Quiet Mind

There is a peace that comes with being on a boat, single handing it.  More so when the ice in the water, and the cold in the air has driven off most of the other boats.  The pendants and halyards and sheets are frozen and stiff.  The water is like the glass of a mirror, but is not still as the tide goes out to meet the ocean.  Bits of ice drift past us.

December on the Hudson river, just before the freeze up.

Some of us are children of Autumn.  The sweet sadness that happens during this transition time is what is most familiar to us.  Memories of the warmth and abundance of the time just past, mix with imaginings of pushing back at the cold and grey of the time yet to come, mix together like coffee bitter yet warm, like whiskey soothing yet strong and bracing, like bread, like sex, like this human life.

There are those that prefer Florida, or Phoenix, or LA with their consistency, their sunshine, their warmth, but those places, for me, avoid the every changing nature of our situation, the aging, the dying and then the rebirth and renewal that seems constantly upon me here.

The dance of Spring is measured by the quiet of winter, the cold air of Autumn reminds of the hot winds of Summer.  It all just keeps happening over and over year after year after century after century, millennium upon millennium.  We are just a moment.

The realization of how brief and in some ways insignificant we are in the greater scheme of life, makes my life all the more appreciated and removes the stress that can be consuming about my own little problems.  They just don't mean that much in the bigger picture and to me, my insignificance is a relief. It is also a reason to make my life a celebration, an expression of gratitude, a compliment to all life, and to cause as little suffering, for all life, mine included.

This is peace, this is quiet, this is a gift.

On time and money, again

I have just read "The story of B" by Daniel Quinn.  I don't think I have ever read anything before and had the same kind of reaction.  How could I?

We have roamed the planet for millions of years, but only in the last couple hundred has the need for an energy source other than the sun, the rivers, the wind, the plants and animals not been enough.  All of those energy sources can go on and on and support each other.

The idea that after this life we will become enlightened, or go to heaven, or achieve some sort of salvation, has allowed for our entire culture to turn it's back on our current means of existence and survival, with out concern for the consequence of immediate gratification.

Evolution?  Drop out entire population into a time machine, take us back 50 years and see how we do.  then go back 100 and see how we do.  then go back 200, then 400, then 800, then 1600, and see how we do.  By the idea of evolution, the further we go back, the greater we should be in each situation.  We should have evolved into something Greater, a higher being.  Isn't this what we are taught, that the world, the universe is made for us and we are the being that is created in the image of God.  Aren't we led to believe that with each passing era, and with greater knowledge we have grown towards our ultimate version of ourselves?

Drop us back 800 years and most of us would be dead or suffering in very short order.  Think about what it would be like with no Drugstore, no fast food, no grocery.  How would we cope without our cellphones with out cars, with out industry?   Have we evolved or become more dependent?  Are the two opposites, or at odds with each other?

If we have been walking the planet for millions of years, as is the conventional idea, then we got on well enough, for a long time, most of that time, with other than what we deem the absolute necessities of survival today.

The idea put forth at the beginning of this blog was to find some reasonable way of existing and going forward, given all that I know and all that I learn along the journey.  There is no reality or reason to thinking about trying to living now, as humans lived 1000 years ago, or 100,000 years ago.  But there is I believe reason and logic to living differently than we live now, in a manner that reflects the knowledge of what we have come from, how the rest of the living community lives, and the direction the current path of living has us set on.

For how we live upon this planet, we are to many.  For as many as we, are we kill or subjugate other life to readily.  For the intelligent beings we fancy ourselves to be we fail to see the interconnectedness and interdependence of all life and life systems.  For all our concern for our own welfare, we fail to see our own responsibility in the creation of our own suffering, not just our own self destruction as a species, but as individuals.

When my own death is accepted, understood as the way things will be, then life, all life, becomes the most appreciated, magical, perpetual and beautiful thing.  It is a very simple and obvious realization, that once found can not easily be lost.

The 800 lb. Gorilla in the room!

Where does an 800 lb. gorilla sleep?  Anywhere he wants to!
Something so powerful that it can do what it wants to, it is unstoppable.   Gravity, is like that.  We can't get around it.   So too, are the laws that govern the way life works, the way lives interrelate to each other, the way species survive.  The human story, our story, is subject to a law that is unstoppable, unchangeable and the way we live in defiance of that law will prove, is now proving this out.  If we continue to live as though all of creation is about, and for, just us, just our desires, the law that governs all living things will have it's affect.

The Law of Limited Competition is: “You may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may not hunt down your competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to food. In other words, you may compete, but you may not wage war.”

I have just had another of those occurrences, when I read a book and find in it, the articulation of many of the thoughts that I had been mulling over and wishing I could share with others in a way that would be interesting to them.
The book "ISHMAEL" by Daniel Quinn, is a book that should be read by all of us.  One does not have to agree with or even enjoy it, but the ideas within are ones that we should all be conscious of, at least, for a moment in our lives.  There has never been a moment in human history more appropriate for considering these ideas.  Human future, will be directly affected by our consideration of these ideas now.  Consider reading this book.