Language

I was thinking about language and stories today. I think we want our stories heard, we want other people and sometimes language gets in the way. I am never as eloquent on this blog as I am in my head when I'm thinking about what I want to say.

Sometimes in group situations it is like I am sitting outside of myself watching. Watching the people in the group maneuver around each other, almost warily. I often just want to command the situation and say everyone relax, let go, but that almost always backfires.

Arrrgghh this is not what I want to say. I'll try again tomorrow.

Today

Today has been a really good day. I went to my former school for Thanksgiving dinner with all the folks. It is good to see people and touch base with the young people, but really the best part of the day was saying Goodbye to a few people and just striding out the door with no regrets. It's been a long time coming, this guilt free feeling.

The store has been bustling with folks, some just dropping in to shake my hand and say, "Happy Thanksgiving." Lots of people have told me they are thankful that GMB is here and thriving. I try to tell them all with sincerity that I am thankful for them.

Here is some more JC (um...that would be Joseph Campbell not Jesus Christ!)

"To take a righteous attitude toward anything
is to denigrate it.

Awe is what moves us forward.

Eternity
is a dimension
of here and now.

The divine lies within you.

Live from your own center."

um...

There have been a few people harping, simply harping on me to write something. (This is about my sister Tai Chi friend, not you, you don't harp.)

Friday night I attended two events, this is a big night out for me these days. The first was the VFW fund raising Meat Raffle. Yep, here in the NEK of VT we raffle meat and hey, I won a ham, had a couple of drinks and caroused with the hunters in from deer camp. This isn't just any Meat Raffle either, this is competitive meat raffling there are two teams who go every year and compete against each other. It was fun; loud, noisy grown-ups hooting and hollering, giving each other a hard time and yet obviously really caring about each other. Even in this wild environment people were on the look out for each other, holding the door, cautiously navigating around the woman on crutches and helping her, checking in with each other. On one level it was about meat and on another it was about unity.

Second event a house party. It started after the meat raffle with a whole different crew of people. Mostly couples who have young children. There were a lot of musicians and a great band. It was sad and interesting to watch all of these parents really work to battle sexism. The men wanted to stay and play music and hang out, the women wanted to stay and play music and hang out...the children needed to go home and go to bed. As sexism requires it mostly fell to the women to take care of the children and the men stayed behind. Ouch for everyone involved.

I overheard one young father and musician talking about it. He mentioned that his girlfriend had left with the children and was angry. He seemed so hopeless about figuring out how to do it. Then he said, "But I'm living it, this is it. This is life and I'm in it. I've got to play music." And I went directly to Joseph Campbell:

"The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are...

The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning. The warrior's approach is to say "yes" to life: "yea" to all of it. Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.

Opportunities to find deeper power within ourselves come when life seems most challenging"

The young musician is right.

Be it meat raffles or band party's, this is it live within it in joy.

Proud

There is nothing to say execpt that I am proud to be an American today.

It is the first time in at least eight years that I can say that.

Change has arrived.

Pleased

This is a picture of me, in the scudgy bookstore mirror hence the spotage, being incredibly pleased. I left my camera in a friends tool trailer, of course this was accidental. The camera wasn't tied down, it was actually sitting on a shelf. When he found it it was on the floor surrounded by heavy pieces of steel tools...completely unharmed. I didn't find out if it was okay for several days.

I am pleased.

However, I am pleased for several reasons. The most obvious is that my camera was returned intact. The more profound reason is that I had given up all hope and it didn't really matter. I actually achieved un-attachment to something that in general is very important to me. The first evening I hardly slept worrying about it. By the time I got to where I was meeting with my friend I forgot to ask him about it...until he mentioned it. An interesting journey from point a to point b.

I feel like I won twice here. I got to come to terms with my own materialism and I got to get back what I lost.

I am thankful for both the lesson and the outcome.

Debate

Tonight after Tai Chi class I am going to watch the Vice Presidential debate at Parker Pie in West Glover Vermont.

Parker Pie is in the back of an old country store. Some local young people returned to W. Glover after finishing college and decided to start a pizza place. They have three booths and three tables, a bar that seats two, free Internet access, awesome pizza, great beer, and it is generally jam packed with folks every night, young, the very young, old, the very old and middle aged folks. I love it there and I think that watching this debate there is really the only thing to do it. I think to watch this debate we should be amid a crowd of like-thinking people, we should definitely have beer handy and pizza with gourmet toppings doesn't hurt either.

It is difficult for me to watch a woman like the candidate. She is really giving women in America a bad name. Women in general a bad name. There are many ways in which I want to see her lose this debate, but it is definitely a torn feeling. Women are equal to men, can think as well as men, can debate as well as men, but I don't think this particular woman can...

There was so much excitement about Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama for the dems. We tossed the stereotypes out the window and stepped into the 21st Century. I think the Republican party made a mockery of that achievement by nominating this woman and thinking that she in any way is a peer of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Enough said. I am glad I will be among friends.

The path of least resistance to pure existance

A customer, and might I say friend, came in yesterday. He is truly working to achieve enlightenment and is forging his path through studying, meditation, yoga etc. His young son recently went off to college and he is now alone. He feels concentrated on his objective. I pointed out to him that he doesn't have much contact with other folks, but he says he does. Visiting in the post office and bookstore, etc.

He is very clear.

I, however, am not. Yes, I am caught up in judgement, this election is terrifying to me, but I do think that pure existence must include some kind of love of others. I can tell that I don't actually need other people, I could exist without them and probably be relatively happy. But I want connection, I yearn toward it, I really like other people. Each of us need to find our way to enlightenment individually I guess, what works for one is not always so for another. In many ways I long for less attachment, but I think of those attachments as being to material things not humans.

I keep thinking about "enlightenment" which isn't even defined here. What is it actually? Can we achieve true enlightenment by isolation? Is that real? There are so many questions.