We watched part of a show last night on two men setting up a trip to ride their motorcycles from England east to the Bering Strait and across and eventually to New York. Since they would be crossing Mongolia and some really isolated areas, I figured it would be pretty interesting, but my impression was that their focus was on the negative. This was wrong and that was wrong. The trip was to take about four months, the same time as chemo, but I felt their approach was so different than mine, and maybe if I had a camera crew following my four month chemo journey, it would have been the same, but what it showed me is that there are many different ways to edit your life. This edit seemed determined to show the misery of it. Perhaps, the joy was taken for granted, or maybe we don't need to see journeys. Perhaps, I prefer the reflective quality of reading them in a book.
Some of these documentaries seem to me to have the same writer or editor. Life is set up for problems. At the last minute, the cameraman calls up to say he has failed his motorcycle driving test, but he is smiling like crazy. I wondered if it were staged for drama, because the next thing we know he is on the trip, having passed it seems on the next try on the same day. I don't know that any of us need created drama in our lives. It seems to me that life provides enough. I also wonder about self-consciousness coming in when someone records all we do, and yet, maybe it is all being recorded in some vast data bank, and that is the point of what some call God. All is known.
Today, we celebrate Father's day and our anniversary. Food is ready, and we have a huge cake. Yum!! A celebratory day is this. I offer Thich Nhat Hanh.
Feelings, whether of compassion or irritation, should be welcomed, recognized, and treated on an absolutely equal basis; because both are ourselves. The tangerine I am eating is me. The mustard greens I am planting are me. I plant with all my heart and mind. I clean this teapot with the kind of attention I would have were I giving the baby Buddha or Jesus a bath. Nothing should be treated more carefully than anything else. In mindfulness, compassion, irritation, mustard green plant, and teapot are all sacred.
-Thich Nhat Hanh, "Miracle of Mindfulness"
The aroma of skunk fills the air. Someone just got sprayed. The moon wiggles its nose. A pungent scent. is shared between us for awhile.
Enjoy a beautiful Father's Day!! Give thanks for the father energy in the world, and the sweetness in which we all enfold!
