Karma & Holy Days
Yesterday was the Easter Celebration. I cleaned the mice out of the art room.
There are four open drain holes in the room making entry easy for cold mice during winter. It seemed like a good day for cleaning out the rats. So I cleaned, scrubbed, plugged up the drain holes, Clorox-ed, Windex-ed, and rearranged all the painting supplies and moved everything that could be moved, from cabinets to sheets of loose paper and canvas. Every drain, every corner, every drawer was exposed to the glare of sunlight’s scrutiny.
Ash Wednesday is all about moaning about everything being dust to dust.
Easter is all about starting over; resurrecting and rescuing what is worthy and re-calling it into our lives; leaving what is left to rot in Ash Wednesday’s dusty grave.
We humans have a difficult time pitching out the rats and the entrances whereby they enter our lives. We could take care of this on Ash Wednesday, but instead we give up chocolate rather than the time and fortitude it takes to plug up rat holes.
Mice have a way of building a comfortable, easily accessible nest where they happily reproduce themselves ten fold; be it the corners of our favorite room or the corners of our life, our mind, our soul.
Yesterday, on Easter Sunday from sun-up to far past sun-down, I closed the entrances, vacuumed the nesting beds, scoured the art room and myself on the outside of me for sanitation and the inside of me for sanity.
As far as Holy Days go, in any belief system, there are set aside days where we enter a time of plain and Ordinary Days. These days have a colour all their own. It is the colour of the daily maintenance of ourselves and all that surrounds us. It is a time to plant and grow and become strong with who we are and what we possess and the decisions we will make.
The Ordinary Days are a time to produce that which is good in our surroundings and in ourselves. The house is clean. The rats have no entrances. Death is in the grave where it belongs. Resurrection is in every breath we take and in every thing we choose to look upon or envision.
The Ordinary Days of every day life are the holiest of all days.
Filed under Karma | Comment (0)Karma & Memories
Yesterday, the last minute, or twenty years ago; there is no difference in the time.
Time only exist in the memory of the mind. The memory is not out there for anyone but the one doing the recalling. Even if two saw the same event, experienced the same event, or enacted the same event; the two have their own interpretation of the event; each recall their personal memory; each make up what they choose to remember ‘as though it were yesterday’.
The good outlives the bad because our memories want it that way. For those who choose to live in a nightmare, they must re-affirm the bad moment by moment.
They must tightly grasp the negative aspects of the memory and hold tight, lest the bad fly away leaving them with a void needing to be filled. This ever present ‘they’ is really ‘us’. That would be ‘we’.
We must declare ownership of our misery or our happiness. Only then are we able to dispose of or keep that what we choose.
We fear if we hold fast the terrible memory we will not slip into nostalgia; see the event in a different light, perhaps even become enlightened and understand the ludicrous aspects of what we initially believed happened. We fear being called Pollyanna.
The bad is ever before us. We must dig for the good. The good is tomorrow’s gold. The digging process is to gain a greater understanding of ourselves. We humans moan that the same events with different circumstances happen to us over and over again. It takes powerful strength of will to dig deep enough into ourselves to find out the why of the matter.
The discernment usually happens with us calling out to heaven.
“Why does this always happen to me?”
“Why is it always my fault?”
When we start to ask questions we are close to holding the nugget of truth.
There are statements that bring smiles to our faces that we seldom realize reside in our lives; get an attitude adjustment; don’t tell the secrets; don’t confront situations; don’t ask too many questions; don’t discuss dreams or wants.
All of the above axioms will keep us clothed in the black cape of gloom; forever shielding us from the light of happiness. By nature, we humans seek the light. It is difficult to stay in the dark refusing enlightenment. It takes fortitude to fold our arms over our chest and say, “that’s it; that does it; my mind is made up; it is finished, over, final.”
Nothing is ever truly over. Nothing is totally final. Nothing is completely finished. The river in our lives keeps on flowing toward the sea of infinite knowledge. Enter that sea with purpose and be one of the Ones who say “now I know even as I am known.” We must hold the gold with kindness, for it is our very own heart.
Filed under Karma | Comment (0)Karma & Gratitude
A good case of Gratitude is able to heal the effects of perceived gloom, despair, and misery. No mater which of Life’s ditches we find ourselves digging, there remains something, some person, some situation, some hopeful desire that simply will not crawl into the hole with us. We look up, we have to look up, for gratitude is not in the ditch with us.
No matter what the situational reason or how many different reasons for our being in the ditch, there remains only a few categories that will adequately summarize our painful, mental and physical degenerative state of affairs.
Anger: Malice: Greed: Gain: Sorrow: Pain: Deep Depression: Down Home Blues:
There may be a few you might add: just choose: one or two will generally do.
Each one comes with its own shovel custom foot fitted to assist the digging; first a scrape in the earth, then a hole, then deeper, and finally a grave just the right size.
While wallering in the the six by three, at least we are looking up at gratitude.
We begin the task of right thinking ourselves out of the ditch we dug with purpose.
Grasp just one small insignificant point of gratitude that we are able to genuinally hold and raise our thoughts out of the ditch we dug.
How to do it? How to do it?
Start a list. Watch it grow. Be patient. It takes time; but not as much time as it took to dig the six by three.
Filed under Karma | Comment (0)Alive Again
Columbus Day of 2000 became a Magic Day.
Waking up and staying in the conscious dream of glorious obsession that calls to be renewed moment by moment requires persistent diligence; or the dream will float away. The vision is quickly lost in the Sea of Mundane.
Remembering to lift with purpose the lowered eyes of depression and gaze skyward to gratefully view the clouds, stars, moon, sun, eagles, hawks, a red crowned finch, rain, wind and the blowing leaves of an autumn day in October.
Listen to the wings of a hundred geese flying in formation. Listen to their call, one to the other. They speak and know you are watching. Together we are both from the same dirt, yet formed in the likeness of our same selves.
The Great Bald Eagle flies across the sun and skims his shadow across the earth.
Fix your eyes upon him; turn your face into the cool north wind; take a deep breath lift your arms and fly.
All the chains of possession that bind the body to one place on the earth will be broken. You will own the sky; forsaking the plot of ground where you have firmly planted your feet into the quicksand of pride in ownership.
Loose your own chains. Take possession of your obsession. There are no locks nor keys; for you have simply draped the links of bondage around your feet.
Fly Pilgrim.
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