green tea
honey
organic whole milk

heat energy
ceramic mug
thumb, fingers, palms, wrist

the whole kit and caboodle

Weary

Weary these days. Not so much physically as overall. Being physically weary is not so bad. Mental exhaustion is worse. Some things on the horizon. Some moons drying up. This is just life, nothing more nor less. Got to keep working.

An example of what brainwashing does to people

To Meet

I rolled Kou / Coming to meet.

The Creative, Heaven, over the Gentle, Wind.

My interpretation: It says I am like the wind under heaven, going everywhere, seeing everything. Beneath heaven, I am certain of my confines. If I was above the earth, I would think of myself as free. But no, I am underneath heaven: the way that I know is right, my ideals. But I am free in those parameters. One should always be magnanimous to everyone, the weak and strong alike. I need to be open and free to find my way, but like the wind I must be forceful, yielding, and everywhere at the same time. My future peace lies with my present peace, or lack thereof. I shouldn't let the weak or strong block or corral my path.

I am going to meet a friend in an hour as well, and I am going to eat some meat. The I-Ching has a way of making fun of me. I see oracles as generalized guides to our individual lives, just as the general laws of thermodynamics can help create a specific engine.

Okay, yeah, here we are, new week, new life.

I am going to dedicate this blog to the Now.

Being here Now doesn't mean worrying about finding a new car or job, paying the rent, or losing my mind. What it does mean is that I will be dealing with these things as they come up, in due time. What I can't do is figure it all out right now. I just need to be here, now. I just need to open up my heart and my mind and my body to this present moment. I need compassion to be a guiding force in my actions, because I have learned that this is a helpful way to exist, with an open heart. Otherwise, I get all caught up in my own game, and in a game, someone is always winning or losing. I don't think that's the case with life. Life is here, right now, and we need to enjoy it.

My apartment is cleaned up. My dead car is sitting on a side street, waiting. I have some job ideas, but right now a week after finishing up my last job, I am okay with taking it easy.

I have a comfortable place to sleep, a warm home, a TV to watch movies on, a computer that is almost ready to crash for good, my guitar, communications with the outside world. I am healthy and happy, to a degree. What is there to complain about?

What blows my mind is that everything that has happened has already happened before, or will happen again. My life is not unique, in the sense that I am no different than every other living being out there. But I am completely unique, in the sense that I am the Now of everything that has come before me. Sort of a paradox, but that's the warp and weft of the fabric of life.

You out there, you know I love you. Thank you for journeying with me, and we will see each other again and again.

Living the Dream Farm

Check out my friend's website I helped set up. I think it looks great, and I'm really excited for her whole farm endeavor!

www.ltdfarm.com

I have more feelings than thoughts this morning, my whole psyche is a quagmire, but my job is to continue on.

What is this flash in the pan we have? No really, what the hell is it? Why are so many people content with their little piece of cake and not wildly curious about what the whole cake looks like, or who is the baker? What is the meaning of this wild ride we all rent? I've never really understood the apathy I perceive all around, because all my life I've been searching for wisdom, knowledge, truth, beauty; something that gives life a heart. Or maybe this apathy is all just for show and most men and women are quietly desperate, happy just to get by with some dignity. I've been trying to ignore the stark reality of having to get by, but I'm beginning to see that an emotional rift separates those who are afraid of not getting by and those afraid of just getting by. Maybe it's not fear so much as an approach to societies whole game, and I guess I haven't really read the playbook. Because of my ignorance, I'm getting tackled just about now. Hopefully I can shake it off, but I might have a concussion.

I mean, why do we suffer so much, and why do we feel so much joy? Is it just synaptic touch football with a post-game endorphin opiate cocktail? I'm not even asking why we suffer, I'm asking why we even exist to suffer, why am I sitting here wondering why we exist to feel happy, sad, scared, exited; the whole gamut of our emotional reality. Why do my fingers have their specific shape, why do I walk in circles, why does driving fast feel exiting? Why, why, why?

Some of you may think that I am talking about philosophy or religion or art or science. You're way off base. It isn't that at all. I could care less about all these established modes of sticking life in a box, and that's what's getting under my skin. How can life be pigeon-holed? Why does anything need to be labeled, and is this quest to label everything in the universe our sick method of trying to wrest control of our lives, of life itself? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God. Or so we would like to think. Before the Word, there was life. Before we labeled the mystery, there was the mystery. Before everything we know, there was something we didn't know.

Well, after all that is said and done, I still have to get up and do the dishes. I'm beginning to see that doing the dishes, taking a walk, holding hands, watching the stars, eating a cupcake, drawing a flower, everything, absolutely everything I do is life expressing itself and is of the utmost importance in the way that all acts are. Everything I do is a work of art, a science experiment, a prayer, a philosophic treatise. This is most definitely a metaphor, and it is not a metaphor at all. Life manifests itself metaphorically, I think, and the falling leaves in autumn are real.

Things plod along. The crisp dried out corpses of autumn leaves rustle on the sidewalk as I walk along the path from my back door to the car. The fifteen minute drive to work in Battle Creek in my old Olds is familiar now, but over today. That is a constant problem with contract work, you put your heart and soul into a place and get used to the commute and then wooosh, you have to start all over somewhere else, on a different project. But, you know, it's like life, more then a stuffy office job that you go to everyday for years and never get to vary your routine. So I am thankful for variety and instability.

The stones call to me, says they are going to bed. This is a prime season to gather stone, As all the trees and shrubs are sleeping naked as well. The book of Changes:

The Sun / Decrease

Decrease combined with sincerity
Brings about supreme good fortune
Without blame.

One may be perservering in this.
It furthers one to undertake something.
How is this to be carried out?
One may use two small bowls for the sacrifice

I am collecting stones, small and beautiful.

The day is dark by 5 PM now.

Most things are going bad but one is possibly good.

I have a pan with baked on grease.