How Do I Pray? Let Me Count the Ways

It seems to me that there are probably as many ways to pray as there are people on the Earth.  We also seem to group together according to how similarly we pray, I've noticed. When first I asked the question of myself, "How do I pray?", the answer was, "I don't."  Immediately followed by, "Bullshit."...

Warrior

I used to think that to become free you had to practice like a samurai warrior, but now I understand that you have to practice like a devoted mother of a newborn child. It takes the same energy but has a completely different quality. It's compassion and presence rather than having to defeat the enemy...

Anger-Fear-Compassion

The spectre of anger has hung over my family for at least five generations.  Reading our genealogical history is like walking through a museum of dysfunction.  Alcoholism, drug abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, etc.  So much abuse that the word 'abuse' becomes non-sensical when I say or think it.  I think...

Experiment

I underwent an experiment over the last few weeks.  I tried to taper off my lithium, mostly because I didn't like its side effects.  Mostly things like big muscle twitching and vision impairment.  It sucked not to be able to read a book, and it really sucked to be using a mouse and have my...

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...

Slide

"To let that which does not matter, truly slide." - Jack, Fight Club I keep way too many tabs open in my browser.  At the moment, I have 27.  O_O  Most of them represent good intentions.  Things I want to read.  Things I feel I should read.  So on and so forth.  Some of them, though, are...

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...

Clueless

I was out with some of my good friends the other night, all of whom have been very supportive of me these last few months.  At some point I and my friend M got to talking about how we met and started hanging out, since I wasn't entirely sure.  It was during the first two...

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...