Saturday, March 19, 2005
Energy Renewal
So I've been at the new job for a week now. My new title is Renewable Energy Program Coordinator. My plate is full but there are lots of great people around to help. Check out some of the new links over on the side. I hope everyone is doing well.
Sunday, March 13, 2005
The Horror, the Horror, the Horror
Something that I have uncovered in my experience of this life is that pain and fear are one and the same. They are reactions to the unknown, felt at boundaries of experience that have never been crossed. Some of these reactions are inborn, some learned, but all may be overcome. Some passionately jump blindly into the unknown: others justify never crossing the boundary at all. As with all things in life, pains and fears should be respected, but never obeyed.
Saturday, March 12, 2005
On the Road
Back to the drive. Just one last leg until I reach my destination, for now at least. My father warns of big snow: I should probably check that out. Getting packed has been an experience yet again. I'm just getting over a little new moon flu; it was nice to be sick, very cleansing. Well, enough jibber jabber. I'll try to keep in touch.
Friday, March 11, 2005
In Love Again
Two years ago I had what those of you in consensus reality might refer to as a religious experience. It was brought on by a self imposed abstinence from a number of personal habits, long hours of introspective manual labour, and a strong desire to understand the beliefs of someone I felt very passionately towards. It was an epiphany of love turned inwards and ironically towards everyone and everything.
I spent a whole year trying to understand this moment of clarity. I built this understanding on the foundation of my understanding of christianity, a belief system I had disregarded for an agnostic stance early in my childhood. I refined this understanding through comparative religious, philosophical, and poetic studies. The more I read the further I got from the actual experience that started the whole journey in the first place.
I began searching for the key to how I felt shortly after the experience. I wanted back what I had briefly glimpsed and lost. I knew this was the only goal of any true value. I tried abstinence, I changed eating habits, I exercised, I hid from the world. I searched everywhere outside of myself. I knew deep down that it was love that set me free but I had no idea how. I had lost faith when I lost the woman I loved. I didn't know how to get back there by myself.
I eventually became interested in meditation as I had had good experiences with prayer after the experience. Not prayer to a god off somewhere in the distance but prayer to that part of myself that was beyond my comprehension and connected to the universe in a way I can only begin to understand. I remembered a connection with myself that I hoped I could make again. It was then that I came across Vipassana on the internet and signed up for a ten day course the next day. I had never met anyone who had taken a course but I knew that it was what I was meant to do.
My first course, which began exactly one year after my first moment of clarity, gave me another glimpse. It allowed me to experience much of what I had been reading about over the previous year and solidified my understanding by extending its foundation beyond my intellect. It gave me a technique to use to continue to deepen my understanding. It changed my life not by indoctrinating me with a particular belief system but by giving me an environment and a method to experience myself.
As with my first experience, as time passed my focus was on an intellectual understanding of the experience and the connection I had made with myself weakened. I spent another year continuing to struggle with myself but I had broken free and was on the path to find out. I understood my experiences enough that I knew my answers were not intellectual ones anymore.
I tried to meditate and I tried to maintain awareness forgetting that these are not things you force yourself to do but things you allow yourself to do. Letting go is not accomplished by willing but by unwilling. Over the year I was reminded of this over and over and over again. I learned lesson after lesson. I faced many pains from the past. I got sucked into many old black holes of despair. Each time I clawed myself out I was a little bit stronger.
The last one was the original one; self respect. I picked myself up, brushed myself off, and decided to go back for another ten day course. My goal this time was not to understand but to reconnect. This last time through, one year after the first course and two years after the original experience, was hard. I hit a wall that I knew I needed to walk through but that would require a toll. I crumbled and begged like a child; I acknowledged the past; I promised to always treat myself with the respect I know that I deserve. I loved myself again. This wasn't a verbal dialog, this was communication at a purer level. This was genuine unconditional love.
From that point on I have been connected again. The release I experienced and continue to experience from this connection is unexplainable. I meditate two hours a day and that connection continues to grow stronger. I remain aware of the connection as continuously as possible. We're working things out. I'm working things out. Things are working themselves out.
I'm in love again.
I spent a whole year trying to understand this moment of clarity. I built this understanding on the foundation of my understanding of christianity, a belief system I had disregarded for an agnostic stance early in my childhood. I refined this understanding through comparative religious, philosophical, and poetic studies. The more I read the further I got from the actual experience that started the whole journey in the first place.
I began searching for the key to how I felt shortly after the experience. I wanted back what I had briefly glimpsed and lost. I knew this was the only goal of any true value. I tried abstinence, I changed eating habits, I exercised, I hid from the world. I searched everywhere outside of myself. I knew deep down that it was love that set me free but I had no idea how. I had lost faith when I lost the woman I loved. I didn't know how to get back there by myself.
I eventually became interested in meditation as I had had good experiences with prayer after the experience. Not prayer to a god off somewhere in the distance but prayer to that part of myself that was beyond my comprehension and connected to the universe in a way I can only begin to understand. I remembered a connection with myself that I hoped I could make again. It was then that I came across Vipassana on the internet and signed up for a ten day course the next day. I had never met anyone who had taken a course but I knew that it was what I was meant to do.
My first course, which began exactly one year after my first moment of clarity, gave me another glimpse. It allowed me to experience much of what I had been reading about over the previous year and solidified my understanding by extending its foundation beyond my intellect. It gave me a technique to use to continue to deepen my understanding. It changed my life not by indoctrinating me with a particular belief system but by giving me an environment and a method to experience myself.
As with my first experience, as time passed my focus was on an intellectual understanding of the experience and the connection I had made with myself weakened. I spent another year continuing to struggle with myself but I had broken free and was on the path to find out. I understood my experiences enough that I knew my answers were not intellectual ones anymore.
I tried to meditate and I tried to maintain awareness forgetting that these are not things you force yourself to do but things you allow yourself to do. Letting go is not accomplished by willing but by unwilling. Over the year I was reminded of this over and over and over again. I learned lesson after lesson. I faced many pains from the past. I got sucked into many old black holes of despair. Each time I clawed myself out I was a little bit stronger.
The last one was the original one; self respect. I picked myself up, brushed myself off, and decided to go back for another ten day course. My goal this time was not to understand but to reconnect. This last time through, one year after the first course and two years after the original experience, was hard. I hit a wall that I knew I needed to walk through but that would require a toll. I crumbled and begged like a child; I acknowledged the past; I promised to always treat myself with the respect I know that I deserve. I loved myself again. This wasn't a verbal dialog, this was communication at a purer level. This was genuine unconditional love.
From that point on I have been connected again. The release I experienced and continue to experience from this connection is unexplainable. I meditate two hours a day and that connection continues to grow stronger. I remain aware of the connection as continuously as possible. We're working things out. I'm working things out. Things are working themselves out.
I'm in love again.
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Middle Child
How can you empathize with another if you desire them to feel the way you think they should? How can you understand another if you desire them to think the way you feel they should? How can you promote sympathy by getting angry at discord? How can you develop a connection by insisting disconnect is unreasonable? Focus on what is missing on your side of the equation. Open your heart: open your mind. Take a step towards the middle.
Monday, March 07, 2005
Perpetual Ending
Back in Montreal. This will be the last week of my perpetual vacation. Although I have worked quite a bit I have not had a formal full time job in almost three years. This should be interesting. I plan to visit with friends and family, take care of some business, and get my things together for the move to NB. Just what I can fit in the car. Decisions, decisions, decisions...
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Between the Eyes
Wow. I just opened up a file I use on my computer to compose blog entries while offline and found a strange little entry that never made it out onto the internets. A reminder of a fragmented frame of mind that is not so far behind me.
I don’t always share the intimate details of the extreme highs and lows of my life on this site. Instead, I try and capture the thoughts and/or feelings from a moment of epiphany; I try to distill my experience down to an atomic tidbit of learning; I try to inoculate my readers with the antidote to what plagues me; I try, I try, I try.
There are periods of time where I don't share anything as I have yet to learn anything worth sharing. Perhaps there is more gold in the process of finding answers than in the answers themselves; I don’t know the answers I only have the means to find them; I can't find the answers I can only find my answers; My strength is not in my answers but in the will to continue amidst unanswered questions.
I've been processing quite a lot of stuff over the past few weeks. I can't explain what I mean by that but your interpretation of processing most likely doesn't come close to it. I started to try to explain my experience of beginning to experience life as it is, but I couldn't. I could describe joy and pain, fear and desire, words and images, or blockage and release. I could say nerves, energy, breath, oxygen, balance, mind, body, or consciousness. I could talk about patterns, change, non-intellectual learning, surrender, flow, recursion, metaphor. How do you describe something beyond description?
I can't give you what you already have: I can only ask you to look. Stop running away from yourself. Stop medicating your predicament. Stop reacting. Stop justifying. Stop pitying. Let go of certainty, pride, and prejudice. Trust and respect. Focus and pay attention. Stop learning the same thing over and over and over again. Take off your blinders and look life in the eyes, through the eyes, and between the eyes.
I don’t always share the intimate details of the extreme highs and lows of my life on this site. Instead, I try and capture the thoughts and/or feelings from a moment of epiphany; I try to distill my experience down to an atomic tidbit of learning; I try to inoculate my readers with the antidote to what plagues me; I try, I try, I try.
There are periods of time where I don't share anything as I have yet to learn anything worth sharing. Perhaps there is more gold in the process of finding answers than in the answers themselves; I don’t know the answers I only have the means to find them; I can't find the answers I can only find my answers; My strength is not in my answers but in the will to continue amidst unanswered questions.
I've been processing quite a lot of stuff over the past few weeks. I can't explain what I mean by that but your interpretation of processing most likely doesn't come close to it. I started to try to explain my experience of beginning to experience life as it is, but I couldn't. I could describe joy and pain, fear and desire, words and images, or blockage and release. I could say nerves, energy, breath, oxygen, balance, mind, body, or consciousness. I could talk about patterns, change, non-intellectual learning, surrender, flow, recursion, metaphor. How do you describe something beyond description?
I can't give you what you already have: I can only ask you to look. Stop running away from yourself. Stop medicating your predicament. Stop reacting. Stop justifying. Stop pitying. Let go of certainty, pride, and prejudice. Trust and respect. Focus and pay attention. Stop learning the same thing over and over and over again. Take off your blinders and look life in the eyes, through the eyes, and between the eyes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)