Sunday, September 16, 2012
Flip The Dial
Fire can't be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men.
James Baldwin
*******************
Hello Ernie
*******************
I've spent much time and effort scraping through embers trying to find a spark to light up the spirits, other people's and my own. It's so easy to shut down the fire and settle for the hum drum. "Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear yo not?" (Mark 8) Why do we maintain the habit of looking at the world as if it was mainly uninteresting? Why do we not look for the invisible things, and listen to hear what may be inbetween the sounds around us? Have we forgotten or do we take for granted that we have a mind filled to abundance with thoughts, ideas, dreams?
Remember the radio with two stations? You don't? I bet you have the feeling right now that I am about to remind you. I wrote about it a couple of times. It's a Cabbalist idea. Imagine there is a radio and it plays only two stations. One of them broadcasts only good news, and the other one only bad news. Now image that you turn the radio on and set it at the good news station. But as soon as you turn your back and walk away it automatically flips over to the bad news station. When you realize it you have to go back and readjust the dial, until the next time.
Now imagine that this radio is your mind and the way it works. Right? How many hours a day do you listen to the bad news, the fear, worry, anger, resentment, doubt, depression, despair? Dial flipping is seriously needed there.
Believe me I know how difficult it is to get that dial pointed in the right direction, especially since the bad news station has given you something to worry about or to be afraid of. You don't want to let go of it. You would almost rather chew your head off than hear some cheerful news. You are enjoying the misery. And that's why you need an impulse, a reminder, a kick. And that's where the vagabond comes in.
I have just about typed my finders to the bone stirring up the embers, trying to get people to stay tuned to the good news station and to remind them that the human spirit when armed with the everything of good thoughts and not the nothing of bad thoughts is a powerful force, and when focused on the ins and outs, the ups and downs and the backs and forths of life it can perform miracles.
Remember, the opposite of good isn't evil.
The opposite of good is good-and-evil.
Dana Bate - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I've heated with wood a long time and still sometimes I'm surprised I can open the stove door to nearly spent coals and, with the right tools, knock a blaze out of them. Probably a science to it.
Chronic pain is very depressing. Mine cannot be controlled by drugs, much as a 'ghost' pain from an amputated limb it is 'created' in my brain.
The only method I have found effective is to think of something else, anything else, hard!
I turned to writing, which believe me is very hard for me. In order to focus on the subject, another thing that I find very hard, I use photographs.
I choose to photograph nature because it is there that I see such fascinating things that my mind is stimulated to compose the words; occasionally music has the same effect.
I now write within the more rigid framework of quintuplet poetry because I need a scaffold for the words and it again helps me to focus on the subject.
Sometimes I wish I didn't 'see' the 'picture within the picture' because it is hell trying to visualize it in words yet I am driven to keep trying.
I consider myself lucky to have found something so good at bringing the pain under some degree of control and preventing me from falling down the spiral of depression of the 'poor me' syndrome.
Post a Comment