Midwinter Thoughts

December is a bad month for me to start things. There is a collective tension this time of year with all the family activities and end of year work stuff and god knows what. It may not be that for you. But I have observed over the past few years that everything in me is against beginning things in December. Perhaps I am in tune with the waining light. In fact now that I think on it further, I am happier not starting things in the entire forth quarter of the year but in December it is a deep unhappiness to begin.

If we have beginnings then we have ends too. I don’t want to end things either but in midwinter that is more acceptable than starting. Really, it is hard to accept that we are, and everything we do is, temporary. We feel that we will be this way forever, whatever “this way” means. That perhaps there is a point where all the changes will stop and we will be frozen there, either in heaven or hell or the in between. The evidence we see is against this and yet we have a very hard time functioning without implicitly believing we will go on some how. Either by reincarnation or some other means. Living with the expectation of ongoing change is wiser than attempting to fix our state into some weird ice sculpture of bliss because it keeps us from clinging to imaginary states that are not in the present moment. Change keeps us alive and dynamic.

At the same time I really want to go back the the safest times I can remember or imagine I remember because wow—shit’s though out here.

Then the word duality comes up in my brain. This life is finite, this state is a definite thing with an end. But something about it does continue which defies material knowledge and I don’t even know what that is. I can never know that now. I might know it when now no longer is a thing. When my state is out side of time. Duality is not helpful after the age of ten. But we really liked how certain and possible things seemed at ten so we hit that loop again. And that is how we get stuck in intractable conflicts!

My mind is churning and that is uncomfortable.

Speaking of intractable conflicts, I have observed how homeless humans use the public library. It is one of the few indoor spaces where they can hang out relatively undisturbed. They mainly charge their cell phones and take naps. But a few times we have had to stop them from brewing tea in the stacks and they do ask if we can microwave things for them. This got me thinking. What if, what if there were a place they could go that was all about those little things. A sort of internet cafe for the down and out. Where there was a little break room set up with microwave and toaster oven, some coffee and tea station and outlets where they could charge their devices. It would be staffed by social workers who could direct them to services when they are ready to try for the housed life. This project could be a public service but it could also work as a religious ministry. (Provided it wasn’t all command and control about the spiritual stuff. Because if it dose get that way people will resent it and that’s not going to go anywhere good.) Doing a thing like setting up an internet cafe for homeless humans requires change though and I don’t feel the calling to do this still I think this idea should circulate.

At Dusk We Think of Death

I should not have this laptop on right now. I should be sleeping. But some thing has me up typing because I don't know what I would do if I were diagnosed with a terminal cancer. All I know for sure is that I would cry. But aside from that? This is an unplanned mometo mori sort of exercise. Three out of my four grandparents transitioned through cancer. I'm thinking of cancer because of the part in The War of Art where Steven Pressfield talks about the psychologist who works with terminal cancer patients helping them navigate the end or a new beginning. A lot of times the new beginning leads to some kind of remission apparently. I don't know. I do not feel that I will be so involved in certain things. I do want to open up the spiritual coaching or whatever practice.

I see why there is a formalized practice of remembering death among the spiritual workers. In our future obsessed culture these practices are an antidote to the drivenness we live most days. And so in fall when the plants are all drying out there are remembrance festivals. Día de los Muertes, Samhein, All Hallow’s tide, whatever. Whether you are practicing reflection and gratitude for your ancestors within a set spiritual tradition or not late autumn naturally calls for us to think of what has and is passing on.

The practice of looking back 120 years from your birth is important for finding your place in the human story and offer gratitude for our ancestors and what they did to make today what it is.

I was born in 1982. So I look back to 1862. Which of my ancestors was alive and what did they do with the life they had? Who and what shaped their lives? And after them what happened that I am writing this now? It is a long story there is no time to relive it and yet there is time to remember and carry the main points.

My Ancestors lived through war, economic disaster, changes in technology and shifting attitudes toward nature. Seeing how they navigated these things and how it shapes today helps me focus on what will really matter for the future. No one will remember the color of my hair but they may remember vaguely that I lived in Texas once.

The same story repeats. There will always be poverty, exploitation, disaster, fortune, hope, joy, grief-- all of it will be over and over in it's season. We want to be completely remembered but we won’t be. We can't even remember our own past self very well. We think we don't matter unless we are known. This could be true. But what may be more important is that we have promoted a spirit of encouragement and growth when we lived.

What is the story we carry? does it accept all the complexity and beauty of life. Who before us bore that too?

Messages to the dead and as good as dead:

To the dead: Thank you for living when you did and how you did. You were not my ideal person but you did shape this world I live in. You passed on the best you could when you were aware of it and that is all we could expect.

To the missing: I don't know where you are or if you are among the breathing masses still. I miss you. If we meet again let's forgive each other. I forgive you for going please forgive me for not looking for you so diligently.

To the exile: What is the wedge between us? I don't remember it well. Can we meet on neutral ground and see a stream of reconciliation trickle between us? On our good days we were friends.

This year I honor the lives of:

Janice

Glenn

Dora

Rodrick

They were imperfect and they are mine to remember.

Links about All Hallow’s Tide:

It turns out that there are three days in the Hallow Tide. (Halloween, All Saint's day and All Soul's day.) Halloween was a preparation day for the following two. All Saint's seems to refer to the distant ancestors that have been completely purified and reclaimed and All Souls is for the more recent dead who have just begun the purification process. Well ok, for my purposes it would be the Saints are the distant dead who's connection had rippled out into the background and the Souls are the ones I actually know something of or feel a connection with.

Church of England prayers for All Hallows tide

Article about ALL Souls' Day

040522 - sampling

Let the birds be my alarm clock

industrious thoughts

constructing hoodies in my head

not having to think about meals 

I feel organized and less anxious

I want my outer state to be simple 

my inner state is intensive already

going to work feels like a distant dream

Sampling is important — not what DJs do but what craftspeople do. We try things out before committing a material or technique to a final piece. Samples, I advocate that people try making samples they could use the samples they wove to practice stitching on. 

040422

May my vision of the future not impede the actions of today. 

I say this because I’m dreaming of possible projects but I remember that when offered a project I often don’t take it because I’m happily thinking of the imaginary project. I have ideas for making coats. I don’t wear coats. these are more about solving problems in fabric. And yet to have one good coat in my wardrobe seems essential.

The drizzle is still with us this makes me think of hoodies. I have a failed pants making experiment with some fabric left over that could make a “Baja hoodie.” That would be simpler than a tailored coat and would let me experiment with seam finishes on the hand woven fabric.

The excitement of new beginnings.

040322

Hi LOVE, I heard the dripping off the eves and was happy. I am upping and feel a little tiered.

The birds let me know it is morning

I thought about agriculture and the meaning behind the names for the days of the week.

I think about what my future schedule will be like and part of me worries about food, and breaks, and will I be clear. I mean when things get intense and I don’t sleep as much as I want to I tense up and get mixed up and muddy I am out of clear flow. LOVE, help me dredge out my stream bed.

Artists are the sacred class they are the priesthood no matter what spirit teacher they follow. They connect the rational to the irrational aiming to make us whole. They go to the between places and hang out with the exiles and prisoners, the ones found in dreams. It matters what spirit you follow because there are spirits who destroy or imprison only. Unfortunately most of us do not have the experience to sense the difference.

040222

I had a dream that prompted the following observations:

Parasites are gross and dramatic in the dream space, not so obvious in real life.

If evil masquerades as light then good can be dark.

The vehicle of healing may not conform to reputation.

Healers are not the source of their power.

Happy Saturday!

040122

It’s hight overcast his morning, an in between kind of mood. Thankfully not glaring bright.

I do worry about having a schedule where I can’t sleep in. I did that before but now I am older and my body doesn’t like it. the parts that are most affected are louder. That’s not todays situation but I will start a new job soon so my mind is trying to get ready.

There are days when you don’t have so much to say and what you had been thinking of was The Lion King. Why are hyenas “always” the bad guys, not even brilliant bad, just average bad? I would be interested to see a story line that showed the hyenas rebel successfully against Scar. That would be interesting.

Lions being the king of the animals was an imperial British idea anyway. It might not have originated with them but they ran hard with it.

The right brain controls the left body isn’t this yin controlling yang? They say the left brain is the one we are more conscious of. I do want to hear from the right side. I want to have the space for that. If I could be in both places the visionary mind and the get shit done mind that would be great. I guess that’s an artist goal.

Zen creates space. I’d be interested in a Christian Zen. isn’t Zen really a style or aesthetic of Buddhism? The practices are neutral it just depends on what it’s dedicated to and does it produce good fruit. 

I do this writing practice to be connected to the present, to have a flavor of my thoughts from now. I’ve been working on a difficult part of my memoir and was slipping into the feelings and thoughts of back then. I don’t want that because it will make doing the today things weird.

The bag making idea is back. I want to wait for some paychecks to kick in before I get a new sewing machine. So for now I keep developing patterns and thinking of what I would need to set up a good shop space.

033122 - indigenous

I had a dream In the morning before waking up that said something about a system or process for deepening spiritual experience I don’t remember what it was called. But it brought to mind how Christianity had been underground in the begging and that something of that character had been good for it. There was some commentary on marginalization in the dream too. 

I have been sympathetic to indigenous cultures as long as I’ve know about them. All humans are indigenous some where. I wonder what my spirit would show me if I went to England? I mean we tell ourselves that ancestral home lands don’t matter and still we the settlers have romanticized these places. They are secretly sacred to us. But I do have to point out that colonization happened in Europe too. That we are the product of a long legacy of stolen lands. It is hard to remember the before then or see what is from the original culture.

For our current society “indigenous” represents something that rationality has stripped from our accepted consciousness. What is “indigenous” tends to imbue life into everything in ways “scientific” thinking cannot. Artist seem to inhabit this more spiritual way of being. This is honored and held in awe and at the same time abused.

It’s weird what we do to sacred objects. I mean that one person puts up a thing as sacred and the next generation trashes it. I mean estate sales? Those were the things the previous generation could not let go of. It’s grandmas worn out paring knife that brought to life significant moments for her but once she is no longer there to cling to it the knife is trashed. No one else would want it. It had long ago become useless except as a talisman or something.

When I hear about avatars or other sacred persons I feel terrible for the humans who are them. How strange and trapped their lives become! How much pain they suffer because no human should be set apart like that. No human can bear the full responsibility for a communities spiritual growth. We are each responsible for our own path.

When I was younger I wanted to be known but the only model I had for that was popular culture. And the image of knowing that it presented spooked me. The vicious pop star wars of the 90s burned this immature vision of what it meant to be known. All my flaws would be exposed and picked over, inaccurate and salacious stories told about me, every mistake amplified. I am sensitive I don’t want to be ripped apart so I wouldn’t even try to get my work out.

It took many years to see how messed up and wounded everyone is. It’s an overwhelming truth.

032922

I hear the birds waking up vocalizing their existence. Why do they do that? I think some humans do that to yelling cheery good mornings and banging the pots and pans. 

What else?

What can I tell you?

Some days this will be garbage, this post will be garbage, because my mind is not a prose factory. 

I’ve noticed that when I see things telling me to have confidence, or whatever quality has been deemed the cure for my stuckness, I get angry. I think this is because the prescription was done from such a distance and speed that it was the wrong one. It’s as though the doctor, or expert, drove by at 50 miles an hour and they free associated off the blurred impression of my condition. It feels too out there and not very personal. What if there advice is not some thing I need to do for myself but something that needs to be done for me? I mean, what’s the set up? Meet me half way. I can’t do everything.

I start over a lot. I don’t just free type. I wish I could flow this out. I keep pausing and trying to spell things. Maybe if I close my eyes and type, something interesting will come out. not sure about today though, I am tiered an anxious this morning. It’s the food run, and teaching, and not feeling great, the suspicion that I am actually sick and should lay low and call in sick. Calling in sick is a hassle, and yet I need to be ok with doing it. If I feel like total crap and have to call in then I can’t worry about calling a list of people to cancel the business of the day. I just have to do it. Still when I feel like crap the last thing I want to do is tell people about it.

There was rain last night and that is soothing for me. The thunder did wake me but only for a moment. What really woke me was my brother walking around before he went to bed. That can’t be avoided.

We could think through the special feelings we have for weather. I love rain and wind . I don’t know why. They feel right to me much better than pleasant sunny days. Heat in its season is ok. There will always be a special place in my heart for rain. It could be because I was born in a water year. It could be because I was born in a desert region, or that water is sacred to humans. I don’t know. I wonder if you know your element the one that soothes, or that can calm you down and makes you settled? This could be good information. 

What if I could get to the point where I typed about as fast as I think? Then some kind of stream of consciousness typing happened and when I opened my eyes I would know better what I had thought. I don’t think punctuation would be a thing in that so it would take some editing to make it readable. I also know the typos will be gnarly. 

032822 fate vs. free will

I remember that at one point within the past two years I tried a daily practice of focusing on the three times out minds go to past present and future. I struggle with the future because it’s a fuzzy non-existent place. The past is also fuzzy but it happened and I have reexamined it a lot so I think I know what it is. My work tends to be mining the past for present insight. I wonder if sometimes when I think i’m in the present I’m actually not. 

There doesn’t seem to be a right or wrong in the present. That shows up mostly int the past. This seems relevant to m creative work. I cold try to peer into the veiled future or retell my past but it’s today that is setting me up for whatever is next. I don’t even know what that is. 

There are debates about fate vs. free will. I’m comfortable with both being true at once. You have free will in setting up the routines of your life until it’s ingrained and becomes your fate. What ordered that?

We respond to things very predictably so from the outside of course fate is a thing. When our actions seem unpredictable it is because we don’t have the full story. I can predict my next move a little more accurately than you can. But still we feel we can figure people out and, by predicting what they will do, can control them. This can only really work in our imagination. Once the other person sees through the bonds placed on them in your mind they will break away. This isn’t betrayal this is growth.

Plants are stronger than we are because they can’t hide from the elements, or their attackers. They survive in ways I am envious of. I can’t stand in all weather getting bit, rained on, peed on, and carved into. No, that’s against my delicate nature.

Untangling

I have for a very long time wanted to have a little crafting business. Maybe a factory of one. I have struggled to settle into a definite product line. I want to explore and try everything. 

And 

I don’t have the energy for it.

One snarl is the messages coming from the humans around me. I struggle to know what I have to really pay attention to. I often feel that I am making decisions for the first time ever with out any knowledge of what is my path. Many days I feel that I am grasping on tight to some bar as events careen by me. Some how by clinging to a thing I think I can control it slow it down. Thing just move really fast and I can’t keep up.

Some things must be done on faith. I have to trust that if I do invest in a studio it will be paid for. Still it is scary. 

One human confessing humanity over here. 

physical

The Language of Instinct

The above was about instincts.

Earth

Hello,

This is the second issue of Triple Burners the first book in the 8 Brocade collection. It’s about earth. Sort of…

Legs

Thank you for checking out the first issue of Triple Burners. I appreciate feedback. I am greedy for feedback. Blow up the comments. But remember I am human and will only respond to constructive comments.