawing her back to the thread of our conversation. Once when I was losing the place I'd been living she offered me to stay with her—though it was too remote for me without transport & being injured. I've heard from people who've visited that town over the past couple years that she always asks about me.

I remember this one bearded guy who always had a book by Louis L'Amour with him. He was pretty distant much of the time. Like the other two, he had a fantastic name that I won't recount here—something from a Dickens novel though. He once did me some kindness that I can't recall, but stated that he had deeply appreciated when I'd helped him to figure out how to use some computer software to write an essay for his college course. Again, I'd forgot that entirely. It was around this time that my habit of treating others like I would dearly like to be treated and helping them as a second-nature had struck me for the first time. No, everyone doesn't do it—yes, I do.

It has also developed that I've come to realise that when I do certain things to help others, I'm actually at the same time taking care of myself when I've been in some similar situation or point in my life—perhaps no one cared then, so I do now. That seems strange when writing it—but I've come to understand it though and see that it doesn't lessen the significance of the gesture, but rather strengthens it. 

Maybe people reading this think I'm blowing my own trumpet and trying to say what a decent person I've been: forget it...nobody is harder on me than me. If I want to meet my worst enemy, I have only to look in the mirror. 'I shall chide no breather in the world save myself, against whom I know most faults', so the Bard says.

Many cannot comprehend for what reason anybody would wish to befriend those around us whom society shuns, ridicules or abuses. I suppose they will never understand it, which is to everyone's loss. I do understand it however, because it seems to be in my nature for whatever reason. Perhaps because I have so often been on the receiving end of these same sorts of prejudices. So I've taken that and used to it my advantage and for the sake of others too.

And like I always used to say, 'When lemons give you life, make lifenade'.