Very Strange Musings

 I don't know if it is a sin ( or a Blogging Crime) to use someone else's blog as a basis for a blog of one's own, but if so, I guess I am just risking falling deeper into the humungous, plentitudinous  Pit of Sin which I have created for myself during my long and somewhat.... ummmmmm...... adventurous life.



On April 19, 2011,  Mike, of "Too many Mornings" posted a fantastic piece in which he plays around brilliantly with the word "time" and all different uses and concepts thereof.  
Nearly every other sentence pleads to be quote of the day, but for some reason, it was one of the Comments and Mike's reply that stuck in my mind long after I had wiped my nose on my sleeve  and blotted away the tears of laughter from reading and rereading.  Here, discussing the time anomalies of "mindblowing sex is  what really did me in:

Comments:

Sue:

April 19, 2011 at 10:15 am

Wait a minute, wait. How long is mind blowing sex suppose to last? 20 minutes or 20 seconds, I don’t understand?

Michael:

April 19, 2011 at 10:43 am

It’s supposed to last several hours. It usually lasts about 20 minutes. It feels like 20 seconds.
When you think about it, it’s a lot of effort for a very small payoff.

                                                          
Having briefly  dabbled on the fringes and edges of what might be called borderline nymphomania in my much younger life, I have often thought the same thing and wondered if anyone else ever had that same thought.

Don't misunderstand me, please........this is not a rant against sex.   (Do you think I am totally and hopelessly batshit crazy????  If I ever decide to commit suicide by bringing the entire blogging and cyberworld down on me swinging hatchets, maces,chains, swords, rolling pins, tire irons, cleavers, chain saws, Wagner cast iron skillets,  daggers, hat pins and canisters of pepper spray I might publish THAT rant, but that is definitely not my intention right now.)

But when you think about it, notice how many things that we do have payoffs that are so fleeting, ephemeral  and last so briefly one cannot help but wonder if they are worth the bother and the risk of the often damaging results.........as a wretched but honest example of the addictive personality, I point out that Smoking was often a bore and a pain after the first puff or two......... Eating chocolate mousse is ecstasy at first nibble, but somewhere, before the last morsel is devoured, nausea and deep regret are already emerging from the wings to take center stage..........Booze is a magical potion as the first sip zips through your veins, relaxes every tense muscle, dispatches every gnawing pain and turns you into the incredibly gorgeous, witty, scintillating creature you always dreamed  was inside you.  The last sip often will not even stay all the way down and turns you into the horrible, disheveled, pungent  mess you always feared might be the real you.  We will not even pursue this scenario to the next morning.....all of my followers are way ahead of me here, I  am sure.  Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. 

So, the obvious question here is, "Why do we do it?".   If you have been hanging on my every damned word thinking that I was going to present you with  The Answer, you are pathetically deceived.  I only know that, in each and every one of my addictions, that blessed indescribable moment was enough to keep me hooked and coming back for longer than I like to admit, but was not enough, ultimately, to keep me from sadly rejecting  the whole vicious circle before it did me in for good.  

I did have one strange thought recently which I will toss into this odd dish of sweet and sour musings.........I wondered if it is possible, at the moment of our death even as we are still moving toward the light, if that wonderful ecstasy may be experienced again as we drop all of the anxieties, fears, worries, guilts, shames and burdens at the exit door......the idea strikes me as possible, plausible, logical and......my idea of heaven.
I think I will keep that one on file.

Higher Education or Let me Learn That Lesson in the Next Lifetime, Please

WARNING:  Expect no laughs, giggles,snorts or funny stuff all ye who enter here today.  This is that boring  
 Lo who insists on gnawing on a puzzle until the poor thing is unrecognizable. Sorry about that.  

I have recently been wrestling with a few of life's conundrums and suddenly came upon a truth I had never glimpsed before......and I am not sure at all that I like it.  This is very different from other truths that I have stumbled upon whereby I feel enlightenment, release, ecstasy (and gratitude that I can stop wrestling with that particular lesson from now on).  For this reason I intend to brood upon it for a while and will not discuss it further right now.  (Stop that booing and hurling of overripe fruit in my direction this very minute......I will tell you if and when I am good and ready.)

However, it made me think about this whole business of Life Lessons and how mightily we all struggle not to learn them, and how sometimes our subconscious or our wiser self gives us a smack in the head in our dreams if we could only understand them. 
 
The wonderful  Mary Moon of  Blessourhearts and I share a lot of things including those weird dreams about  being in college and forgetting to go to our classes.   Some time back Ms. Moon blogged about a puzzling dream she had..


............."But the one that woke me up this morning was bad enough. I'd applied to law school and gotten accepted and then of course I had no idea where classes met or when or anything and besides that, I kept saying, "I don't want to be a lawyer!" and so I stayed at the Opera House and was trying to do some Herculean task straightening up and organizing the costume and prop room so that the law school could put their books in that room, feeling guilty all the while because I wasn't ever going to make anything of
myself. "


My own dream is similar and I have dreamed it many, many times in my life.  I don't know what led up to the dream moment, but wherever I am I suddenly realize that I am in college,  it is the end of the semester and there is a class I had signed up  for but never attended and, worse yet,  the final was today.

Horrors!  Not only would I flunk the exam and the course, but I had missed/avoided the chance to learn that lesson........(have no idea what the subject was).  The punishment for this was never very clear but I knew it was dire and would affect my entire life.  I would be plunged into a pit of guilt, remorse, shame and black depression.  Then always I would awake still writhing in agony and ask myself, "What the hell was that all about?".                                                                                                                        


It is only recently that I have come up with some kind of answer.....I think that this is all related to my conviction that life is a kind of school  and we are here to learn certain life lessons   (while we are doing what WE think we are here for) ....but sometimes we aren't really ready to learn that lesson or perhaps are too cowardly to attempt it at this moment ....it is too painful an idea to accept.... too difficult to even face the truth that is flickering before our eyes so we shut them tight,  turn our backs and slink back down the way we came without enduring the confrontation and without learning anything except that we have escaped (growing) and that cowardice has prevailed again.    We get many chances to learn the same lesson and often turn away without learning it.
                                                                                                                            


Perhaps in the next life we will get another chance to try and we will succeed***........Meanwhile we go on avoiding it desperately enduring that excruciating drawing up of all our resources against....of suffering that tensing of all our muscles , the squeezing, straining, twisting and painful pinching of our guts and entrails, the clutching at door jambs with clenched fingers and bloody, torn fingernails .....all the ways we resist opening our eyes and exposing ourselves to the lesson.  In my own case I have found that it is only when the process of resisting becomes so excruciating and exhausting that I cannot continue that good things happen.  When I have to surrender.......to stop resisting the letting go of a wrong idea or an unacceptable truth about myself...........when I go limp and can no longer fight and must accept death from the truth, that is when I can finally see things from a different viewpoint.  Then finally comes not death but the moment of epiphany and triumph.   One beautiful "Aha"......one  delicious orgasmic moment and then........sob.....on to gather strength for the next lesson grateful I do not have to drag that particular bag of crap along any longer.

For me it always boils down to the same precious old keywords..........."Accept" and "Let go".

Sigh.


Sounds so simple....

If only it weren't so damned hard........

***I do believe we get to go around again....can't accept that God would let all the effort we put into learning what we have managed to learn go to waste.                                      

Conversations With Myself.....

Yeh, yeh, today I come to you, not in the role of Profound Thinker and Pronouncer of Truths but as the meshugina schlepper that I really am most of the time.  (Actually, I never come to you as those other things, but sometimes words pour out of me that surprise even me and all my other selves............if you wanted to be nasty you could add another few labels to my list......schizoid multiple personality kook....but then, aren't we all)

I never intended to  blog today, but I found myself hearing words coming out of my mouth from the moment I arose from my bed and it occurred to me that one of the pitfalls of living alone is that one does tend to talk to one's self.    Nothing wrong with that, mind you......except that the next perception that I had was that I was not really talking to myself at all......I was talking to everything from the cats to inanimate objects.  I am not sure which is crazier (nor could I care less) but it tickled the hell out of me and made me laugh when I said to Mr. Squirrel.......who came out of the tree to eat his breakfast of sunflower seeds and peanuts thinking I was on my way back to the house, whereas, in reality, I was lurking behind a bush watching him devour seeds like he had never had a square meal and might never have one again.  When I poked my head out a  bit to see him better, he froze and contemplated flight, and I shouted in exasperation, "What's the matter with you, you damned fool, MFing squirrel.......don't you recognize me......I am Lo, Official Bringer of Goodies fercrissake."  He said nothing but looked at me oddly like he was hoping I would not have a seizure or something before he finished, and that is when I had to burst out laughing.

A few minutes prior to this I had overheard myself chatting at a hummingbird.  For weeks I have been messing around with the little feeders that I use which the birds love but which pain me because they have no perches.  I know that hummers use huge amounts of energy with that faster-than-sound flapping which enables them to hover and feed, but I have seen some feeders that have perches which clever hummers use to sit and  dine at rest, thereby conserving the energy of their meal for better things.  As I have said a gazillion or more times, I hate waste so I have been creating little perches out of wire and attaching them to one feeder to see if I can get one of the adorable little bastards to sit down and slurp like a mench.   So far to no avail.  But, this morning I readjusted the angle of the perch and watched hopefully and damned if I didn't see one of my guys stop flapping his wings and sit  sipping leisurely.    Be still my beating heart!  I heard myself muttering first, "Thank you, God" and then, "Oh, thank you, you clever befeathered creature......you have made my life complete."  He (or she) said nothing and did not even look at me oddly.  Just wiped his bill on the nearest twig, probably burped politely and nonchalantly flew away.  He or she already knew it was not necessary to thank me.

Earlier still, I overheard myself make a deal with the step stool.  I have practically given up climbing up on ladders and step stools because of my main motto, "Don't Fall Down!".  Today, the light over my kitchen sink burned out and with my poor vision I cannot promise my fingers any safety without that light.  Sigh.  Wednesdays Florence is off so I weighed the choices and heard myself say, "If I were you, Lois, I wouldn't do that." (oh, yes, I give myself advice all the time).  However, I decide to ignore my own good advice and   try getting up into the light bulb closet on my own, but first I had to hammer out a bargain with the step stool which has been hinting that it needs it's nuts and bolts tightened.

"Just keep all your lovely parts together for one more climb and I promise you I will tighten you up or have Michael, when he next appears,  tighten every bolt and nut and make you feel strong and proud. " I begged.  And I felt tacit agreement from the stool  before I made the successful ascent and descent.  'Tenks Gott."  Yes, I said it out loud.


There is no use my relating my earlier conversations with the cats.....they are too banal to be worthy of repeating and beside, they are different in that the cats do answer me....in fact, sometimes they start the conversation and I just reply to humor them and shut them up.

So now,the cats are out lounging around the swimming pool, Mr. Squirrel is probably having an afternoon nap and the hummers are coming and going, probably without using the perch, but, what the hell.....I done my best.  The next words that come out of my mouth will probably be a few epithets I hurl at the computer which does not talk back......it just crashes when it is least convenient and smirks quietly.

I think I must go now, be quiet for a bit  and put cold cloths on my forehead........I'll be OK in a little while, honest.

P.S.  While I am resting I will be formulating in my mind the conversation I intend to have with Ms. Possum when she come to the Goody table tonite.  In addition to kitty kibble and leftover canned cat food, I usually put out a dish with grapes and a plate with crumbled fig newtons for the possums and raccoons.  Yesterday Florence came home with grapes with seeds....they were all out of the seedless variety......so I put them out thinking possums don't know that myth about "if you swallow seeds a tree will grow in your belly".   I have disproved that myth by chompfing up the seeds and even swallowing them whole. Ha!   Today when I went out on the porch to take in all the empty plates and bowls I saw that Possum had gobbled the grapes and neatly spit out the seeds on my porch.   Just you wait, Ms Possum...........

Note to Self: Carefully Remove Foot From Mouth If Possible

Oh, Shit, Piss, Fuck......what have I done?

 Yesterday some words took shape in my head from lessons learned   (and forgotten and learned again and  again)  which I thought might be helpful to someone I loved and I arrogantly allowed myself to toss those words out into cyberspace without thinking that possibly I might do more harm than good.  For one thing, I am pretty sure I left out a lot of important stuff in my effort to explain something nearly inexplicable. For another thing, it occurs to me that by preaching a sermon on the Evils of the Ego I was most likely letting my guard down and allowing my own Ego (yes, still alive and alert to any opportunity) to grab the controls and  shamelessly show off.  Sob.  The Ego Label for that performance was probably "Pompous Ass" or some such.


When a beautiful, highly evolved Soul like Mary Moon of "Bless Our Hearts" tells me "thank you very much but I can't quite grasp it" (my words, not hers)  then I know I have gone badly wrong. 
I can only apologize abjectly and hope I have not done too much damage.

I have huge conflict about saying any more on this subject, but I realize that I really need to clarify a few points before putting duct tape across my cyber-mouth so I will do my best to undo some of the mess I have made.   I am only too aware that one person's Eureka is another person's WTF?.

First, I did not mean that you must evict, excommunicate or seize the nearest iron frying pan and bludgeon your Ego to death.  The thing I call your "real Self"  and your Ego can, I believe, co-exist.......in fact, I think they must.  And that is the Self  that should be recognized and more in control.  I still continue to be a Blumenthal, a Stearns, a Daily, a Widow, Animal Lover, Jazz nut, Octogenarian, Cook, Fool, Computer addict, College graduate, Gardener, Death-to-Horn-Honkers-Bigot, Pollyanna, Member of the Church of the Batshit Crazy, Hummingbird-nurturer, Mild Agoraphobe, Shameful Disliker of Children, Bleeding Heart Liberal, Blogger and Occasional Nailbiter (among 1000 other dubious or praiseworthy Things).  The key to my philosophy is that, in addition to all those aspects  with labels, I am something more.  And that is the something that should be in control as much as possible.  Rather than killing or uprooting or even despising the Ego, one must accept it for what it is, demote it and know that the essence  of you is the quiet divine and eternal spark that is beyond any of your labels.

My two most important Mantras will continue to be  "Accept"  and "Let Go".  Aside from that all I can  say is "Carry water" - "Chop Wood" .

Lo Philosophises, Sermonizes and Handily Bores You to Death.

Have you heard the one about the wise man who was asked by a Follower, "Master, what should I do while  I am working toward enlightenment ?"

The Master replied, "Carry water, chop wood."


The Follower then asked, "and what shall  I do when I finally attain I attain enlightenment?"


The Master smiled and replied, "Carry water, chop wood."


(not sure if I have it quite right but it goes something like that   If the next bit of blathering seems like an unrelated digression.........don't sell me short.)


                                          ******************************************************




The following thoughts were written to my beloved cousin, Rob (of the New York cousins, Rob and Jess......Aunt Jenny's grandson ) after a wonderful visit and dinner with him earlier this week..  We had discussed, among many things, the recent sad end of one of his cousins whom I did not know.   Having given the appearance of an evolved soul thru his lifetime, when confronting death he went to pieces and could not bravely or peacefully let go of life, causing himself and his loved ones considerable anguish by needlessly prolonging the endtime.


                                    ***********************************************************************



Rob, dear..........I was thinking about things while I waited to fall asleep tonite.... the sad tale of M's tragic and painful  end.......  and I realized that I forgot to send you off with my favorite nugget about, among other things, avoiding ending up clinging frantically by one's fingernails to the door jamb when one should be floating off peacefully to wherever. 


One of my greatest  life lessons I got from a brilliant writer and thinker named Eckhart Tolle.  My favorite of his books is called "The New Earth"... Awakening to Your Life's Purpose".  He got through to me finally about something I had never quite grasped before.  I will have to paraphrase his words, but basically it goes like this: 


The Ego is the villain of the piece.  The Ego does not represent the essential You. It is the ugly and unholy part of you .  It is the barrier to any kind of peace or growth or enlightenment and the enemy of your soul (or essence or whatycallit)  It is totally unessential to your real being and a real barrier to your well-being.    It is the part of you that cannot accept  the possibility of "not existing in that body anymore"  and puts up a ghastly struggle when faced with the idea of your vital spark moving out of your body and on to ....something else.  


Not only can you survive life without your Ego, but you can hardly have a moment's peace while it is in control.  Somehow, when I read his ideas on this and finally "got it" I found it was quite possible to actually dump the ego and still go on, and it has been so much  better for me since.  Of course bits still pop up now and then, but I really think I have finally learned that crucial lesson and am hugely grateful to Tolle for putting that bit of truth into a form that I could finally grasp......a big Eureka moment for me.  Don't know if it will ring clearly for you, but I hope so.  If you haven't read him, do try to read the first part of the book at least.


By the way......the Ego that I speak of is the You who might at some point want to shout angrily at someone, "Do you know who I AM????"  It is the part with all the Labels, none of which actually define you at all, the part which cares more what others think of you than anything else and is constantly warning you about that with everything you do or want to attempt to do.  You might think that if you discard this part of yourself you would be throwing your Self away, but that is not what happens.  It simply shuts up that megalomaniac's paralyzing, nattering voice in your head and allows your real Self to relax, kick back and  have room to breathe  (a sigh of relief).  If you can evict or minimize the Ego things are so much easier afterwards.


Please forgive me for such pompous pontificating.....don't mean to sermonize but I feel this is SO important.  I found it a difficult concept to grasp  (tried to learn this lesson a gazillion times thru my life and failed) so I thought perhaps my musings on the subject might be helpful to you or  someone else out there who might cringe occasionally at that wretched voice that intones, "What will people think?".   


The answer to that is, "Fuck 'em!  Just keep carrying water and chopping wood.

I Dare You to Yell at Me or Isn't This Excuse the Greatest?

Yeh, yeh, I know......I appear to have abandoned all you lovely people for my own fatuous,selfish pursuits.

Bad Lois!   No, no, not true.

Now, what will you say when I tell you that I, feeling that I had absolutely nothing of interest to communicate, decided to spend all my blogging time reading and leaving praiseful comments on blogs I loved, admired, envied and even a few that I disagreed nicely with.  Knowing the joy and bliss of receiving comments, I decided that, as long as I was not inspired enough to amuse you one way, I would just sneak around and tickle your feet.

If I didn't get around to everyone, don't despair.  I'll be there when you least expect me, and perhaps, hopefully, when you need me most.

And, one of these days, I WILL blog again.

You Must See This

 I am still reeling from a video a friend sent me this morning, I think it is the most amazing and blooming wonderful thing I have ever seen.

One part of my mind keeps telling me it must be a brilliant magic trick but I have watched it over and over and cannot figure out how it could have  been done....  unless the conjurer is God.

Not only is the execution amazing, but the quality of line is exquisite and the overall  result is breathtaking and awe inspiring, the intellectual process astounding and...... I don't know what else.

Knowing me, you know I believe totally in the godliness of every creature and living thing on the planet (including rocks....don't you dare laugh) but if this is real there is no longer any doubt that we do not own the world..


If you can expose this as a trick please let me know your arguments.  Perhaps I am too gullible.

Watch and  decide for yourself and be prepared  to be thrilled to your core.

http://fun.mivzakon.co.il/video/General/2344/2344.html