Notes from the Woods – Page 108 – ~ A Joy Warrior's Journey

A friend told me about some high-performance electric car that had various running modes and one of them was named Ludicrous. I think that’s the mode we’re all stuck in right now. How many do you know, after all, whose views really makes any sense, given what you know and can see with your own eyes? Keen discernment is required to sort out the truth these days, my friend. Such a complex, noisy web surrounds it.

So he’s telling me about this car and how it will be updated via software downloads periodically, adding new features and capabilities. I think how that is like what the nano particles do–build the intraweb, enhance the circuitry, expand what you can do, what you can send and receive. And they fit how many in the needle of a syringe? Billions? Is that something like the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin?

See? What a ludicrous world it is in which we find ourselves–a surreal ever-changing sci-fi movie. Except it’s real. And we’re alive and smack-dab in the middle of it, hoping we tucked a flashlight of some kind in our back pocket. The more you think about it, the less you understand. It can be confusing. Disorienting. Painful.

Don’t let it get you down. These are trying times for us all. When things hurt, I repeat Tara Brach’s wise words: “This is suffering. Everybody suffers. May I be kind.”

That’s one the things I love the most about us human beings. Our capacity for kindness. What a loss it would be if that was reduced to a program, to a set of prescribed social rules and nothing more.

But to change the subject entirely (a routine practice in Ludicrous World), I wanted to share that I’m moving right along with my “Hundred Bottles of Hours” practice, where I take an hour every day to compose a love note, tuck it into today’s bottle, and send it, via my blog, downstream to wherever.

Yesterday was Day 12 and I posted views from my studio window over a two-day span. I enjoy doing series of things. I like the old rippled glass in the upper window’s center panes. It reminds me of the glass in my grandmother’s house. I like the way the snow plow looks like a Tonka toy way down there. I like the warmth and softness of the drapes at night, as the sun sets.

It’s letting yourself do what you really love doing that keeps you sane. Immerse yourself in it on some kind of regular basis. You deserve it. You need it. Follow your bliss, as the hippies used to say. That’s good advice. Get in touch with the pools of goodness inside you and let them remind you that, however ludicrous the world may seem, in the center of your being Truth resides. And its beautiful, and good.

It’s freeing to step out of the world’s craziness for a while. It’s always there, the jangling of a phone, a flicker of a screen away, waiting to pull you back. The trick is always to go back to it with an easy smile, seeing it for what it is, letting your heart guide you through its twisted maze. And don’t worry. If you weren’t needed, you wouldn’t still be here. At least they tell me that’s the way that it works. There’s always something more for you to learn and to do, to give and to receive.

That’s worth a smile.
Look somebody in the eye and pass it on.

Warmly,
Susan

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Day 12 – View from the Studio Window

Day 11 – The Season’s First Snow

Day 11 – View to the West

The trees lean to the north as if they are followers of the north star. Some of me supposes that it’s more a matter of reaching beyond the shade of the trees higher on the hill. They do this, the theory goes, in order to drink in more light. Same conclusion, either way.

It’s quite a balancing act, given how gravity is at play. Some, of course, lose the battle. In the end all of us do. Even mountains turn, eventually, to sand.

Still, wondrously, life goes on despite its changing forms. (Some things are forever.)

Watch, and let go, and be kind,

Let your heart know gladness.

Day 10 – Climbing the South Hill in Early Winter

I didn’t plan it. I was just staring at it through the window and it said, “C’mon up.” The whole hill said it at once. Who could resist?

I dress for it and sling my camera around my neck. I check out little corners here and there that I haven’t seen since spring. I study the colors of tree bark and notice the way fallen ferns, still green, decorate the beds of russet oak leaves. I listen to the wind.

Now and then I stop and look up. What I’ve felt the whole time I’ve been here I now see: I am standing in a cathedral.

Day 9 – Broken Ice Along the Road

Nobody ever told you that the road would always be straight and smooth now, did they?

Personally, I think I heard voices yelling “Buckle Up, Kiddo! Grab your shield! You’re in for some kind of a ride!”

When I really think about it, I suppose I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

Day 8 – The Colors of Cold

On this day a year ago, snow was covering the ground. The window panes were etched with frost. This year, we sailed through December with only one day of snow, and it quickly melted. But today it is cold and snow, they say, is on its way.

When I say it is cold, I mean the temperature is only 25 degrees Fahrenheit. Soon that will feel balmy. But not today. We were spoiled in December by unseasonable warmth. Nevertheless, the sun is shining and it lures me. I use my little pile of accumulated recycling as an excuse to drive to the park to drop it off. I would have gone anyway. I haven’t seen my favorite corner of the creek for a while now and I want to see its New Year colors.

A young man is jogging toward me on the sidewalk as I emerge from my car. His face is red from the cold, his breath making little clouds in the air. I think he looks wonderfully healthy and beautiful. I grin and say “Happy New Year!” He grins back and says, “Happy New Year to you, too!” We each like encountering another human being who is braving the cold just for the joy of it, for doing what we each love to do regardless.

The creek is racing over its rocky bed. It, too, is beautiful. The sound of it dances through the cold air. I see icicles dangling on tree roots on the opposite shore and work my way over the rocks to photograph them. The colors here in the shade are subtle winter hues, almost neutral. The sight of them delights me. It’s like opening a gift and finding a strand of lustrous pearls.

I soak it in, the whole of it. It is my duty: Someone has to carry the memory of this.
It is my duty.
It is my joy.

Day 7 – Nods from the Yes

In the note that I sent you on Day 5 of this series, I mentioned that I have come to this lake at sunset every New Year’s Eve for six years now.

Today some formula at Facebook determined it should pop the very photo I took that first year into my timeline. It felt like a nod from the universe, one of those delicious synchronicities that makes you think you’re on track. “Carry on, child. Carry on.”

How I Started the New Year

Well! Here we are, safely arrived on the other side of the holidays. How fine is that! Congratulations to us all!

I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for a nice chunk of the ordinary now. You know, days where all you gotta think about is doing the job before you. Maybe even throw in a slice of routine, just to smooth things out. It sounds comforting somehow, doesn’t it?

Maybe it’s the season. Here we stand, seriously staring into a brand new year, wondering what it could possibly bring. Am I prepared? (Are we ever?)

It never unfolds the way you imagined it would. Especially these days. The best you can do is the best you can do. And it’s always good enough. And there’s always room for better.

I started a new project. I’d been asking for it, and when it finally got here, I had to jump on it. I’m calling it “100 Bottles of Hours on the Wall.” It’s a 100-Day Challenge that simply appeared in my awareness one day, spotlights shining on it, confetti floating in the air. What it boils down to is my commitment to compose a daily note here for the next 100 days. Just for the fun of it To see where it takes me.

I couldn’t wait for the New Year. I started it a week ago. Check it out. Let me know what you think.

But that isn’t what I really wanted to tell you about today. I wanted to share my personal New Year ritual.

A few minutes before midnight on New Year’s Eve, I pull on my winter boots and jacket and go outdoors. This year the sky is overcast, a faint glow appearing on the northern horizon. To the east I see fog illuminated by the headlights of a car climbing the hill around the curve over there. Its purr is all I hear.

I send good wishes to my local community, and outward from there, and farther out ‘til my wishes circle the globe. I thank the spruces towering over my head for their constant companionship and wish them well. I send a wordless song from the center of my heart to the Great Yes, waiting.

Suddenly, the bangs and pops and claps of shotguns, pistols, and rifles wash down the hills from every direction. Wow! Was that a canon? Dogs vacationing at the kennel down the road yip and howl. Car horns bleat from somewhere across the creek by the old school.

It’s here. 2022.

We can’t help ourselves. However we mark it, all over the world, we all breathe in its hope.

Isn’t that something?

Take a big chunk of that hope and tuck it in your pocket, hey?

Happy New Year.