06/09/24
the back to school season is turning out to be interesting. i had expected the curriculum to be more around psychology and art, i've bought the monstrous camille paglia book, i brought some art books home from the library. but it turns out to be more of a spiritual theme, at least this first week. i've circled back around (spiralled up?) to high school days of alan watts, eckhart tolle, ram das. this time with krishna das and leaning more towards the teachings of sri neem karoli baba.
it's interesting to observe how many things i've learned to let go of over the years, the different identities, "shoulds", expectations of myself and relationships. still a long way to go, but life is so much easier. isn't it much more fun to do like 20 collages in a row when you're moved to do it, than to think of yourself as An Artist and take on all the thoughts around that - i should do this every day, why am i not inspired, i need to be accountable, maybe if i shared my creations online etc etc. letting go of trying to be a Runner. never identified with that one in particular but i did try, for Health and for having more in common with my partner. but it's completely fine to not be a Runner, it's not indicative of anything idk... moral? or just anything, period. letting go of trying to have a particular - "real" - type of relationship with my mother, and accepting the type of relationship she's capable of having with me. isn't that better? to appreciate what is, rather than struggle towards the impossible, and keep seeing her "faults" and "lacks"?
there are many things i'm lightly mulling over, seeing if any of them produce some sort of "thought-key" to unlock deeper, lived understanding. regardless, i think the biggest practice is just presence. interestingly, the sole strongest "all is one" experience i've had personally has been after reading
i'd been practicing intense being-with-the-senses, just to experience things. and one time as i was observing a bird on a pond it kind of... sucked me in? i was the bird, the light played on the water in front of me, it was my bill splashing droplets into the air and onto my own ruffled back. quite something. i'm very curious what else is possible when we are one with now. how perception and the mind deals with it, that everything is just "a happening".
enjoying myself so far. meditating every day, chanting songs. since picking up this subject any tarot i've done has revealed lessons on the relationships between god, mind, and the material. the enticing bit is hearing neem karoli baba's voice chanting the name of god in the strangest echoes - the outro of a (completely unrelated) podcast i'd been listening to, the babbling of a baby in the background of some lecture. the ringing in my own ears, although that's to be expected. enjoying the ride, following the clues.
