Archive for Thoughts

Bill | January 15, 2012
No comments

Don’t Try and Catch the Train

How are the New Year resolutions going?  I’ve made mine, but we’re well into January now, and I’m still not out of the gate and fully back into the race.  It seems particularly hard this year to believe I can ever be a better person;  I’ve tried so many times, and look how far it’s gotten me.  I’m still pretty much just me.

I was looking through my 2011 Journal.  It has three entries. One on January first and one on January second and then it skips about five months to the final entry which reads:

Monday, June 13, 2011

Well, I’m back.  It seems pretty clear that I try to do too much, put too much into the day, and eventually I can’t sustain it and things fall apart.  Typical pattern of coming together and making a super effort to be better than I am, and pushing too hard, can’t hold it together.  There’s a sensible moderation that is within reach. And so it’s off to try and get my life together again.  As Thoreau says:  ”Do it again, and again, and forever again.”

There’s a truth to that, the need to work every day to improve ourselves.  But there’s another truth that needs emphasizing as well.  I had a dream the other night.  I was riding my bicycle along a path and traveling side by side with a freight train.  It began going faster and I tried to keep up.  It was picking up speed and pulling away, heading out over a bridge. I peddled more and more furiously, trying to catch it, eventually watching it disappear.  My trail went off to the side and then down below the bridge.  I knew that I HAD TO CATCH UP! The train was going into the mountains and it would crash if I didn’t stop it!

That’s life itself, busy day to day life, pulling away as the New Year begins, and I tell myself I have to be there to keep things from crashing.  But that’s an illusion.  It’s the frantic chase that robs us of the life that is with us now and always with us.  All I can say to myself this New Year is:  Bill, don’t try and catch the train. Don’t try and catch the train.

 

 

Category: Thoughts | Tags: , ,
Bill | January 6, 2012
No comments

Everything is Permitted

Everything is Permitted

I’m opening up the subject and inviting one and all to contribute, if you will, to a discussion about “what is permitted”.

Here’s my two cents.

When dealing with art work that has an interest in the spiritual, the sacred, I often come across a lot of “pretty” work or work that makes assumptions about how important it is “to be nice”, promote “good” things, be symmetrical or use soft uplifting colors and ornament the work with symbols like a Cross or the Star of David or…you fill in the blank.  Do you know what I’m talking about?

And I can understand that.  I perceive spirituality as something that is in opposition to my animal nature, that slough I have to drag myself out of when I awake in the morning. This way of thinking says that spiritual art is something that helps draw me away from the painful or boring, anxiety ridden or lusty, particulars of this dog eat dog world by pushing away from it towards this preconceived opposite. Not tense–Peaceful.  Not frightening–Loving.  Not dark–Light.

For instance, one couldn’t possibly use the word “f..k” in a spiritual piece.  (There, now I’ve gone and done it.  This can’t be a spiritual meditation.)  One can’t do a spiritual piece on pornography.  One can’t do a spiritual piece that’s any good and have it showing sacred figures in an “unacceptable way”. Different traditions have different taboos.

I’m of the belief, presently (and constantly evolving) that everything is permitted. It is true, as a Baha’i I am not allowed in dramatic presentations to portray the person of the Manifestation of God (Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Muhammad, Zoroaster, Baha’u’llah), as this is seen as insulting by definition. And I accept this.  I think it’s wise.  We can talk more about this at some later time perhaps, but other than that…

I work from the point of view, that in principle, everything is permitted–certainly at first, and then choices must be made depending on what one’s objectives are, what the call of “truth” demands.

The first consideration should never include restrictions.  They may come quickly, but held off as long as possible I think.  Far better to be thinking about giving energy to what it is you want, what you wish to bring to life and deal with the consequences second.  You must deal with them eventually, but not first, and … nothing is forbidden.

Category: Thoughts, Welcome |