Full disclosure

Firstly, I want to apologise for my last blog, which contained unsolicited advice thinly disguised as, well, a blog.  My intentions were good, but we all know what the road to hell is paved with.  From now on, stories/personal truth only.

I tend to operate on a boom and bust cycle.  Last weekend with its lots of writing, lots of getting stuff done, was followed by a crash.  It is normal for me to have creative-quiet-creative patterns of functioning and I generally accept this.  I say generally, because it is still not uncommon for me, during these quiet periods, to wonder if ‘it’ has gone forever and whether I will ever write anything again.  Sometimes, in a peaceful/philosophical moment, I wonder if this is something to aspire to, to get to a place where I have nothing left to say.

So I had that, plus I was fighting off a cold, plus I was engaged in the battle (even if a lot of it was only in my own head),  best described by the band Pulp:  ‘You’ve got to fight to the death for the right to live your life.’  Yes, I know that doesn’t actually make any literal sense, but I find the sentiment strengthening.  Probably connected with this, I was getting preoccupied and a bit anxious about ‘the future’.

I’d been all ‘hearth and home’;  thinking that all I had to do was practical stuff such as painting and cleaning, no ‘spiritual’ stuff.  I thought that all I needed to do was focus on sorting out the house and getting on a plane.  That is what I’m doing, but it’s not enough to sustain me.  I need to maintain my awareness of why I’m doing it.

I’m not just going travelling for the sake of it, to ‘have an adventure before it’s too late’ as I tell family/work people.  I am purposefully dismantling my current reality and stepping outside of everything known in order to raise my frequency and reset my life.  Reset my mind, and thereby my life.  Reset my life and thereby my mind.  It’s a chicken and egg kind of thing.

So I didn’t last all that long without a spiritual guru, returning yesterday evening and this morning to reconnect with the path, the tell-me-again-why-I-am-doing-all-this.  I heard everything I needed to:  that after a decisive action there is often a testing period (hence the fatigue, anxiety etc); plus lots of encouraging words and information that chimed with me and therefore reassured me.

On the other side of the week was today:  walking along, writing at the same time.  I reached the last page of my notebook today.  I don’t know if it means anything that this is what I wrote about there:

At the weekend I engaged in some lower frequency activities and whilst I was in bed with my husband I had a complete flashback, totally terrifying, of something that may or may not have happened to me as a child with one of my mum’s lodgers.  I explored this in my book How to find Heaven on Earth, although perhaps I didn’t do a good enough job.  My husband had told me, tell me if you get paranoid, and so I did.  Do you want to talk about it, he asked.  No, no, too scary- distract me, I said.  But what would have happened if I had?

I’ve been so smug about letting go of the past, all the decluttering, the way I’ve wrapped my head around the theory of there being no past; thinking that I don’t want or need memories, that all I want is awareness, and believing that awareness is all we need to sustain us, even in old age.  But the one thing I can’t get rid of is my own body.  In fact, it’s the only thing I need, along with clothing and shelter, food and water for it.  And so I can’t let go of the memories stored inside, or at least, not by decluttering anyway.

How on earth do you begin a dialogue/exploration/treatment of something like that?  Do I carry on having sex with my husband and hence experience the flashbacks/in order to experience the flashbacks and therefore be able to explore them in the moment?  That was clearly too terrifying.  Do I just carry on, let it feel what it feels- nice- or expect it to feel horrible- which it doesn’t, but I imagine that it would have hurt.  Every bit of my logical mind/conditioning would point to this.  So the idea of it feeling nice is the most terrifying of all.  It’s not even like I can ask anyone, hey, is it possible that it could have felt nice?  People would be horror struck.  I’m horror struck.  Was the other night just paranoia/a hallucination?  Was it a (missed) opportunity to do some radical trauma therapy?  How do I know if any of those memories are real?

Please don’t be afraid to share any observations you may have, I am totally at the limits of my powers here!  Any advice would be welcome.

With metta

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reasons to be cheerful

Tags

awareness, depression, mental health, reality, spirituality

I don’t have a smart phone, I don’t read newspapers, I don’t look at any online news media.  This is fine when I am out of the house, I always carry a notebook (moleskine) and pen (pilot G2).  But what to do in the house, in those little bits of inbetween times, waiting for dinner to cook or a bath to run; or just wanting to do something diverting for a little while.  My husband has particular things he watches on youtube.  I, nowadays, have wordpress blogs.

I don’t want to get overwhelmed with too many blogs coming into my inbox, or end up spending too much time on the internet, so I am very discerning about who I follow.  I have got it down to a few that are all different and that I have chosen for different reasons:  writes beautifully about Japan, I want to go there now!  Has a great bio.  Describes Buddhism in action.  Teaches me about India.  Writes about writing.  And then there are the young women who are so smart, who write so well and so openly at the same time, about a whole range of subjects, some inside my experience, some not, who are putting their observations and opinions out there for us readers and writers to experience and learn about each others lives.

So it seems like such a shame when these same smart, funny, capable individuals report their sadnesses and struggles.  I want to offer unsolicited advice, words of encouragement; to be able to say something that might help.

I don’t know if that is possible though.  I don’t know if when I was sad and lonely, when I couldn’t see further than the fog in front of my face, when I didn’t even know I was on a path, let alone that that path would lead me from ‘There’ to ‘Here’, when I didn’t even know that ‘Here’ existed…  If someone had said to me, keep going, hang in there, it won’t always be like this, one day you’ll look back and find your life, and you, have changed beyond recognition, would it have helped?

I don’t know.  But I do know that on the other side of friction and difficulty is growth, and that it’s the strange world/society/life we live in, until we break out of it, that is often the problem, rather than the sensitive, creative individual that is struggling (although it is the individual who has to change things).

Who knows what is going to be the thing to trip the switch?  Meeting someone, taking up a practice, changing something, anything, that in turn triggers some kind of shift.

And in the meantime, there’s always cats!

Meet Fred (big, and extremely cuddly once he gets to know you)

and Alfie (adventurous, sits outside the house making friends with all the passers by; one little girl calls him ‘Steve’.  Will sit on anybody’s lap if they sit down for two minutes).

With metta.

Push where it moves

Tags

awareness, escape the matrix, Law of Attraction, marriage, relationships, spirituality, writing

I used to think this a lot when I was in the midst of searching for a ‘spiritual’ path and exploring ideas such as the law of attraction.  I used to think of finding the panel in the wall to push, or the right part of the bookcase to touch, to reveal a secret doorway or hidden room.  I also used to think of it in terms of go with the flow; if it’s coming easily, it’s the right path.  My husband says that if things are too hard then maybe you aren’t doing them the right way and would find it easier if you changed method.  This is the opposite of the ‘no pain, no gain; life is hard’ conditioning we are all subjected to.  But as one of the last bits of spiritual advice I listened to said:  look what the herd is doing and do the opposite.

But what does ‘push where it moves’ mean to me right now?  Because right now I don’t seem to have to push much at all.* I don’t even seem to have to ‘write’ anymore, it just comes.  And although I am not looking externally for signs and assistance (as I used to when I was first getting into all this stuff), they seem to be coming anyway:  coming out of the supermarket with no clue as to where I had parked the car, I see a shiny red car and remember walking past it on my way in.  Later the same day I park at the beach car park, look up and see a shiny red car parked next to me.  It had a parking ticket in the window facing me, which reminded me I needed to get one; I would certainly have forgot otherwise.  (The other week I parked at the train  station and although I remembered to buy a ticket, I left it in the machine and didn’t put it in my car.  Happily I did not get a penalty ticket.)

Maybe I don’t need to push where it moves anymore.  Maybe all I, or anyone, needs to do is to raise myself up to my highest vibration and let ‘it’/ the universe/me do the rest.  This is beautifully described here in an interview on Desert Island Discs with the violinist Nicola Benedetti.  This is such a great interview, I really recommmend listening to it, nothing to do with whether you know who she is or are into the music, it is just fascinating.  (I have written about this before in my book about my spiritual awakening, but this is what I was listening to on the day I drove to bathe in the North Norfolk sea in early January, as part of my commitment to the spiritual path.)

Also, although I wouldn’t have described it that way at the time, it is how I met my husband:  I had just done a swimathon which had meant ten weeks of training, towards the end swimming 160 lengths three times a week, so I was fit and healthy.  I was baking cakes all the time and writing women’s erotica.  I was going out all the time, including to weddings by myself, following the ‘never refuse an invitation’ advice, which meant, it was pre vegan days, eating a lot of pizza.  John told his friend about this new woman he had met who had brought him homemade cake and had her erotic stories for sale in Waterstones and his friend said, you might as well just marry her.

New motto:  All you have to do is nothing**

New little writerly rituals:  putting a song in and then listening to it as I proof read (not always successfully I know).

Anyway, for me now, ‘push where it moves’ means Jenga.  But why bother being gentle?  It’s going to fall anyway.  It’s really just about making something fall but other people taking the blame for it, or everyone making something fall but one person taking the fall.  And all the time you could just knock it down with one swipe of your hand anyway.  Or not build it in the first place.  Or build something else, a car, a house, a path.  Yes, a path:  straight or windy, zigzag, steep, broken…  But I don’t suppose that would make a very good Christmas game would it?

*Except to make myself do decorating/cleaning; of which I am proud to report that I have done two hours of today already, and so can happily justify being snuggled up in bed right now with the heater on, writing this ensconced in a pile of pillows and blankets.

**Except painting and cleaning, of course…

You say thank you just by being yourself

Tags

escape the matrix, reality, The matrix

Several years ago I had a student who had spent time in Japan.  During her placement with me she did some workshops including sushi making and calligraphy.  She taught us how to write our names in Japanese, as well as their Japanese meaning.  I did my husband’s name.  We had only just met and I was in the full throws of this new love and the associated spiritual awakening that had come with it.  So to say that I was happy when she told me that his name meant ‘God Has Given’, is an understatement.

I was so excited and pretty crazy when we first got together.  I used to go on and on about how amazing it was, how lucky, how can I say thank you, to him, to Him, to the Universe, the whole world…  John just used to say:  You say thank you just by being yourself.

In the film The Matrix the machines said that the first matrixes they made were perfect, lovely, but the people didn’t believe them.  They went mad, or kept trying to wake up.  People didn’t believe that such a perfect world was real, and so the machines had to put bad stuff in to make it like it is now.

Which maybe explains why we have things like this:* We have the technology to build soft crash barriers that absorb the shock of impact and save the lives and bodies of those people in the cars that crash into them…  but we don’t use them, we don’t implement the technology.

Is it because if everything was good (like it was, and is, in my world:  job, home, happiness etc), it would mean that people were happy, and not tired and sad.  So they would begin to look elsewhere…  begin to wake up…  begin to think, that’s nice, but is that it?

And ‘they’ can’t have us all selling up and liquidating and dropping out can they?  No energy harvesting would go on.  But it’s the only way:  ignore the car crashes and the tragedies, it’s all in your head anyway.  Create the life you want- not even by having to imagine it yourself…  but just by BEING YOURSELF.

I looked up the Japanese meaning of the name John, it said it doesn’t mean anything, it can’t, because it can’t translate.  I don’t care:  I don’t need to be told that God gave him to me, I know I couldn’t have imagined him myself.**

My mum said to me the other day, if John hadn’t met you he’d still be driving a bus (instead of doing a job he really enjoys).   Aside from the fact that John has had just as much of a postive effect on me in terms of career, it’s not those things that are ultimately important (except as signs and markers that the bigger stuff is going on).  And the bigger stuff, she doesn’t seem to notice.  I was like a baby compared with what I know now, suicidal, asleep, alone with just a bottomless need and capacity for Something More.  Now, every fibre of my being is taut, ready, alive:  Awake.  I know who I am, what this is, and most importantly, what I’m going to do about it.  But that’s not that easy to explain to your mum over a cup of tea is it?

*This is just one example out of millions; for every disease there is a plant to cure it.

**Or could I?!

It’s A Maze!

Tags

Brian Molko, escape the matrix, Placebo, reality, Work

I’m a big fan of the band Placebo.  Not in the typical sense; I have only ever bought one album, don’t know hardly any of their songs and when my friend was looking to sell her ticket to their sold out Brixton Academy show I didn’t bite her hand off.

But when my son was about seven (20+ years ago) we decided I would paint his room.  He chose the colour from a piece of deep sea blue card one of his drawings had been mounted on at school and I got the colour mixed to match.  Whilst my son was at school I played the first Placebo album over and over whilst I did the painting.  At night whilst he was asleep I stencilled little fish on the walls, using what I had to hand; polypocket wallets as stencils, acrylic paint and mixed up glitter left over from making Christmas cards.

Also during this period I was into doing a Rosemary Conley exercise video.  Once I’d got used to it I didn’t need to listen to the instructions (or the awful soundtrack) so I used to turn the sound down and listen to Placebo instead.

Also, as if to cement it into a special place in my heart, the front cover of the album was a photograph of a little boy who bore a passing resemblance to my son.

This is my favourite song from that album:

One of the things I really love about Placebo, and this is quite childish I know, is that the lyrics can be so catchy and singalong and at the same time so inappropriate to sing at work or in the supermarket carpark.  I often make myself laugh by finding myself singing I’m a fool/ whose tool is small/it’s so miniscule it’s no tool at all/two rubbers two lubes and a silver rocket or this from one of the songs I am obsessively listening to at the moment:  no hesitation no delay/you come on just like Special K/just like I swallowed half my stash and never ever wanna crash.

I also completely love this:

In the comments someone points out how this was in the days before camera phones with everyone just focussed on being totally there.  So much energy, so much unadulterated joy…  and that’s just me in my sitting room…

A few weeks ago my husband bought me the Placebo album Black Market Music from the charity shop and I have since been listening to track 3 (Special K) and track 8 (more on that in a moment) over and over again in the car.  I’ve had the album for a few weeks but only just started playing it:  Timing is everything; it wouldn’t have meant so much even just a few weeks back.  The song mentions ‘Maggie’s farm’, I don’t totally know what that means, I assume it’s like ‘The Man’ and then yesterday evening with the ipod on shuffle out of four and a half thousand songs it could have played it plays Bob Dylan: Maggie’s Farm.  Did I say timing is all?

Just before we gave up, for the moment at least, listening to other people giving us spiritual advice, my husband found some youtube videos all about the importance of language, where words come from and phonetics.  I was only mildly interested, but for five minutes I did play around with the phonetics of some of my favourute blog titles.  I looked at ‘amazing’.  I wondered what ‘ing’ was supposed to mean, but I couldn’t be bothered to look it up.  I wasn’t even all that struck by A Maze.  As I said, timing is everything.

Track 8 of Black Market Music:

So even though I’m switched off from spiritual gurus for the moment, it seems I’ll make an exception for Brian Molko

Run away from all your boredom/all it takes is one decision/a lot of guts and a little vision/to wave your worries and cares goodbye/it’s a maze, a maze for rats to try/it’s a race, a race for rats to die/run away, run away

So, so perfect for right now*.  Thank you.

*This album actually came out in 2000 but there’s no such thing as time, right?  It’s only ever right now.

Thank you

Tags

gratitude, writing

This song used to be played in shavasana (the relaxation section) at the end of a yoga class I used to go to.  So it’s not surprising that for me it exemplifies peace.

Arriving home after work.  Not frenetic, not trying to push away, not pushing myself, much better able to settle into the moment.

Like most writers, I had rituals around writing:  clear and wipe the coffee table, unroll my yoga mat, fold it exactly in half, fold the rug exactly in half on top of that, matching the edges up neatly.  We have a newer laptop but I always worked on my old one and had to be patient while everything loaded.  I would save everything in a word document, email it to myself twice and then post it on wordpress.

Now, getting ready for travelling, I just type everything straight into wordpress on my tablet.  I’m getting the hang of doing typing on a small screen, and moving between windows.  It’s not so easy to copy links and insert pictures compared to using a laptop.  Not so easy, but I’ve done it.

I love the title of this blog, postcards from the present moment.  I used to have all these notebooks, drawers full of them.  Writing used to be so hard, an amorphous mass of notes that were written like a diary, live, then as I tried to rework them into a coherent narrative for a book they would flatten and die.  Not like blogging.  Blogging is live, right now, right up to date.

And if I change, if I contradict myself, if I change my mind…  If yesterday I thought this, and tomorrow I think that…  well then that just goes to show we are all the same, because that’s what we all do.

I used to have songs I’d listen to on a loop, my writing songs, on youtube, playing in another window whilst I was writing:

But it’s like the story of the cat on the pole:  (Once upon a time some monks found that they were disturbed whenever they meditated by a young cat that would smooch around them, so they decided that whenever they were going to meditate they would put it on a lead and tie it to a pole so it wouldn’t disturb them.  Over time, this became a ritual.   Eventually, the cat got old and died, and the monks ended up getting another cat, as everyone felt they couldn’t meditate properly without there being a cat tied to a pole.)  None of my writerly rituals are necessary, because I’ve never felt so flowy, written blogs so often and had ideas come so frequently, as now.

I want to say

thank you

to you

for reading.

If there is anything you want to ask me or anything you would like to suggest as a topic to explore together please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

With metta

As good as it gets?*

Tags

gratitude, happiness, marriage, relationships

This is a photograph of me and my husband at our wedding party in 2013.**  The wedding day is supposed to be the best day of your life, but really that is only helpful if it provides a foundation for now.  The best day of your life can be now, with special events serving as a reminder to have fun like that again.

Yesterday the cats woke me up, I was momentarily irritated until I saw that it was 8am.  I had gone to bed at 10pm so I had had loads of sleep.  I fed the cats, made a cup of tea and went back to bed with my tea and my tablet.  I looked up things about Thailand:  TEFL courses, animal sanctuaries, homeless westerners, women’s projects, ex pats, what to bring…   I ordered cute homemade baby clothes from Etsy for a work baby shower.  A man knocked at the door, a modern version of ‘any old iron’, and took the shell of the broken storage heater.  I answered the door with unbrushed hair and no bra.

I got up and ate breakfast:  a hot cross bun and a banana and more tea, then put on my painting clothes and the ipod and painted the skirting board, a second coat from the day before and a first coat on a new section.

I drank coffee.  I washed my face and got dressed.  I made a smoothie.  I went for a walk across the fields.  It was the tail end of the hurricane and it was very warm, warm enough for sunblock.

Whilst I was walking the idea and content of yesterday’s blog came to me.  I came home and called the council and asked for two new bins, ours are too small.  It was one of those jobs I’d thought I’d never get around to.  I wrote to a successful blogger to ask about a guest post.  I wrote my blog and posted it.

I painted the second coat of the new section.  I had a wash.  I went to the local grocery shop.  My husband came home from work.  We ate a late lunch together:  sos mix vegeburgers, butter beans, avocado, tomatoes.  More coffee.

We drove to Southwold and had a walk along the promenade.  It was very windy and the sea was rough but it was warm at the same time because of the hurricane.  We found a new cafe that was open late and had dinner there; the proprietor was extraordinarily chatty.

We drove home.   It was still only 7pm.  I made a couple of calls.  I did some yoga.  I looked up Russell Brand’s cafe.  I read some people’s blogs.  I was in bed by 11pm.

I had had plenty of time for everything.  I hadn’t felt rushed in any way.  I got ‘tasks’ done, I did exercise, I did writing and I had plenty of time for cuddling cats and messing about on the internet.  I felt relaxed and slow.  It felt as though there was no discernable difference between any of the things I did:  No, this is a chore; this is fun.  Everything just seemed to flow.

It’s on days like these that I really think, that’s it, I’ve cracked it.  I want to say thank you, or, well done, or just, ok, that was good.

*one of my favourite films

**We got married with no fuss, just two witnesses and the kids.  My husband’s family had a small party for us at their house.  I made the cake.

How to not have sex with your husband

Tags

awareness, erotica, love, marriage, relationships

 

Those of you that have read previous blogs will be aware that my husband and I have been experimenting with tearing ourselves away from wild and crazy sex and practising abstinence, karezza, or at least some measure of control.

Up until now this has largely taken the form of imposing rules on ourselves, not only about when and how much to have sex and orgasms, but also rules around behaviour, in order to ‘make it easier’.

Us being us, these rules fluctuate week to week and are frequently broken, but nonetheless, we have given it a go.  Things like no groping each other, no kissing, no spoon cuddling in bed, no getting naked, no looking at each other ‘like that’.

And then at the prescribed time, usually the weekend, we ‘switch it on’ or set ourselves free and turn, briefly, into sex maniacs again for 48 hours.  Well sometimes we do, sometimes we might be more restrained than that, but it is basically on or off.

And even though one of ‘our songs ‘ is called All Or Nothing, this approach didn’t actually work all that well for us.

Although we talked about it a lot, it wasn’t until we did things differently that we realised why, and more importantly, what might help it work in the future.

So the other night, we got into bed, it was the weekend but one of us had floated the idea of that not necessarily meaning we had to have sex, so neither of us were sure, although both were prepared to do it if the other one wanted to.  We ended up having a kiss and a cuddle and falling into a deep and refreshing sleep.

The next morning we woke up, kissed, cuddled and then talked:  my husband said, I feel like I am on the edge of a precipice.  I said, perhaps we should follow the American virgins* and only do it if we are really sure.  We also reflected on how nice it was, and how satisfying, to be intimate and affectionate, without having sex.  I realised then what I hadn’t liked about the ‘All Or Nothing’ approach:  the having to switch off and on my sexuality and my affection.  I want to be able to be warm and affectionate and to feel sexy and attractive, according to the mood and colour of the present moment, not the day on the calendar.  I think we can do this, and that a more natural approach will work better for us.

*This is in no way meant to offend any Americans, it was just me referring to True Love Waits and those kinds of movements, which we don’t really have, or don’t have to such an extent, in the UK.

 

No More Advice!

Tags

spirituality

The thing about self improvement is to know when to stop.*

When I was into Buddhism I learned about the Worldly Winds of Praise and Blame and so I do try to take praise lightly, understanding that it is only of its moment.

The reference I got from my first job described me as ‘unfailingly friendly and helpful’.   At my appraisal a couple of weeks ago my manager said I had tackled every problem with a calm, assured approach.  Both these descriptions pleased me very much.  The first one is nice, if a bit Golden Retriever-ish, and the second, well, if before I aimed to please, more recently my main aim has been to remain calm.  Maybe that doesn’t sound like a lot of fun, but perhaps it was an inbetween stage, between wanting to please and how I feel right now.

I have felt in touch with the calm stillness within, but the past few days I’ve felt something else, something more solid.  A strength, a power.  So if before I valued feeling calm, now I value feeling strong.  ‘Be the boulder’ is a phrase that keeps popping into my mind.  And ‘Why feel good when you can feel really great?’

And part of this is taking a break from being told what to do, or even listening to suggestions of any kind (re the ‘spiritual path’, I’ll still take advice on car maintenance or Excel).  After all, I know what to do right now:  paint the skirting boards, paint the cubby hole.  Not only that, having been through a phase of exploring, listening to opinions on everything from cutting my hair to the energy in and out of cat stroking, I just feel I want a bit of space to explore this for myself.

In the past I have oscilated between what I have called theory and practice, or immersion and integration.  Falling off the path, getting back on it again.  Following new people, philosophies or practices to get me back on again, then wanting to go it alone again, falling off the path until a new person or philosophy sparks my interest…  You get the picture.  I don’t think I would fall back to sleep again now, but I suppose one can never be sure…

*This is the title of a blog, I didn’t read it so I don’t know if it’s a joke or not.  And although I kind of agree with the sentiment right now, I am sure I will be back on it again before too long.

 

Keep it in*

Tags

happiness, mental health, OCD, reality

I don’t feel amazing ALL THE TIME.  I am not in control of my thoughts all the time.  I just spent 48 hours plagued by a cocktail of shame, panic, anxiety and OCD type thoughts and all the time the phrase ‘your thoughts create your reality’ was playing in my mind like a threat, a warning, or at the very least, a taunt.

The trigger was an everyday event that could happen to anyone:  a decision you make, then afterwards wonder did I make a mistake?  Do I need to check on that?  Can I check on that?  If something goes wrong because of what I did…  Shame, and panic ensured.  So no, I’m not immune to difficulties.   Why did it happen?  Engaging in ‘low frequency activities’ probably didn’t help and was maybe even the entire cause.  However, coming up close against my own mind like that wasn’t an entirely wasted experience.  I saw my thoughts for what they were.  Unpleasant as it was, I knew what was going on.  And strangely enough, when after 48 hours I was able to check in and found, of course, that everything was absolutely fine, that my worst fears had not actually been realised, I didn’t actually feel that different.  Even through the 48 hours, I went to work, I stayed reasonably calm and positive and I kept in touch with my awareness, unpleasant though some aspects were.

More letting go of furniture and objects around the house.  Thinking of old people whose homes haven’t been decorated for years and who have had the same things around them for years.  As they do less outside the home, and spend more time in it, maybe the wallpaper, the furniture, the ornaments, maybe they all loom larger.  Because those things are given more attention and are all tied up with the memories they hold.  People say things are important because they hold our memories.  People say when they customise their homes they put something of themselves into it.  Yes, they do:  they put in energy from the present moment.  Just having things takes your energy, either if you believe in things being created by your own mind; or else via the emotional resonance of the object; or just simply by the energy involved in dusting, cleaning and noticing it.

So if you didn’t have those things, that same energy would remain in you (or go back into you if you get rid of the things and cut ties to them).  Let’s think about it for a moment:  where would you rather your life force, your energy, resided; inside you, to make you as strong, as powerful and as full of energy as possible, or in an old starburst clock?

Is this why people get old?  Not only do they stop moving, they also let their energy drain out into things, houses, wallpaper, curtains…

In the garden today, noticing the stone white goose the old person left behind, the earthenware pots… I fell in love so easily, I loved it just as it was, I didn’t want to change a thing.  Yet today, pulling up the vegetables, much of them planted and left untended and uneaten, I’m okay, I’m ready to leave.  As if, that was nice, or, that was strange, but it’s over now.  I thought about work:  I’m leaving before I go insane.  Or perhaps I am insane, that’s why I am leaving.  I’ve been doing this fairly conventional job for twenty years- I have no friends at work, no ‘people’; I get anxious every morning before work, even after all this time.  Why?  Why have I been doing this to myself?  Until recently, I thought I was happy there.  As Jung says:

 

*As in energy- don’t put it into Things.  As in sex- keep it in your pants.  As in don’t- sometimes it’s best to share what’s going on.