Mouse

A mouse ate through a bag of potato chips in my cupboard. It was the first evidence of a rodent visitor in my house since I moved in one year ago. Odd. I am convinced that I may actually be the visitor. The mouse is probably the descendent of many generations of furry forebears in this house or its vicinity. I most likely will be passing through this property, despite my sense of human ownership, faster than the mouse's progeny. To the mouse, I would guess, this series of squared walls and ceilings and pipe chases is simply an extension of earth and roots and plants which surround my little house. There is probably little room in mouse consciousness for the human house concept. To my mind, that makes the human element of the landscape seem much less important in the big picture of life. I envy the mouse's unconscious foraging. I envy the mouse's capacity to deftly make my space his/her own in as much as it provides the mouse with what the mouse needs. There is a great Christian message about all this. Most Christians, quite blatantly, choose to ignore it. In my practice, I hope to retain this consciousness of the appeal of mouse-ness.

Spite

I have known people in my life whose lives are ruled by spite. Despite their advanced ages, they were still basing life decisions in reaction to parents or others who were long dead or completely removed from their actual lives. I find this very saddening to observe. In fact, I consciously avoid the company of people who live spitefully. Life's possibilities for evolving as a person and doing some good along the way are everywhere around us. We are not trains, confined to laid tracks going in one of two directions. I have struggled with spiteful reactions in my life. I know how automatic they can become. However, the effort to break from spiteful action is well worth it. It can be life pushing back a curtain to discover a new world of seemingly endless possibilities.

Lily

The lilies are blooming in my front garden. Pink, cream, orange, burgundy red. Their beauty is so casual, so nonchalant. Their scent is alluring. We all come from the earth, like the lilies. It is part of my practice to take a lesson from their graceful short lives.

Surgery

I have become acquainted with surgery in recent years. An acquaintance I would have gladly avoided. The advancements in surgery have helped me to an extent. However, they have also caused me to reflect on my powerlessness over the deterioration of my own body. This is the greater benefit. I am learning to truly accept what I truly am. I am a finite and physically vulnerable living being. Learning to accept this with heartfelt peace, not mournful resignation, has been one of my greatest accomplishments. I never thought, in my troubled youth, that I would ever achieve such personal peace. Part of my practice is to share this sense of peace in hope that it will ease the fear of aging and death for others.

Maintenance

So much of living life well is conscious maintenance. Exercise, diet, dental floss, all maintenance. I weed my garden and fertilize. More maintenance. I try to keep up with house cleaning and minor repairs as they arise. Maintenance again. And there is the time for reading and research on the Web. Mental maintenance. There is keeping up with friends. Social maintenance. The key to enjoying life as I age is learning to enjoy the maintenance, as much as possible. It's the old 'enjoying the trip' thing. Letting go of ideals of perfect stasis, or a final perfect destination, is crucial to this enjoyment. Relishing the tasks of daily living becomes less challenging when those tasks are greatly varied. Less boredom. And doing maintenance in steady small steps also helps. I find a calendar and note pad very helpful. When leisure does come, it is all the richer for my maintenance. I see maintenance as part of my daily practice.

Respect

Density of population places stress on daily human life. The increase of population density in cities occurs gradually, so the people in cities do not always consciously react to the changes. The reaction is more often unconscious and instinctive, ruled by the animal brain. People push on subways and in lines. People cut lines. People exhibit road rage. People beep horns on cars all too eagerly. Pedestrians are justifiably wary of cars rushing through intersections. Sidewalks become difficult to navigate. Tempers grow short. Cordial interaction becomes rare. Is it any wonder that respect is the issue in so many altercations between juveniles, who frequently act out what the society is dealing with unconsciously? It takes special intention to practice respect for others in these crowded times. Respect given is respect gained.

Beauty

Tiny rain drops were clustered on the petals of a new iris in my garden this morning. The beauty of the living plant was unintentional and pure, like the rain water itself. Later in the day I stopped my car at an intersection to allow a pedestrian to cross. The pedestrian, a young man in his twenties, was indeed beautiful. His beauty, however, was so different in my eyes from the beauty of the iris. His eyes held a cruelty. His walk was aggressive. He was very conscious of my eyes on him. I then went to my supermarket on my way home. One of the baggers, a plump and cheerful young man with a severe learning disability, was seated at a long table by the door. "Buy a raffle ticket for the Jimmy Fund. Win five hundred dollars. Everyone's a winner." The Jimmy Fund benefits research on pediatric illnesses. Here in my day was another kind of beauty. It was the unconscious beauty of a person who was being happily himself in the moment, despite considerable barriers to that happiness. It is that beauty to which I aspire in my practice.

Ideology

I am currently reading the autobiography of Venessa Redgrave, actor and activist. I am very impressed with Ms. Redgrave's talent and her boundless enthusiasm for those causes she has embraced in her life. Yet, her subscription to and influence upon ideologies based on social justice require her level of education, intelligence, affluence, notoriety, inherited beauty and hereditary privilege in her art. Ideologies suffer an inevitable corruption by power and affluence of their ideologues. This seems to explain to me why human evolution is so slow and convoluted. The greater the wealth of our species, which has garnered that wealth at the great expense of other species and the planet itself, the more time humans have to devote to thought, philosophy, expansion of the human identity from predator and warrior to nurturer and creator. Ms. Redgrave is an evolutionary icon. She is woman. She is mother. She is artist. She is intellectual. She is activist. The even distribution of human and planetary wealth will someday signal the beginning of a quantum leap in human evolution. Ms. Redgrave is a herald of that ideal. I seek those in life I can both understand and admire. I find reading a necessary part of this practice.

Justice

There is no inherent justice in life. Poetic or otherwise. Justice is the fairness and lawfulness we create as a species from day to day by acts of political and individual will. If love, a deeply felt desire to be kind and compassionate to all beings, is the basis of those day-to-day decisions, then justice will evolve. However, injustice, based in greed, often passes for justice among the human elite of the world. There is never justice in belligerent aggression. There is never justice in denying individuals control over their own bodies and minds. There is never justice in trying to discourage love, kindness, commitment and generosity in human relationships. The just are often those who quietly support and defend the lawful rights of others despite great odds. I seek justice by trying to foster it in myself.

Insanity

The truly insane are incapable of behaving sanely. This is an important realization for those of us in an overcrowded world. There are subtle and less subtle forms of insanity. Some insanity is brought on by the use of mind-bending drugs or too much alcohol. For those less fortunate, insanity is simply a genetic state of being. And, as people live longer and longer, insanity often comes with cerebral aging and deterioration. The best way to test one's own sanity is in the company of truthful and loving friends. Isolation is a path to insanity for most of us. It is the rare person who can weather isolation with a sane mind. I have worked with the insane for many years. I have also been confronted with insanity in my family and in others, with whom I have had various relationships. Insanity breeds fear and cruelty. Sanity is maintained with love and by loving. Once lost, sanity is extremely hard to recover. I strive to maintain my sanity with my daily practice.

Tempo

Life has its tempo. Every life has its pulse, its rhythm. Human being is often out of touch with its individual tempo. So much of seeking evolution is trying to rediscover that tempo which is essential to each of us. Being still and merging with my pulse by allowing myself to be totally focused on that pulse is an amazing practice. The more I stay in touch with my tempo, the more I feel that I am in syncopation with the music of the Universe.

Borders

Borders, like personal boundaries, are products of civilization. Borders define the boundaries of responsibility of government. Government must have defined borders and a defined population of taxpayers to support those things which are considered civilized. Health care, roads, schools, all must be planned in accordance with a defined population and a defined budget, paid by a defined number of taxpaying citizens. There is no free lunch in life. Everything has a physical and definable cost. Even the leisure, required to meditate or to concentrate on science or to study philosophy or to write a poem, entails cost. Food must still be produced. Water must be purified and transported. Electricity must be generated. While some have leisure, others are working to support that leisure. And that work costs. So, to maintain progress in civilization, we must conserve and plan and budget for costs, based on realistic populations, defined by borders. Violating borders is intrusion. It too has a cost, which is unfairly passed on to those who support the infrastructure which is intruded upon. It serves us all well to try to look at the current issues about population and immigration in this practical light. It is wise to avoid being distracted by cries of racism and cultural elitism in this particular instance. These inflammatory words are frequently used by wrong doers to rationalize their irresponsible behavior and to try to unjustly shame those who are trying to be responsible to the law-abiding majority.