Middle season 30

 

Rituals of Creation; Rituals of Connection; Rituals of Contemplation

Vincent Van Gogh Père Tanguy, 1888 

Found the phrase "rituals of creation" in my June journal of this year.  I list daily haiku, morning pages, Jeff Tweedy's daily numbered poem.   I like that phrase.  Just recently, I've been adding some guardrails/rules/inspiration lenses to the daily haiku.

(What's the difference between a ritual and a chore? What's the difference between a ritual and a "practice"?  how about "habit"?). Habits, rituals, chores, practices...

It makes me think of "rituals of connection" (Gottman).  Also for friends... weekly playlist swap.  J and I do long coffee mornings on the couch as the day wakes up.  

I added the phrase "contemplation" to the title bc it was a C word... but shares the idea that it needs to be regular.  Calm?  Rituals of Curiousity?

Additional advice for haiku writing project

 I asked ChatGPT for more advice for my haiku project...

Absolutely—I’d be happy to share some additional advice to help deepen your haiku practice. Writing a haiku each day with themes like these can be a transformative way to connect with the present moment and cultivate a new perspective on everyday experiences. Here are some tips and ideas that might help:

1. **Embrace Simplicity and Specifics**: Haiku traditionally captures the essence of a fleeting moment or a small observation. Focus on concrete, specific details rather than broad abstractions. Describe *what you see, hear, feel*, or *smell* in vivid terms, letting the moment come alive.

2. **Let Each Day Surprise You**: Try to approach each day without any predetermined ideas of what you might write about, even with the month’s theme in mind. The best haikus often arise from unexpected moments—a small kindness, a shift in light, a feeling in nature.

3. **Experiment with Structure**: While traditional haiku follows a 5-7-5 syllable structure, contemporary haiku can be looser. If counting syllables feels limiting, focus more on capturing the moment’s essence within a three-line structure. Let the language be free yet mindful.

4. **Observe and Pause Throughout the Day**: Since your themes encourage observation, try setting brief pauses during the day to reflect on that day’s word. These small check-ins can help you notice potential haiku moments that you might otherwise overlook.

5. **Let Each Theme Guide Your Lens**: Each month’s theme is like a “filter” on your world. You may find moments of compassion on a crowded bus in February or spaces for silence in a loud environment in January. Using the themes as a lens can help you see how even unlikely places offer poetic moments.

6. **Keep a Pocket Notebook (or Use Notes on Your Phone)**: Capture small, raw phrases or details that strike you throughout the day. Sometimes one detail might seem minor, but when revisited later, it can hold unexpected depth for that day’s haiku.

7. **Allow the Haiku to Be Just for You**: Since haikus are brief, it’s easy to get caught up in making each one “perfect.” Instead, let the process be yours. Write freely, letting some haikus feel like practice, knowing that the beauty is in the daily act, not perfection.

8. **Revisit and Reflect Each Month**: At the end of each month, consider reading through the haikus you’ve written. Notice any patterns in your observations or emotions and how they relate to the month’s theme. This can add a layer of reflection and might even inspire future writing projects.

9. **Play with Seasonal Awareness**: Haikus are traditionally seasonally focused, which aligns well with your monthly themes. Notice how natural shifts throughout the year affect your daily experiences. Incorporate subtle seasonal cues—weather, changes in light, nature’s rhythms—as a backdrop to your theme.

10. **Appreciate the Journey**: Over the year, you’ll end up with a collection of 365 small moments that offer a window into your thoughts, experiences, and surroundings. This project isn’t just about producing haikus—it’s about building a collection of reflections that narrate your personal journey over time.

Your commitment to this project is inspiring. With each haiku, you’ll be inviting yourself to slow down, tune in, and appreciate a unique moment in the present. Best of luck, and may the practice bring you deeper joy and connection each day!

Monthly Prompts for Haiku Inspiration

 I asked ChatGPT to provide me more connections for the daily haiku-writing... but instead of IFS (Cs and Ps), I asked it to look at Babauta's list of reframing.  Here's what it came up with

Absolutely! Here’s a year-long guide using Leo Babauta’s ideas to inspire mindful awareness and reflection, with a new quality each month. Each theme is paired with a rationale based on the spirit of the season and opportunities for observation.

---

### Monthly Prompts for Haiku Inspiration

1. **January – Contemplation & Solitude**  

   - January’s quiet, introspective start makes it a great month to find solitude and reflect on intentions for the new year. This is a time for deepening and becoming comfortable with stillness.

2. **February – Compassion & Connection**  

   - A month for building warmth during winter’s chill, February offers a chance to practice compassion and connect deeply with others, expressing love in ways that lift the heart.

3. **March – Curiosity & Adventure**  

   - As spring begins, March invites curiosity about emerging growth and new possibilities. It’s an ideal time for adventurous exploration—within ourselves and in our surroundings.

4. **April – Playfulness & Delight**  

   - With blossoming flowers and budding trees, April is perfect for a spirit of play and delight. This month encourages us to savor each moment, appreciating life’s small joys.

5. **May – Wonder & Gratitude**  

   - May’s abundance of nature provides ample reason for wonder and gratitude. It’s a time to experience awe in the world, recognizing the beauty that surrounds us and feeling thankful.

6. **June – Expression & Freedom**  

   - With summer in full swing, June is a time to embrace freedom and express your true self. Let it be a month to sing your song, connect to purpose, and enjoy an exhilarating sense of openness.

7. **July – Savoring & Spaciousness**  

   - July’s longer days create a sense of spaciousness. This is an ideal time to savor life, whether through relaxation or enjoying activities that bring delight. It’s a month to linger in the moment.

8. **August – Experimentation & Play**  

   - As summer wraps up, August invites play and experimentation. It’s a great time to try something new, take risks, and enjoy the playful creativity that comes from an open mind.

9. **September – Presence & Mindfulness**  

   - With the return of school and routines, September encourages mindfulness and being present. This month’s theme is about grounding yourself, fully engaging in each moment and transition.

10. **October – Trust & Surrender**  

    - As the season turns to autumn, October invites us to relax into change and trust life’s cycles. This month offers the chance to surrender control and allow life to flow naturally.

11. **November – Gratitude & Service**  

    - November’s focus on gratitude makes it perfect for acknowledging abundance and giving back. It’s a chance to serve others and practice appreciation, enhancing a sense of purpose.

12. **December – Reflection & Awe**  

    - As the year closes, December invites reflection and wonder at life’s journey. This is a time to appreciate all that has unfolded, creating space for contemplation and awe as we look to the future.

---

Each month gives you a fresh lens to observe life and spark haiku inspiration. Whether through gratitude, adventure, savoring, or surrender, this approach helps cultivate a mindful and meaningful journey throughout the year.

Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki

 

Some quotations that I didn't enter when I read the book in May.

“Things are needy. They take up space. They want attention, and they will drive you mad if you let them.”

[reminds me of the Stephen King quotation from Under the Dome... feed me]

“Ownership is the most intimate relationship that one can have to objects. Not that they come alive in him; it is he who lives in them.”

“Because in the Bindery, where phenomena are still Unbound, stories have not yet learned to behave in a linear fashion, and all the myriad things of the world are simultaneously emergent, occurring in the same present moment, coterminous with you. Unbound, you could see the universe becoming, clouds of star dust, emanations from the warm little pond, from whose gaseous bubbling all of life is born.”

“it took me a while to learn how to tune my ears so I could hear the Unmade things over all the noise that the Made things were making.”

“(Pro captu lectoris) habent sua fata libelli. (According to the capabilities of the reader) books have their own destinies. —Walter Benjamin, “Unpacking My Library”

“What Slavoj said was this: People are born from the womb of the world with different sensitivities, and the world needs every single one of you to experience it fully, so that it might be fully experienced. If even one person were left out, the world would be diminished. And he said you don’t have to worry about being creative. The world is creative, endlessly so, and its generative nature is part of who you are. The world has given you the eyes to see the beauty of its mountains and rivers, and the ears to hear the music of its wind and sea, and the voice you need to tell it. We books are evidence that this is so. We are here to help you.”

“Maybe this was her talent, she thought, to see beauty in small things, and if so, then she was grateful.”

Already Broken

“But Hojo-san! The teacup isn’t broken!” He looked up, surprised. “To me, it is,” he said. “It is the nature of a teacup to be broken. That is why it is so beautiful now, and why I appreciate it when I can still drink from it.” He looked at it fondly, took a last sip, and then placed the empty cup carefully back on the tray. “When it is gone, it is gone.” That day, my teacher gave me a priceless lesson in the impermanence of form, and the empty nature of all things.”

“The earthquake shook us awake, and the tsunami washed away our delusions. It caused us to question our values and our attachment to material possessions. When everything I think of as mine—my belongings, my family, my life—can be swept away in an instant, I have to ask myself, What is real? The wave reminded us that impermanence is real. This is waking up to our true nature. Already broken. Knowing this, we can appreciate each thing as it is, and love each other as we are—completely, unconditionally, without expectation or disappointment. Life is even more beautiful this way, don’t you think?”

[It's not just our possessions that are already broken...]

“It's capitalism that's crazy. It's neoliberalism, and materialism, and our fucked-up consumer culture that's crazy. It's the fucking meritocracy that tells you that feeling sad is wrong and it's your fault if you're broken, but hey, capitalism can fix you! Just take these miracle pills and go shopping and buy yourself some new shit! It's the doctors and shrinks and corporate medicine and Big Pharma, making billions of dollars telling us we're crazy and then peddling us their so-called cures. That's fucking crazy...”

“Let me tell you something about poetry, young schoolboy. Poetry is a problem of form and emptiness. Ze moment I put one word onto an empty page, I hef created a problem for myself. Ze poem that emerges is form, trying to find a solution to my problem.” He sighed. “In ze end, of course, there are no solutions. Only more problems, but this is a good thing. Without problems, there would be no poems.”

“Perhaps you have heard the Zen motto that says, “When the student is ready, the teacher appears”?”

Learning to be silent

Photo I took at Fullersburg Woods

"Since I've learned to be silent, everything has come so much closer to me."

Rainer Maria Rilke

Portable Happiness

 

See this phrase in my notebook as I review my May journal.

Paul Klee My Joy Always

The Width of Life

 

Poet and naturalist Diane Ackerman on life:

“I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the length of it. I want to live the width of it as well.”

This makes me think of "analog" vs. "digital" living. 

Ask the question: what brings you joy? Write a haiku

Sōichirō Tomioka, Trees, 1961.

In May, ask the question: what brings you joy? What brings you gladness? Ask it 31x in May... look for moments of joy, places of joy... write a daily haiku or a poem about it.

Here's RD and another draft (based on IFS 5Cs and Ps) for each month:

January: [nothing} Clarity and Health

Feb - Attention;   persistence and determination

March - Kindness;  confidence (and perspective?)

April - Patience and determination; playfulness (and presence?)

May - Gladness and Joy

June - Equanimity;  calmness, equanimity, serenity, sanctuary

July - Care; compassion

Aug- Ease;  curious

Sept - Awake; courage, fearlessness

October - Presence; creative

November - Let it Be;  connected, connected (and safe?)

December - Sanctuary; patience, ease

(what about fearless? steadiness? calmness?)

I asked ChatGPT to help me associate a month with a P or C... Here's what it came up with:

Your idea of associating each month with a different C or P for inspiration is wonderful! Here’s a suggested lineup that aligns the qualities with the general spirit or feel of each month:

### Monthly C/P Associations for Haiku Inspiration

1. **January – Clarity**  

   - Start the new year with a sense of openness and clear vision. January’s fresh beginnings can invite seeing things as they are.

2. **February – Compassion**  

   - Often associated with love and kindness, February is a fitting month for exploring compassion toward yourself and others.

3. **March – Curiosity**  

   - As spring approaches, March can inspire curiosity about new growth, change, and what lies ahead in the season of renewal.

4. **April – Courage**  

   - With spring in full bloom, April symbolizes bravery as we break out of winter’s hold, mirroring the courage it takes to bloom and grow.

5. **May – Creativity**  

   - Full of vibrant colors and new life, May is ideal for celebrating creativity, capturing nature’s artistry and your own.

6. **June – Confidence**  

   - As summer begins, June brings warmth and confidence in self and surroundings, ideal for focusing on self-trust and inner strength.

7. **July – Playfulness**  

   - July, often a month of freedom and fun, aligns well with playfulness—embracing spontaneity, joy, and exploration.

8. **August – Patience**  

   - As summer ripens, August embodies patience, allowing things to come to fruition and appreciating the process.

9. **September – Perspective**  

   - With the shift from summer to autumn, September encourages looking at things from new perspectives, seeing change as part of life’s cycles.

10. **October – Calm**  

    - The cooler, quieter onset of fall in October invites calm, making it an ideal month to cultivate and observe peace.

11. **November – Presence**  

    - As we turn inward for warmth and reflection, November is perfect for practicing presence and mindfulness.

12. **December – Connectedness**  

    - December’s focus on gathering and togetherness is a time to honor connectedness, reflecting on relationships with others and within.

Each month can offer a unique lens for observing that quality in the world, which will bring an incredible depth to your haiku writing.

Then I asked it to create a pair of words for each month:

Certainly! Here’s a revised list with two qualities per month, each pairing bringing a complementary focus that aligns with the month’s general feel and flow.

### Monthly C/P Pairings for Haiku Inspiration

1. **January – Clarity & Calm**  

   - Start the new year by inviting a clear, unhurried perspective. January’s quiet after the holidays makes it ideal for focusing on clear, calm vision and intentions.

2. **February – Compassion & Connectedness**  

   - Known for Valentine’s and its themes of care, February is perfect for practicing compassion toward oneself and others, and for feeling connection—within relationships and the broader world.

3. **March – Curiosity & Courage**  

   - As spring begins to emerge, March invites curiosity about the world around us and courage to embrace new beginnings, mirroring the season’s theme of exploration and budding growth.

4. **April – Creativity & Confidence**  

   - April’s bloom and expansion encourage creative expression and building confidence in your unique voice, much like nature’s bright colors and blossoming energy.

5. **May – Perspective & Playfulness**  

   - May’s growth and longer days can inspire looking at things from fresh perspectives, inviting playfulness and a lighthearted approach as life blooms in full.

6. **June – Confidence & Calm**  

   - With summer settling in, June invites confidence as we feel more outwardly active, paired with an inner calm that mirrors the stable warmth of the season.

7. **July – Playfulness & Presence**  

   - In the heart of summer, July encourages spontaneous playfulness, coupled with presence to savor and stay in each moment.

8. **August – Patience & Perspective**  

   - The ripeness of late summer calls for patience in letting things mature fully and appreciating this slow ripening from a broader perspective.

9. **September – Clarity & Creativity**  

   - As the school year begins and autumn approaches, September’s clarity focuses the mind, while creativity helps harness fresh ideas and transitions.

10. **October – Calm & Courage**  

    - With nature slowing and colors deepening, October invites inner calm and courage—an openness to seasonal change and the inner strength to adapt.

11. **November – Presence & Compassion**  

    - In the quiet of late fall, November calls for presence in each moment and compassion toward oneself and others, as we turn inward and reflect.

12. **December – Connectedness & Curiosity**  

    - December’s gatherings bring feelings of connectedness, while curiosity about the year to come invites us to reflect on past experiences and what lies ahead.

Each of these pairings offers both a grounding and expansive quality, setting a rich foundation for observing and writing. This approach lets you tap into a balance of inner and outer qualities each month, keeping each day’s inspiration fresh and multidimensional.

Make them feel important

 Gottman

How can you show your partner that they matter? One major way is through practicing the Gottman concept of small things often.

 

So what is it, exactly? Small things often is the idea that the seemingly insignificant, everyday moments hold more weight than isolated, extravagant gestures when it comes to building emotional longevity in your relationship.

 

Put simply, Dr. John Gottman says, “Successful long-term relationships are created through small words, small gestures, and small acts.”

 

You don’t need grand gestures to show your partner love. Instead, frequent small gestures, such as hugging, holding hands, and regular acts of kindness will help to make your partner feel adored and appreciated.

 

Need some ideas? Try one of these small things today: 

• Sharing a cup of coffee or tea
• Giving a compliment or words of appreciation
• Leaving a thoughtful note
• Giving words of encouragement or support
• Helping with a chore
• Sharing a favorite snack
• Checking in with a quick text
• Sharing a hug or small physical gesture
  

Make them feel important. Do something small today and every day. It can make a big difference.

Above Ground by Clint Smith

Above Ground by Clint Smith


For weeks, we can't go outside without the cicada's
song wrapping itself around the three of us like a quilt.
The tree in our front yard has become their sanctuary,
a place where they all seem to congregate

and sing their first and final songs.
We get closer, and see the way their exoskeletons
ornament the bark like golden ghosts,
shadows abandoned by their bodies

searching for new life.
One of you is four years old. One of you is two.
The next time the cicadas rise out of the earth
you will be twenty-one and nineteen.

I think of how much might change between these cycles.
How much of our planet will still be intact?
What sort of societies will the cicadas return to
when they next make their way up from the earth?

When they first arrive, you are both frightened
of this new noise that hangs in the air,
of these small orange-and-black-winged bodies
that fall from the sky like new rain.

They don't bite, I say.
But neither of you believe me.
So I reach out to one of the branches
and allow one of the orange-eyed creatures to climb

onto my finger. You both watch it roam around my hand
as it becomes familiar with the flesh of my palm,
your eyes widening at the revelation that this infrequent
visitor has no interest in piercing my skin.

And maybe that is enough, because now
you both try to pick up cicadas from the ground
and collect them in buckets as if they are treasure.
And maybe they are.

Maybe treasure is in what dies almost
as quickly as it rises from the earth.
Maybe treasure is anything that reminds you
what a miracle it is to be alive.

Middle Season 29 - 2024

 

An Opportunity for Kindness

 "A benefit should be kept like a buried treasure, only to be dug up in necessity... Nature bids us to do well by all..... Wherever there is a human being, we have an opportunity for kindness."

—SENECA, ON THE HAPPY LIFE, 24,2-3

Problems that should concern you

“From James Clear:

There is no need to fear any problem you are working on. If you are working on it, then you are influencing the outcome.

It’s the problems you don’t address that should concern you.”

Think on these things

Van Gogh Lane with Poplars, 1885

 

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Philippians 4:8 KJV

Noticed this while listening to Hitch-22.  Hitchens reads it at his father's funeral.  Gripes that no other version is as good as the KJV.  Then, I listened to another book about Hitchens that also noticed it.  I'm sure it's come across my dashboard before.

Compare versions here:  https://www.biblestudytools.com/philippians/4-8-compare.html

Turn it, Don't Burn it

NYT article, A Fading Tree, Once Majestic, Had to Come Down. But It Wasn’t the End.A beloved sugar maple slowly succumbed to disease. Today, it lives on in a new form by author  Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

“Turn it, don’t burn it,” says Corey Snyder’s business card. I’d met Snyder, a wood turner, years ago at our farmer’s market, had bought beautiful bowls from him as wedding gifts. I asked if he could do the same with our tree. He said he’d come look at the wood. Maple is often a light wood, sometimes almost white, he said, which many people don’t like. But he was willing to see how the grain turned out.

His chain saw struck up another chorus. More piles of sawdust accumulated on the grass. This time, I put my nose to the newly cut grain and soaked in its sweet smell. We placed heavy chunks of the tree into a tractor bucket, then loaded them onto his trailer. He took them back to his shop. He’d let me know if the wood was worth using.

A couple months later, Snyder presented me with three beautiful, honey-colored bowls: one for our son, one for our daughter, and one for us. Each has different characteristics. One has a “bark inclusion,” a dark brown mushroom-shaped mark where a branch had been trimmed or damaged.

Another has a wave pattern resulting from a Y (a crotch, Snyder called it) where two branches met and the tree’s growth pattern changed. One has light streaks of green because of mineral deposits. They are different shapes, sizes and thicknesses. I asked him how he chose what form the bowls should take. “I let the piece of wood dictate,” he said.

Rejecting, sifting, reforming, arranging

 Nietzsche, from Human, All Too Human

[T]he good artist’s or thinker’s imagination is continually producing things good, mediocre, and bad, but his power of judgment, highly sharpened and practiced, rejects, selects, joins together; thus we now see from Beethoven’s notebooks that he gradually assembled the most glorious melodies and, to a degree, selected them out of disparate beginnings.

The artist who separates less rigorously, liking to rely on his imitative memory, can in some circumstances become a great improviser; but artistic improvisation stands low in relation to artistic thoughts earnestly and laboriously chosen. All great men were great workers, untiring not only in invention but also in rejecting, sifting, reforming, arranging.

If you would be loved, love

 

“Hecato says, ‘I can teach you a love potion made without any drugs, herbs, or special spell—if you would be loved, love.’” —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 9.6”

Is my attention on loving?

 From James Clear

Poet Andrea Gibson on where you spend your attention:

“In any moment on any given day I can measure my wellness by this question:

Is my attention on loving or is my attention on who isn’t loving me?”

It's not the answer that englightens, but the question

 From James Clear Newsletter

Playwright Eugene Ionesco reveals how to discover something useful:

“It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.”

Source: Decouvertes (1970) 

Remembering a honeymoon hike near Drakes Bay, California, while I cook our dinner at the feet of Colorado’s Front Range by Camille Dungy

Remembering a honeymoon hike near Drakes Bay, California, while I cook our dinner at the feet of Colorado’s Front Range

by Camille Dungy

That stretch of coast like the soft spot
 in your self, the heart of your self I call
your soul. That feeling that comes there, when fog settles
 so truly I know I am walking inside
a cloud. Intangible. Tangible. Both
 at once. Sweetheart, I need to tell you something
after we finish, tonight, with this dinner
 I’m preparing—rainbow chard wilted in oil
with shallots and pepitas, herb-rubbed chicken
 already roasting. Even on these hot days,
far from the cool coast of California, when I’m with you,
 I am inside such a cloud. This is how I know
I won’t ever believe in heaven if heaven isn’t right
 here, with you. Our sunflowers keep coming back,
year after year after year, since that first year
 we drove seeds under our new yard’s soft soil.
That, dear heart, is it. It is the softness I need
 to thank you for. I’d be lost without that
part of you that eases up enough to let me in.
 Then closes back around me. For years,
on the edge of California’s coast, ship after ship
 after European ship sailed past. An inlet
kept safe inside a cloud. Safe the sweet smell
 of California buckeye and dusty green sage. Safe
the spineflower, checker lily, blue blossom. Unharmed
 the little native bees and yellow-faced bumble bees
who skip from flower to flower. Unharmed
 the coast buckwheat, and the fiery skipper
and gossamer-winged butterflies who need buckwheat
 to survive. Unharmed the lumbering grizzly.
Unharmed, until thinned fog let ships in, the snakes
 and mountain lions too. You’ve lived long enough,
sweetheart. You’ve paid attention to your history.
 You know what some people will do if let in
to the part of your self you spent so long protecting.
 But you showed me this anchorage. Those soft brown
shoulders. The headlands. Here I am. So much in bloom!
 And me, with you, in all this soft wild buzzing.

Middle Season 28. 2024

 

Blue Jays Impersonating Hawks

Dall-E-3

Yesterday during a walk at school I heard a hawk in the pine tree by the east entrance.  All I could see in the tree was a blue jay.  Resource office Keller was there, too, insisting it was a hawk.  He Googled and found that Jays can mimic hawks.

From Cornell Labs - Blue Jay Sounds

Songs

The Blue Jay vocalization most often considered a song is the “whisper song,” a soft, quiet conglomeration of clicks, chucks, whirrs, whines, liquid notes, and elements of other calls; a singing bout may last longer than 2 minutes.

Calls

Blue Jays make a large variety of calls. The most often heard is a loud jeer, Also makes clear whistled notes and gurgling sounds. Blue Jays frequently mimic hawks, especially Red-shouldered Hawks.

But why?  Here's Birdwatchingdaily.com

Blue Jays have an impressive vocal repertoire that includes not only many sounds beyond their raucous jay! jay! calls but also other familiar oddball noises that resemble gurgles, rattles, and squeaky gates. Like other members of the corvid family, jays are pretty good mimics; they commonly impersonate Red-tailed and Red-shouldered Hawks. I’ve also heard jays do credible Cooper’s Hawk and Broad-winged Hawk calls, and I’ve read reports of them imitating American Kestrel and Osprey.

Several theories attempt to explain the behavior, two of which are most accepted and logical. The first says that jays are trying to warn other birds that a hawk is or was present. The second suggests that jays want to dupe other birds into thinking that a hawk is nearby, perhaps to gain access to a feeder. While on woodland walks, however, I have heard solitary jays impersonating hawks when apparently I was the only audience.

Since jays often produce the calls when they’re excited, I may have unknowingly been near a nest (and perhaps appeared to the jay to be susceptible of being scared by a hawk). A more mundane explanation is that jays just mimic sounds they hear, and hawk calls are similar enough to jays’ other standard sounds that they are an easy addition to their vocal array.

In the place your actually find yourself

Sōichirō Tomioka, Trees, 1961.

 

NYer review of Oliver Burkeman's new book - Meditations for Mortals.

Burkeman thinks that it’s possible to scale back at the highest level, too, by thinking differently about what you should be doing with your life as a whole. He tells a story about Carl Jung, who, as a teen-ager, suffered from fainting spells and couldn’t focus on his studies. One day, Jung overheard his father lamenting his son’s condition: the family didn’t have much money, his father said, and he worried about how his son would support himself. The boy felt a sudden clarity: it was obvious that he should devote himself to succeeding at school. This, Jung later wrote, was his “life task” at that time. Your life task, Burkeman explains, is what emerges at the intersection of your circumstances and your abilities. “Never mind what you want. What does life want?” he asks.

A life task is less exalted, and more grounded, than your “calling” or your “destiny.” You may dream of becoming a director or a C.E.O. But, “if you only have a hundred dollars in the bank, your life task won’t require the immediate purchase of thousands of dollars’ worth of moviemaking equipment,” Burkeman writes. “If you’re the single parent of three small children, it won’t involve working eighteen-hour days for a tech start-up.” Your life task, right now, might be smaller and more obvious—writing a song, raising a child, getting a new job, or continuing in the one you have. Think of the contribution you can make “in the place where you actually find yourself,” Burkeman suggests. 

Less Planning, More Doing

NYer review of Oliver Burkeman's new book - Meditations for Mortals.

Burkeman isn’t saying that we should give up completely on our ambitions, hopes, plans, and so on. Instead, his idea is that acknowledging our limits will allow us to accomplish more of what matters to us while “enjoying life now.” In an early chapter, he writes that many of us aspire to command our lives as though we were the captain of a superyacht, controlling our route “from the plush-leather swivel chair on the serene and silent bridge.” Yet it’s more realistic to see each of us as occupying “a little one-person kayak,” tossed about by waves and “borne along on the river of time” toward death. What being in a kayak means, in practical terms, is that you should try less planning and more doing. Instead of setting out to become a master meditator—and buying the requisite books, candles, cushion, and app—you should simply try meditating for five minutes today, and see what happens. Along the same lines, you might aim to adopt “dailyish” habits, or pat yourself on the back for managing three hours of truly focussed work in a day. 

* * *

Analog living

Sycamore leaves from a bench in Field Park.  

I learned about Courtney Carver from Leo Babauta.  Saw this:

Last Sunday, we went for a six mile hike and passed by twenty lakes. What made it even better is our phones didn’t work at all. Never underestimate the healing power of spending time in a wifi-free forest. If you live near a forest, plan a walk. If a walk through the forest isn’t possible for you, consider a five, ten or twenty four hour break from phones and digital devices and see how you feel. This hike was a great reminder for me to get back to longer blocks of analog living.

Yesterday in the car, I get two spam calls back to back while driving to volleyball game.  Even though I have my ringer turned off on my phone, because I was listening to Spotify, the phone rings in my car.  Good vibe of the song is gone.  I have to hit the decline call button and wait for the phone and car to disconnect and get back to the music.   Next came a phone call from Henry's dad requesting his iCloud password.  The first three attempts don't work.  Step dad is annoyed, J is trying to problem solve.  A cloud of dissatisfaction and annoyance fills the car.  

Right before the annoying step dad call, I'm telling J how annoying the two spam calls were.  The interrupting itself is the main problem.  

The things that are saying, "Choose me!"

 

From Courtney Carver

Put a time boundary around where your  attention goes.

Most things don’t require or deserve your time and attention. Even though it feels like we are pulled in a million different directions, we do not have to respond or devote any energy at all to most of the things that are saying, “choose me!” It’s not just the big things either, really see where your minutes and moments are going. Save this precious resource of attention for something precious.

This reminds me of the "Feed Me!" section of Stephen King's Under the Dome.  What is "something precious?"  She quotes Mary Oliver:

This is after all (as Mary Oliver calls it) your “one wild and precious life” and it’s being eaten up by your never ending to-do list, commitments, and trying to show up for everything and everyone.

One of her goals on the same page might be a good "attention game" to play in order to reduce the attentional demands of our world.  (Maybe we need BOTH to practice mindful attention-focusing and to limit the choosing.  (the sabbatical, the fencing in of attention)

Pretend the internet is broken.

I think we all know where the biggest time sucks are. Email, Instagram, searching things, news alerts and all the browsing and scrolling. For a little while every day and a little bit longer every week, unplug. Create pockets of quiet, get bored, and embrace solitude. Track how much time you spend online each week. If you cut back 25% how much time will that give you? If you aren’t ready to fully disconnect, try removing email, browsers and social media from your phone. It’s likely that just by setting this time boundary, you’ll create that extra hour a day just for you. 

Even if it's not new, it's new

I came across a line in Insight Timer about going through life as if everything that's not new is actually new.  It's a message I need to hear.  Yesterday I left for work at 7, did a day of tasks and meetings, did a social obligation of a get together that ended up being just me and Myles, then went to 3 hours of 7th grade parochial volleyball.

"You've Never Felt This Before" meditation by Amy Johnson PhD.

it's fresh and real... consider the possibility that nothing repeats.... what you think you you've felt

everything you feel is brand new and fresh as it's coming up... and as much as the mind wants to pattern match and say this always happen to me - what the generalizing mind wants to feel....  nothing that's here now has ever been here before will never be here again.

[Fighting boredom.  Knowing what you truly like.  Having to act out roles that you don't really enjoy doing -- parties, speeches, etc.  I'm stitching together some thoughts recently about "showing up" and "putting on a mask"] 

6:30 sunset

 

Today the sunset was at 6:30. I set a timer to be ready for the vigil. I sat in the back room and … just sat. Watched the trees become silhouettes in the next five minutes. 

It was not spectacular in the normal sense. There was a lawn mower rumblingvin the background. There was no breeze to speak of. The blue sky became pale. 

Now, at 6:37, the sky has no blue. It’s white. Colorless. Maybe tinged with pink if anything. 

Daily checklist: repair, explore, build

 

Summer Songs by Rigoberto González

Summer Songs
Rigoberto González

The rain, of course, as it dings
every leaf on the eucalyptus—
what was it doing there, on the US-

Mexico border, so far from its native
lands? You might have asked your
grandmother that question, she too

so far from home, she too singing
in her beloved Purépecha tongue:
Mederush cancahuish nirash Inguia.

Again, I'm going to sit and drink.
Drink what? The rain. The sorrow
of thirsting for sounds that take us

back among our kind. Is this why
she sat beneath that tree all day,
sweating in the heat? To water

the soil, to plead to the tulips—
they too displaced—grow! grow! grow!
Oh, desperate wish. If they didn't burst

open all spring, not a chance in July.
Then again, who would have guessed
a tree from Australia befriending an

Indígena from the mountains, here
in the arid and dry Sonoran Desert.
Then again, the miracle of summer rain,

and your grandmother's song inside
that song. And the tulips aching
to be free, hum hum humming along.

published in Sierra magazine.