Glory of the mundane world

 

This is what it keeps looking like out here.

 

I can’t help how it does.

 

I’m just reporting.

 

***

We’re out in the desert again like we like. Quiet and spare. Neighbors, sure, at a neighborly distance. But lots of space still. No one managing anything, no one saying what can or can’t be done. No one saying come or go. No one to pay for staying here.

Just some sand and rocks. Ocotillos and creosote bushes and a big, gaudy sky. Last night we went to El Borrego for dollar taco night and had fish and carne asada and carnitas tacos. I had a Pacifico to wash them down. Before that we hiked up the hills behind us and looked down on our encampment. Looked at some stone sculptures left up there, a snake of rocks and a labyrinth and some other odds and ends. A lobster. A big horn sheep.

 

What did we do today. Our neighbor Vince gifted us with a fly rod and some reels and taught us to cast out in the sand.

That’s something right there. I can see into a hazy, not to distant future where I’m hip-deep in a river in late golden light with a swarm of just-hatched mayflies hanging over the water and a big smile on my face. I can see that pretty good. Something muscular and swift moving under the water. Something in my heart, something in my throat. Like a song. Like that.

***

In a couple of days we’ll get on the heavier than air flying machine and be whisked across this big country to a big city where wonders await us. Family and new friends and big adventures. Meanwhile here the day turns to darkness and the silence only deepens. It is supposed to rain and we’ll probably fall asleep in our silver cocoon with the sound of rain on the metal skin like a million tiny drumbeats, like the beating of numberless tiny hearts.

 

***

 

Namaste, y’all.

 

***

 

 

go easy

 

I like to play with my toys.

 

***

 

I spent today setting up our new health insurance plan. Figuring out what works for us on the road full-time is not easy, but I think this new thing we got into might be just the ticket. Still, I hope we stay healthy a while longer.

 

***

We’re getting ready to leave our cushy spot at Sam’s Family Spa and Hot Springs where we’ve been for a MONTH! I am so spoiled with twice daily soaks and swims and saunas and steambaths that I will for sure go through withdrawals once we are back out in the wild scrubbing our dry asses with sand!

 

But it is time to go.

Time to go or stay and be tamed! I’m not ready for that yet, thank you very much. But it is nice to have found a place that is wonderful and friendly and inexpensive and funky and magical- it actually is magical. Like, magic happens here almost continuously. I really do love every single thing about it. And all the wonderful people who wander in and out, stay a while, stay forever, come back every year- it attracts good folks mostly.

 

I am so grateful to have had this time and place that was so nurturing and supportive of practice and relaxation and healing.

thank you, Universe.

 

***

I’m looking forward to getting wild again. And our visit to NYC! We are going to meet up with a couple of our online friends while we are there- it’s going to be a love fest! And Christmas in New York City, with friends and beloved family new and old and museums and monks and cold and snow and what what what. Thank you, again, Universe! We are going to have so much fun.

 

***

I am profoundly blessed. Blessed with the best wife. Blessed with a beautiful life. I have a healthy body and a wildly creative mind and a good soul and just the right amount of mostly imaginary problems to chew on. I have my path and my wonderful teachers. I have the intertubes and books and movies. I have good food and great places to eat in that are all new and changing and my yard changes all the time and so do my neighbors. My needs are few and growing fewer. I don’t have to work any more. I don’t owe anyone anything. I am free to do what I want and go where I want. I love this life. I’m so grateful for every single thing that has ever happened to me. Especially the bad things. And especially the good things. And even the boring parts. It’s crazy to me that at fifty-two my life feels like it is ramping up- getting more and more exciting, more fun, more rewarding, more challenging, more exotic, more of everything.

It would be wonderful to stay alive and healthy for a long time, and perhaps that will be my experience. But already I’ve been blessed with a full life, and if I die tomorrow I won’t have any regrets about it.

My life is full of good people like you. You come here and you read and sometimes you leave comments and I feel you here. I feel the connection. I feel the goodness and the love and for that I am so deeply grateful I could cry about it. Everywhere I look I have good people and more show up every day. Thank you for being my friends. You sustain me in my dark hours.

Things keep unfolding just the way they do. I’m happy to bear witness to it all.

 

***

 

I hope your holidays are bright and wonderful and filled with love. The one thing I’d urge you to do is to open up to them, don’t fret over all the stress and noise and difficulty but let that be the crunchy topping that you can break through to get to all the dark, gooey, sweet and sustaining goodness underneath.

 

***

May you be happy, may you be at peace, may you and everyone you love be free from suffering.

 

***

Namaste.

 

***

 

my ugly

 

***

I have just emerged from a bout of very ugly crazy.

 

I did me some damage.

 

I blamed the creature, but of course I am the creature.

 

***

I am willing and eager for the pain of my human life. I don’t begrudge it. I walk around with my guts looped in my hands, grinning. But because I have pledged my troth to the woman on the verge, she often gets blasted by the bombs I set off everywhere. I light them and hand them to her, often enough.

 

“Here you go, honey. Hold on to this for a second for me, would you?”

 

boom.

 

***

I think it’s my drama, but often enough I dress her up in my costumes and hand her my props and block out her path on the stage. Shout “ACTION!”

I don’t know what all is wrong with me.

 

Okay, that’s a lie.

***

 

Anyway, she gets hit with a lot of shit that I fling around.

 

I’d like to take this moment to apologize to her in front of everyone.

 

I’m sorry.

 

***

What is happening to me. It is private, I believe. In a way. I don’t know if there is anything to be gained by talking about it or trying to talk about it. It sounds unhinged. It sounds unhinged to me when I tell myself about it. But I’m going to talk about it anyway. Perhaps it will be of benefit to you. Reading here on some dark night of the soul. In anguish. In terror. In horror at your own self. Unfit. Unfit. Unfit and dark.

I am at work.

I am at work.

I am creating and uncreating something wild and vast and limitless. I am uncreating what was built in me by those who built me. I am uncreating what was built in me by my own self after the others got started doing their work in me. They did a lot of damage and then I enthusiastically piled on a lot more. The depth and scope and vastness of the damage I did and have done and am still doing is difficult to comprehend but it is not insignificant. It is, in a way, serious and bad. I have done bad things, I continue to do bad things, and will probably keep doing so. And to whom. To those I most cherish. To those most innocent. To those least deserving.

It’s difficult to face this but I am doing it. It’s difficult to admit and it’s difficult to stop. But I am determined at it. I am undoing it. Undoing the causes of it. Undoing the errors that lead to unskillful actions.

I really believe that I am right. This is the most reliable indicator that I am completely wrong. If I feel totally justified, totally righteous, this is almost one hundred percent positive proof that I am about to do something mean and stupid and harmful.

This is a really important lesson to learn and one I learn but slowly. And must, it seems, re-learn repeatedly.

***

This time I dove so deep into it. I really, utterly believed my own line of shit. And that gave rise to a terrible chain of actions and words. I created this chain link by link and used it to beat on someone who was innocent.

See how I do?

***

But there is something here that isn’t just terrible and awful. I did all of this with a kind of terrible openness. A rawness of being. A relentless openness. I went and I went and I went, but each step I took I took refuge in the three jewels, I begged for understanding, I begged for openness, I begged for support and understanding, for peace and love and healing. It was like diving into the deepest pool of pure shit and swallowing all of it. Not asking to be spared, but asking to be transformed. To be, somehow, an agent of change in it. To go all the way into it, without hiding, without turning away.

but still, I caused harm. I don’t know. My zeal overmatched my capacity. I don’t know what the fuck I was doing. I am still so unskillful.

 

I was willing to be peeled by it, but I scalded my beloved as well.

 

Since we are as one I need to learn how to do this better.

 

***

 

Anyway. I emerged. And my long-suffering wife still abides by me. What I owe her cannot be measured.

 

***

 

So now I am on the other side of it. If there is another side. What I learned is that there isn’t any difference between the best thing and the worst thing, in a way. My massively powerful dark energy was pure and limitless energy. capable of anything. Magic or destruction. Samsara or Nirvana. Good or evil. Everything is the same, in this way. Our minds truly do determine our experience. Nothing is solid, nothing is lasting, nothing is anything but pure, limitless energy. Now in this form, now in that. If you want heaven you can have it. If you long for hell you can be there. If you seek confusion you will find it. If you want to be unloved you can find the proof for it in every second of every day. If you want to be loved the same thing is true.

Nothing is as it seems. Nothing is as it seems. Nothing is at is seems.

Everything is everything.

***

I used to think of the path as linear, but I experience it now as recursive. What looks like going backwards is the way forward. what looks like failure is the signpost of deeper growth. Deeper pain, wilder joy. More peeling. More letting go. Saying goodbye to the solid forms. Examining what underlies everything.

***

I can’t recommend hanging out around me.

 

***

 

Namaste.

 

****

 

 

 

 

 

the union of two rivers

 

 

 

***

 

She knows.

 

***

 

 

We are escaped from the small ones and are holed up. Tending to our wounds and to each other. Stepping out to soak in the tubs. Peering through the blinds warily. Yesterday I had a day of practice and yoga and soaking while Yolie scoured the thrift stores for winter wear for our upcoming trip to NYC. She scored a gorgeous plum-colored cashmere overcoat that matches her royal nature to a tee. Other beautiful things. She is a miracle. The world knows it and throws itself at her feet wherever she goes. As do I.

***

This last pass through the dark waters of disruption was hard on us. I don’t know what’s wrong with us. Ten days with the grandkids. We were looking forward to it but it kicked our old asses. We are spoiled. We like things our way. We don’t handle it when those little tyrants show up and demand the world turned upside down. We have, I have, these imaginary grandkids that are sweet and funny and who love us, and are easily distracted from their rages and unhappiness. Who don’t hit each other and take each other’s toys and scream and wail without ceasing. Then the real ones show up and I’m thrown for a loop.

I promise myself a thousand times that I’ll let go of my preconceived notions and meet directly with what is, that I’ll use my mindfulness and compassion and love in the present moment. Do what’s needed without reactivity, with wisdom and joy and gentleness. Then I fail. Then I fail again. Then I keep failing. Then they go home.

That’s just how it is sometimes.

 

***

So I’m taking a deep breath now. Going back to fundamentals. Practice. Breathing. Yoga. Soaking. Talking things through with my bride. Letting go of everything I think and want and have. Letting go again. Letting go deeper. Letting go of letting go. On and on.

There truly is only this one moment. Whatever is to be found is to be found here. What is to be let go of is to be let go of here, right now. Not later. Not by someone else. Not by a wiser me, but by this me right now. What is to be seen I am looking at. What is to be felt I am feeling.

 

blah blah blah.

 

Bob Loblaw. Bob Loblaw. Bob Loblaw.

 

***

Despite my flaws and failures I love my life. I love my mind and I love working with it. I love the imaginary work I do loving everyone and pretending that my limitless love and compassion truly do sweep out into the world and illuminate it, really do bring bliss and happiness and alleviate suffering. I enjoy sitting. I enjoy praying. I enjoy study and contemplation. I am grateful for my suffering. I am grateful for my unending opportunities to learn. I am grateful for the guides who gather around me and sustain me. I am grateful for you, for your love and support and guidance, my angels. You who read here and show your hearts to me. You who have been here in the dark hours and listened.

I know you. I love you for it.

I wouldn’t change a nickle of this show. Wisdom blossoms out of ignorance. Skill out of unskillfulness. Joy out of suffering. Connection from isolation.

 

Nothing is real- this is the emptiness aspect. Everything manifests ceaselessly- this is the luminous aspect.

 

So I’ve been told.

 

***

 

How I long for what is.

 

***

 

Namaste.

 

***