Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Richard away in Ipswch.  The farrier was here until 11.  Have done very little of a constructive nature all day.  Just finished yoga and meditation.  Trying to build up to 15 minutes of meditation - eventually to work up to 20.

The days seem to come and go with frightening rapidity.  Copied the previous post to the blog - wrote it 8 days ago - and have intended to write every day.  By the time I've ridden Balthazar and done morning chores it's 10am and I'm pooped.  Guess I'm not 20 anymore.  Have to stop and sit for awhile, then again I've been up and going since 5:30 so maybe I'm being a little hard on myself.

Truth be told.  I fritter away a lot too.  I'm an expert timewaster - reading Weird News on Huffington Post - or playing games - still  playing games although credit where credit is due - not nearly as much as I used to - also practive French - and writing weekly to my elderly aunt who's in a  home in Canton Ohio hundreds of miles away from family.

I hope I'm wrong and one of her two kids is nearby yet going on past history, I doubt it.  Can't help but pick up clues from previous letters.  She was so painfully grateful when L took her to the Cabin.  Maybe they are loving attentive children and make the effort to stay in touch but somehow I doubt it.  Therefore I've decided to write her once a week.  News, not from Lake Woebegone but from Dry Gully Road.  Perhaps she's non compos mentis now.  I knew she was having cognitive problems after a fall, maybe she's passed away - she's in her 90's - and no one's told me so that I wrote to an empty bed or a wastebasket, but it's still worth the effort.  After a shaky start she flouted husband and husband's brother and remained good friends with Mom.  That means a lot.

Suppose too, I've so little family that keeping touch with those that remain becomes increasingly important. My other aunt doesn't write and the few missives received are so fragmented and full of joy and gratitude that I've written her that she imparts no news at all.  She's a bright and loving spirit but goes off on tangents to her tangents to the degree that not one sentence is completed.  I love her and love her joie de vivre but she exhausts me too.

(Written November 12).  Having trouble finding uninterrupted time to write - to follow a thought more deeply than just thinking it.

For days now I've wanted to investigate why I feel something may be lost by mindfulness.  If I'm always 'in the moment' I'm not thinking and if I'm not thinking I am not - or so it seems.  Isn't our whole reason for living to make use of this gigantic grey muscle, the brain?  So why then does it exhaust me with its constant chatter?

I've certainly become more aware of it and the mindlessness and fixations of its mindlessness.  The fires for instance.  Frequently I catch myself having reasoned arguments with the proponents of burning.  In doing this I'm not coming up with new insights, it's more an ego thing where I try and convince them of the uselessness and harm bush burning does.  So I stop and a few minutes later find myself doing the same thing again.

I've been quite surprised. 

This awareness, this mind observing the mind, is a new thing for me.  A bit mortifying but awareness is the first step to change.  When I become aware of being somewhere other than here and  now I try and focus on body and breath.  That focus lasts about a second, maybe two then I'm off again.  But it's a start.

Have also started doing yoga without the bird CDs.  Have several recordings of birds; in Turkey, India, Far North Queensland, Tibet, etc.  Always listened to them while doing my hour of yoga.  Now I do it in silence.

I've decided to try not to be distracted from the here and now.  Already understand that the rest of my life will be needed to even begin to get a handle on this.  Yoga is better although my mind still wanders - of course! - deeper, more correct, more calming, with less impatience to get this over with to move on to the next thing.

There's always neough time for everything in the here and now.

Saturday, November 9, 2013

"Right Now" I am taking refuge in the Towoomba City Library from a) the heat and b) more bush burning at home.  When I heard John was ging to burn the corridor across from Horrocks' where  two pheasant coucals and a whipbird live I got upset.  Again.  Useless to cry for what was going to happen.  Then hearing Peter Horrocks was going to burn the creek (which doesn't belong to him) gave rise to a real rant.

So, here I am; in the air conditioning (it's 36 in Mt. Whitestone, probably 32 here) with a full tummy from a Jilly's salad and with my caffeine levels topped up with a very bitter soycino.

Started reading Turning the Mind Into an Ally by Sakyong (which translates as Earth Protector) Mipham - which only goes to illustrate how much of an antagonist my mind is because of the suffering experienced BEFORE the burning even took place. 

Still one has to start somewhere.  I don't meditate every day, even when doing yoga there's usually an excuse I can find to postpone it.  Two to 4 times a week probably.  And the little I do and the inconsistency of it doesn't make for a mind I'm in control of.

This book will make a big difference.  After a rough start I'm pretty consistent with yoga because the benefits are so obvious and addictive.  I feel better.

Suspect that regular meditation will reap the same reward.

Beyond that -found The House, the Purple House (so called because of it's purple painted front facade and deck) which appeals to R and I.  Two hours from Brisbane which is its main drawback.  But nevertheless it's a winner.  100 acres at Lillian Rock between Kyogle and Murwillumbah.  $650,000.  Affordable.  Private.  Beautiful.  Even wrote to the realtor.  Who knows?  I do know we will find the best place for us.  I do know, or think I do, that it is time to leave DGR.  On the way home from the ride this morning (through burnt out overgrazed paddocks) saw men in fancy casual clothes and expensive 4 wheel drives - 3 of those - returning from a look at the quarry site.  It mght have a price tag of $9.5 million but some rich investor will buy it as a tax break and future investment.  Anyway the signs are there, from the quarry being on the market to endless torching of the bush to a proliferation of motorcycle traffic even to hoons doing donuts at the end of our driveway - and squealing as they did it - not the motorcycle engine but a chubby young man, squealing like a pig and so engrossed in making donuts he didn't see me standing there staring at him.

Another of the many symptoms of my untamed mind.  I judge all the time, form opinions all the time.  Catty things - just then a young woman, long blond hair pulled into a ponytail, black t-shirt and jean shorts, great bone structure, honey coloured skin - and obsese.  I make alot of silent judgements about obsese people.  Not how horrible they are but how sad.  But no matter whether it's catty or commiserative it's still a judgement call.

I don't experience reality as it is.

Wonder if they've finished burning yet.

Then there's a whole 'nother chapter titled Richard and the almost daily manifestations of his rapid aging (he's only 67!).  Forgetting things, dullness, not following through with a thought or action.  I'm starting to check up on him, make sure things are done properly -without him knowing.  This morning the flyveil  lay unwashed by the tap.  He'd taken it there and then forgot about it.  One of the feed buckets was still in the yard, the hot water tap was not turned off properly so that it dripped, the dishes were done but no counters were wiped (if I cook he does the dishes which as I'm doing almost all the cooking means he does the evening dishes all the time.  I do lunch.  He does breakfast).

Pen dying, time to quit - buy a new pen!