Gratitude

I bought Ben an alarm clock yesterday.  I've decided to extend my morning meditation practice to an hour. Part of my mission. 

I did this a few years back. Standing first thing in the morning for an hour. Today maybe I'll take a look at my journals from that time.  Back then I wanted to see what would happen.  Now I know what will happen. My concentration, optimism, and self-esteem will increase.  I'll have a more fully developed ability to bring joy into my life and into the lives of others.  As far as I'm concerned, this is science.

There's an energy I feel, as one writer I've been reading recently puts it, this is a "thinking substance." I rest in this energy and I feel this clarity and lucidity that I know is a permanent quality in my life.

Unfortunately I still struggle with a lot of feeling that feel permanent when I'm feeling them, doubt, self-hatred, resentment, despair.  But I know that feeling of permanence is a delusion.  I don't try and fight these feelings, but I do try to become more conscious of their impermance.

The feeling that comes back to me again and again, which I consider one of the "technology" feelings like compassion, is gratitude.  Like loving kindness, these are feelings that have the power to iterate positive liberating feelings in the brain.  Gratitude is like a recursive feeling.  It reinforces the good in life, which in turn reinforces other goods, and before you know you're seeing patterns of good in the world. Before you know it, you have a solid foundation for abundance.

As always, it's important to rest and allow feeling like gratitude and compassion some assimilation time. Walking through life, blissed out and silly, isn't practical and will eventually lead to a reaction.  So small sips of joy, and gratitude, and hope are fine for now.

natural intelligence

I find when I wake up in the mornings, now, I'm a little less focused on achieving energy highs, and more focused on just absorbing the peace and quiet and subtle energy of the morning as it become light.

I think true happiness is a process of aligning oneself with the natural intelligence and happiness of the universe at it is. Sometimes this process brings tremendous gifts, tremendous alterations of consciousness. Sometimes it bring only a deeper appreciation for a more subtle stillness.

What I'm becoming more aware of today is the subtle tightening and stress that grips my body when my mind drifts off to other processes. The processes that have been promised to me by the civilization I live in, education (Ben's), career (mine, my parents), all my anxieties surrounding these things. My lack of mate, and to some extent community. I'm not saying these anxieties are not legitimate. But I no longer desire to be driven by them. I would prefer to be aware of them and to make my decisions from a place that is driven by authentic peace.

That I think is what I call natural intelligence. A place of natural intelligence where my choices and decisions are directed from the place of peace and strength we have when we are committed to this alliance with nature, with light, with the sky and the sun and the planets. This is a good place to come from. This is the only place I want to come from.

primary

I read something yesterday about Freud's theory of primary and secondary process in creativity. Primary is the raw images, material. Secondary is the abstract thinking, editing. I think that what meditation is doing for me is training my primary process, not just in creativity, but in life. We all get so caught up in secondary living, thinking.

Early in the morning like this, I am far more aware of how my mind drifts off to plans and dreams and conversations. Of course this happens whenever i'm meditating. But when I meditate at other times of the day, I'm going against the grain. I should kind of be planning and talking, so it's harder to have any real authority over my mind.

In the stillness of the morning, quiet is right. I have the authority of dawn working for me.

I'm going to change

I've decided to take Ringo up on this challenge. With one small amendment. I'm not going outside everyday at dawn. But I will be getting up every morning at least an hour before dawn (right now 6:15) to do some standing meditation.

And I will write a little bit everyday about the changes, positive, and perhaps negative.

But first I need a reasonably good description of where I think I am in my life:

I'm scared. I've been downsized in my work as a freelancer/book critic to a commitment that is below what I need to make to pay my rent and bills. So unless I find work outside of that I'm going into worse debt than I already am.

But I am also scared that this anxiety will force me into work that I'm not really suited for. For the first time in my life I have the luxury of time. I have a couple of book ideas. If I rush into training for a new skill, let's say teaching. Am I giving up this chance to start the kettle boiling on these projects.

I'm lost. So the plan for the moment is to focus on my inner purpose, as E.T. calls it. Awareness. Awakening. Letting consciousness flow through me so that I can make the best decisions towards my secondary purpose as writer and, perhaps, teacher.

For now my goal is simple. Get up early every day for six months. Stand, and see where this takes me.

Simple, but of course difficult.

Right now, just the beginning of an adventure.