Clean Slate

It's been "make a change" week in my life.  I've had several changes I've wanted to make in my life for quite some time now.  Now that I'm in my early 40s, I'm feeling pressed for time on some of them, as though if I don't get them implemented now, they'll never get done.  Such...

Ghost Feet

They say the fog moves in on little cat feet.  So do ghosts.  Mine do, anyway.  When I was a child, I had a cat who would jump onto the foot of my bed every night after I went to bed.  He'd nose open my bedroom door and *poomp* onto the bed he'd go.  So...

The Four Noble Truths

The fundamental philosophy of Buddhism is The Four Noble Truths: Life means suffering. The origin of suffering is attachment. The cessation of suffering is attainable. There is a path to the cessation of suffering via the Eightfold Path. What's important to my essay here isn't the Eightfold Path, but the notion of attachment.  I've become...

40

So I hit the big four-oh recently.  40.  I know it's just an arbitrary chronological marker, like 20 or 30, but you remember how seriously you took those particularly markers, don't you?  Crossing 20 was like the loss of your youth.  Only one year away from legally drinking, your days of clandestine partying were just...

Monkey Mind

I've been spending time at the local Shambhala Meditation Center recently.  Shambhala is loosely defined as a path of peaceful warriorship, something that most Westerners have an extremely difficult time wrapping their heads around.  I know I do.  The whole point is to be strong on the path towards peaceful calm, which is what enables...

Be Here Now

I've been slowly, unconsciously, and in some cases, unwillingly removing various influences from my life lately.  Some little voice way in the back of my head is constantly asking me, "Does that serve your purposes?" and if it doesn't, whatever it is goes out the window.  I think the first thing that went by the...

Anger

Anger and I are very, very old friends.  Anger came into my life when I was a baby.  I got to listen to anger through my father in what must have sounded like a monster as he drunkenly attacked my mother.  She told me I would stand up in my crib, holding the bars like...

Fear, Doubt, Letting Go

I've been keeping to myself lately, from a virtual blogging aspect anyway.  Almost a month ago, I became gripped by a deep doubt about almost everything.  In particular, my writings here as well as my semi-private journal.  It was akin to suddenly feeling like the Emperor in his new clothes, as though I had been...

Water

I'm learning something really damned annoying: I can't drink anymore.  At all.  Not that it was a problem or anything like that for me, but I do enjoy a couple of margaritas or hard ciders every now and then.  Not to mention I have a patch of mint in my garden that produces 3" mint...

Saturation Reached

I got an email from the City library yesterday informing me that the due date on a stack of library books was approaching.  Instead of being disappointed that I was once again running out of time to read the books I had checked out, I hastily stacked them up, removed the bookmarks from the as-yet-unfinished...

Opening to Dharma

I went to a series of yoga workshops this past weekend at my favorite yoga studio in Austin, Dharma Yoga.  It's an amazing place with amazing people.  This time, they were hosting Katchie Ananda, an Anusara yoga practitioner and apparently a highly influential yoga teacher around the world.  Anusara is a highly codified system of...

A Difficult Morning

I was asleep surprisingly early last night.  Usually I'm up until at least midnight or after, but I was asleep by 11:15.  I drifted off happy with the knowledge I'd get nearly seven hours of sleep. Mother Nature had other things in mind around 4:30, of course, as did my daughter, who came padding into...