Dodging Dogma

Am I Alone?

Almost every morning, I start my day with a cup of coffee, a cheap Staples notebook and a favorite pen.  I start writing and most days a complaint about a situation comes into my mind and out on the page.  It has a physical sensation of ‘not good.’  So I ask myself some questions around it.  This process has roots back to Byron Katie and her Work.  It starts with questioning the validity, asks how I react when believing it, then who am I without this belief.  I have done this hundreds of times since finding Katie and her process.  While working on either: with or without the belief, I experience a moment which is a light bulb appearing in the darker recesses of my mind.  It all seems perfectly innocent and good, and then….

Dogma happens.  It’s this mind grabbing onto the ‘new’ fact and making something of it.  A new mantra, a new way of living, gotta share it: ‘you just have to hear what I just found out.’  ‘Danger Will Robinson’ (envision the robot waving his expandable arms)  Where is it?  What is the danger?  OK, to me it isn’t the experience, it’s the need to make something of it which is about past (the experience) and future (a new way of being).  It’s mind not wanting or not being able to just be with it. It’s comparing me and my way with you and your way.  (If you only knew what I know, you would be SO much better off)  Silly mind, tricks are for… well, not kids but minds.  Nothing horrible here just mind being.. mind.  The only sad part is when action happens out of dogma.  There are tendrils of Truth, just enough to justify the beginning AND beware (be aware) of where it takes me/you.

Identity Crisis – a one act play

Yes we have no eyes… yet.

Scene: A puppet laying on a shelf in a sunny room with cowboys roping steers on the wall, repeating themselves, never completing the job.  A twin bed positions itself next to a window which shows a tree filled back yard.  In the distance we hear children laughing which fades out.

Puppet:  I just don’t know

Voice:  What don’t you know?

Puppet: Who was that?  I thought I was the only one here!

Voice:  Well obviously you thought wrong.

Puppet:  You didn’t answer me.  Who are you?

Voice:  I’m a dog puppet.  I got left in the corner with the dust bunnies.

Puppet:  That’s what I don’t know.

Dog Puppet: What is it that you don’t know?  I mean what is that, what you don’t know?

Puppet:  You are confusing me.

Dog Puppet:  I think you are already confused.

Puppet: What I don’t know is: what am I?

Dog Puppet:  You don’t know what you are?  That sounds crazy.

Puppet:  That is not helpful.  I can’t help being this way.  You sound so sure of yourself so you must know that you are a dog puppet.  How do you know that?

Dog Puppet:  Well, when my owner puts me on his hand, he barks and whines, just like that 4 legged creature that scares me by dragging me out in the living room.  I’m sure I don’t look as nice as I did when I was made.

Puppet:  That’s just it!  I’ve never seen anything that looks like me.

Dog Puppet:  Well describe yourself, maybe I can help.

Puppet:  Well, I have green stripes, a mouth with a red tongue and some protruding eyebrows.

Dog Puppet: I’m trying to picture you.  I don’t think I have ever seen a creature that looks like you.  What does your owner do when he puts you on?

Puppet:  That’s part of the problem.  Sometimes he makes a hissing sound and sometimes he croaks.  It is just too confusing.

Dog Puppet:  Oh, I see your problem.  You are having an identity crisis.  You don’t know if you are a snake or a frog.  It’s not your fault if your owner can’t decide.

Puppet: It isn’t my fault?  That’s a wonderful way to look at it.  Thank you!

Dog Puppet:  You’re welcome.  I don’t know if I solved your problem.

Puppet:  Well now that I know it isn’t my fault, I think I can just be whatever my owner wants me to be.  Right now, for myself, I’m feeling a bit scaly so I’ll call myself a snake.

Dog Puppet:  Cool!  Maybe I could try another identity but I have these floppy ears and a tail.  What else has floppy ears and a tail?  Gosh, I can’t think of something, can you?  I want to be like you and get to be something different when I feel like it.

Puppet:  You know I don’t think there is another animal with floppy ears.  I think you may be stuck with being a dog puppet.

Dog Puppet:  Well that sucks!

Puppet:  I’m sorry for you.

Just then the door opens with a bang and 2 children come into the room.  One of them grabs up the dog puppet and starts barking.  The second one grabs up the other puppet and starts hopping around the room.

Squirrel

 

The sunlight creeps across the floor.  I sigh and shift my body, bored beyond belief.

Finally she takes me outside.  I’ve been sitting at the French doors, watching the trees for hours!    She was doing her usual thing, sitting at the table.  She can sit there for a long time.  She says she is busy when she looks at me but I know busy and sitting is not busy.

Heaven for me is breathing outside in the fresh air and savoring all the smells.  It is a warm spring day when the earth is emerging from the snow pack. When I can smell the scent of the dirt and all those little animals waking up from hibernation.  Ah, sniff that divine odor.

What’s that?  A movement catches my eye, a slight rustle of the dried leaves; a flash of brown. It’s squirrel! I am off in a flash.  I get into a run and yank; I’m brought up short by the stupid leash tied to the railing.  The squirrel continues on his merry way, leaving me panting and frustrated.  I keep trying to get him, yanking at the post, maybe sometime I’ll get free to run and chase but not this time. 

I decide to give up and chew on the old bone which has lost almost all of its flavor.  It’s not as interesting as when I first got it with luscious bits of meat and the marrow.  That distracted me from the hunt of squirrel for quite a while but now it is not even a poor substitute.

Doesn’t she realize how much I need to chase squirrels?  I look at her, imploring her with my eyes; I whine; I vibrate when I see them and still she won’t give in to me and let me chase them.

When get to go for a walk, it’s on the road and she keeps me on a leash.  I sniff new places where other dogs have been. On high alert, I scan the trees and bushes for the objects of my desire.  Sometimes, I come to a complete stop, my body tense, listening and smelling the air.  I am good at not pulling; the tightness of the harness annoys me and I have learned she doesn’t like me when I pull.  If I come back to her; she calls me good and sometimes gives me a treat.  I always want to be good but sometimes those little devils, I mean squirrels, get my blood pumping and my feet scrambling and I forget all about being good.

After we go for a long walk, I get a little sleepy when I lay in my bed.  She goes back to sitting, claiming she has work to do.  I try not to nod off but my head starts to droop and soon I am asleep.

Then it happens, suddenly I am free and I run outside so excited.  I don’t know what to do first, my feet are moving and I give a little whine.  What’s that?  Squirrel! I’m off tail high, feet flying and just as I get to the tree, I hear “Polly, wake up!  Were you dreaming about squirrels again?”

Trapped in a Metaphor

I started writing about writing and compared writing to knitting and found myself stuck in the metaphor.  The idea of writing being like knitting became the subject instead of the feelings involved when I see a half-assed piece sitting in front of me, telling me to give it up.

I found I wanted to tell you how it was all good.  That it was a process.  What I wasn’t doing was grieving for the loss of what I was going to make.  There is the moment when it comes to me, this is not working and I need to stop now.

This Mind, with it’s new age spirituality, will say: no problem, it’s all good, we can use some of it somewhere, at least we are writing.  Yet it is like filling a hole with fluff. It looks solid to everyone else but I know it’s still there.

So how to feel the loss without wallowing in it, using it to push away starting again?  I find I have no solid answer.  I see a picture of honoring the old will moving on with the new.

There is a lesson forming and still too fuzzy for me to put into words.  A way of being with the words as they appear and still capable of seeing a path to the finish line.  

Routines

Last night I was given a prompt to write a blog about routines.  This was during a monthly writing workshop at a local public library.  I noticed I immediately launched into a diary of a day in my life. 

What is a routine?  At the end of my writing last night, I questioned the definition: when I am tromping around on the same trail in the woods, my dog is relishing the new smells wafting her way.  Here is what I wrote: For Polly it’s always fresh in smells and sounds, squirrel trails and neighbor dogs.  Letting the stale, inside air leave her body, filling herself up before curling up for a long nap at home.

 Later on, I found myself pondering routines and early this morning, while writing in my trusty notebook, some ideas came to light.

 I have been wrestling with the idea of routine all my life.  I blame my Mom and her schedules: breakfast, cleaning, shopping, etc.  It all seemed to have a place in a weekly schedule.  Benefits to me: food on the table; clean house; clean clothes; comfort: certainty.  Detractors: lack of warmth, spontaneity, and passion.  Interruptions by noisy, messy children not tolerated so well.  So did I trade my passion for perfection?  Feels too global to me, in any given moment, a thousand possibilities come forward.

So washing the dishes: the warmth of the water tempering the cold of the hands.  The sticky crud on the dishes challenged by the slippery soap.  A bubble floats free of the bottle, traveling briefly before landing lightly, trembling and vanishes.  Do I really believe at 8:05 AM tomorrow that same bubble will show up?

Celebration of Below Zero (F)

I may be officially crazy or just stunned by cold but I celebrated what I believe to be our last below zero morning.  It was only slightly below zero yet cold enough to feel it seeping into the gloves, capturing the exposed nose and making the snow solid enough to walk on top.  I tried to take it in for use when it is 90, with bugs biting and sweat trickling down my back.  

I’m not sure it ever works and I still notice I do this, try to play the frozen winter against the steamy summer, hoping to end up with a nice temperate spring or fall.  It is so easy to fall into a complaint about what weather brings me and yet it seems to be the first thing that I have learned to accept with my possible change in consciousness.  Complaining about the weather, while very popular and a great conversation starter, doesn’t cause it to change.  Weather is what it is.  Can’t even take it or leave it, just experience it.  To some it might seem heartless, to me it is refreshing to have something that just is what it is, not worried about my opinion at all.

So just like menopause, which is only officially declared after a certain time period has passed, I am saying this is my last below zero morning for the winter of 2013/2014.  And I get to see what weather has to say about that.

 

Confession: Good for the Soul?

Working on my daily investigation into my thoughts started with writing about the time when my Sheltie, Pip was lost.  I noticed a need to thank the people who helped me.  Not that it was a bad thing to do, it’s the push to do it; a little bit of neediness that I looked into this morning.

What I found behind it was the belief I was a bad owner.  It is totally true that I did not have Pip on a leash.  What I get for making myself a bad owner is I get to confess to God and now to you.  Somehow I find that confessing let’s me off the hook.

When I confess, my mind goes, OK that’s over.  I’ve let it out, let’s move on.  However, it doesn’t get to the reason why I let my dog run free.  In looking at this, I might change how I act in the future.  So I let him run free because I think he likes it, he seems happy.  I let him run free because it’s easier then tying him up.  I let him run free because I don’t want to hear him barking if I tie him up.  Now those are real concrete reasons I let him run free.  This is Truth speaking, at least it feels more like Truth then just saying I am a bad owner.  When I confess to you that I am a bad owner, I make it your job to forgive me.  If I look into my actions and my beliefs that cause my actions, I get closer to the truth and I can let go of the guilt which can allow me to be at peace.

I don’t know if I will or won’t let me dog off the leash in the future.  It feels like a more informed decision after this ‘confession.’  I won’t be a mindless owner turning into a guilty owner.  And we will see.

Wise words from my teacher:  100% responsibility (for my part) = 0% guilt and 0% blame

On writing

I confess I have been writing a book, at least it seems like a book.  It started with a writing prompt in an adult education creative writing course and has taken on a life.  I was talking to a friend just yesterday about my concerns.  My writing seems to move along, not many details.  In fact, where this character lives hasn’t even come up until I went to write her brother’s obituary and found a need to put a name of a town.  

So I am worried that I am not putting enough effort into my writing.  Everyone talks about it being a hard thing to do.  I do notice I will stay away from it for a while.  Sometimes it feels like I don’t want to get to the ending.  Sometimes it feels like I am going to mess it up because I don’t have a clue about how to write.  Then like today, I just got to a “Whoa, didn’t see this one coming!” and “What the heck is she going to do?”  So I decided to blog ;-).  It’s still writing yet it feels safer, not as important.  Why do I think I can’t undo what I write with this character?  I truly don’t know.  My fear appears to be that I just don’t want it to be trite.  I may need to get into her just a wee bit more before I can find what her reaction will be.  Or am I just being a chicken?  

Don’t know and I hope to remain open to what happens.

In the meantime, here is a funny quote I found while looking for a quote to put on urn holding the ashes of her brother.  From Frank Lloyd Write: “A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.”

Not sure what an author can do.

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/frank_lloyd_wright.html#HeYhppthU4TTuUzb.99

Daily Personal Investigations

I notice that I have been silent as far as posting on my blog.  I have been extremely selfish, doing my investigations on paper, only sharing with one person from time to time.  My thoughts are that what little readership I have, won’t get it.  That is presumptuous of me. 

So here is today’s investigation.  It’s about attempting to fix my husband who is now my ex.  Paraphrasing Byron Katie  ‘Trying to change another person is like trying to teach a cat to bark.’  So what would I get if I taught this cat to bark.  I would have a miracle (cue music, angels descending) and I did it or he did it for me and that means he really loves me.  Prove it. Prove it.  Prove it. I don’t believe it and I’m not worth it.  Bartering with God, false humility, playing some kind of Christian game and I know this and make myself a bad person.

Leading to: ‘People need to be protected from me.’  Wow, that was painful and I sat with it for a little while. I’ve done enough of this investigative work to see there was something in this more then a blow to the midsection.  Benefit of being a monster, scare people away, have power, be significant / not invisible, get my way, make other people do my bidding (the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland appears “Off with their heads!”)

I am capable of being angry, threatening, violent, not helping, hurting or trying to hurt.

My ex is good at protecting himself, maybe that is the reason I left.

The real reason I am upset with him is he won’t play my game, I can’t manipulate him.

There, I outed my mind to you because that is what this is, my mind wanting to get it’s way, having a tantrum, wanting to stay identified as this person.  It is not pretty, it’s definitely not what I want you to think about me and I can’t control how you see me even if I use beautiful, spiritual words.  The peace for me is to understand where mind is trying to run my life. 

For more information about Byron Katie: http://www.thework.com

 

On being Critical

What comes to this mind is a scenario that happened many years ago. I was at a horse clinic in Arizona where Harry Whitney (see below) was working with a woman and her horse in the round pen. I was one of the bystanders, watching what was going on. Harry had given an exercise for the woman to do with her horse. It was obvious to me (and others) that she didn’t have a clue about what to do. So we all decided to ‘help’ her with suggestions. “no, move that way” “you need to wait on the feet” “swing the rope at his butt” “no the other way” Then Harry said to us “no wonder you have such problems with your horses.” Oh, the silence when the Truth was shown to me. One expects this to come from angels descending from heaven and not hurt quite so much. I can still feel the OUCH! and feel mind’s reaction of sniffling and pouting, wanting to point the finger anywhere but towards me. When I get really still, I can feel the kindness in what he said. It’s not just the horse that gets the over corrections and mixed messages, it is me that gets it from the Critic. ‘No, not that word, this word, You think you know how to write? Don’t you dare hit that publish button before it is perfect.’ Sound familiar?

Harry Whitney – From the Horse’s Point of View