Living the Dream

Jerome Singer, says that researchers have learned that the part of the brain that is activated by fast paced TV viewing is the “reptilian system” or the “old brain.” This area of the brain is where the instinctual fight/flight reflexes originate, as well as feelings. Gloria DeGaetano, media Specialist, educator and author says the cortical cortex goes from active beta into alpha brain wave state when we watch television. We, “..are not creating pictures in [our] minds while [we] watch television”. So, I feel that means that there is little active mental activity that is our own going on when we are staring bald-faced at the television. The television takes over creation of feelings and impressions. We are put in a trance-like state by television’s change of impulses in the brain.

I was reading Wes Moore’s blog and he speaks of the passivity of the eyes when they are in fixed focus with few voluntary eye movements and the fixed-head staring position. There is no dynamic symbiotic mind flow between one’s brain and the television. It is all one-sided. He wrote: “For a brain to comprehend and communicate complex meaning, it must be in a state of “chaotic disequilibrium.” Television essentially turns off the nervous system to the point where self-worth and health is affected by television watching.

I so dislike the daily television fare down here; politics and fear-based messages. Sensationalism is the fare of every day. I feel so lied to, so used and so ‘dumbed down’ by advertisements and any shows that are on. There is so little to be watched that does not make me feel this way. National Geographic is pushing the “Green Earth Theory” which I feel is more big business than big worry. The news is disheartening. The specials funded by lord knows who, for god knows what reason. It is also called the “big opiate” that is addictive and has potential for incredible mind control that has not even been fully studied yet. I do try to find shows that are spiritual in nature. Also, the travel channel has become a favorite this winter.

Eckhart speaks to this (p223) and states that “Not only do you not remember your problems any more, but you become temporary free of yourself…” As he says, no wonder it is used to manipulate us. They want our thoughts to become their thoughts, and I believe they are succeeding in many ways. I try to do art while the television is on. ‘Winter cabining’ is when the television is on the most. There is nothing outside to instigate creative thought. I mean, how many drift and cold poems can one write? How many winter scenes can one draw? It is good though, that it keeps me from having cabin fever from simply being stuck in the house…especially this winter when we got an untypical ten feet of snow. It does represent friend to me betimes when I can crochet or do my artist trading Cards. I am careful not to believe much of what I see and, if it stimulated thought at all, I am quickly at the internet doing research. I find ways to create, to stimulate, and even my blogging is a way of expressing my reality rather than simply watching television and having it express its thoughts to me that, if I did not stop it, would not let me respond.

I am glad spring is here and I have real live friends returning; mother squirrel and her last year crop are here, mother woodpecker is here, the sweat area is raked up and ready for the bending of the willows. The garden is now out of its drifty sleep. They all react to me. Now, this is what I have missing: this real life interaction.

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Oh, I remember the years that apply to Eckhart’s quote about Winston Churchill speaking about history as:  “one damn thing after another.” (p227)  Yes.  Yes.  There was a time it seemed to be so.  I had seven children and we often had one to two foster teenagers living with us, as well.  The kid’s dad was usually away for days at a time working.  He was a good financial provider.  That must be said.  But he was not supportive in child-rearing. So that was pretty much left to me to keep home and hearth and our children’s lives running as smoothly as possible.  I was a single parent long before I was a single parent.   Those are the ‘one damn thing after another’ days.  I had little time for me and if I took it, I felt guilty or was made to feel guilty.  Yes.  Those were tough years and I was so very spiritually immature.  I would work from dawn to close to the midnight hour cleaning, organizing, trying to keep ahead of every kind of “clutter”. (p227)   Was there a whole lot of sanity in those times?  Probably not:  I was fading fast.  I was banging into one wall after another.  Eventually the brain bleed changed all that.  I certainly was not aware in any Present sense.  I was lugging a whole lot of past balls and chains along with me.  I thought I had no choice.  I was stuck like a donkey running an old stone flour mill:  Round and round and round and round.  I would have given anything for the knowledge I have now about how one can be trapped in space consciousness and the trappings I allowed others to place on me.  There seemed to be no truth, no relief, no access to any compassion either inner or outer.  Underneath all that was the deep sense that things should have been different.  But I had no way to access it.  I was like a hurt animal.  I was a hurt animal.

Where I was most happy and peaceful was out camping, riding in the mountains, fishing, long leisurely walks where I could remove myself from the immediate urgency that kept my life in chaos.  These were about the only times I could separate myself from The Roles and become just Self.  They were short-lived and not always were those times completely free of concern.  Sometimes I walked to work things out.  I would try to sort out why I was angry or sad or upset.  It is easy to see that thing that spawned it and call it that.  But, I knew, it was way more and I compounded all of it by staying in the cycle.  It took many years for me to get up the ‘guts” to leave and begin working on the problems behind all the chaos.

Alcohol and drugs were not a problem of mine.  I was saved in a way because I could not handle either.  Sometimes I envied those who could escape reality through it though.  I will not be dishonest about it.  I did.  I was dealing with ‘stuff’ in the raw.  I also thought I was dealing with it in ‘the real’.  But I had no idea yet, nor was I educated in University content enough to begin to know more about what was underneath:  as Eckhart says “falling below”. (229)  I rowed my little boat-life on the river of denial… Eckhart would call this being “spaced out”, I believe ( p229)

As I matured, I removed myself from many chaos’s and began to get hold of my consciousness actions and reactions.  I began to rise above what I thought of myself, what I thought others thought of me…and gave it less weight.  Part of my ability to do this was to search inside to find a purpose.  I did not count it as a Creator’s purpose.  I just knew it to be better than living a shallow life and so I set out to give service, to be of service.    I am still baby at this.  I am still taking tottery little steps, but I am starting to get it.  It is starting to happen without reminding myself.  I am learning to stick to the facts when I need to confront.  I am taking a stand against what comes to me as abuse and know that there is a difference between what I used to think I had to defend myself against and what simply does not matter in the equation of things.  It is definitely making living this life easier.  I surrender what I must, consider what I must, and try to consider what ripples I send out into the Universe.

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The beginning pages of this chapter had me hook line and sinker.

There was a king who was torn between happiness and despondency. “The slightest thing would cause him great upset or provoke an intense reaction and his happiness would quickly7 turn into disappointment and despair…..” he got tired of himself and sought a way out. He sent for a Wiseman and asked for something to bring balance, serenity and wisdom in his life. He offered to pay any price. The Wiseman told him that the king did not have enough to cover it but offered it as a gift. He was handed a carved jade box. In it was a golden ring with this inscription: This too will pass. He was told to touch the ring whatever happens. That way you will always be at peace. (p223-224)

Things do pass. I often refer to tough stuff as a budding boil that hurts the worst just before it breaks.

I thought I could not bear another day of winter…and suddenly, it is gone and tonight the peepers are peeping their hearts out, my rhubarb is up, my poppies grew a good four inches just today, and the moles are wild with wonder. This is as impermanent as the next small green thing that stretches. I could not believe how quickly the poppies grew in one day. Has my soul accepted and surrendered to this impermanence enough to go through the next hard place and simply truly, right to my gut feel…this too shall pass?

Last night at our reading group, we were speaking of things we worked on through the week. I said that I was wondering just where ‘standing up for what we feel is right’ fits in. I entered a blog on alcohol and drug programs and their uselessness unless they fit traditional culture of an area. I was also wondering why I paid so much time and money to go to University if people want to simply home school their children and not have any qualifications for it. And the third things I was wondering is if I can totally let my children love me or not and not care because it is not permanent, not an earthly thing, and it doesn’t matter. All of those things were heavy on my mind this last week. Right now, this minute, I think I can just let it be. How do we stay detached from things that have always been so important to us and still show that it matters? It does matter to my soul. It matters to me physically, intellectually and emotionally. It doesn’t matter whether it is right or wrong, these things are profound things to me. Integrity, honor, respect for those things is part of culture. I have nothing to gain, personally, from such as Riverside Louis getting sober. I no longer work in formal educational settings, thank god, as I saw the hypocrisy in that institution. Some of my kids abandoned me in the necessary losses that we all go through as they mature, so that is a given in my life. I just wonder about the hurt that is caused. Where does that go?

I have let people, places and things manipulate me, yes, even some of my children. I have paid dearly for it. There were some things easier to simply let go. What is precious is also insignificant, as Eckhart says of the earth. (p225) Where I am ultimately going to makes all things of this earth insignificant, but no less loved. Yes, some things on my journey could have made it easier to travel and wait out. I made some of my journey more difficult than it needed to be, but there were things I saw and experienced along the way that, in the end, from this point, made me a better me. Did I despair? Oh, my God, yes. “All things are full of weariness. A man cannot utter it.” (Old testament Prophet. P227) Erma Bombeck said something along the line of , “If life is a bowl of cherries, why am I in the pits?” She did not know that life is neither good nor bad, happy nor sad. It just is.

I am dealing with a sense of lethargy, here. I am in no man’s land. I do not want the chaos but I still want the passion of things. How does one find that balance? I still want to meet Riverside Louis’ at the channel where I might be fishing and feel that incredible sense of compassion for him as a burden carrier for his society. I still want to reach over and hold a sister while she weeps. Somewhere between numbness and passion am I. It can’t be all about me all of the time. This inner self within this inner space is godly, yes, but I believe the Creator to be compassionate and loving and nurturing and not full of ambivalence towards his creation.

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Riverside Louis thinks he is the hatchling of an eggy sun

“Sunnyside up!”, he says, dipping his toast

in buttery tepid spawn of a free meal and coffee.

His month old sparsely plucked chin whiskers

wriggle to catch a few drops of such sunshine

“Oh, Gawd,” this tastes like heaven,” he muffles

through smacking lips folded in on his ecstasy.

I am repulsed yet relieved

at his delight and sunlight laying like a sheer napkin

on place-matted breakfast he seldom gets.

His smile is further enhanced by toothless gumming

of something that should go down slick.

I hear him swish and hope he does not spit

the scalding coffee.

Louis inhales his breakfast and becomes jittery.

He is ready to run back to his cardboard

under the bridge, where he will drink shadows,

his face as yellow as this newly ingested yolk.

I am left with a disappeared companion

and a desire to lick his plate

to know how God tastes.

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There is a woman
under the bridge
reading what Louis
has scrawled on bridge abutment:

Love, me!

Was there a comma?
Was this a sobered time when his hands
shook a little less
as he loosened his burdens
to leave this message?

Come, friend, let us go
beneath the arch of his ache
where logging trucks
rattle his bones.
Or, we can go out on to the street,
into the shelters, into broken down homes
and offer them poetry of action
where more than words will fill
grind and grovel of his dearest wish:

Love me!

She feels his bones jingle
underneath covering grace of guardianship:

She is a just a simple unidentified

woman, yes, she is
and he would love her for her sentiment,
her kind thoughts feed him hope
that sustains him one more night
and he reaches for another stone
to write:

Love, you!

Was there a comma in that:  A pause
when he felt care swoosh over him
like a warm spring breeze?  A stir
of Universal care has him rise
to the nurturing ephemeral ecstasy
of knowing there is something more
in this visitation that feels more like love
than that which he gulps as an alternate.

He’d love that.

Tags: Poems by Shewolf
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