Roses and Football

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

It is the world that is enlightened
and we who are intermittent.

So we vacillate from the extraordinary to the ordinary, time and time again, and most of us blame the world.

I woke up this morning with an image in my head. It was a simple image, of two red roses in the darkness one above the other with a slight… diagonal – like… if you drew a line between the middle of the two roses, you'd get kind of \ angle, slightly less in fact. It was a haunting image, one that I wanted to create to use as a profile picture on Facebook from next weekend for a few days… with the coming of Samhain and the new year.

I don't have a camera, and even if I did, I'm not a terribly good photographer, and besides, where am I going to get roses to photograph at this time of the year. No, I would have to resort to stock copyright free images from the internet. When I'm looking for a picture or anything I tend to use Yahoo's search engine, so that's what I did… and believe me there are pages and pages of pictures of roses out there, some of them are extraordinarily beautiful, and some are just pictures of roses, and I don't know what it is that makes the difference. Maybe that's why I'm not such a good photographer, because I can't 'see' the spark that will make the difference between a good photograph, and an excellent one (when I'm taking them, I mean). I just snap away… impatient to capture the picture.

As far as us blaming the 'world' for our movement between ordinary and more than that, it's certainly a truism that environment plays a part in what we do, see, and hear… though I'd not say that we blame it of course, for not being better than we are… for not doing something in a more extra-ordinary manner – but it does play a part. For example: this afternoon I was watching the Carolina Game – which we lost, incidentally. To begin with I was watching on gametracker, which…. If you don't know what that is, it's kind of like an animated representation of the field with little peg men that move to show the progress of each play, (with little yellow flowers for flags). Now… watching in this fashion, I was thinking what an ordinary game it was – it was only when I watched the second half of the game with Mir, and could see the whole of the team, and everything, that I realised how 'extraordinary' the game actually was, (unfortunately, extraordinarily bad!) The difference was I could see everything, and not just, as on gametracker, the two (sometimes three) 'pegs' involved in the play. I could see the rush of the rest of the team, the confusion of the melee. The whole game came to life far more… and that's a product of being able to see the 'big picture.'

This of course puts the 'ball' (pun intended) firmly back in our court in respect of who, or what to 'blame' for our swing between extraordinary and ordinary – at least, I think so.

Cooking the Books

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

Our life experiences will have resonances within our innermost being, so that we will feel the rapture of being alive.
--Joseph Campbell

There is no minimizing the hardships that arise beyond our control…


I talked a little bit the other day about work and how much politics is getting in the way of the satisfaction of teaching – and how I've been looking a little on the edges of the box (not quite outside of it) to take advantage of every opportunity possible. Reading this today made me think of something. Yesterday I was looking online at the TES (Times Educational Supplement), and their classified section that list many teaching jobs nationally and internationally – and the one thing that struck me was that there were more teaching jobs available in Saudi and other areas of the middle east, and that most of them were funded by the oil companies – specifically Shell. This would be all well and good if I wanted to find a job in that area of the world… and whilst I was almost tempted by a job in Saudi still, in the back of my mind there was the fear of all the unrest in those parts of the world right now.

My first headteacher, one of the most caring and kind men I've met in a long time, before he came to run that school had been a teacher out in the Middle East, actually working for the royal family out there, educating some of their children. That was a long time ago now. I've been teaching for over 14 years. What brought him back to the UK was the death of his wife. She was killed when a bomb exploded. Even way back then… that region wasn't exactly the safest place to be.

Also… was talking with a very dear friend yesterday too – and worrying at the fact that sub posts are getting to be more and more rare, and the need for work and worry over that. She too works in the public sector, and is facing the same kinds of worries – will there be enough work to keep us all on – but… digression… in talking about the fact that sometimes the half term (one week) school holiday periods are so often different in Leicester than in other parts of the country she made a very kind (and practical) suggestion that if I told the agency (which is national) to think of me for work during those weeks in the area in which she lives, I could stay with her that week if there was work available, if I wanted to make a bit more cash instead of going a week without, if I stay in the country. I'm honestly touched.

What didn't leave me feeling at all touched was a news item earlier today, as I was passing through the living room to get something, where the financial reporter was bragging about how the government had managed to bring down the deficit budget on public spending. Hmmm, wonder how that might have happened…. Could it be because they're laying off teachers left and right, and closing care facilities, and making social workers redundant… let's think about this for a minute. Just goes to prove that you can make numbers reflect any bulshit that you want them too.

Glass Half....???

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

I envy the tree,
how it reaches
but never holds.

We can't stop life from flowing. So we are left with feeling what was and what is, and we call the difference loss.


These two sentences leaped off the screen and really made me pay attention to the words and the whole of the rest of the reading. What a negative way of looking at things! So then that got me thinking, and wondering – and worrying at things a little bit – is it human nature to think of things in such a negative way, with such a 'glass half empty' mentality?

So then that got me thinking about the movie that Mir and I just watched, (one of a few actually, but this in particular). The Boy Who Could Fly - fabulous movie, if you haven't seen it, you should… I'm going to leave a full review for another time, because, for all the difficult points in its subject matter, it's actually a very good 'feel good' kind of movie… (and yes, I did cry at the end).

The point I want to bring up, I think is that… that I've just alluded to right there. (Sorry, necessary spoilers follow). At the end of the movie, the boy who Milly has befriended, cared for, and fallen in love with, leaves… she has his ring and their memories to keep him in her heart, and I remember thinking at the time this happened in the movie, 'oh my goodness, how sad,' (not those exact words, but… anyway)… but the end of the movie is a really positive one… uplifting, makes you feel good. Why did I think of that moment in a negative kind of way? Why did I focus on the sadness of the moment and not on the poignant sense of love that was left behind – in me, as well as in the characters in the movie?

So from the quote above, what about those moments where what is, is different from what was in a positive way – are we still going to call it 'loss'?

Snapping

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

A flag goes boneless as it assumes
the shape of the wind that snaps it
and so I love.

As the Chinese sage Lao-tzu said 2,500 years ago, "The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail...Whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death. Whoever is soft and yielding a disciple of life.'

Is it strange to begin an entry responding to this post by saying that I am afraid; afraid for the planet, the 'world' and the people in it?

I turned on my computer earlier and downloaded my e-mail only to find there was breaking news from ABC about an earthquake that had happened this morning in Turkey. It wasn't a small earthquake… it was 7.2. News coverage can be seen here. Since the morning there have been 20 more quakes in the same region… all over 5 on the Richter scale.

These things are becoming more and more frequent: earthquakes, tsunami, wildfires, hurricanes… as if the world is trying to shrug her shoulders and throw off all of her burdens. At the same time human unrest is peaking… wars, civil unrest, the rejection of unjust, tyrannical regimes amid chaos and violence… as if we too are 'snapping' in the winds of change.

While I was waiting for the news – to find out more about Turkey – I had to sit through all the human ugliness that is the death of Gadaffi. While I agree that we shouldn't suffer dictators, should not sit idly by and allow one individual to rule by fear and violence, I'm still somewhat uncomfortable about the whole manner of what happened to him, and uncertain about how I feel about what's happening to his body right now. My flag is somewhat stiff at my own sense of right and wrong… but on the news they interviewed the colonel of the Libyan army, who had a different perspective. He basically said (and I felt myself shocked at his answer) when asked about what he thought would and should happen to the body, and I'm paraphrasing from what I can remember: "I don't care. Look, what is important is that he is gone, no more in the world, and he represented all that was bad in the world. Look at what he did to others, they will either bury him or not." No matter what was said to him, and I think the reporter talking to him was just as shocked at his attitude as I was and was trying to call him on it, he just kept on going back to the stark reality of it. Stuff happens in war and it's not going to be nice stuff. Gadaffi did bad stuff and was a dictator. He's gone and now we must move on lest what lingers should tear our flags to pieces… but still… I worry yet again over our human nature. Is all of this happening because we are so rigid, so set in our ways and therefore have become the disciples of our own death?

Feeling Unrested

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

The first breath
is always life-giving.

The wisdom traditions all have some form of meditation or prayer that is aimed at slowing us into this center, where the very pace of creation breathes.


Creation breathes… it's an interesting way of putting the calm at the centre meant for prayer and meditation. I thought it was meant to be stillness and peace… a place to calm the spirit and with it, the body… I've never really thought about it that way before. Perhaps it's the idea of 'slow' that's such a comfort then.

I think I'm only going to get two of these entries done today… where I'd wanted to do three, so that I can catch up, but… the truth of it is, I haven't been sleeping well, even when I sleep – even when I go to bed, I can't sleep. It's a worry, and of course that makes it worse.

So the slightest thing sets me off… rushing down some stupid hole of what actually feels like panic. It's a very uncomfortable feeling. Maybe what I need to do is try and spend some time breathing, meditating or something before I try to fall asleep, to reach that calm slow centre. Maybe some deep breathing, to help, because right now, all I feel is afraid.