Sublime first day.
I would very much like for yesterday to be template for the rest of my year.
I went in to the office and worked for a few hours, but I accomplished a great deal, and when I left, I felt a sense of satisfaction I have not known in a while. From there, I came home and relaxed, spoke with some friends and family, and then went out with a friend who invited me to an informal seminar that a local professor of philosophy holds every 3 weeks or so. There were six others there besides the professor and myself--it appears that a few of the regulars were unable to make it.
We ate well, drank well, conversed, listened to music, and after about an hour, Rita (the professor) decided to get things started. She put in a film called "Winged Migration", insisted that everyone get another drink, and then asked four questions:
What do you love?
What do you want to know?
What do you want to do?
What do you want to do in the coming year?
Everyone had brought journals, and, fore-warned by Rob, I brought one of my old journals with me. She told us to write as we watched the film, to relax and write about the question "What do you want in the coming year?" or, whatever else came to mind as we watched the birds wing and allowed our minds to follow.
The my journal entry is as follows:
Amazing, that a goose can fly in a snowstorm.
Oh, to be as free and flexible as a bird.
If I had wings, I would jump off a cliff, too.
Reflections of stone within the mirror of the water. Which is real?
Even in captivity, we have our hopes--and our delusions.
The tail-feathers of the sage grouse looks like an indian war bonnet.
There is so much symmetry in nature!
The calving of a glacier -- in every cataclysm is an opportunity.
Why do so many birds migrate to the artic to nest? Is it the lack of predators? There is so much competition for resourses though.
There is a beauty, an elegant simplicity to the cycle of migration. It is conscious and unconscious, a flowing thing. The birds lives flow with the biological drives of the seasons, struggling as individuals in a greater cycle which perpetuates the needs of the species.
Birds on a battleship -- any port in a storm.
Just because our natures dictate that we fly into a headwind doesn't mean we shouldn't find a place to rest during a storm.
What would I like to do this next year?Take a course, perhaps in history of science, perhaps in eastern philosophy/religion/thought.
What would I like to do this next year?
I would like to participate more in my health and well-being. Mentally, physically, emotionally. Contemplating the past year reminds me that my quest for pleasure and happiness are incomplete so long as my personal reality is not grounded in what is real. True happiness must be pursued on the mental and spiritual levels, as well as the sensory. Being sensualist is an effective distraction...it brings temporary happiness at best. If I believe that the purpose of my life is to be happy, then to fulfill my desire for happiness on a daily basis I must cultivate a deeper understanding of the links between the foundation of an empowered healthy body, a positive mental attitude--both grounded in reality--and the spiritual pursuit of happiness / contentment / inner peace.
What do you love? Everything.
What do you want to know? Everything.
What do you want to do? Everything.
What do you want to do in the coming year? Everything.
(But without discipline, I accomplish nothing.)
If I am by nature a dilettante, it is a blessing and a curse, because there is so much that interests me, that gives me pleasure, that I have grown quite lazy. When the need for disciplined pursuit arises, I tend to pick up a different interest, one which will be more immediately fulfilling. This means I am rarely frustrated by set-backs. But in moments of self-honest contemplation, I find recognize a sense of dissatisfaction with the unfinished nature of my life...there is so much started, so much possibility, and yet, so little completed.
We took a break after writing, got some snacks, poured more alcohol, and then Rita asked everyone to share something from their journal entries, either reading what we wrote, or paraphrasing as we felt comfortable. It was in this hour-long period that I learned what drew these people together. By nature or circumstance, we are contemplative, to the last one. Thoughtful to a fault, perfectionists; each desiring understanding, each a seeker on a quest for meaning.
Garrett's new year thoughts in particular resonated with me: What is meaningful? What is meaningful to me? Why do I feel compelled to mock myself for wanting meaning in my life? How can I be/enjoy/pursue meaning in a culture that that elevated the disposable lifestyle into an art form, a culture convinced that there is no meaning? Paul spoke of his father, whom he had never known, and the questions his daughter is asking. He is weighing his daughter's need to know her grandfather against his need to maintain the status quo. Should he seek this man, and perhaps re-open the wounds he spent so many years inflicting upon himself as a child and young adult? Would there be healing or more hurt? What opportunity for growth would he miss if he did not pursue it? Elena seeks to understand her father and her sister, the mental illness that runs in her family, through her studies at college. She seeks to understand the meaning in lives so internally and externally disrupted, to find the blessing within the curse. Rob spoke of wanting to return home to visit his family, to regain his sense of place, to better understand his roots and the causative forces in his life in hopes that maintaining balance and composure in his life will be less of a struggle. One woman spoke of being such a perfectionist that she rarely finished things because she was usually frustrated by the less-than-perfect results. "If I can't do it perfectly, then I just won't do it. I stop, I give up." Its about aesthetics, Rita interjected. Others said some things, and then when it was my turn to comment on her journal entry, I told Sarah that we were very alike in this, and that I had learned that the perfection envisioned in the mind is always imperfectly realized in the world. But it is all Buddha-nature. It is all part of the perfect, despite its flaws, and in time we relinquish our obsessions with the flaws and all that remains to be seen is the perfect. Learning this, and putting it into practice, though, that was the hard part...because of course, I need to be perfect in my practice of it. I smiled self-deprecatingly, and she laughed.
Hours later, the group broke up, and three of us remained at Rita's place: Rob, Elena, and me. We chatted some more... Elena learned from Rob that I had once been a massage therapist... and she asked me to rub her shoulders. Earlier that night I had touched her and I knew that her knee bothered her and also her low back. While she was sitting on the floor in front of me, I massaged her shoulders, and I asked her about it. She told me about an accident involving her ankle that kept her house-bound for 8 months. She still has pain and sometimes she compensates, and so her knee and her back hurt her. Rita decided to put on some music, old songs, like "All of Me" and teach us a form of improvisational contact dance. It was like Tai Chi, calisthenics and physical therapy, all wrapped in to intimate contact with another person's body...slow dancing with your partner's body gently but firmly resisting movement...it looked like slow-motion dancing, but it felt amazing... after about 5 minutes I relaxed into it and learned the controlled resistance, and after about 15 minutes I felt like I was having the most languid sex... It wasn't that I was sexually aroused (not that it couldn't be arousing, particularly done by a couple, alone) but rather that I had the wonderful warm burn in my muscles and the delicious feeling of intimate contact and trust with another person. It was marvellous.
Later, Rob and I were sitting on the couch. He rubbed my shoulders a bit and it felt so good that I took a pillow and put my head in his lap. He rubbed my hands and my shoulders, and while he did that, Elena rubbed my feet and calves. It was sublime.
It was a wonderful first day of the new year.
I went in to the office and worked for a few hours, but I accomplished a great deal, and when I left, I felt a sense of satisfaction I have not known in a while. From there, I came home and relaxed, spoke with some friends and family, and then went out with a friend who invited me to an informal seminar that a local professor of philosophy holds every 3 weeks or so. There were six others there besides the professor and myself--it appears that a few of the regulars were unable to make it.
We ate well, drank well, conversed, listened to music, and after about an hour, Rita (the professor) decided to get things started. She put in a film called "Winged Migration", insisted that everyone get another drink, and then asked four questions:
What do you love?
What do you want to know?
What do you want to do?
What do you want to do in the coming year?
Everyone had brought journals, and, fore-warned by Rob, I brought one of my old journals with me. She told us to write as we watched the film, to relax and write about the question "What do you want in the coming year?" or, whatever else came to mind as we watched the birds wing and allowed our minds to follow.
The my journal entry is as follows:
Amazing, that a goose can fly in a snowstorm.
Oh, to be as free and flexible as a bird.
If I had wings, I would jump off a cliff, too.
Reflections of stone within the mirror of the water. Which is real?
Even in captivity, we have our hopes--and our delusions.
The tail-feathers of the sage grouse looks like an indian war bonnet.
There is so much symmetry in nature!
The calving of a glacier -- in every cataclysm is an opportunity.
Why do so many birds migrate to the artic to nest? Is it the lack of predators? There is so much competition for resourses though.
There is a beauty, an elegant simplicity to the cycle of migration. It is conscious and unconscious, a flowing thing. The birds lives flow with the biological drives of the seasons, struggling as individuals in a greater cycle which perpetuates the needs of the species.
Birds on a battleship -- any port in a storm.
Just because our natures dictate that we fly into a headwind doesn't mean we shouldn't find a place to rest during a storm.
What would I like to do this next year?Take a course, perhaps in history of science, perhaps in eastern philosophy/religion/thought.
What would I like to do this next year?
I would like to participate more in my health and well-being. Mentally, physically, emotionally. Contemplating the past year reminds me that my quest for pleasure and happiness are incomplete so long as my personal reality is not grounded in what is real. True happiness must be pursued on the mental and spiritual levels, as well as the sensory. Being sensualist is an effective distraction...it brings temporary happiness at best. If I believe that the purpose of my life is to be happy, then to fulfill my desire for happiness on a daily basis I must cultivate a deeper understanding of the links between the foundation of an empowered healthy body, a positive mental attitude--both grounded in reality--and the spiritual pursuit of happiness / contentment / inner peace.
What do you love? Everything.
What do you want to know? Everything.
What do you want to do? Everything.
What do you want to do in the coming year? Everything.
(But without discipline, I accomplish nothing.)
If I am by nature a dilettante, it is a blessing and a curse, because there is so much that interests me, that gives me pleasure, that I have grown quite lazy. When the need for disciplined pursuit arises, I tend to pick up a different interest, one which will be more immediately fulfilling. This means I am rarely frustrated by set-backs. But in moments of self-honest contemplation, I find recognize a sense of dissatisfaction with the unfinished nature of my life...there is so much started, so much possibility, and yet, so little completed.
We took a break after writing, got some snacks, poured more alcohol, and then Rita asked everyone to share something from their journal entries, either reading what we wrote, or paraphrasing as we felt comfortable. It was in this hour-long period that I learned what drew these people together. By nature or circumstance, we are contemplative, to the last one. Thoughtful to a fault, perfectionists; each desiring understanding, each a seeker on a quest for meaning.
Garrett's new year thoughts in particular resonated with me: What is meaningful? What is meaningful to me? Why do I feel compelled to mock myself for wanting meaning in my life? How can I be/enjoy/pursue meaning in a culture that that elevated the disposable lifestyle into an art form, a culture convinced that there is no meaning? Paul spoke of his father, whom he had never known, and the questions his daughter is asking. He is weighing his daughter's need to know her grandfather against his need to maintain the status quo. Should he seek this man, and perhaps re-open the wounds he spent so many years inflicting upon himself as a child and young adult? Would there be healing or more hurt? What opportunity for growth would he miss if he did not pursue it? Elena seeks to understand her father and her sister, the mental illness that runs in her family, through her studies at college. She seeks to understand the meaning in lives so internally and externally disrupted, to find the blessing within the curse. Rob spoke of wanting to return home to visit his family, to regain his sense of place, to better understand his roots and the causative forces in his life in hopes that maintaining balance and composure in his life will be less of a struggle. One woman spoke of being such a perfectionist that she rarely finished things because she was usually frustrated by the less-than-perfect results. "If I can't do it perfectly, then I just won't do it. I stop, I give up." Its about aesthetics, Rita interjected. Others said some things, and then when it was my turn to comment on her journal entry, I told Sarah that we were very alike in this, and that I had learned that the perfection envisioned in the mind is always imperfectly realized in the world. But it is all Buddha-nature. It is all part of the perfect, despite its flaws, and in time we relinquish our obsessions with the flaws and all that remains to be seen is the perfect. Learning this, and putting it into practice, though, that was the hard part...because of course, I need to be perfect in my practice of it. I smiled self-deprecatingly, and she laughed.
Hours later, the group broke up, and three of us remained at Rita's place: Rob, Elena, and me. We chatted some more... Elena learned from Rob that I had once been a massage therapist... and she asked me to rub her shoulders. Earlier that night I had touched her and I knew that her knee bothered her and also her low back. While she was sitting on the floor in front of me, I massaged her shoulders, and I asked her about it. She told me about an accident involving her ankle that kept her house-bound for 8 months. She still has pain and sometimes she compensates, and so her knee and her back hurt her. Rita decided to put on some music, old songs, like "All of Me" and teach us a form of improvisational contact dance. It was like Tai Chi, calisthenics and physical therapy, all wrapped in to intimate contact with another person's body...slow dancing with your partner's body gently but firmly resisting movement...it looked like slow-motion dancing, but it felt amazing... after about 5 minutes I relaxed into it and learned the controlled resistance, and after about 15 minutes I felt like I was having the most languid sex... It wasn't that I was sexually aroused (not that it couldn't be arousing, particularly done by a couple, alone) but rather that I had the wonderful warm burn in my muscles and the delicious feeling of intimate contact and trust with another person. It was marvellous.
Later, Rob and I were sitting on the couch. He rubbed my shoulders a bit and it felt so good that I took a pillow and put my head in his lap. He rubbed my hands and my shoulders, and while he did that, Elena rubbed my feet and calves. It was sublime.
It was a wonderful first day of the new year.
posted by KR | 1/02/2005 11:54:00 AM
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