27) Gratitude Day 7: Breaking Your Vows
I am grateful for a Rumi poem. It’s the opening poem to the beautiful book, The Illuminated Rumi.
“Come, come, whoever you are! Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn’t matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again , come , come!”
I love this poem because it is like a flower. Flowers are beautiful. But they grow in the shit and death of the micro organismic world that we pretend we are different from. Without death and shit, no flowers.
25) Gratitude Day 5: Aging
Thich Nhat Hanh once likened life to rapids that tumble down the mountainside in a frothy, ecstatic rush, slowing somewhat to a burbling, meandering stream further down, then broadening into a slow, flat, peaceful river near the bottom. And then eventually emptying, into the ocean.
24) Y/Y
Two old friends meet on a riverbank one day. One paces, one sits, watching the water. They do this every year. They have become famous in the local area. Their arguments are legendary. People think they hate each other. Most believe one will eventually kill the other and be done with it.
23) Gratitude Day 4: Gary Gygax
I could say more. But if I have any spare time today, I’d rather spend it crafting a better world. First in my imagination. Because everything starts there, doesn’t it?
22) Gratitude Day 3: Bugs
I’m grateful for bugs. They’re the choir singing the Song…..of my home.
21) Gratitude Day 2: Humour
And, humour is weird. Like, our bodies convulse, our eyes water, animalistic, guttural noises come out of us, we flail our limbs around, sometimes slapping other parts of ourselves because we just don’t know how else to express the zany energy exploding out of us. We snort, squeal, sometimes fart, and then just laugh harder. ….humans are bizarre creatures, when you really think about what we’re doing in our moments of “meaningful” expression.
20) Gratitude: Day 1 — Slider
There’s something rather….intimate….about another ‘being’ who shares your bedroom for 40 years. They go through a lot with you.
15) Seize the Carp!!
Walking down the street, one of the last sunny fall days. The higher-pitch of a voice that has only been in use less than eleven years bounces up.
“Do you…do you ever think about….?” Pause. I lean in, as this seems important. We continue walking...leaves skittering….
14) Free Sex! Free Drugs! Free Gold Bars!!! And a rowboat...
Did you ever sing Row Row Row Your Boat?
Hey, I did too!
Did you realize that it held the Secret to Life?
8) Gobble Gobble
When you face loss, which we all do, and the loss is one that you feel with the full gooeyness of your heart, and you sit and weep, tears dripping freely off your face….and that feeling inside? That aching, burning, desperate, gasping desire to do ANYTHING to go back in time and change how this has turned out? That feeling is one of the worst feelings in the world.
And gratitude is the gift that it brings. All you have to do is unwrap the soul-crushing, heart-splaying agony that it is wrapped in. And then, my friend, gratitude can be yours.
7) Beauty eh?
You will find, all of a sudden, that most of the stationary objects in the landscape kind of fade out of your vision, almost disappearing. But ANYTHING moving becomes highly salient. With no warning, suddenly you will see movement everywhere, and your visual field will be filled with swaying grasses, fluttering leaves, buzzing insects, and clouds scudding gently along far above. You may even start to feel like you are no longer standing in a landscape of discrete objects, but instead, a humming, throbbing, interwoven, boundary-less, dynamic process of Life.
6) Something Positive
I believe people are yearning to feel hope, joy, love, to unselfconsciously embrace, inhale, and celebrate life. I believe people want to stop passively absorbing and consuming, and instead, becoming ACTIVE PRODUCERS of culture. It’s like, when did we stop painting and drawing and singing and making poetry, so that we could….sit in Starbucks drinking overpriced coffee with our friends? When did going outside get sacrificed to surfing other people’s pics on Facebook?
2) Hillel the Elder
Now I’m 43 years old. And I see all these doors opening into richness. But I didn’t step through them.
Am I going to, before I’m 53? 63? 73?
If not now, when?
And you?
