Health and Family Point: day 6 a reflection

Yesterday I had too much going on to be introspective. That’s life! Among the things that came up was my involvement in a group. Family is not exactly the same for everyone and this group is a proxy family for a lot of people but is it one for me?

Maybe it would be best to think of family as those who you are in contact with regularly. If you see them about once a week they qualify. This of course would mean that, for a season, even the annoying customers or patrons would be family. I work for a public service there are a collection of smelly men who are a part of my familiar world.

Some people we reject. It’s a repulsion feeling like magnets with the same poles facing each other refusing to touch. The close family is who you eat with and the closest is who you would sleep around. It takes some of the complex feelings out of the equation if I think of family in this way.

I don’t have to like everyone or trust everyone but they are still some how part of my tribe. Right, by extension all humans get included eventually because people come and go from our life and they become members of a past family.

Ok what kind of action can promote harmony in my immediate family the one I sleep around say? Sleep around is tricky because we jump to sexual ideas so fast. What I mean is would I feel comfortable and get ok sleep if I fell asleep in the same building as this person? It gets more intimate the smaller the space we are talking about.

We who have suffered emotional and spiritual challenges need family or we’d die. I was reading the twelve traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous and found them really hugely deep but simple. There is and emphasis on group harmony and how they saw that alone they would not be able to maintain their practice of sobriety but in the society of fellow strugglers there was hope and that was enough to keep them going moment to moment.

Too bad we are social creatures. It is so inconvenient to have to communicate. I am wrestling myself on a particular subject the above mentioned group participation. I do have one foot in and one out on almost every thing out there. I would like to not constantly ask myself if I am staying or going. It would be a relief. I guess this is why we tend to make things definite, like, labeling people family, or friend, or enemy. We think there is a protocol to follow once the label is affixed and that we will never have to figure out if the person is safe or not again. They will be frozen into this broad role based on repulsion or attraction. Nope. Not what I experience. I had focused a lot on individual actions leading to health in my past. Today I see that it’s a group effort and that actually terrifies me.

Health and Family Point: day 3 and 4

Yesterday morning I woke up with an image in my mind of what health and family felt like and knew I had to draw it to the best of my ability. It is interesting that I do not think of crowds of people. I seem to always see myself individually. I am happy there is a cat with me through. Weirdly I have drawn myself as a happy man singing in the kitchen. I do not identify as male, though to be sure I have a dude streak in me. There are plants on the sill because that is a sign of life and growth. I don’t know why the cabinets ended up red.

I struggled a lot with drawing his hands.

This image is a place holder or rough draft of something I invite into my life.

I did take down the tripod and put it away. I will see about the curtain rod later. I am reading four books right now that all have a, “organize your life” kind of message. I am getting a lot of ideas about what I ought to do about a few things. I do this kind of thing when I have determined to focus on one thing. I tend to want to start everything els instead of getting the one thing done! Could that mean that part of me is stuck in the past?

Oh it’s like I’m so excited and want to do things that I lose focus. Like, a puppy so beside itself to have a new bone it can’t pick one thing to do with it.

Health and Family Point: day 2 assessment from the point

I have discovered a very nice little nook situation by sitting here. I am between the bed and a book shelf unit. I can see all the windows in this room and none of the doors. Wow, I hadn’t realizes that from here I can’t see three of the points; knowledge/spirituality, career and travel/networking are invisible. It has been the case for years because of how this room demands the bed be positioned and the fact that I do not sleep well facing doors.

There is a large window in front of me, we are on a corner and this is the corner room exposed to view of two streets. I like the window to a point. I have put two layers of curtains on it. The one closes to the window acts as a diffuser and privacy screen the one closer is for blocking out some light and decoration. It has butterflies flying upward printed on it. But the curtain rod is pulling away from the wall.

I see the play/child point clearly that is the first one I notice because of course it is across from the HF point. There is a tripod there right now and the window nothing else the floor is basically clear. Space for dancing you know.

The marriage corner is a hot mess. It would be better empty. I can see the bookcase from here and it is full of dreams, aspirations and half done things, and probably flat out junk. Oddly the filling cabinet is in that area too on the border between marriage and reputation.

I wonder if there is a masculine direction and a feminine direction to moving through the bagua map. Like, they start in family and the male goes into knowledge, career, travel, children, marriage? Woah, that doesn’t exactly fly, but might. The female would go wealth, reputation marriage. This makes sense with the traditional way marriages were done. Not what I thought would come up.

As to me here and now, from this point I see that there is a cut off or divide between knowledge, career and networking, and the health and family aspects. I can see the house plant though and this is where the hook that holds the bells and jewelry is this hook is not visible to half the room. But what does this bring up as far as what I want my family life to be like?

Yesterday I concluded that this point is about food. We can think of what feeds us: music, story, and ceremony feed us. Interacting with safe people feeds us. The family is a group that I can relax and play in. It is also a source of nourishment and refuge for healing. It should be comfortable but not too comfortable. In some ways having it buffered from the career makes sense. Especially in this culture where career is a monster that can take over your life and boss you around if you aren’t careful.

Is there an action sitting here suggests? Well, putting away the tripod. That doesn’t need to be there. Right, and doing something about the curtain rod. And clearing out the clutter in the marriage corner especially the stuff on the floor. Freedom of movement seems important. Having the floor clear signals to me that there is space to move in.