End of Time

I could not cross the imaginary Rubicon without comment. You know; the ending of one year and the beginning of the next. 

Arbitrary as doing so may appear, our arrangement requires change of situation to motivate hope and cultivate trusting. 

If there were no end to misery, by any effort, then all would be an ocean of despair; a proposition that continues to resurface from time to time.  Winter is cold enough without such dark foreboding; we must find reason to mark a change; then imbue it with opportunity. 

I like that about us humans.

What a droll experience passing days without passion would be. I’m told confinement is much like that; it drives some mad; others are just driven away from a society that punishes its victims.  We’re here, on this very day, surveying the coming year with a sense of almost giddy promise; along with a sense of ache in loss as well.  For surely the change takes as well as brings, leaving life’s edges a bit more frayed; suddenly noticing seams no longer fitting as easily as they had in our youth.  I heard a phrase the other day that fed my trolling for irony.  Someone attempting to persuade another replied to the proposition as

  “You’re making empty promises!”

The advocate immediately replied,

   “Aren’t they all?”

There was a moment in time, when the idea of empty promises struck me as dishonest and insulting; revealing them as just manipulation would make me bitter since my conviction was one of promises being ironclad; where breaking a promise was the worst of offenses.   Time has seasoned me, as I know better.  Making promises is, I believe, a policy of wishful prediction.  That can be commendable from a point of view; to possess a vision where the promise is fulfilled to every rich detail of expressed desire in reward.  Yet, too, I am able to accept that none of us are in control of the future, so guaranteeing a concrete end state is an invitation into make believe at the best and dwelling in disappointment at its worse.

That is acceptable as well.  We make believe all the time.  There is a paradox asking which power is supreme?  Inherent power, that which you personally possess; or granted power, that which is bestowed upon you to use as you deem fit?  By and large the popular assumption is that personal power is the greatest for we alone weld its purpose.  But the question reveals the greatest misconception of all;  power has no master.  All our plans and schemes rely on our deluded assumption that we are in control of anything; that anything is inherently ours to claim or keep as ours alone.  It is only through suffering are we awaken to the impermanence of anything we hold safe or secure.  We are, after all, just tourist in this physical plan.  In fact, I might take this moment to add, the more we suffer loss, the closer we get to the actual nature of our being;  temporary.

So then, in that vein of consideration ~ along with a grain of humor for the effort ~ May I wish those who know me, and those with nodding acquaintance, all the suffering the year has to offer….then perhaps we can be sad together…until we find the humor of it all.   

Constant Craving

We lost our parakeet Nemo last night.  It was odd occurrence.  We had just returned from a vacation in Spain; Montse was cleaning and unpacking clothes as I was putting stuff away in my study.  I received a phone call from Rene, the woman who had been watching our cats and the bird.  She was distraught to inform me that our bird was dead.  She went on to tell me that Ramon (her husband) had just checked on the bird earlier that very night and it was fine; they had been telling it that mommy and daddy would be picking it up the next day.  Then, as they were preparing for bed, (it was near midnight) she made a last check and saw Nemo at the bottom of his cage; just hours away from homecoming.

He was nearing 13 years old....pretty good for a breed whose average life span is commonly just five.

  Alas, he was just a bird, but part of the tapestry I've grown fond to wrap up this affection I call my world in.  After conveying the news to my wife and reconciling that death was part of the overarching canopy we live under, I recalled an artist friend once telling me of the loss of her bird, Sophie.  I remember I was touched and wrote a piece on it:  I thought in tribute to all of us who invite pets to be our heart's neighbor, I’d share this much of me today.

Sophie's Gift (to life's circle)

The day is.

As the senses receive

The sun, the breeze, iridescent green leaves on bushes and trees familiar but names escaping retrieval remain unnamed.

Yes, the vestiges of spring, the heart’s delights of life reborn

The circle is visceral.

Yet still, the circumspect side has no season,

One to prepare, to harbor our grief and wait until we are dressed for the occasion.

Likened to a feather on the keyboard, reminder of lost flight

The empty place in our hearts, in our nest.

Ah, be forgetful my misery, of love's visit gone.

Special in a creature I knew not as well as I wished.

The traits, the colors, the very sound...only whispers in my recollection now.

Ah, how cruel this comes, so unexpected.

But is it my awareness that let it come as a surprise?

The circle is, and I knew it from youth.

I know glee of new found love, of joys and happiness in a thousand senses and experiences.

Can I be honest with myself and exclude the contrasting flavors awaiting my taste with nature’s ways?

Am I the master of this creation?

This world I carefully construct.

Adding an illusion here, dabbing one there.

I hold, no ~ I grasp upon such fantasy.

That only sunny days are in my spring.

A life of shimmering summer days riding motorcycles.

Ocean spray of speeding Sea-do's

Bar-B-Ques accented by smiling faces.

I am reminded in departures, of my quest to love more meaningful.

To practice kindness more often.

Be honest

To others

To me

The passing is testament that time is an illusion.

We only have now.

My love is here today.

Tomorrow will be the eulogy to the dedicated heart.

The devotion, the joy rendered in the association.

Alas, in passing we are given the great gift of awareness.

Of the dearness of loving hearts.

For us

Of our precious love in which we invest

To know

To behold

To live

Precious.....Cherished....tourist.

 

 It is a characteristic of condition; this ever-wandering mind.  It thrives on process; it demands fodder.  What we do in place of living, is cultivate drama.  So every second we acquiesce to that unquenchable thirst and ravenous appetite of the mind’s needs to chew on something; to figure out something beyond its control; are precious seconds that not used in savoring the present moment.

The Magical Train of Enthusiasm

  Oh how I use to ride that train of enthusiasm.  I’d pull the window down and lean out as far as I could in order to feel that wind blowing in my face; to the point where my hair would hurt at the roots; and tears from clenched eyes would fill my ears.  I couldn’t get enough of it.  Of course that’s imagery, but as the thrill of life opened its windows of opportunity to me I’d dash to get through it before being slammed shut.  I had my share of shattered dreams and disappointments enough to carpet any banquet hall, so the older I got the more cunning I figured I needed to become to avoid the same results.  I had more than an appetite for good fortune, I was famished for it.  In my youth I had no vision for the circumspect of life events.  I was in the moment; like a favorite pet is for any adventure.  Be it to the beach or the vet, the thrill of being included was adequate enough to wind me up with excitement.  As the years collected I began to connect the chain of disappointments as something beyond personal selection; yet intuitively I felt they also were. That notion demanded I question any flippant dismissal as to negative outcome being nobody’s fault.  I distilled truth enough, I was no victim to a sadistic-cynical universe prowling for innocent hearts to crush. Just as much as I figured out most of my foolishness could be attributed to failed access to reasoning recesses of an undeveloped frontal cortex.  I was, for all intents and purposes, a late bloomer.  I can laugh at that behavior now, because I’ve adequate experience to compare impulsive choices to well thought-out plans.  For instance, just recently, the idea of Humanistic psychology reminded me of some of its features I learned earlier which appealed to my ethos for life in general; unconditional positive regard; empathy in accordance with genuineness, these were attractive to the way I would like to be dealt with; with how I’d like to connect with others.  Yes, that was the path to connection with a purpose; investigation into the topic led me to reconsider.  True as the tenants are to what I consider respectful intercourse with other human beings, too much of a good thing is just…well…goofy.

  I can apply this to past conversations and the example of astrology.  Oh yes, I am familiar enough with it to toy with certain signs possessing like kind dispositions;  as a Capricorn, I’ve discovered most other Capricorns I know of, tend to also not let go of something easily.  Is that unique to the sign? Maybe not, there’s adequate scientific research to suggest we find what we seek, so yeah I can convince myself all Capricorn’s are prone to specific traits just as any other zodiac sign; what of it?  The point of it being, there are some who refuse to enter into contracts when Mars is in retrograde.  And not just garden variety-next-door-hippy-types, but captains of industry forestalling contract negotiations until after that period of passage; call it superstition, it shows up in all quarters of society.  Sure, some people get a kick out of reading their horoscope in the daily paper; most find it amusing and think little of it until the prophetic ‘bad day’ manifest itself; then there is a hind-sightedness in admitting, “gosh, my horoscope said I was going to have a bad day.”  I shrug at the notion, but I use it as a vehicle to bring this up.  It’s fun and all but that doesn’t mean I plan my life around it.  Nor would I wish to be cornered at a party with someone who was a true believer.  Who abandoned all reason to the soothe-saying power of the stars; it just creeps me out.  And my research into the humanistic-existential-transpersonal psychology did the same thing…a feeling as if I would be signing up for a steady diet of overly-sweet-sentiments.  Sure, therapist should be compassionate, genuine, caring and nonjudgmental.  But do we expect them to sob with us? Anguish over our disappointments and hurts? No, that’s what our friends are for, or our bartenders.  Anyway, once it dawned on me that I really didn’t want to be emerged in the ideals from the tip of my head to the ends of my toes I had a very odd subjective flip-flop of feelings.  One was a self congratulations for not running full bore into a notion without further research; the second was a degree of disappointment, kind of like the image didn’t live up to a fairytale assignment I gave it right out of the gate of notion.  It took a couple of days to reconcile those feelings, then admit incorporation was the key to quality I would embrace.  Other scientifically proven methods could serve me just as well.  Yes, I can appreciate both worlds without having to give allegiance to either/or.  I somehow found my way though the brambles of habitual self inflicted wounding…I didn’t expect it…but I’m glad it happened the way it did; I believe that’s called serendipity…how delicious.