I am the flower of a butternut plant
Nature expresses joy in beauty.
Nature is full of joy.
Joy is happiness.
Joy is all around us.
Joy speaks in beauty, smiles and laughter.
Joy is the spirit of life awakened.
Joy, for a moment, replaces purpose.
I want new stuff to happen to me.
Specifically new stuff that is part of my plan for my life, – not random, default existential stuff.
I do know for one that it’s good to have a plan. A plan replaces any default, ‘let me make it through another day’. A plan is a vision of ‘something’ from nothing. I plan new stuff not old stuff.
But I question: why does nothing new happen to me? I mean it’s not for lack of having a plan. It’s not for a lack of ideas or wanting.
Seeing there is nothing happening there must be something else.I am puzzled.
This ‘nothing happening’ manifests as a stuck-ness. It feels like the flow of my life is obstructed. There is a lid on my pot.
In search for answers I dig around and sift through philosophies and belief systems and flavours of the month. I listen to gurus, sages, Elon Musk and Steve Jobs. I read Robin Sharma and Wayne Dyer. I change my diet, drink water, sleep enough, get up at dawn, meditate and exercise and stretch. I Feng Shui the house, love my plants, walk barefoot on the dew in the morning and grow my hair, – I change everything for a new start, a new life and for new stuff to happen to me.
But it doesn’t. Nothing happens.
Yeah, certainly, I feel so much better and healthy. I have tons more energy. I am stronger than before.
And then one morning during meditation I found the answer.
I am lost in the old.
Because I am lost I am also clueless of how to change my status quo.
There is so much old that there is no ‘space’ for the new. I have amassed tons of old stuff in my head. I need to do some mind-clearing. House-clearing is of course also not a bad idea while I am at it. It’s like my hangar is full but I want a new aeroplane. My pantry is chockablock but I want a new dish. I can’t even see and I don’t even know what I have anymore but I know that my life has become unbearably heavy. I am chained down by old rules, concepts, beliefs, hangups, mindsets, practices. I can’t fit another thing no matter how much I want it, into my life.
Forthwith, in this realisation, I am asking of myself to make space for the new that I want, by ridding me of the old that has no more purpose going fupwards (forward and upwards).
The Giraffe was browsing the succulent shoots from the top of an Acacia tree when she saw an Elephant walking by.
The Elephant was minding his business and decided to pause. He rested his right front foot on the polished, rounded-off top of a termite mount.
It was not the first time he had come past here. This was a narrow path which he and many others had walked before him.
His name was Socrates. Other animals had given him that name because, as he stood there, his pose resembled that of someone deep in thought.
And he was. The depth of his thoughts was enormous just like his size.
The Giraffe watching Socrates from the top of the Acacia gathered her long purple tongue, interrupting her gathering of delectables from nature’s kitchen, and commented,
“Socrates, today it has become very clear to me that I am bigger than you.”
Socrates, unfazed, nevertheless had to raise his eyebrow to find the head of the Giraffe above the canopy of the Acacia and he replied,
“Tallneck, you know, it really depends which way you look at it.”
At that moment a small ant known by the name of ‘Furmiga’ piped up so that both the ‘big ones’ heard it and said, “I am also the biggest, the biggest of the smallest.”
In the meanwhile God, on his journey through existence, had come by and was resting on a tree stump, listening to this conversation of who was the biggest.
He decided to clarify the situation as it had in the past caused heated arguments and fearsome demonstrations of power.
“I made some of you big so you can see the small things and I made some of you small so you can see the big things. But you are all as important as a raindrop.”
Tallneck respectfully thought about that and felt that a raindrop hardly stated her importance.
Socrates sunk even deeper into thought searching for the meaning of God’s words.
Furmiga was satisfied with the idea, because after all a raindrop was quite a bit larger than she was.
God rose from his tree stump, and as he walked away his big feet stirred up some of the fine dust and he sneezed so vigorously that the clouds gathered overhead and rain started pelting down.
Tallneck, with her head stuck above the Acacia, felt each raindrop as it pricked her face. Looking at the dust bowl God had just walked through she saw it filling up with fresh clear water as each raindrop added its importance. Fascinated she watched the sparkling pearls as the light broke into prisms of colour and then splash up in a silver spray in the little pool.
Socrates felt each transparent bead miraculously cooling him down as his hide absorbed the water turning from a dull grey to a glistening black. He realised that if it weren’t for each single drop from the sky he could not survive. In gratitude he reached upwards with his trunk opening it towards the sky.
Furmiga knew that with each important drop the dust and sand came alive in another miracle and she and her clan could eat and drink.
Next time I see a raindrop I know a blessing is on its way.
I was a dove.
A white dove flying through a dark valley on the edge of my memory. The silhouette of my past abruptly ended with the light of the horizon of my future.
My journey was from the narrow shadow land towards the blue sky of my freedom.
I flew. That is all I ever knew how to do. My flying was like your walking. But I had to fly, I could not walk.
All I had to do to fly was breathe. With every breath I stayed aloft another time. That’s all it took.
First there was hardly any light at all as the valley walls towered above me and I was dwarfed by their rugged strength and enormous presence.
Beyond, it seemed, was more darkness with faint lights so distant I feared never to touch them.
As I sat and watched I remembered a time gone by that was even darker than no lights or sunshine.
I felt the break of dawn.
A clear line was emerging between my past and the present, unfolding with every breath.
My spirit lifted. My soul prepared for flight. My body breathed a deep breath and floated into nothing.
Slowly, the little dot that I was, gained height and I flew in the ‘V’ of the valley towards a light that magically attracted me.
I knew not what was beyond the ‘V’ but light, and the only way to get there was for me to fly.
I took a deep breath of imagination and cleared the rim of the valley into the blue nothing.
Suddenly there were no walls, no cliffs and no more ‘V’ that I had to carefully navigate in.
For the first time I could fly unobstructed as I left the valley behind.
I filled my head with golden views. I breathed the air of infinite beauty. I soared and dived and tumbled. I floated, rose and merged with all of nothing.
I knew suddenly that my breath was everywhere and I was in every breath.
I am stuck.
Stuck in the mud with my 4X4. Stuck on the runway with my aeroplane. Stuck with these friends. Stuck in my life. Everything is stuck, stuck, stuck.
I am stuck in my circumstances.
The circumstances that I can be stuck in are endless. Stuck taking drugs. Stuck drinking. Stuck in this town. Stuck in this job. Stuck in a relationship.
I could be stuck for the rest of my life. Without a vision, no more dream, – nothing. Hopelessly stuck.
There are many pictures of stuck-ness. We have all seen them. We have all wondered and we had no answer either.
And, you can’t really help unless that spark to want to get unstuck exists within. Unless the will to change and make a different choice is there.
As always I can only talk for myself and what I have observed and experienced.
I have been horribly, super-glue like stuck. Not just for a moment or a while, no, for years of my life. You feel like you are stuck in a rubber cell because no matter how much you fight and rant and rave, absolutely nothing, nada, zilch happens. You stay stuck and you think the devil is having fun watching you and you can’t beat the devil and get unstuck. It’s a terrible experience. Being stuck means the energy flow of my life is severely restricted. When I am stuck I seem to make it even worse by denying, resisting and ignoring what I really should be doing.
Why am I stuck?
I am stuck because I am contrary to the flow. I am like a log wedged across the flow of the river.
If water flows and air flows then it is likely that our life also flows, – or should flow.
If it doesn’t then I am out of alignment with the flow of my life.
Yes of course I can blame everything and anything from my childhood to my boss and the government and God for my stuck-ness, but that doesn’t unstick me. I have to do something.
Because as human beings we are quite resourceful at adjusting to circumstances, we sometimes don’t even see this misalignment that obstructs our life’s flow. It might take quite a while until we start thinking, “Heck this is not going the way it was intended to.” Perhaps we have even accepted the contorted flow of our life. We might have even ended up on a trickle of what used to be our stream and we still find some reason why it should be like this and not like the river we have left.
After enough self-pity, finally, sometime, I acknowledge that I am stuck. I suddenly know it and I want to change it.
Now I see myself unstuck. I feel unstuck and I consciously Align. I re-align. My vision is filled with the flow of my life in the stream of my choice to the goal of my dream.
Alignment is non resistance. In alignment things roll and flow. In alignment I can achieve. In alignment I can be and I am.
When I take time to observe, – do I in fact observe the spinning yarn of my mind or do I actually recognise what is presented in front of me?
Do I see what I want to see or what is there? Do I listen or do I hear what I want to hear?
Can I observe without dictating my observation?
Can I be, for a while, an observer not influenced by my ego, my mind, my emotions?
My racing mind has been in overdrive most of my life. It has conjured stories, distorted facts and has often been like a runaway train. Plenty a times my observation happened with a glass in my hand or through the green smoke of a reefer. Instead of letting impressions sink in, I was, or became, too emotionally involved to see the moment. I was not an observer. I was a participant on some drive towards a forced outcome of my determination.
But what is observing really?
I have watched a Bushman in a remote region of western Botswana that I was fortunate enough to have shared some time with. Bushmen are the people who inhabited southern Africa long before others migrated down from the northern interior of Africa, or before explorers anchored their ships along South Africa’s Indian ocean coastline. I have always been fascinated by these people who can survive and live a life entirely in nature, understanding the purpose of each plant and animal, living completely without any technology whatsoever and who are (largely) untouched by modern life.
I saw how he observed the land below him when he sat in a shady spot on a cliff or some lookout point, patiently waiting for something to happen in what we westerners would describe as a world filled with lots of nothing. And at a glance there is nothing that happens. It all looks the same. Acacia trees, bush and sand as far as the eye can see. The real observer however, who doesn’t focus on what they want to see, like wishing for an Eland or an Elephant or a Springbok, they wait, and they will eventually be rewarded with the sight of a Bateleur eagle and circling vultures, skittish duiker and Gemsbok, a snake and much more, and wont walk away from that scene saying that they saw nothing. The Bushman would sit there and let it happen upon him with the patience of Job, – he would observe. He came to look, not to put there with his mind. And, while he looks and observes, he doesn’t think because then he doesn’t see.
I create with my mind what I want my life to be. I also control and I dictate. Seldom do I take time and observe. Seldom do I relinquish control of my mind and watch what the rest of my being has to say without the ‘boss,’ my mind, constantly interfering and adjusting and knowing better.
How can I observe in this busy, tumultuous life full of demands and stress?
I take time out to meditate. In my meditation, once my mind has calmed down through focus on breathing, I have a phase when I observe. In that phase I become like a Bushman. What I see happens upon me. It comes from within, undirected, un-choreographed. It is different for every meditation. It is the source of a perennial spring that is fascinating. Every session, every observation reveals something born from deep within my soul.
Next time just observe, you’ll be amazed what transpires.
Hah, should you find time to think about it, in this frantic life we have gotten ourselves into: who do you trust?
Trust? You can’t trust anybody these days. You can’t trust anything.
Family and loved ones can deceive you. Buildings can collapse. Ships capsize. Airliners crash. Storms wreak havoc, hackers hack, wars start…
Goodness gracious, in this light can I really talk about trust?
You’d be lucky to get through the day unscathed and then you have a whole life to navigate still. That’s days x days x days cubed. Huh.
It’s not like I can say, “Stop,” I need time to think. Once I live life, it demands all my attention.
But what has puzzled me for so long is that I can’t give attention to all of life all the time, treading over it as if it was a path full of thorns. I mean, I have to get on with living and split my attention between a lot of things and sometimes focus to such an extent that I haven’t got time to concentrate on living. What do I do now? What do I do now most of the time?
I hope.
I hope all will be well. What’s this all? Well, everything in my life. Health, security, income, kids, house, dogs, cats, loved ones. Boy do I hope a lot. I’m a hope-machine! I do more hoping than probably most other things I do and the stuff I am hoping about is dearly important. And then I hope for other stuff too, stuff I don’t really have yet. I hope for a new …, a better …, a stronger …, a faster …. Much of my life hangs under the umbrella of hope. It better be made of titanium-silk and be enormous because I have a lot of hopes.
Where does this ‘hope’ thing come from? Who coined it? Why on earth would I want to hang my life onto something that gives no guarantee?
I have decided to stop hoping because there is no certainty in hope!
I mean look at it this way. Would you fly with an airline that tells you, “Mr Nothing we hope …,” or would you not prefer an airline that says “Mr Nothing we will …!”
Too many times I have sat in an aircraft seat being told “We hope …,” or thinking “I hope …,” and I have accepted it because statistically that hope is like a guarantee. But it was still only a hope. A hope in the sky. Pie in the sky?
Hoping throughout my life is a ‘maybe,’ or ‘maybe not’ affair. Yes an affair. Not a serious relationship. With it I can’t be 100% sure, but I want to be sure, – for sure. I actually want to know unequivocally. This barrel-organ of hope which I wind up all the time is a royal pain. I don’t know who taught me that and it doesn’t matter anymore either because I decided I’m over it now.
I concluded that from now on I will trust. Hope is out. Trust is in.
I’ve evolved from nothing. That means, for me to be here now there have been many before me in my lineage. I’ve come a long way. We all have. Apart from everything else that this ‘greater history’ of me has produced it has created an instinct of survival. An instinct to make the right decisions. A capability to trust myself.
I trust. I trust that I know. I believe. I can see clearly. I expect without doubt. I can and I know. That is certainty. Everything else is a ballon that can pop. I don’t want to embark on something and it go’s pop.
Now I have a guarantee. That is positive living. I trust me. Not some ‘hope promise’ out there which I have no control over.
I have been confused by hoping instead of trusting. I am here because I can and all that ability is within me and it is underlined by my trust in myself.
Modern life has confused or even obliterated that ability to trust, that inbred instinct to do the right thing, that gut feel.
I don’t trust my mind and it’s bubbles or my heart and it’s aches anymore. I am getting back to trusting that feeling in my middle. That is my center, my core, – my gut-feel.
I trust me from now on!
Even in the nothing of darkness I have a vibration that announces my existence.
I am.
I am not just by fluke. I am because I choose to be who I am.
I stand strong and I shine.I am with nature. I am part of nature. I am nature.
I bend only enough so that I don’t break but otherwise I am.
I am regardless of the storms around me.
If I don’t stand out then I am not, and I am unmistakable.
The many parts of me are all that I am.
I am filling the nothing with a presence so you know who I am.
Regardless of what you think I am, I am.
I am another way of being, a way you might not have known before.
Crystallised nothing is what I am.
Nothing is everything and everywhere and still I am that I am in that.
I am even in your ignorance of me.
There is none like me. I am unique.
I standout and announce, “I am!”
I seem to see a correlation between the ‘cleverer’ we become the greater the complexity is that we employ.
I always thought and practised that when I understand something which is generally regarded as ‘difficult,’ then I share it with an analogy that is appropriate in the circumstance and I disassemble it into simplicity.
Not so with many institutions, individuals and, contrary to common logic, some products developed in the software industry.
Bureaucracy, (I actually feel like saying Autocracy here) and Law surely are the frontrunners in upholding the banner of complexity. The two complement and amplify each others existence. They probably won’t make the best bed mates because they’d argue too much but they definitely will hold you in your track given half a chance at authority. And, when that threesome get’s into governance then evolution absconds. Progress is now controlled by a set of parameters defined by ‘superior’ human intelligence often driven by anything but noble reasoning and we are in ultra-slow-down mode.
In the software development world the banner of complexity or lack thereof (simplicity) is upheld by logic. The logic applied by an individual, a team, the leaders, the CEO, et cetera.
Compare the product from one software house (no names will be mentioned here as you all have your favourites) with that from another and you can feel the spirit of that ‘simple’ logic.
In all cases, we, the ones exposed to this jungle, want to get on with our business as unrestricted and simply as possible. Some aid us in our venture and others restrict us. Imagine if we would have enlightened leaders, instead of some of those self-possessed dimwits dispersed like weeds over the globe, who would produce a ‘Software upgrade’ periodically so that the flow and the growth of humanity remains unobstructed.
Of course there are many that are happy to exist within a given paddock and nobody would want to take that away. A familiar environment, known rules, comfortable living, growth instigated by gentle nudging and personal security are all welcome foundations to build a life on. Gradual and not too much change too often, – just letting us plod along till next time or next lifetime are all ideas of a life some of us want to pursue.
Everywhere on earth we are actually in jeopardy and everywhere we are in a relationship, if we want it or not. Granted, sometimes it’s not the relationship we sought, but then we should change it because we do have a choice. Somehow though it is evident that we can’t just simply get on with each other, no, we have to complicate relationships. Either we impose our ego onto someone because we are so big and so good sunshine buys credit with us or we think we are entitled, as some population groups do, or we live off charity, or, we are ‘just normal’ but then live in fear of being overrun by these ego machines that complicate our life or these social obligations that drain us that we are also not happy.
If there had to be a yardstick then the measure should be Creativity. Today we measure money and wealth. It could be said that wealth can only come about through Creativity. Wealth by inheritance or wealth from being a despot who deprives others is not Creativity. I think it’s time that Creativity is given its rightful place and awarded more stage time on the billboards of our journey. In simple Creativity lies the answer to all my needs and not in complexity.
Being creative is simple. It happens when you let yourself be. Creativity comes when you seek it. You can ask for it to be there. You can wish for it and it will appear. Unharnessed Creativity bubbles like a fountain and pops like popcorn. Creativity paints and writes and composes and designs and plays and builds. Creativity thinks and thoughts create, – profound. Creativity does it all. It even dreams and dreams are the source of creation, – are we goingd around in a loop here? Well, we just found the answer to Everything and this time round it wasn’t 42. I therefore declare today to be Multi-versal Creativity day! Pop, pop, pop, bubble, fizz, pop…
Eventually there was nothing in my racing mind as I fell asleep exhausted after another hot, late-spring day. Just before nautical twilight, an hour before sunrise, at 0400am I rose. Still there was nothing when I woke. “What will the day hold for me,” was the first question that came to mind as I stretched? That question was quickly displaced by my rather urgent thought that I wanted to have a superlative, awesome, creative day.
I went outside and the nothing dissolved into a spectacular theatre performance. Morning was approaching and the sky was slowly changing to a lighter shade. I looked towards the south-western sky and my amazed eyes caught two satellites moving in the vicinity of Achernar, the tenth brightest star. There have been nights where, no matter how hard I tried, I could not see one satellite in the firmament above and this morning there were two and they happened upon me at the instance I looked into the sky. I was so overwhelmed I was gobsmacked. Nearly unbelieving I refocused my eyes to make sure it was true. Yes this was not a dream, there they were moving on their path through the sky like stars on a mission. A minute later and I would have missed them completely. That feeling of being in the right place at the right moment, this feeling of alignment overcame me. I looked above and saw Sirius and Canopus and then turned east to be blessed with another memorable performance. Already low in the sky, towards where the sun would rise in under an hour, they presented themselves in all their magnificence. Jupiter, Venus and Mars. Jupiter looked like the headlights of a distant oncoming car. Venus was bright like a torch in the sky and Mars’ shine was faint like a bicycle light. From nothing to this I thought. Whow wee! I had to do nothing but just be there. My resolve at the beginning of my day to let it be a superlative and awesome day was acknowledged in a remarkable way and I was presented with something I could not have imagined when I went to sleep with nothing on my mind.
This made me think, – a lot. The universe is filled with nothing and in between is everything else. It’s all there and I just have to open my eyes and look and engage my mind and my first thoughts of the day shape the outcome. How absolutely mind boggling is that. I had lined this up for myself with a few thoughts only and no clue what in detail it was going to be like. Is this the Law of Attraction at work here? Have I found the Secret? What became clear is that I didn’t have to write a detailed document and present it to the universe, of what I wanted and how I wanted it to happen. I just put three words out there. Superlative, awesome, creative. What happened blew the top of my head right off. For me this was truly proof of the incredible power of thought. Once I had thought about what I wanted for the day I forgot about it and went about my (early) daily business. My intent just happened after that as if it couldn’t have been any different. I was left with such a good feeling. It was like getting a pat on the back from someone saying, “You see I told you so.”
I can only conclude that those very first moments of ones day, that ‘Virgin time,’ absorb and process your thoughts and create the basis after which your day will be sculpted. When we go back into ‘Nothing’ at night a reset-switch is activated, I guess so we can get some rest. Instead of trundling off tomorrow according to some default and wobbling through the day trying to survive the onslaught of worldly interference we should therefore create another intent, a wish during ‘Virgin time.’
~Nothing, clueless & lost~ 