The system, all these interwoven systems
and the bright patch in the meadow I lucked into
All beyond my control, out of my league, moving without my input
I want to live well: both happily and decently.
I need the systems where I live to stay healthy, not get blown up by nukes, wiped out by economic catastrophe, chopped and scattered by corruptions, melted-flat by upheaval.
I’d like these interconnected mental, physical, and organizational structures that house my nest to do even better: I’d like them to buoy us all up together into joyful creative exploration, building, sharing, unfolding of the beautiful possibilities.
But I just kind of get up, go to work, try to get by; come home, mean to do I don’t know what, get older, worry about my hairline, write another line no one reads, go to sleep without a plan.
What should I do?
For those matters that human ken can catch, there’s study, practice, effort; for all else, we’ve only prayer, meditation, divination.
But I can’t tell what is what, and the only sign I get is the sign I can’t dodge: the heavy feeling of guilt and disappointment, like I’m failing, like I’m wasting it all because I don’t have the heart to find a vision, forge a path, make something stick.
What should I do?
What is the way forward?
What is the error I must undo? Whose error is it? All human errors are interwoven now, and the hot sun is melting the sand into a gloppy glass.
This hurt we trace back along the edges of the slaughtered boar, his entrails now rushing warm and slip-sliding onto the sacred stone; what do we learn from the curve formed by his reticulated intestines collapsing onto the cold gray slate? I can’t scrute it! Perhaps if we grab another of the small-eyed, sharp-tusked, wet-snouted, desperately-bucking captives, perhaps another slice down the center of another squealing creature?? Maybe that would help flush out the details??
No, none of this helps! And it isn’t very nice, either!
What’s next?
Jesus? Getting saved? To be myself a living sacrifice for God? To sacrifice my will to the divine one?
How?
I’m exhausted and flying home from my grandparent’s home in Arizona; there is no way to escape this outcome: the dry piney air and endless morning walks with Grandma are gone. Damn! It’s run through my fingers! The jig is up. I’m caught out. There’s no hope.
How to make things better for yourself and others?
How to live a truly spiritual life? And can it be done without being miserable?
They say the Dalai Lama is happy, but to me it looks more like craziness than happiness. I want to sneak away, to wander away and let the world get better on its own.
But what would I do? The Dalai Lama would like to be able to go off into the mountains and practice meditation all day every day. He feels duty-bound and does not indulge that longing. But I don’t want to practice meditation alone every day. So what is it that I’m not doing for the sake of duty? And what is the duty I’m fulfilling, anyway? Who needs me to do the things I do?
So what then?
I’ll go now to the Oracle at Delphi
What do I do about the Hurt?
Let it go
How?
Give it up
How?
Practice karma
I thought karma was something that happened, not something you practiced
Practice changing the past and the future with kind resolve, with only-love, with palms-wide-open, with