Don't Ruin My Birthday!

BIRTHDAY CAKE ~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

A Chocolate Cheesecake for Ben ~ June 2, 2005
********************

Because my happiness was based on external measures —
on tasks being completed, plans running accordingly,
goals being met, hairs being in place —
I was continually disappointed
— upset — impatient — and stressed."
Rachel Macy Stafford
from her article
"The Day My Child Lost Her Joy —
And What I Did to Revive It"

********************
Thanks to my friend Laura Thudium Zieglowsky for posting Rachel Macy Stafford's article, which is well worth reading no matter what the age of your loved ones. Whether or not you are surrounded by impressionable children, Stafford's points are well taken. I appreciate her observation that, yes, our moods and actions do indeed have an impact on others around us; and if we care about their feelings, we will modify our behavior accordingly. Easier said than done, however, when, rightly or wrongly, little things seem to matter so much: "I’m talking trivial, insignificant, minor inconveniences here, but that was the state of a distracted [or in my case at the time, pre-menopausal and strangely sad] woman who could no longer see the blessings, only the inconveniences, of her life."

Stafford's quest to revive her joy reminded me of my son Ben's 15th birthday (13 years ago!), when I went to pick the boys up from summer band and burst into tears because another mom had given me a mean scowl on the parking lot for being a bad driver. No one was hurt, no one's car was damaged, yet still I felt so shamed and stressed and worried that I could not stop crying to save my life (maybe because I took the scowl personally, and started hearing the tapes in my head: "you're so stupid, you don't belong here"). Why couldn't I just say, "Oh, well"?

I tried to proceed with my normal activities that afternoon, going home and making a cake, but crying all the while. Even an hour or so later, while Ben and Sam were in the study doing their homework and I was in the kitchen assembling Ben's favorite -- chocolate cheesecake -- I simply could not get a grip. Finally, Ben called in from the other room, "Mom, stop crying! You're ruining my birthday!" Now THAT was a wake-up call!

It was bad enough that Sam was constantly reminding me "to chill." But looking crazy in the eyes of my children or ruining their birthdays? That was the last thing I wanted. Quick! Send in the emergency perception checkers!

Around the same time, one of my most introspective friends wrote to say:

"Hope all is well with you. By which I guess I mean two things: I hope for pleasant circumstances to surround you, but also I hope you feel well deep within, where no circumstance can touch you. Lately I think of myself as a tree, and those two realms of life are the branches and the root system, respectively."

Similarly, Susan Jeffers, in The Little Book of Peace of Mind (which may sound trite but is not), draws a distinction between Higher Self (the source inner peace, peace of mind, etc.) and the Lower Self (who insists on struggling with circumstances). She says "that true joy comes not from something out there, but from something wondrous within our being . . . something . . . present and always accessible."

What a perfectly timed reminder that circumstances are merely superficial and not the barometer of happiness -- and most importantly, that they needn't touch me. Why give every little detail or misstep the power to determine my mood and the way I feel about and act toward others? Instead of being so reactive to all the inconsequential little bothers -- or even the larger hurtful ones -- I had only to shift my focus from circumstances to state of mind. It's partly a question of maturity and, perhaps, learning to live with our natures; and partly resisting the tendency to take every perceived slight personally -- even when there was no need at all -- particularly things over which we have little or no control.

Could I train myself to privilege peace of mind over circumstances? As Kafka reminds us, we can be so good at intellectualizing these precepts yet so inept at applying them to our daily struggles and living them out, all the time, in all areas of life. Rachel Macy Stafford explains the "positive mantras" that she finds helpful:

"Only Love Today to silence my inner bully. Whenever a critical thought would come to my mind or my mouth, I’d cut it off with Only Love Today. I used See Flowers Not Weeds as a pathway to gratitude, to see what was good in situations and people."

I too have a few of these mantras. Whenever I start fighting the circumstances too hard, I rely on one of my long - time favorites from Margaret Atwood: "You have nothing to live against." Whenever I start feeling frustrated and critical, I take the advice that Hugh Prather shares in How To Live in the World and Still Be Happy: Try going through the day saying to yourself, "Today I will be gently amused by everything" or "Today I will not make any judgments."

Ben displayed some "gentle amusement" (again this was years ago) when we were stuck up on campus at a boring meeting, and afterward I told him about my new Hugh Prather approach. He said, "Good luck with that, Mom. As for me, I judged the meeting to be boring and was not amused." Well, regardless of his assessment, clearly he retained his sense of humor; always a plus!

Another funny talk with Ben from those days occurred one night when we burned a batch of cookies. Rather than my usual fretting or blaming, I said, "Well, you know what the doctor says . . . ." Ben looked at me quizzically, and I told him that the best medical advice I'd received lately was to say, "Oh, well!" Furthermore, do whatever it might take (positive mantras, talk therapy, SSRIs, emotional tools) to keep your "Oh, well!" function in good working order, never forgetting the connection between emotional outlook and physical well-being. Whenever you might be otherwise tempted to "cry over spilled milk" -- or whatever it is that I might have just spilled or burned or broken or lost -- instead, just say "Oh, well!" or another useful variation: "That happens sometimes!"

So far, this post has not been very literary, but I am happy to share these lyrics, at times mysterious, about the lifelong quest for peace of mind:

One of These Days

Well I won't have to chop no wood
I can be bad or I can be good
I can be any way that I feel
One of these days

Might be a woman that's dressed in black
Be a hobo by the railroad track
I'll be gone like the wayward wind
one of these days

One of these days it will soon
be all over cut and dry
And I won't have this urge
to go all bottled up inside
One of these days I'll look back
and I'll say I left in time
'Cause somewhere for me
I know there's peace of mind

I might someday walk across this land
Carrying the Lord's book in my hand
Goin' cross the country singin' loud as I can
One of these days

But I won't have trouble on my back
Cuttin' like the devil with a choppin' axe,
Got to shake it off my back
one of these days

One of these days it will soon
be all over cut and dry
And I won't have this urge
to go all bottled up inside
One of these days I'll look back
and I'll say I left in time
'Cause somewhere for me
I know there's peace of mind
There's gonna be peace of mind for me
one of these days

Music & lyrics by Earl Montgomery / Sung by Emmylou Harris

On a slightly lighter note, but still introspectively,
the narrator of this little song urges the lovelorn to say,

"Oh, well!"

Why So Pale and Wan?

Why so pale and wan fond lover?
Prithee why so pale?
Will, when looking well can’t move her,
Looking ill prevail?
Prithee why so pale?

Why so dull and mute young sinner?
Prithee why so mute?
Will, when speaking well can’t win her,
Saying nothing do’t?
Prithee why so mute?

Quit, quit for shame, this will not move,
This cannot take her;
If of herself she will not love,
Nothing can make her;
The devil take her.

By Cavalier Poet, Sir John Suckling (1609 - 1641)

Interesting to note that both of these songs include a reference to the devil (as in "Get thee behind me Satan!") -- there's a connection for you! And here's a coincidence: just this morning, I ran across this inspiring short sermon about the devil by cutting edge priest Nadia Bolz-Weber:

The Devil = Your Inner Critic = The Accuser
Maybe you've seen her work before. I only discovered her website this week, and every video I've watched so far has been great:

Forgive Assholes / Longer Version

How Much BS Can You Call on Yourself?

More About Nadia

Being a Lutheran Pastor

P.S. 2023
Sermon by Nadia Bolz-Weber
on the topic of oh, well / re - set
and the 23rd Psalm
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, June 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Hopefully

Posting early this week
in honor of Emily Dickinson's Birthday
Born this day in 1830
[died May 15, 1886]

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Photo of Dickinson's House by Stan Lichens

"Eden is that old - fashioned House
We dwell in every day
Without suspecting our abode
Until we drive away.
How fair, on looking back, the Day
We sauntered from the door,
Unconscious our returning
Discover it no more."

~ Emily Dickinson ~

[See also: Toni Morrison ~ Paradise]

****************
Does it bring you joy to indulge in an innocent little English usage error every occasionally (like that)? It does me! One of my favorites is the word hopefully. The handbooks will advise you that it means "with hope," as in, "I dropped my bike off hopefully" or "Hopefully, I entered the contest."

It does not mean "I hope," as in, "Hopefully I will win" or "Hopefully my bike can be fixed" (not to mention get rid of that passive verb). Even so, I like using it both ways, either way, ambiguously, whenever I feel like. Hopefully, you will agree with me when I say that we all need all the hope we can get!

What are you hoping for? What are the desires of your heart?

Do you get what you're hoping for
When you look behind you there's no open door
What are you hoping for?
Do you know?
--song by M. Masser / G. Goffin;
--sung by Diana Ross (and a few others)
I once came across a little proverb, so easy to remember, I didn't even have to write it down: "Want something long enough and you don't." It took me awhile to puzzle out the meaning. Once it starts happening, however, you grow to understand. It's not that you actively give up wanting or deliberately relinquish the object of your desire; it's just that one day you realize, hey I don't want that anymore, and in fact haven't wanted it for quite some time.

It's not so bad to stop wanting things you can't have. But it's also good to hope for what you might have. And the wisdom to know the difference. As Emily Dickinson says in one of her best loved poems:

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all . . .
This stanza always reminds me of the Psalm: "Delight yourself in the Goodness of God and you will be given the Desires of Your Heart" (37:4). The trick, of course, is knowing what it is that you desire, what you're hoping for.

A few years ago in the Notre Dame Magazine, Elizabeth Austin told the story of a young friend who wanted to complete the last leg of an around-the-world journey. Asking his father's advice, he received this ambiguous reply: "I think it's a ridiculous idea . . . If it's just a whim forget about it. The only reason to do something like that is if it's your heart's desire. And if it's your heart's desire, then you have to do it."

The son was baffled: "What's that supposed to mean, my heart's desire?" Austin concludes her narrative with yet another conundrum: Discovering our heart's desire "must be, in the end, our heart's desire" (NDM, Winter 1997 - 98, p 79).

From some angles, Emily Dickinson's sequestered life appears so unruffled, but what about her heart's desire? What message did she discern when listening so carefully to that song without words, the one that never stopped?

Emily Dickinson
"We think of hidden in a white dress
among the folded linens and sachets
of well-kept cupboards, or just out of sight
sending jellies and notes with no address
to all the wondering Amherst neighbors.
Eccentric as New England weather
the stiff wind of her mind, stinging or gentle,
blew two half imagined lovers off.
Yet legend won't explain the sheer sanity
of vision, the serious mischief
of language, the economy of pain."

poem by Linda Pastan, (U.S. Poet, b. 1932)
In her poem, "Lists," Pastan says:

"I made a list of things I have
to remember and a list
of things I want to forget,
but I see they are the same list."
I wonder if it's ever the case that the same is also true of what we're hoping for?

Looking at it a different way, author Susan Jeffers recommends not a "Hoping Life" but a "Wondering Life": " . . . with the magic of wondering, fear of the uncertain is replaced by curiosity . . . pressure about the future is relieved when we live in a wondering world" (Embracing Uncertainty, 20 - 21).

E.g., not I HOPE you are reading my blog,
but I WONDER if you are reading my blog.

For more on Emily Dickinson, see
"Emily From Different Angles
on Kitti's Book List




Young Girl Reading
by French artist
Jean-Honoré Fragonard
1732 - 1806





SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, December 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Divine Homesickness: If Only In My Dreams

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED CEREMONIOUS

"THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME, THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME"

********************
"When we are constantly focused on externals,
we are not centered, that is, we are not aligned
internally -- body, mind and soul.
Without that alignment,
we have a case of Divine Homesickness.
We feel empty and lost, always trying
to find our way Home . . . always
looking for something 'out there' to fill us up.
And nothing out there can."

from
The Little Book of Peace of Mind
by Susan Jeffers
Similarly, Anne Lamott writes that "all of the interesting characters I've ever worked with -- including myself -- have had at their center a feeling of otherness, of homesickness" (Bird By Bird, 200). From Jeffers, Lamott, and the following two passages, by Buechner and Rushdie, we can construct a poetics of divine homesickness, one that resonates strongly with me because I am from Missouri, I am from Kansas, not just metaphorically but actually.

The Child In Us
We weren't born yesterday. We are from Missouri. But we are also from somewhere else. We are from Oz, from Looking-Glass Land, from Narnia, and from Middle Earth. If with part of ourselves we are men and women of the world and share the sad unbeliefs of the world, with a deeper part still, the part where our best dreams come from, it is as if we were indeed born yesterday, or almost yesterday, because we are also all of us children still.

No matter how forgotten and neglected, there is a child in all of us who is not just willing to believe in the possibility that maybe fairy tales are true after all but who is to some degree in touch with that truth. You pull the shade on the snow falling, white on white, and the child comes to life for a moment. There is a fragrance in the air, a certain passage of a song, an old photograph falling out from the pages of a book, the sound of somebody's voice in the hall, that makes your heart leap and fills your eyes with tears.

Who can say when or how it will be that something easters up out of the dimness to remind us of a time before we were born and after we will die? The child in us lives in a world where nothing is too familiar or unpromising to open up into a world where a path unwinds before our feet into a deep wood, and when that happens, neither the world we live in nor the world that lives in us can ever entirely be home again, any more than it was home for Dorothy in the end either, because in the Oz books that follow The Wizard she keeps coming back again and again to Oz because Oz, not Kansas, is where her heart is, and the wizard turns out to be not a humbug, but the greatest of all wizards after all.
from Listening to Your Life,"The Child in Us * May 6"
by Frederick Buechner
Buechner analyzes the myth of Oz more thoroughly in Chapter 4 of his book, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale. Likewise, author, Salman Rushdie employs the Oz metaphor when describing the impossibility of a backward quest for childhood innocence.

Out of Kansas
"So Oz finally became home; the imagined world became the actual world, as it does for us all, because the truth is that once we have left our childhood places and started out to make up our lives, armed only with what we have and are, we understand that the real secret of the ruby slippers is not that 'there's no place like home', but rather that there is no longer any such place as home: except, of course, for the home we make, or the homes that are made for us, in Oz: which is anywhere, and everywhere, except the place from which we began" (see more).
from Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002,
Essay #1: "Out of Kansas"
by Salman Rushdie
I still love to hear Karen Carpenter sing "I'll Be Home For Christmas, If Only In My Dreams," but I feel differently about this song than I used to. I used to think it was about people who weren't able to travel "home for the holidays" to be with everyone else. Now I'm more inclined to think it's about people who have to travel or have traveled, when all they really want is the privacy of their own home. There they are surrounded by all their loved ones, but what they crave is to be home alone -- if only in their dreams.

Not to be all bah - humbug about it, but now whenever I hear lyrics like "I'll Be Home for Christmas" or "There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays" or "There's No Christmas Like Home Christmas," my response is Precisely! Home. H - O - M - E. Not someone else's home. Not someplace that used to be home. Your own home. Where your heart is. As John Denver sings:

"Home is where the heart is,
and Christmas lives there too."SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, 14 January 2012

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Outside Looking In

Nothing To Live Against

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Philadelphia: Ginkgo Branch & View from 3rd Floor ~ Autumn 2000

Josef In The Windowsill: So Placid and Self - Contained!
(Same Window, Same Ginkgo Branch ~ Summer 1994)
In The Little Book of Letting Go, Hugh Prather questions why we wear the seams of our socks against the skin, so that they look smooth on the outside but feel bad on the inside. Wouldn't inside out make more sense? Interior vs Exterior.

Circumstances vs State of Mind. Which matters more? Prather says don't let circumstances become more important than your mental state: "If it were possible to summarize all mystical teachings in a single sentence, this one would come close: Make your state of mind more important that what you are doing" (7, 76).

I don't know why Hugh Prather calls his book "Little" since it is really just a normal - sized book. However, if you're familiar with author Susan Jeffers, she really does have a couple of tiny books containing advice similar to Prather's. Prather says we have two minds -- one that is whole and peaceful; another that is always conflicted, fragmented and busy. Susan Jeffers calls these two minds The Higher Self and the Lower Self. The Higher Self holds inner peace, strength, wisdom and spiritual dimension, whereas the Lower Self is a "place of struggle, lack, fear, and pain" (The Little Book of Peace of Mind, 4).

I have long been aware that when I get upset it is due to circumstances (missed appointment, messed up recipe, items lost or misplaced). This awareness, however, has not yet prevented me from feeling irritated, even though I tell myself over and over that these details are insignificant and have nothing to do with my Higher Self; they are merely circumstances that I needn't react to. As Jeffers says, "Your inner peace has nothing to do with the dramas of your life" (LBPM, 9). But, guess what? I react anyway, giving those annoying little details and missteps the power to determine my mood and the way I feel about and act toward others. It's all small stuff? Oh, really?

As you may have noticed not long ago on the Quotidian Kit, one of my favorite lines of fiction is actually about this same idea. In one of Margaret Atwood's "True Romances," a character is lamenting that her bad boyfriend has left her, and now she has "nothing to live for." Her level - headed friend asks, "Were you living for him when he was here?" And the distressed one says, "No . . . I was living in spite of him, I was living against him." The wise friend concludes, "Then you should say, I have nothing to live against."

I do recall applying this lesson during my early Philadelphia years, back when I was trying to improve my urban attitude. Thinking of Atwood's story, I said to myself, "You need to give up living against the city! You have nothing to live against." But it's such a bad habit with me, it seems that I will try to live against almost anything! The weather, the grocery store, the holiday season, organized religion, centuries of misogynism -- you name it; unless I consciously stop myself, I will try to live against it. And how does one little person live against an entire city or an entire cosmos or an entire family? Not only is it impossible, it is just not necessary to do so, even if it does feel so at times.

Nothing to live against. Brian Andreas makes a similar suggestion in his story, "Western Mysticism": "It's much easier, he told me, if you like the parts you like & you like the parts you don't like. Is that some Eastern thing? I said & he said not really since he was from Idaho & it worked there just fine" (from StoryPeople).

Still I wonder, how do you really learn to "like the parts you don't like"? How do you learn to say, "Oh well," if that's what the occasion calls for, to be dismissive, remain impassive, impersonal, detached? Easy to know these ideas so well yet remain painfully inept at living them out. Oh, Great Buddha (misogynist though you were), Oh, Mother Theresa, tell us: how ON EARTH does one "let go"; how draw the line between "circumstance" and "state of mind"? For a Doubting Thomasina, a Daughter of Descartes, a Western Girl With Glasses, it's not always easy.

Honestly now, what kind of person are you if your circumstances don't impact your state of mind? Isn't that kind of like Oliver singing, "If you don't mind taking it like it turns out / it's a fine life"? But that's not what we believe, is it? What if you do mind? Despite the song, it was not a fine life for Oliver, nor for Charles Dickens. Was Dickens any more Eastern than I?

Was Walt Whitman?

I think I could turn and live with animals,
they're so placid and self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied,
not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another,
nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the earth.
(from Song of Myself, #32)

I loved this stanza as a student and for a very long time afterward, even now I guess. Yet I have to agree with the critic who said that Whitman probably didn't mean it -- maybe about the animals he did; but surely not about himself. After all, he lived a life of highly refined intellect, not possible (as far as we know) for cows or cats.

When reading Hugh Prather's book, I couldn't help but notice how often his examples were about puppies. Very appealing and touching, but hello we are not dogs or cats or cows. We are humans with baggage and memory and very complicated brains and the need for discourse. On the more useful side, however, Prather says that progress matters more than achievement, direction more than perfection. We can choose, we can decide. In the best interest of inner peace, we can wear our socks inside out.


P.S. Christmas is coming!
Next post will be on Monday, December 14th
Between now and then, be sure to read
my shorter, almost daily blog posts on
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com
(Ginkgo trees, leafless trees, Christmas trees)

Rocky Road

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS


To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it,
to conceive no time, however distant, but what you may reach it and pass it,
to look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for you,
however long but it stretches and waits for you.
by
~ Walt Whitman ~
from
"Song of the Open Road"
When my friend Catherine flew out to visit me a few years ago, she spent her time on the plane reading Anne Lamott's Plan B: Further Thoughts On Faith. She loved the passage about the Virgin Mary's frustration with her teen-age son: "What on earth did Mary do when Jesus was thirteen? Here's what I think: She occasionally started gathering rocks." Lamott imagines Jesus driving his parents crazy and sassing back: "'You're not the boss of me. I don't even have to listen to you.' And what is Mary doing this whole time? Mary's got a rock in her hand" (98 - 99). And so does Lamott, though of course she never throws it. The tactile sensation of its polished solidity calms her heart, absorbs all the anger. She and her son resolve their conflict. Rock gathering as natural therapy.

When I picked Catherine up, she insisted that before going home we stop by my favorite bookstore, VON'S, where you can get, in addition to books, every kind of way cool bauble, bangle, bead, magnet, or lucky rock imaginable. She bought not only a brand new copy of Plan B for me to keep, but also a handful of the most beautiful rocks ever! I love them all, but my favorite has to be the rose quartz, a soothing stone believed by some to convey unconditional love and tolerance. I keep it along with my rose quartz necklace and earrings (gifts from another friend) in a pink seashell dish, right beside my bed, along with my Little Book of Peace of Mind, which may sound trite but is not.

Quite the opposite, this little book by Susan Jeffers is full of accessible mantras that help me think better: "When entering a room . . . focus on what you are going to give rather [than] what you are going to get in the way of approval"; "Visualize those who [are] nourished by your gift"; "In everything we do, we have been handed the Kingdom. May we always remember this"; "By definition, if we say THANK YOU often enough, any trace of poverty consciousness disappears; we begin feeling incredibly abundant!" That sort of thing.

In the introduction Jeffers writes, "I'm amazed at how obvious are the causes of our upsets in life, big or small." She recounts an ancient saying: "'The road is smooth. Why do you throw rocks before you?' We all throw rocks before us, sometimes making our Journey very difficult. So let's begin clearing the debris to make way for a more joyful, abundant . . . and peaceful . . . life! (ellipses, Jeffers). Later, she says, "Feel the relief this freedom brings. Feel yourself lighten as you let go of all the unnecessary burdens you have created for yourself" (Jeffers, xii, 30; see also 67 - 77). When I read these words about throwing rocks and letting go, the strains of an old favorite song -- "By My Side," from the Godspell soundtrack --echoed through my head, a song whose verses have intrigued me for years with their concept of making a CHOICE on a DARE, to put a pebble in your shoe; then to take it out again and give it back to the Universe -- "Meet your new road!"


Where are you going?
Where are you going?
Will you take me with you? . . .

Oh please, take me with you
Let me skip the road with you

I can dare myself
I can dare myself
I'll put a pebble in my shoe
And watch me walk, watch me walk

I can walk and walk

I can walk!

I shall call the pebble Dare
I shall call the pebble Dare
We will walk, we will talk together
We will talk
About walking
Dare shall be carried

And when we both have had enough
I will take him from my shoe, singing:

"Meet your new road!"

~ lyrics by Jay Hamburger


Ah ha! Now, I think I know what the Wise Fool answers when the Wise Old Sage asks, "Why do you throw rocks before you?"

I do it to dare myself!














seeker of truth

follow no path
all paths lead where

truth is here

~ E. E. Cummings

And in closing:

Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions. To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. I warn you. Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question. . . . Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long, long paths, but I am not anywhere. My question has meaning now. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.

Carlos Castaneda
from The Teachings of Don Juan
("Chapter 5": Monday, January 28, 1963)