The balcony porch overlooking the trees and golf course provides solace for meditation for me and the pit bull lying next to my chair. I read, and the dog soaks in the fresh air and warm rays. Then the nuisance of the electronic probe called a cell-phone horns in on the scene. For all of the convenience they provide, they are an infernal nuisance. Robocalls out the wazoo. This time it's my friend again. His breathlessness communicates that it's another life or death drama. That is his perception of his world. He is gloating that he caught his girlfriend offering favors on the internet, and he has the screenshots. He snooped on her cell phone while she was asleep. It's apparent that she is playing with several others, but he's known this for a long time. It isn't fresh news. He wants her and despises her at the same time. He already knows my take on the whole issue. So I take the opposite approach and suggest he marry her. They seem to be made for each other. Another morning of reading derailed by a conundrum that isn't one.
Monthly Archives: July 2021
Do, or Do Not
Time’s Up
On the porch again with trusty pitbull sprawled out. It's overcast today but comfortable. I'm starting to focus on my reading when the cell ring-a-dings. It's a friend who is undecided whether to keep his girlfriend or break up. He regularly catches her cheating but always makes excuses for why he hangs on. He describes her as a user, a manipulator who needs a place to live - so she appeases him with sex. He cools off for a while but continues to smolder within. He calls for guidance but usually does the exact opposite. Times up. Dog and I go in. Reading will have to wait because of a wasted conversation.
Fill Up
My morning porch watch incorporates a book and a chocolate-brown dog idling next to my c spring chair. She always runs out first to do her morning duties; then she joins me as I read. The sun benevolently warms me but gets too much for the dog, quickly absorbing the heat beginning to pant. She gets up and stares into my eyes with her Murphy-expression saying eloquently, "Time to eat."
Varieties of Green
Sitting on the porch, reading scripture, I noticed all the green surrounding me. Everywhere I look, there is green. Black-eyed Susans are below and purple-flowered bushes straight ahead. To my left, my eyes focused on a tree I have seen for years but never understood. It is a maple tree, but you would never know it because ivy has overwhelmed it to make it unrecognizable. I remember Buddha taught that two phenomena make humans unhappy: Clinging and aversion. I almost felt like I want to take shears and cut the ivy off the maple because the poor tree cannot express its true nature. Still, it would be a fool's errand as with many people in a similar predicament.
Roots
While I was sitting on the porch, reading under a canopy of maple trees, looking out at the golf course next door-- I realized how thankful I am and should be. The neighbor with a protruding pot belly always comes out and sits by the fence with a Labatt Blue in hand. He is like clockwork, drinking his morning away until, by evening, he's boisterously drunk. Humans without a consciousness of their spiritual roots are like brutes awaiting the razor of reality to cut their existence short.
Befriend
"Maybe it's time we stop trying to outsmart the truth and let it have its day." --Alfred Even though we might imagine reality sucks, it always has a habit of leaping up and biting us in the butt. The facts are not our enemy. If you can't whip them - work with them. We can never outrun the truth. When we strive to outwit it, we only end up opposing ourselves & our best interests. But be careful of spurious "facts."
Much Ado
While I was sitting on the sun-drenched porch, reading, a squirrel fracas fomented on a tree branch overhead. Who discerns how these things get incited, but it shook the limbs and leaves with its frenzy. Seven or eight incensed critters were squeaking ferociously at each other and chasing after one, then another, very dramatically because of some squirrel infraction that would be ludicrous to determine. The uproar reminded me of human politics, which are often much ado about a whole lot of nothing, but full of sound and fury.
Drama Kings and Queens and Everyone in Between
Jethro was a bull around bone china, the racket of smashing followed him. He never figured out how to move on, clinging desperately to his broken experiments, trying to force the unfeasible to clank along. At 35, he had had several aborted relationships that permanently terminated with emotional and physical mayhem. He feared abandonment and couldn't comprehend how his partners could so glibly disconnect from him without any necessary protracted drama; his addiction. So, he felt the urge to harm them, to pay them back for their ruthless rejection. Like some dogs who will let you into the house but snap at you when you try to leave, be careful of the Jethros and Jethrenes.
Love Has a Name
The human condition clips on; hubris dogs their every step, everyone neglecting their source. Love sees involved invisibly in our regular suffering; vivifying our very existence, and yet, ignored by the masses. No one, it seems, is paying attention, going their own destructive ways. When the fact remains; One is tapping on our heart now, so willing to recreate us from the inside out. Love died, resurrected, and reigns. Let it in.
Craven
Three hundred fifty years ago, Milton said, "Craving is never satisfied." Contemporary media perceives this and leverages it to empty our bank accounts, to commandeer our bodies, set the agenda for our opinions, to titillate our desires until the appetites enslave us. Our wills are molded by 2 of the 5 gates, inundated with the flickering of looking-glass screens flashing subliminal messages to eat, eat, eat, or hate or lust We are their patsies-- reprogrammed every minute.
