Tiffany

The gibbous moon always makes me think of a little witch from the chalk, in a blue dress with no hat and Feegles for familiar.

She reminds me that going your own way is the only way.

Flying

It still cracks me up. "I" wasn't afraid, but my body had the sweats every time the plane went up or down. And I had the gift of Brandon. On the bumpiest part of the flight, the young soldier next to me was friendly and chatty and distracted me from settling into the fear of the meat.

And he had a concern that reminded me to laugh. We taxied past a Delta plane that had what looked like scorch marks on its tail. He said something like "That's a little unnerving." I asked if he'd ever seen the movie The World According to Garp and he said "no." So, I told him about Garp buying the house after it was hit by an airplane because it had already been disaster-proofed. So. we didn't have to worry because the Delta plane incident had already happened for that day. He said he'd been in a plane that caught fire when he was in it one time when he was learning to jump out of them and described the incident. And I said, "See? I'm even safer because I'm on the plane with you. Double disaster-proof." When it got a little turbulent coming into STL, he laughed and said, "But we don't have to worry because I'm already disaster-proofed."

The idle thought passes across my mind. Do my needs get met because I relax into the flow of the Is and it swirls itself to accommodate the rhythm of this ripple or am I simply content with what comes as I ripple along?

Not that it matters what the "correct" answer is. The question makes me smile.

Larry Oblivion

P. 101

I'm dead. I don't need the distractions and illusions of life...I keep busy. To avoid brooding on the realities of my condition.

p. 201

One of the few good things about being dead is that you only have to care about the things you choose to care about.

Rumi

Story Water

A story is like water
that you heat for your bath.

It takes messages between the fire
and your skin. It lets them meet,
and it cleans you!

Very few can sit down
in the middle of the fire itself
like a salamander or Abraham.
We need intermediaries.

A feeling of fullness comes,
but usually it takes some bread
to bring it.

Beauty surrounds us,
but usually we need to be walking
in a garden to know it.

The body itself is a screen
to shield and partially reveal
the light that's blazing
inside your presence.

Water, stories, the body,
all the things we do, are mediums
that hide and show what's hidden.

Study them,
and enjoy being washed
with a secret we sometimes know,
and then not.

Not born yesterday

In the secret, gong-banging, yeti-haunted valleys near the Hub of the world, the first question Seekers of Enlightenment ask when they look into the life of Wen, the Eternally Surprised, is “Why was he eternally surprised?”

And they are told, “Wen considered the nature of Time and understood that the Universe is, instant by instant, recreated anew. There is no Past, only memory of the past. Blink your eyes and the world you see next didn’t exist when you closed them. Therefore, he said that the only appropriate state of mind is surprise; the only appropriate state of the heart is joy; the perfect moment is Now. Be Glad of it.”

Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett

Two minds

There's this top layer that does the chopping wood and carrying water. And there's this other part that watches it.

It's like breathing.

In to the watcher; out to the meat.