We tend to hang onto everything. I’m listening to a Joseph Goldstein talking on the wisdom of impermanence. We even tend to hang on to things that make us unhappy—anger, resentment, jealousy, fear… We hang onto stuff that clutters our houses. My nephew filled two huge trash bins, the kind that has to be trucked away, from my brother’s house after he died. That didn’t count the stuff given away or sold, what might be considered useful or meaningful. Some of his stuff is still in the attic above my garage. But then I have some of my mother’s things up there too. Spiders guard the trunks.
Then there’s the other shit in my house. Old dance recital costumes, an old doctor’s scales that once belonged to Melinda, something that belonged to one of her doctor relatives on her mother’s side. We hang onto stuff, but even when we want to get rid of it, the question arises what to do about it. Landfills have their own problems.
Even letting go the mental baggage comes with its own complications. What do we do with the stuff in the mind? It can be suggested that when we let go of anger, it can just dissipate into the ether. Does it? I wonder about the attic of the brain, the kind of shit that hangs around for years, stuff you may think you have forgotten, put behind you.
I take a breath. Single breath meditation.
I do believe liberation is possible. I also understand nothing is forever, even liberation. Everything changes. Love changes. Letting go is a temporary fix. But it is a fix.
I sip my coffee which either represents the blood of a god or is transformed into the real blood of a god depending on your religious leanings. Or perhaps, instead of blood of a god, the ghost of Sandino.
I try to remember the feeling of giving into the reality of dying, the epiphany of the day before yesterday, but the feeling has already slipped into an old play. We are busy learning new lines for a new scene.
I drop a couple of Lion’s Main mushroom supplements. I fill my gut with supplements. Another way of hanging on.
Another thought. I have been weighed down lately by the notion of a better world if only a certain list of people would die off. Thing is, they will die off. The world may not be better because of it, but they will die. Franco finally died. Many of them will die in the near future—no matter how they cling to power or wealth or whatever it is they cling too.
Yep. Take it in. All of it.
Life is getting shorter and shorter and shorter for all of us. Enjoy these moments as much as you can.
Love,
Brady