Welcome to the Concrete Jungle

This place where we most live is a community of isolated rather than tribal. Rallying the isolated is driven by fear, suspicion, anger, or hatred. The tribal or true community isolates the innate need to be part of something and repairs and heals by unity. We could learn from a bear or Chicago with their cubs that refathering is needed to learn to be a follower who leads first out of isolation, and into protective, yet creative community.

We try to remain in isolation by our questions such as "What do I do?" The isolated tends to set-up an argument led by the thought "Yeah, but" that is expressed after given advice. Argumentative thoughts expressed as "Yeah, but" seek relief rather than healing in conflict. Concrete answers to the questions make you feel bad in order to feel yourself, maybe for the first time.

Questions, if seen as steps rather than a path to an answer, allow sight to hear "This is what I know" so I can hear what to do next expressed as "I see."

George of the Jungle, a friend to you and me, says don't club the cub but follow it out of the park and into drive.

Then see who you feel by what you formerly felt by getting your but in shape. Romans 3:21

Self-Hatred

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet- unless I've cut off my nose to spite my face through self-hatred. The fragrance of a rose reminds me who knows what matters no matter what names by which I call myself. Self-hatred is never born out of love, but out of pride, and pride doesn't understand that emotion is stronger than thought and I thought. The emotion of self-hatred is anger. This anger causes huge mood swings that I begin to judge as a mental problem rather than an attitude problem.

Mentor

A bud wiser. Drink it in.

The Point of a Moment

Points make a game but moments make a story of living encounters. A living encounter can reach a point, but a point can't reach a living encounter. Points can be made and measured therefore don't require trust and love which can't be measured or made, only entered. A moment is the still door into life's movement.

Amour or Less Words

We so often say the wrong thing because we have this compulsion to speak when simply loving is needed. True value is realized not so much through speaking but in loving.  Right or timely words do register in the heart but are most powerfully registered when love leads. Otherwise what is said is often received as more internal noise to be tuned out or is tuned out without even intentionally doing so. I call this shutting down even when words are present. Misinterpretation is intense at this point causing much unnecessary anxiety and conflict. Virtually no healing is possible though the opportunity was present. How often value is misplaced because silence is feared rather than used to remove fear that makes healng possible.

I met recently with someone who was described by an important government official as a silent warrior, yet I've never heard him without words. We must fight silently at times to be efficient in the kill, but must first love silently to give life to the will.

Amour and no less.

Confusion

I have a question before I have a dream.

Exercise

Telling your body it is spring time.

Epiphany

Loved at first sight.

Wisdom

Arranging the thoughts of our heart and the heart of our thoughts to act in an orderly manner in the heat and heart of chaos.

Money

Sweat grands.

Retirement

Tying a mellow ribbon around the old oak tree.

Adam's Apple

The apple of the eye that became a lump in the throat.

Pain Observed

From a creative standpoint, giving into giving up a dream is one of the easiest, yet most painful and frustrating acts in one's life. By giving up a dream, I don't mean putting off the important parts of life to chase a fantasy, I mean giving up that creative side that one can carry until it's possible to live out in whatever form it takes. Many never truly enter their dream because the belief is that once they enter, the dream is corrupted because of how poorly they view themselves in combination with not knowing their true selves. It takes courage, the purest form of courage, to continue to carry and or enter because one must get to the heart of one's soul to live there. Without that self-soul knowledge, you cannot possess the dream because it possesses and controls you in such a way that you have try to force it or escape it.

Forcing or escaping it creates a false sense of loneliness where one then finds multiple ways to fill the hole of the dream that lives in me. Delays (that the pain & frustration cover up) by my ways deny my soulful experience of the strength needed to enter that dream or skillfully develop myself for it to unfold by creative acts of my time. Thus I'm using my creative power to destroy, rather than create, something in me, others, or both because of the anger that develops.

Some of the greatest guilt comes from this type of anger which underlies the pain and frustration demonstrated by most who say they are hurting and frustrated. This anger prevents them from seeing their true self and living out their dream that I call unrealized potential.

Yet there seems no way out. Or is there?

To be continued (observed)..

The Window of Hunger Panes

After watching the trailer to Hunger Games in which the young male character Peter said that he wanted to show that they didn't own him after being picked to represent District 12, he said "If I am going to die, I want to still be me." As strange as it sounds, a line from the Night Before Christmas came to mind. "When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,".

In Hunger Games, it explains being trained in the art of survival rather than survival only. 

I watched my father die that way- in a valiant death by disease. It has had a lasting profound effect on me to this day.

How does wonder get restored in a way that allows me to see each day in anticipation of not only Christmas(life), but even Easter(death and life) so that the sense of wonder is restored in such a way that I become more of myself to live and die the same me? Through willingness and readiness to suffer.

This week I came to recognize that hunger shows us something much deeper- that we're alive-alive as who we truly are- and to valiantly live in the art of survival where we do not fear death in such a way that it takes away the wonder of who we are.

Hunger. The hidden story underlying hunger.

A Poor Listener

A parrot in eagle's clothing. Speaks without observing in real time. Full of conflict rather than conflict resolution.

Go Figure.

Do I figure out something in order to enjoy it, him, or her or do I enjoy it, him, or her in order to figure it out? So which is a good figure or should I say figuring? Trying to understand is the intent to be enlightened but the greater desire is to know, not understand. To seek to know brings the primary strengthening joy to lead into an action to do next that brings understanding. This leads to greater desire to know with greater joy and strength to continue to act with more patience and compassion while anticipating greater understanding to come.

I then begin to look forward to someone or thing with lessening dread and negative fear. Go figure.

As I "figure" out an example of this, what comes to mind is a common problem I see happening so often in conversations. Someone brings up a problem and begins to share their story. Hearing the story sparks an interest to see the problem clearly understood with a solution. However, this is at the expense of hearing the hidden story underlying the story being told, not just the problem that is only now seen.

Much of the response given is rarely applicable to the hidden story because the desire to know someone is often second in importance to the desire to understand someone (with the problem being presented as part of the story). Since many demand that they be understood, we are used to seeing something as a problem to be understood rather than a person with a deeper story to be known. The deeper knowing is where the understanding begins because of the emotional ties required that give the sense of  being esteemed, valued, respected, and loved.

A great figure of speech for this is to listen more and speak less, but with more meaning to the person in the hidden story. The tendency is to disrespect, project, dissect, & neglect rather than to hear more after saying tell me more.

Drawing a Blank

“I don’t know what to do.” This is a statement I hear every day more than once. Then I hear “I’ve got to figure it out somehow”. I call this drawing a blank or the "Gap Theory." Something seems to be missing. But is it? What if something isn’t missing?

What do I do then? I fill in the blank; i.e. I personally draw the blank as a creative act, the blank doesn’t draw itself or reveal itself as empty because something is missing. By acting on what is not missing, I will, as a result, change the way I speak and enable myself to see something (at least as far as the headlights on a car reveal at night.) The lights on my car aren’t missing even though it’s dark and I don’t fear what is ahead because I have decided to go rather than "just going."

So what was really missing? My decision to go, not the going. If I go without choosing, only going because I feel I have to, I have no meaning until some outcome. However, by then (by the time there is some outcome) I'm often so miserable that I can’t enjoy it or see the meaning in what was done/has occurred. Because of this I have to look for something else to replace what seemed to be missing in attempt to feel better.

So what was really missing? I was missing. I was missing because the decision was necessary to obtain the meaning in the act of going, not the going. The going brings understanding, but without the decision, there is no meaning to me, only the act exists without a living encounter for me.

I must decide to draw the blank as " creative act in thought", choose to fill it in, and go with the meaning.  

Life will then discover you so that you are no longer missing.

Go to the gap and fill it. Blankety-blank…