I have come to an impasse – so I need to remember this. I depend on being inspired by my travels in nature, and by my delving into the wonders of what has been written before by past masters to propel me into creativity. Because I need to create to feel alive. Sometimes the rhythm is not there, or something is misaligned – with no particular explanation – no domestic discord or family crisis to knock me off balance. It’s just not there. Sometimes its a waiting game. Funny old life.
It has been some time since I updated my blog – and there is a reason for that. My first name is Deborah – though I am called by my second nomenclature Anne due to a tussle between my mother and father – and Deborah is supposed to have a meaning attached to it ‘as busy as a bee’. So I was told. I can make a meal out of anything – metaphorically speaking – everything seems to take me ages these days. I don’t know whether I am noticing it more, or whether I am definitely slowing down. The upshot is it is terribly difficult to feel productive. I am learning to live inside the moment. That sounds easier than it is – our brains are hardwired to be distracted by stuff that makes us feel useful. I don’t feel useful. I feel increasingly useless. But I am trying to change perspective on that. I don’t want to live a rushed life. I want to live a meaningful life. Alot of that meaning transpires to be spent in connecting with my little rescue dog who is needing alot of attention. So be it.
Let me share this with you – it feels great to slow down a little. I hope you find some time to spend doing absolutely nothing .
From W.B.Yeats poem
…. and it is the start of a new year for all of us. I am listening closely to the world via the radio – my trusty Radio 4 gives me the impression I am part of it all. Life is struggle – there’s no way around it for any of us, but the struggle can be fun, uplifting, treacherous – all a mess. That is what I bring today, a big mess of confused memory, thoughts, stretches of imagination – every day I have to pull myself dragging and screaming into the world and try and imagine something new and beautiful to make it worthwhile. For some people it may seem a hop and a skip to get on with the day – what a blessing that would be! But I had dealt me a melancholic disposition, so it starts with me talking quite sternly with myself to arise. Once that’s done, everything seems to fall into place – breakfast, dog walk, and back to the p.c for some illustrative work.
I like having the voices over the radio lull me into the sense of belonging to a tribe – this morning the voices were singing my song about how its ok to have a disposition like Eeyore. It’s easy in today’s madcap world of social media to imagine your life is a little one, in comparison to the amazing lives everyone else is leading – but I told myself decades ago that an Ordinary Life is a Good Life. And beats the alternative. I suffered severe anxiety in my twenties and it propelled me into making some very healthy decisions – quit a corporate job, raised children (sans childcare!) and chose alot of frugal living choices to support me not working at a full time job. Its not for everyone, but I love that there is a new awareness growing exponentially that we do not need to consume all the time – that we can mend and repurpose stuff, and that self worth is separate from the external measures of success that we were sold.
So now I shall quit rambling and move into doing some of my stuff for the day – I hope you are living safe, secure and loving lives out there.
With That Moon Language
Admit something: Everyone you see, you say to them, “Love me.”
Of course you do not do this out loud, otherwise someone would call the cops.
Still though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect. Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye that is always saying, with that sweet moon language, What every other eye in this world is dying to hear?
-Hafiz
Images Anne Corr
If our species could just try to hold this thought in the forefront of the mind, wouldn’t we be looking on at a different world? We have such a marvellous potential from the start.
Be kind to one another. Even when its tough. Love is the remarkable ineffable force that enables us to continue to hope . When we love well, the world changes.
Practice – its all it takes. Iris Murdoch once encapsulated the imperative of what love is-
‘Love is the difficult realization that something other than ourselves is real’
Which by extension involves examining our own reactions and behaviours and reflecting on whether we are loving enough. It’s that giant leap when you are in the middle of feeling justified in your own feelings, and suddenly you stop to think ‘How would I feel if someone said/did that to me? ‘
To introduce you to somewhere I go to renew my spirit – and I am off there within a few weeks. It is definitely overdue – I am strung out and my reserves are all run dry. I surprised myself by having a mini melt down on Friday. It was a scary reminder of the landscape of breakdown, and I am keeping myself as safe as I can by reminding myself of all the positives in my life. The greatest being the family relationships I have, but even these are unable sometimes to stave off the harsh reality of living with a fragility of mind that can be threatened by the stresses of everyday life. I know that to want to remain in the land of the living I need to renew my connections with people – the cruel paradox being that the feelings are strong drivers in the opposite direction. I want to run to the hills.
Actually, in the midst of it, I don’t want the hills. I want oblivion.
That’s the scariest part. I grieve for all those like Sylvia Plath that were unable to access the help modern drugs can give – I know I am frightened to contemplate a reality without mine – perhaps one day.
The Moon and the Yew tree
“This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary.
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
The grasses unload their griefs at my feet as if I were God,
Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility.
Fumy spiritious mists inhabit this place
Separated from my house by a row of headstones.
I simply cannot see where there is to get to.
The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,
White as a knuckle and terribly upset.
It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet
With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.
Twice on Sunday, the bells startle the sky –
Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection.
At the end, they soberly bong out their names.
The yew tree points up. It has a Gothic shape.
The eyes lift after it and find the moon.
The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.
How I would like to believe in tenderness –
The face of the effigy, gentled by candles,
Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.
I have fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering
Blue and mystical over the face of the stars.
Inside the church, the saints will be all blue,
Floating on their delicate feet over cold pews,
Their hands and faces stiff with holiness.
The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild.
And the message of the yew tree is blackness – blackness and silence.”
Sylvia Plath
“Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.” Camus
Equanimity is a perfect, unshakable balance of mind, rooted in insight.
Says the Master:
For one who clings, motion exists; but for one who clings not, there is no motion. Where no motion is, there is stillness. Where stillness is, there is no craving. Where no craving is, there is neither coming nor going. Where no coming nor going is, there is neither arising nor passing away. Where neither arising nor passing away is, there is neither this world nor a world beyond, nor a state between. This, verily, is the end of suffering.
— Udana 8:3
From “The Four Sublime States: Contemplations on Love, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy and Equanimity”, by Nyanaponika Thera. Access to Insight (Legacy Edition), 30 November
St Augustine Quotation
We are so clever aren’t we? So advanced, so capable of manufacture and scientific evaluation and discovery. Well, some are and thank goodness. We need everyone to contribute their strengths. And to remember that some truths continue to remain important messages to our race. The rational world of technology and enterprise is to be applauded for driving improvements to living standards. The realm of the mystic is to be visited also, the element that connects the living essence of everything. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and that is because of the vital elan that makes living things ‘be’ is inherent in all of us, connects us to all living things, tracks us backward into our pasts and our ancestors, and will project us into futures we will not be personally aware of, through our descendants.
Live well today, and be part of the whole cosmos by bringing your love into whatever you do .
moving in time 