Beware the Ideas of March

Image: "Through the Fence" by Lisa Gale Garrigues

It's March, uh-huh, and here come all those dangerous little ideas that spring forth like budding leaves and flowers...like hmm, maybe I need to change my socks, I've been wearing them all winter. (ok that was metaphor folks my feet really don't stink that bad :)) Or maybe I need to change my attitude, or my home, or my job, or my lover, or get a new lover if I don't have one, or maybe I just need to change my mind about what I thought I knew all winter and now seems all wrong, the comfortable sock of the mind that I have gotten so used to. It is spring, and the wind tickles the canyons and cactus and astroturf inside my brain, urging me to slip out of my bag of comfort and go forth, into the world, with or without mind-socks, bare-brained if need be, like the beginner, the beginner's mind, the sprout of knowing that only knows to grow and nothing more.

Sometimes the dangerous change of spring is slow, almost imperceptible, like the struggle of the green leaf against the red fence, and then suddenly, pop there it is, doing like James Thurber when he said, "The Best Way Out is Always Through."

So yes, it's time. Time to burst through your red fences and into the open air where the green breathes free,

I will  meet you  there, maybe for a cup of coffee,  not the lousy kind the French call 'sock coffee', but one that has the exquisite taste that only the early days of spring can provide.

Happy Ideas of March.

Some Reasons I Woke Up At 4:30AM

Because I couldn't sleep.

Because the upstairs overnight guest was walking on my head.

Because my body says I have slept enough.

Because the view of lights and branches was stark and quiet and beautiful from the upper deck of the house.

Because the coffee tasted good.

Because my cat wanted to get up too.

Because, sitting upstairs with the taste of coffee on my lips and the view of lights and branches quiet all around me,

inexplicable joy.


(photo by D Sharon Pruitt www.pinksherbert.com)

Japan and The Dream of Water, revisited

It seems like weeks since the Japanese earthquake and tsunami hit, yet it has really only been hours. It seems like weeks because it has been difficult to tear myself away from the news and videos about this tragedy...I feel as if I am living it,moment by moment, with them. Suddenly the people in Japan, a country I have never visited, feel like my next door neighbors.

I wanted to write about the combination of awe and horror and compassion that I experience when I see that wave of water washing through whole cities. But then I realized I already had--six years ago, when I sent an email out about a 'prophetic' dream I had before another Asian Tsunami.

So here it is, from January, 2005:

Friends,

It is New Year's Day and we are surrounded by a tidal
wave.

On television and in our memories, the images
continue:
the rushing wall of water, the cars, buildings and
bodies floating in the swollen sea, fragile and
temporary as children's toys. The faces of pain, loss
and anguish are our faces. National boundaries are
dissolved, at least momentarily, as we send love,
financial support, healing.

Because my dreams are frequently wiser than I am, I
want to share a dream with you that I had about a week
before the Asian Tsunami hit.

In the dream I am on the beach with a group of
international students from the school where I teach
English as a Second Language. The students are from
all over the world. Suddenly a huge tidal wave
arrives and we are all running along the beach in
panic. I see something metallic floating in the water,
a vehicle of some kind. I think in my dream that it
could be some kind of military vehicle, like a car or
a plane or boat. It is clear to me that this vehicle
was made by man in a moment of self-importance, and it
is now utterly useless, bobbing helplessly along on
the water.

We all run away from the water and manage to reach
"higher ground." We are then all huddled inside a
room together, feeling fear but also deeply connected
to each other, and relieved that we are safe. One of
my Muslim students comes over to me, and I put my arm
around him, feeling a wave of love and compassion.

I woke up from this dream, asking, as I usually do of
dreams, what it was saying to me:

There is something more powerful than you, the dream
said. Maybe you should pay attention.

Your technology and the shiny vehicles that get you
through your life are useless in the face of this
power, the dream said.

It is the power of water, the dream said. it is
feminine, emotional, receptive, illogical,
mysterious, compassionate, ruthless, ferocious,
cleansing. It is running the blood of your veins and
in the ocean that links continent to continent. It is
the Tsunami and it is the wave of healing that
follows.

Maybe you should pay attention, the dream said.

It is the power of Mother Nature, the dream said,
seeking to balance all her elements, no matter how
horrific the sacrifice. With so many man-made fires
and explosions raging on the earth right now, it it
any wonder she chooses to respond with water?

Maybe you should pay attention, the dream said.

Look around you, the dream said, those people with
their different languages and religions are all
huddled in the same fragile room with you.

Find the person in the room who is most unlike you,
the dream said, the person who is supposed to be your
enemy, and reach out to him or her in compassion.

If there is a god, the dream said, he or she exists
not in the labels we have assigned, but in this
gesture, in this stretching of the heart.

You are alive, the dream of water said , and this is
a gift that can be taken away at any time.

Maybe you should pay attention.


Love,

Lisa

Chaos and Socks

Man and Stone
Originally uploaded by ojodorado

This has, so far, been a chaotic week. Missed appointments, slipped up communications, lost cell phones, misplaced Stuff.

Oh,and get this--you know how easily your socks disappear from your life,so that you end up with always one sock insead of two? Well,today I went to pick up a box of my Stuff from a friend's house and we found a tiny little anklet that looked like it belonged to a child on the floor of her closet.

"Is this yours?' She asked.

"Nope."

"Not mine either," she said.

So my theory is that as we approach 2012 (the end of the Mayan calendar, and for some, a sweeping apocalyptic change of season), and life gets more chaotic, not only are more and more socks disappearing from our laundry into that interdimensional sock-hole that sucks them up, but now the interdimensional sock hole is regurgitating other people's socks into our lives so that we might find them on the floor of our closet, or in our laundry, or god knows where.

Whew. That was a long, and chaotic sentence.

But wait. I happen to be one of those rare people who thrive on a certain amount of chaos--I love the challenge of maintaining one's balance in the midst of it all.

Chaos theory says that chaos only appears to be random, it is really part of a structure that we simply are unable to decipher. So I figure if i find someone else's sock in my Stuff, it is probably trying to tell me something.

Now what that something is I don't know--I can only organize the data according to my own puny mortal mind, and come up with my own ideas.

Maybe it's the sock of some angel child who slipped into my friend's closet at night,and cinderella-like, left her foot covering behind.

Maybe it's trying to tell me that what I think is mine is really mixed up with what's other people's and what I think it other people's is really mixed up with what is mine. That maybe, let's get real profound here, what I think is organized neatly into My Stuff and Your Stuff is really Our Stuff.

So that all this chaos many of us in the world are experiencing right now is meant to shake up our ideas a bit about what Your Stuff and My Stuff really is.

For example, people who had lots of Stuff just a few years ago and looked askance at those that didn't now find their Stuff disappearing from beneath their, uh, socks. Which has forced some people to examine the importance of Stuff in general.

Whether we believe in God or in Chaos Theory or both, chances are that what we now call chaos will eventually be identifable as part of a much larger structure that we just can't see at the moment.

Chaos allows us to freefall into the beauty of unknowing, of realizing that we are not as in control as we thought. But when we cling to disappearing structures, we prevent chaos from washing over us and doing its job.

So if your socks are disappearing from your laundry, maybe it's time to let 'em go.

And if other people's socks are showing up unbidden in your life, maybe it's time to invite them in.

Give chaos a chance.

Embrace It, Let It Go: Happy New Year!

Embrace It, Let It Go: Happy New Year!
Originally uploaded by ojodorado (Happy Holidays!)

Goodbye 2008. It's been a challenging, though ultimately rewarding, year for me personally--walking across the U.S. with the Longest Walk, then messing up my arm and shoulder and spending far more time than I would have anticipated recovering from that--which ultimately forced me to focus on my health in a good way.

A friend recently sent me an astrological report on 2009, predicting a real roller coaster year. But I don't think we need astrology to tell us that--we have a new president, a collapsing economy, yep it looks like we are in for it.

The astro report indicates we'll be able to ride it out if we let those things dissolve that need to dissolve, and trust that there will be something left over. In fact, we may discover that we had more than we thought we did all along.

Best wishes to y'all in the New Year!