The Forever Loop

This week I’ve been working on a tutorial for children that teaches them how to code with Scratch, a programming language developed by MIT’s Lifelong Kindergarten Group. The rudimentary algorithm puts an animated cat into a loop that repeats forever, running back and forth across a beach.

This image is now etched in my brain and calls up memories from my many summers walking the mile long length of beach outside our family cottage. There was so much emotional chaos in our household, but once I started walking that beach I knew that no one would come and get me. So began my own journey in the forever loop of reparative escape. I’m feeling more and more, recently, that this escape is mostly giving strength and presence to the chaos. What does it matter if I spend two hours in a state of flowing electric bliss if I can barely muster the energy and motivation to do the dishes?

What would it take to switch the parameters and default settings so that I would be in a forever loop of thriving, growing powerful calm, like the ocean waves I assimilated on those walks? What would I have to repeat every day to be in a forever loop of focus, order, and peace in my physical and emotional environment? I know it’s possible, I know there’s a path there, but I can’t seem to stay on it. Why?

In the last week, I’ve been revisiting the practice of opening various “energy gates” in my body. The plan is to spend three days at each gate. There are too many to name here, but I’ve been working through the first two, the crown and the third eye area, and on Saturday morning I started meditating on the area behind the eyeballs. I did a bit of research on the anatomy of the eyes and learned that there are two important points, the macula, which modulates our sharp forward-looking focus and the optic nerve through which information travels from the eye to the brain.

Another algorithm I’ve been working for the kids is a reset sequence. Something that will return the Sprite to its default position whenever it goes off the grid or gets stuck. Center stage, eyes facing forward, 90-degree angle to the x plane. I don’t know the answer to the above questions, beyond pressing my own mental reset button, stabilizing my vision and starting once again.

Small actions, many times. That is the pith instruction that was handed down to Mingyur Rinpoche from his father, it’s one that I have a very hard time believing in, but when my life returns to the default state of chaos, it’s the only thing that helps me make my way out. This week I will go about remembering the one-two or one-two-three sequences in my life. Gathering, washing and drying the dishes. Choosing and clearing a hotspot. Setting a timer and picking up stuff off the floor. Perhaps the greatest challenge for me is to keep it small and to feel the moment of having finished.