Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Control -- lack of it causes stress, so redefine

A $2.00 fill-a-bag with books -- church rummage sale has given me much reading material which remains on the To-Be-Read list. I started with Ageless Body, Timeless Mind Deepak Chopra, MD. at the onset of this new beginning...totally oblivious to its potential relevance.

It has been a rewarding journey, thus far. I have reached the second half on practice. Not yet brave enough to venture from reading to doing given the current unsettled household. But I must say that there have been many references to fascinating research. Some literature as well. Of particular note as it rains and there is continuing news of rivers overflowing man devised controls in the daily news I am keenly aware from my shallows. I failed to connect the passage sans citation in my '71 HS yearbook as from Siddhartha. It is followed by my 1st published uncredited scrawling itself an odd renewed recollection of personal experience. I am certain there is a take-away. At the moment I just record.

I am only a ferryman, and it is my task to ferry people across the river. I have transported many, thousands; and to all of them, my river has been nothing but an obstacle on their travels. They traveled to seek money and business, and for weddings, and on pilgrimages, and the river was obstructing their path, and the ferryman's job was to get them quickly across that obstacle. But for some among thousands, a few, four or five, the river has stopped being an obstacle, they have heard its voice, they have listened to it, and the river has become sacred to them, as it has become sacred to me.


And each flake
Of snow
Intricately different
Yet not alone
Is carried on
By the wind
to the waiting ground
maybe to be plowed
forced in a mass
till death
maybe to be shaped into a man of snow with charcoal eyes
Maybe a single flake will melt into a world of its own
Each flake of snow intricately different yet not alone

...insert Henry David Thoreau here ...

You are you and I am I
If we meet it’s beautiful
If not
It’s because
You are you and I am I

I came in hope of finding a way to expand my own reflection, I have found a way to make it something more than what it was.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Weekend -- and sinus pain

Today there was news of another life extinguished early; not a direct victim of war like the 20 year old with 2 weeks left to serve a few towns away. Rather a 20 something whose life never got on a sustainable track. As a boy he welcomed a new comer into the neighborhood; provided a middle school life line. I remember afternoons of manageable mischief at the pool just cleaned again for another summer. Sometimes there is too much murkiness to clean up without intervention. Sometimes the chemicals are wrong. I am not sure what to do with this news or the better understanding of genocide I got with an investment of time with BookTV yesterday. I will be buying When The Stars Fall to Earth by Rebecca Tinsley because the proceeds support solutions. I wonder if there will be a compelling section I can read on Community Television that will add to the awareness that I still have no clue what to do with.

So I continue to absorb and wonder and get distracted by sinus pain; What is to become of these connections before I too am extinguished: either by serving or facing something unsustainable?

Thursday, June 16, 2011

So far it seems like a really long Saturday with naps

So last Monday was the 1st Monday in 35 years that I did not have a job. It is much to get ones' head around.

I did not dump into this state of being gradually because my last employed days played out like all that came before: Compressed Project Timeline. Deliverables. Teamwork. Business Needs awaiting solutions. Unpaid Over-time. I am still unsure what my true feelings are about what I dubbed my Last Hurrah Project -- which connected decades of dots to re-engineer the subsystem I supported so that I would no longer be needed. I am satisfied with the product and the teamwork it took to get it done. I am unsettled in my feelings about the manner in which the scope & scheduling was handled. But it is past and I need to be more present so I can find the right future.

Part of the future will be noted here. So this is the simple start.