MUTTERING TO MYSELF IN THE DARK

Insomnia has struck again, and so here I sit in the darkness of my girlfriend's living room at one in the morning muttering to myself and listening to Gregorian chants via YouTube.  It's like I'll get all settled down with numerous yawns and a fairly consistent relaxed feeling, but then the eyes refuse to stay closed...  And here I sit...

We just came back from watching The World's End at the Malco 12 in Fort Smith several hours ago, and by now, of course, all the other denizens of this dwelling have long fell into the sweetest of slumbers.  The film had its charm, to be sure, but it was no Shaun of the Dead.  Nonetheless, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost come through again as two guys that would be cool to just hang out and have a beer with. 

It's been quite hot over these last few weeks, but of course it is summertime.  Taking long walks is one of my favorite pastimes, but 90+ degree weather makes this near impossible to do and enjoy - even when the day is a sunny, happy occasion.  Most unfortunate.

I think again of my own mortality.  Someday, my form and my thoughts will inevitably cease to be.  Will some part of me live on, or will there be merely a silent encroaching oblivion?  My experiences with altered states of consciousness and out-of-body adventures predispose me toward ideas of the continuity of existence into some evolved step ad infinitum.  Even with this kind of faith, one has to wonder and marvel.  One day, I shall watch my final sunrise in this flesh.  And I shall cease to be..

Anyway...

BACK TO REALITY

There are so many processes I could have chronicled as of late but which I haven't here because honestly I'd forgotten about this blog!  I really need to pay it more heed, however, as it's a good exercise for me.

My girlfriend and I got back together, first of all.  We still don't live together, though, and we certainly aren't married.  However, as for my description back in February that the relationship was "unraveling," I suppose that was inaccurate.  We still dig each other's company.  I even took her and her boy to New Orleans and Florida recently for a little vacation.  It's all good.  However, I know that she is still upset with me for giving her an engagement ring quite some time ago but then moving out eventually and never sealing the deal.  She does not consider me officially as her "boyfriend" because of this.  I guess it's still somewhat complicated in that regard...

Spiritually, I see myself drifting back and forth into a "Dark Night of the Soul" type thing over these past few months.  I went from meditating often and doing my LBRP to getting the blahs and feeling my connection to the Source dwindle.  It's like a cloud going in front of the sun, but I keep the faith underneath it all and feel like this uncertainty will serve to strengthen my faith in the end.

Professionally, there may be a problem though.  My company's president (I work for a prominent mental health care provider in the state of Arkansas) just released a memo entitled "Organizational Restructuring" in which he speaks of what amounts to downsizing and "position elimination".  A couple of weeks ago or so, our Clinical Care Coordinator left the company abruptly and though he did give us a rather lengthy email in which he was blowing smoke up about everyone's toga, it was unclear as to why he split (he was one of those who liked the power and seemed rather entrenched in that position as the supervisor of all therapists) until now.  Seems like he knew something from the get-go that few of the rest of us did.  There will also be "salary caps" and no more annual raises.  Hence, I see the folks with talent jumping ship here soon enough, and the local job market will once again be glutted with therapists - if it isn't already by now.  Don't know what the damage is going to be overall yet, but it doesn't sound good.

I have to remind myself, though, that I'm in a good place fiscally.  I've no debts.  I've a nearly new car that's paid for.  The place where I stay is paid off.  There are many perks.  Job-wise, though, I'm in my comfort zone.  Perhaps these events are meant to spur me on to greater things.  Who knows...

HERE i GO AGAIN...

I'd all but forgotten about this blog for looks like over a year, and looking at other blogs that seems to be what happens in general oftentimes.  Time has clicked on by, but recently I have promised myself that I would focus more on cultivating daily habits which would lead to my greater sense of spirituality and self-expression.  Quite honestly, the inspiration for this all began with what appears to be the final death throes of my almost ten-year relationship with my girlfriend.  This unraveling has been happening for quite some time.  Out of respect, I do not wish to mention her name or say much about the affair.  What I can say is that breaking away from her has released a lot of energy in me - both physically and mentally.  Though we haven't lived together for over a year or more, I was still putting more energy into the relationship than I thought.  But enough about that...

Professionally, things have gone swimmingly.  I never thought I'd find a career that would fit me so well, engaging my heart as well as my mind.  There have been some snags along the way, but these have been surmountable and for the most part understood as part of the way of things.  Though I have to drive a good solid hour to the site and a good solid hour back every day (somewhere over 100 miles each weekday), I work well with the people that I'm with out there - and actually the distance helps greatly with preventing the awkwardness that is having to encounter a client outside the treatment milieu in public somewhere. 

So I'm off to reinvent myself once again.  What shall I do?  What forms will this new energy take?

1. The physical body.  I have already begun to get more consistent exercise via daily walks and sessions on the elliptical machine.  Changing the diet is more challenging, but generally I'm just reducing my portions pretty much.  Lately I've been consuming a lot of Clif Bars and Slim Fast shakes as meal replacements.
2. The mental body.  I've taken to downloading some really good audiobooks and listening to them during my hour-long drives to and from work.  I mostly favor non-fiction.  Some of my latest reads of this sort has been Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People as well as a set of lectures by the Buddhist scholar Jack Kornfield entitled The Jewel of Liberation.  I also read a bit at night before going to sleep.
3. The emotional body.  Basically spending time with my family and friends covers this one.  Honestly I draw a lot of emotional fulfillment from my job, though of course in turn it can also be very emotionally draining at times.
4. The spiritual body.  I'm finally returning consistently to meditation and the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram on a daily basis.  A type of meditation that I'm doing now involves me watching my breath, allowing my thoughts, and then when the thoughts begin to carry me away I tell myself silently that "these are your thoughts.  They are not you.  Allow them to pass."  That helps.  I also have a small digital cooking timer which I use to keep these meditation sessions at ten minutes apiece.

There are other goals that I need to make specific objectives for as well.  One really cool thing that I'm really compelled to do is to build a building here at our place wherein to shelter my musical equipment and give me and my friends a place to jam.  This house that we live in presently was poorly built in so many ways and doesn't have a good open area to leave my stuff set up in any manner of a useable fashion.  A setting apart is needed for this most important endeavor.

I'd like to do more writing as well, and breathing fresh life into this old blog is one way that I wish to revitalize that desire.  Writing takes attention and consistent focus to kindle the flames and build the rapport between the conscious and the unconscious processes. 

Putting this stuff out here to an audience that might actually read it helps in my mind to make me more accountable for some measure of progress.  I think it will help.

So wish me luck, friends.  And send me your ideas, if you have any!

LIFE GOES ON

A brick wall... Something solid and immoveable... It can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what role the wall is playing in your life. But I guess in my case, it represents blockage. The wall keeps things out, but also holds things in. I feel that I'm chugging along pretty well in life, but there's always something more I could be doing - something more I wish I had done or read or took on as a travel destination. Where to begin?

In order to get somewhere, one must first know where it is that one wishes to go. For some, the dream is to be married, have children, and grow one's family. Others are called to great wealth or to some higher spiritual purpose for their lives. For me, I'm still not certain. I'm trying to let the Spirit guide me. Quite frankly, I'm skeptical of the traditional flavor of life with the wife and children and whether or not it's for me. I still very much have the needs of the flesh, but at the same time see how the modern world tends to tear families apart. It's my hypothesis that the new age which is dawning all around us now is tearing down the social norms we hold dear so that they can be built back up again at some later date. A greater love encompasses that which does not stop at duty to clan or country, and that's what this dissolution is all about. Perhaps all this emphasis on wars for religious reasons (suicide bombers and Muslim fundamentalists) are set in the public eye by Spirit for us to see the folly of such beliefs and how they impede and wall up our consciousness. All that is, is. It simply is. Our very lives are a miracle - the fact that we draw breath and sustain awareness through each moment on this planet. Just be mindful of this. Just know that you're here on the earth with other creatures of like mind. That's where true spirituality begins, I think. We are all born to die, so what really defines us is what we do with that knowledge particularly when it truly begins to sink in to our psyches on a visceral level. Doing God's work means to let go. Life is a process of getting and letting go, and if we can accept both with an equally sober demeanor, we will have absorbed the lesson. From a Christian perspective, look at Matthew, Chapter 10:

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.

I'm especially fond of Matthew 10:36, as it's the passage that Lieutenant Morant asked to have as his epitaph at the end of the movie Breaker Morant - it made so much sense in the context of the story (and it was based on a true event - check it out if you're into military history especially).
It is my understanding that Jesus here is the Way - the Truth - and that which secures the deliverance of that part of us which is eternal into Heaven - that great world beyond mortal death. So why should a man's foes be they of his own household? They become such if obeisance to them clouds his orientation to the Source. This goes for anything we hold onto, whether it be a feeling, an idea, a possession, etc. The only constant in the universe is change.

Then there is, of course, the Buddhist philosophy. Here's a retelling of the elephant and the wise men story in a book called Zen for Americans, by Soyen Shaku:

There was once a powerful king in India, who called all his blind retainers together to his court, and then brought out one of his largest elephants before them, asking what they thought of it. Being born blind, of course they had never seen an elephant, and now in obedience to the royal command they all came around the animal. Each of them touched only a certain portion of the huge body and came to the hasty conclusion that the portion he handled was really the entirety of the beast.

Those that touched the tail thought the elephant was like a broom; those that touched the leg thought it resembled a huge column; those that touched the back imagined the elephant had a body with the shape of a gigantic drum; those that handled the ear thought it reminded them of the wing of a bird; those that touched the tusk thought it had the shape of a flail. Though thus none of them could describe the complete and exact figure of the elephant, each was narrow-minded enough to insist on the verity of his testimony. The king was very much amused to see how utterly they failed to comprehend the object and how fruitless their quarreling was.

Even so, says the Buddha, is the way most of us look at the truth and quarrel over it. Buddhists may think that Buddhism is the whole truth and that all other religions are nothing but superstition and prejudice; while Christians will imagine that their religion is the only thing in the world, that they are monopolizing the divine grace, and that therefore all other teachings are impostures and idolatries and heathenisms. The adherents of Mohammedanism may also be convinced of their absolute possession of God; and so with all the other religious systems of the world. Indeed, every religion is disposed to consider that it alone and no one else holds the key to Heaven and eternal life; and on account of this conviction religionists are ever ready to denounce each other with bitterness hardly worthy of their profession and dignity. But to get at the real truth of things we must shake off all these prejudices and endeavor to comprehend the truth as a whole and be always humble and broad-minded and tolerant.

We can be set in the Way from an early age, but dogmas will fail us as we grow. In fact, it could be argued that the questioning of the Way is a sign of that growth. The Truth never changes - our perception of it does. Our choice of religion or philosophy may color our experience, but it is life itself that does the teaching. Though I have no means of proving this either way, I'm rather predisposed to the idea of reincarnation. Many lives can be utilized by a soul to dive straight into the dirty sticky ordeals of matter, while other lives are spent in quieter contemplation and dry us off a bit in the light of the One. Verily "I am a part of all that I have met..." Both types of experience are gainful, but each has its consequences just as surely as a bowling ball dropped off a second story window smacks the pavement. The more conscious one becomes of the process, the less waves one makes in the ocean of matter. And one day, the ripples will cease enough to be able to reflect the perfection of the higher worlds. And you will realize... So many of the people I work with are treading in an ocean of terribly tempestuous waves, and the King of Cups comes to quiet those waves surrounding those who have been so set adrift...

A GREAT MANY THINGS...

So here I am again. I know it's been a while, but I've been settling in to some different changes in life. I've honestly kind of forgotten about this blog, which is typical of me.

Today - nay, this whole weekend - seems like it's lasted forever, which is a good thing. I've been a little sick with what is probably a sinus infection, so I've been taking it easy. The physiological illness has helped to contribute to a goodly amount of introspection, feeling much like my college days when I was all by my lonesome. I've moved back in to my grandparents' old house with my dad, and that, of course, has changed the whole dynamic of my living situation. I have to address that, don't I... I'm still dating Jenn, and still love her, but I felt it necessary to just have my own space. It's a longer and more complicated story in its entirety, but I'll leave it at that for now.

Work is going well. I still have the nagging self-doubt and tend to blow things out of proportion in my mind, but overall it's turing out to be a good experience. Being a mental health professional is quite like being a mental health paraprofessional squared. I've settled in. It feels right.

I've been going to the gym with my dad out at Mercy Fitness in Fort Smith on an average of 2 to 3 times a week. I think it's helping my blood pressure, and my weight's even gone down a few pounds. I just wish I could do it early in the morning rather than late in the evening - the timing's messed up some. However, I think it is helping me a little with my insomnia. I'm still depending on sleep aids, though (like Trazadone), and that can't be good. It's a tough call.

Just today, I brought in a new kitty. You see, my father carried on the tradition that I left him with years ago when I moved out of this house and in with Jennifer - the tradition of feeding stray cats outside on the porch. Most all of the cats we've seen come and go were feral and extremely afraid of people. Within the last month, however, I have slowly made friends with a little black cat named Hugo. I'm very uncertain that I was really the one to give him this name, as one day I looked at him, and the name just jumped into my mind. According to Wikipedia, "Hugo" means "bright in mind and spirit" or "intelligence," which fits the little guy. I slowly built his trust by playing with him outside, scooting around a thick dead weed for him to capture. And now, he lies asleep in my lap. I had to really make a decision in taking him in the house, as basically he's going to be strictly a house cat. We live right off of Highway 59, and I fear that highway. The cat who I'm pretty sure was Hugo's mother - one who my dad aptly named "Crooked Neck Kitty" because her head seemed to always be tilted to one side - was killed almost certainly by that road. We found her dead with a serious leg wound several weeks ago... So you see, one part of me hates to take him away from his other brothers and sisters, who live right outside around the house, but the other part of me wants to ensure his survival and keep him safe.

Well, it's about 10 PM, so I must away to get some sleep to be fresh for the beginning of yet another week. To be continued, friends...

RAINY DAYS AND SEVERANCE

These beginning days of spring have brought with them tornadoes and rain here in Arkansas. For me, they have created in me a kind of blah feeling that comes and goes. At least my licensure ordeal is coming to an end, as now I await my actual therapist number from the state counseling board. Before me lies the opening of a new way and a different stage in my professional development. It's definitely a good thing but it'll take some getting used to. Though I'll have to change where I work (most likely) along with the whole scope of things I will be doing, overall I feel a sense of destiny which has brought me thus far and continues to impel me ever forward. Sure, there will be bumps in the road, but I have a lot of things going for me. The job that was made known to me by the higher-ups of our company a month or two ago would involve me commuting to work about an hour each way every day to the towns of Clarksville and Paris. I remember travelling almost that far in the early days when I worked in Ozark, and it wasn't too bad (being about 40 minutes one way from Van Buren). The drive, as I recall, was always a good setting-apart exercise to both get my mind right when travelling there and disengaging upon the drive home. The current rise in gas prices won't help, but eventually I'm due for a newer car anyway. I'll be able to work in adult day treatments as well, which is the population I feel the most drawn to serve. Who knows what adventures await me out there? Oh constant Angel, guide me...

CHANGING TIMES

Though I still have yet to actually become licensed as a therapist, I'm beginning to feel the weight of Saturn's restriction insofar as anticipating the realities of the specificity of the job. I went to a lecture yesterday which is periodically given by my company Perspectives in which I was reminded of the new Medicaid regulations concerning treatment plans, the delivery of service, and so forth. Even my mentor Dr. Atchley - who has been in this business for quite some time - related to me that he had not seen the Powers That Be insist on the plans being this explicit. I can certainly understand why they want this kind of accountability for their money, but it will just take some doing. You can set goals for your clients and affix as many time-limited objectives as you wish, but ultimately it's up to the client to fulfill them. If they don't, then you just extend it out. But it shall be left to us to weigh, measure, and divide those tenuous elements of humanity which are so difficult to really pin down. I just need to review my CBT stuff and have faith. If I can balance my anxiety with actual focus and application on task, then I will be able to overcome.

AWAKEN

I AM BEGINNING to wake up from the sleep of Matter. I come to the awakening little by little, but it's a hard sell. I understand so much now what Blake meant when he said that "Eternity is in love with the productions of Time." Most folks think of Eternity as Forever - as Time infinite, but it's actually a place outside of time. Most people think of enlightenment as something to be sought after, but the people that are already there say that it is something that we all already have. It's not so much about getting as it is about letting things go.

What have you made into your god? Even if you say "God" is my god, you're more than likely referring to a religious conception of a god couched in some kind of cultural framework - the god that your parents taught you, a god that is "this" and "not that", etc. And of course in the Christian "cannot serve both God and Mammon" tradition of thought, some people make worldly things like money or sex their gods. But God is All - there is no place or time where God is not. God is kind as well as cruel. God is and is not. God is many and is one. Anyway, I think that Lao Tzu was right when he said that the more you talk about the Tao, the farther away you go from it. Less is more. There are so many fingers pointing at the moon these days that you'd think we'd all be more enlightened. But I think it's just made us more confused.

THE PASSAGE OF TIME

I had a good talk with my grandfather yesterday evening. He wants to believe that "there's no such thing as Alzheimer's" and bases this on something he says he saw on television. A federal judge, he related, threw out the diagnosis of Alzheimer's, telling the doctors who presented it that "you've been before me over 11 times now - I don't want to see you again!" A beautiful fantasy, but I reminded him of the reality of the dementia I had seen in my life and - most importantly - my grandmother's. "It's just old age," he said. My mom wanted me to talk to him because he was seriously thinking about taking my grandmother off her Aricept because he thought she didn't need it. I said that whatever you want to call it, it's a degenerative brain disorder that grandma has and, though medications can't cure it, they can slow the process and increase the quality of life that she has remaining. He seemed to understand this and accept it, but my mother and aunt continue to be worried about their welfare (they both still live at home). Though I share their concern, I can't help but admire my granddad for his steadfastness, his courage, his wisdom - even though it's been tempered with a heady dose of denial. He's living the life that he's always lived - a proud and unrelenting one. An American life...

ARCHETYPES OF THE ZODIAC

AS A GIFT to myself after passing my National Counselor's Examination up in Fayetteville yesterday, I wandered back to some of the old favorite places of mine which I frequented back in my college days. One of these is the Dickson Street Bookstore, at which my father and I spent $40 in fact. The same old bespectacled and bearded fellow I encountered back when I was a lowly undergrad was still running the place. One of the books I purchased is this one here to the right. I remember seeing it long ago and wanting to have it but, of course, not wanting to pay full price. I spent most of this morning's early hours engrossed in it, and it's absolutely wonderful.

This work reflects the very best of the ancient practice of astrology and all the reasons that I hold it dear - the realization of archetypal forces upon the mind of man. As for me personally, my sun's in Leo, my moon's in Virgo, and Aquarius is rising. Each chapter of the book tells of one particular Zodiacal sign and the old stories which support it, and reading Leo and Virgo so far have greatly illuminated the quest for my own self-knowledge. I've studied this stuff for years and have come across most of it some time or another in the past, but this book really brought it together for me and put it all in perspective. I am reminded, for instance, how often overshadowed by Virgoean self-doubt and some of the other Mercurial strengths and weaknesses.

Some people may have reservations about engaging the Western Mystery Tradition in any fashion, looking on it as a sacrilege conflicting with Christian sensibilities. To me, however, it is our heritage - a wealth of inner knowledge which demands to be explored by any serious psychonaut or person interested in psychology. One has to know one's self and thereby gain a sense of being genuine before he or she can go out and do meaningful works bourne of true spiritual purpose.

DREAMS

Lately my dreams have returned to me in all their splendour and majesty. One big contributor to this is the fact that I have relinquished all sleep meds for the past few days, which is a stretch for me. I was told by Rosemary - an RN at Vista Health where I intern - that with a steady diet of Ambien, one can get to where one's brain is dependent on them for sleep. I guess I already knew that, but it was sure nice to sleep straight through the night (albeit with no memory of dreams - ever). What was left was for me to be able to teach myself to sleep. I had looked at all kinds of techniques and stuff before and I had heard of the following one that she mentioned, but honestly I didn't think it would have as much of an effect that it did. What she suggested was not to lay in bed after waking early (which is what happens to me all the time). Instead, if you can't get back to sleep in like 15 minutes, you get up and do something else in some other part of the house. For me, I must avoid computer and TV with their flashing lights. The last time I did this, I just went and sat in the living room for a bit in the dark and then went back to bed without doing anything except that. Tonight if it happens, I'll study for my NCE. That oughtta do it!

Last night I dreamed that my grandfather was showing me a baseball grenade which was covered in leather. In a lot of my dreams, I seem to be wandering through apartment complexes or houses with which I am unfamiliar. Sometimes these places are haunted, but it's more of a startling effect with these rather than an outright nightmare. I can't remember the last time that I had what could be considered a nightmare, and I imagine that's a good thing.

I rediscovered part of a dream journal that I had begun back in 2005. This greatly inspired me, as it appears I was able to stick with that one for some months. I don't remember having a lot of these, honestly, but that's what makes them even more endearing to me I think. One back in March of 2005 (I think that's the right year) includes the following:

I think I saw a spirit guide in my dream last night. All I remember is a doll, like a ventriloquist's dummy, sitting in a box on a shelf. He was scolding me for not being able to project myself out of my body yet even after all the books I've read and instruction I've received. Then I became lucid for a bit - I remember looking at my hand in wonder. Seems like the voice urged me on to fly, which I did. I know that I was in and around a forest, but I can't remember exactly where.

Such is the subject matter of my mind. I look forward to returning to such great adventures, as this is only the tip of the iceberg that I have seen in my time. One thing I would love to be able to do, however, is to type the dreams without having the blaring light of a monitor or the hassle of waiting for a computer to boot up. I'm sure I'll figure something out. If I can just get the gist of it down, it will serve to continue to exercise that part of my mind within which these precious jewels of the unconscious are stored.

"... We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep." (from Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act 4, Scene 1)