Month: November 2019

Nothing I planned to do this holiday break quite worked out. Uncharacteristically we had a snow storm that hit on the eve of Thanksgiving. Dinner was postponed and everyone in the city spent the afternoon shoveling snow. 

I also spent the week replacing a car that had been barely totaled from a rear-end collision a few weeks ago. Schedules. Not for the light-hearted.  

The Prompt: The Moment or the Mind

This week's prompt:

"You can have the mind or you can have the moment."
        – Naval Ravikant 

First task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my drawing:

Always the wind blows
softly through your hair, always,
even in the lull

The Reflection

Sometimes life gets exiting in its string of random moments. Sometimes you just have to ride the wave and let go of the rest of it, the plans, the control. 

Let the whole intention derail and then, what ever spot you've been tossed and landed, what ever snow drift you find yourself hurled upon: enjoy it, pay attention to it. As Herman Melville said, "It is not down on a map. True places never are."

No map got you here! What a blessing!

Now your turn.

Things are a bit too busy for what I can handle right now. I feel like I've been buzzing and not in a good way. Stress has also attracted two illness in two weeks.

So I'm looking for ways to clean out, say no, calm down. As much as I want to do everything (and I do), my head is spinning and I have no free time to decompress from all the classes, work stuff, writing projects and house obligations (fall yard cleanup!). And then life stuff: like car accidents and other mishaps. I started cleaning out my office this week and asking myself the tough question: am I going to live long enough to do this crazy idea I had when I was 25? 

The Prompt: Accomplishments

This week's prompt:

"Don't be satisfied with your accomplishments nor be dissatisfied with them."
        – Unknown

First task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…NOT inspired by my drawing:

Labor's rituals,
prayers of the task and muscle,
sweat's epiphanies

The Reflection

I feel my drawing and my haiku went in two directions this week, maybe because there was an unintended time gap between them. When I did the drawing I was reflecting on my whole life's achievements boiled down to a tombstone epigraph and how not to take that seriously. Eventual death, in case I don't have 50 more years, also crept into my clean-out decisions this week.

But the haiku was more about life, about how the work is the thing, so much more exciting than the praise or regrets about the final results. My happiest is when I'm embroiled, involved, consumed (and yes, inundated) with the tasks regarding whatever it is I'm trying to do. The biggest accomplishment then would be to keep working on something (until it makes you crazy, I guess).

What do you think?

Some weeks are harsh. Thursday was like a harsh week in a day! A car accident in the family, one of my aunts passed away after a long illness, and some crazy work stress for the busiest day of the year. I'm kind of deflated right now. I feel like I should watch Terms of Endearment and sob like a cartoon.

But I've been attending a 10-day Narcissism seminar through Sounds True and it's been really mind expanding, the topic taken from many facets so far: workplace, politics, relationships, the larger culture, the spirit…I'm thinking about ways to be in the world differently.

The Prompt: What To Say

This week's prompt:

"A wise man speaks because he has something to say; a fool because he has to say something."
        – Plato

First task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my drawing:

Bird tweets by day, then
Crickets are prophets, silence
Lies beyond the field

The Reflection

So both death and narcissism were on my mind this week. There's a cemetery up in Harding County where I can see myself in eternal rest. It's flat smack in the middle of the high plains prairie and there's nobody for miles but a few trees and meadowlarks. It feels very much like the afterlife just visiting and the horizon line looks like the great beyond, the unseen future. Many of my aunts and uncles and my grandparents are there "beyond the field." 

And I had nothing for the drawing this week. I was frustrated trying to figure out how to depict silence and then with relief realized a drawing wasn't always necessary. Silence was my drawing. I guess I was struck dumb by the prompt. Sometimes the lack of an answer is an answer.

How did you approach this one?

Where have I been? I lost two weeks in there!! Okay, one Friday I just plum forgot to post and then the next week was INSANE. The whirlwind included visitors, covering for someone at work with family care commitments. But so much has been going through my head: new MOOCs, short little trips, the holidays coming, a very sad death in the family just yesterday. So all the things I wanted to talk about came and went like a bird passing through. Did I mention Halloween??

That’s okay. If they were important, hopefully those thoughts will come back.

The Prompt: What You Think You Know

This week’s prompt:

“Knowledge is learning something everyday. Wisdom is letting go of something everyday.”
        – Unknown

First task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my drawing:

Leaving is for now
Dropping is for the season
They will all come back

The Reflection

This one is always work-to-do for me, the little Hermione that I can be. But I hear it in other people too: knowledge as a shield, as a way to gain traction in the world, as a way to master (even the word!), a way to elevate yourself above those without the knowledge. Sometimes you can plainly see this working intentionally in people. Other times, it’s completely subconscious.

Which is what makes beginners mind so, so handy. If you think you’re an expert at something: think again. Start over. 

I do this myself with instructional books of poetry. My first thought when I buy a book on how to write poetry (which I’m still doing 35 years in) is disappointment that the book is too “beginners.” I’m ready for the advanced stuff, teacher! Give me the hard stuff. And undoubtedly we get a lot from advanced books which crunch our brains. But I’m always humbled by some little gem hiding out in a beginners book, some perspective I’ve never ever considered. Admittedly if feels tedious at first, but it’s the surest way to true discovery: losing the crutch of the knowing. 

I think this is why teachers love beginners students: because they learn something from them. It’s also why beginner poems are so exciting: they’re freewheeling, and not from rules, but from innocence.

Give it a try.