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Work and Germany; Benedictines and Buddhists: Attitude
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<blockquote data-quote="Scent of Cedar *" data-source="post: 673002" data-attributes="member: 17461"><p>I think you need Copa.</p><p></p><p>And mercy for her.</p><p></p><p>And compassion, and joy in her life, in the wonder of her survival, and of her capacity to heal. It's like a flower, Copa, opening when it is time, and the fragrance is so sweet. Or the caterpillar and butterfly. Let me see whether I can find this picture.</p><p></p><p>I couldn't. But this one caught my attention. Further in the written part of the story, she talks about the caterpillar defenses. I found that interesting. I was looking for a brilliantly colored very cute caterpillar someone sent on my FB today. That is the one I was looking for, for you. But, I found this one, instead. That is the one that caught my eye. </p><p></p><p>Beauty is a multi-faceted thing; a thing of form and function.</p><p></p><p>Perhaps then, this is the most beautiful caterpillar of all.</p><p> </p><p><a href="http://seabrookeleckie.com/2011/10/13/giant-leopard-caterpillar/" target="_blank">http://seabrookeleckie.com/2011/10/13/giant-leopard-caterpillar/</a></p><p></p><p>maybe, it was the Rastafarian hair look that little girl caterpillar had going on.</p><p></p><p><img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m37j42liLN1rukxn4o1_500.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /> </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>It takes 10,000 hours to master anything. No less. The number of hours we put in is the degree of mastery we will attain. <em>Nothing to do with our mothers, who found our competence in pretty much anything we did (right down to keeping their homes spotless and their children fed while we were still children ourselves) threatening.</em></p><p></p><p>Have mercy for Copa.</p><p></p><p>Determine to mist the plants growing so beautifully, Copa. Like the Japanese lady. What was taken did not change who she was. Because it was taken, she was required to prove to herself that she was who she believed herself to be.</p><p></p><p>She was like us in that way.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Copa, I think the answer is: When chopping onions, just chop onions.</p><p></p><p>Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing to do with other onions we have chopped, or someone else has chopped better. Nothing to do with what we are cooking with the onion, or whatever else might happen to the onion once we have chopped it. </p><p></p><p>When chopping onions, just chop onions.</p><p></p><p>Tears will come.</p><p></p><p>Here is a story I have not told in such a long time. I love it.</p><p></p><p>Russia. Long ago, and on a very cold, windy night. Battling the snow and the wind, the wealthiest man in Russia makes his way to a tiny wooden pub, the tracks he's made filling with snow even as he makes his way inside. Twelve small, round tables for one person, a candle on each. </p><p></p><p>There is no other illumination.</p><p></p><p>The wealthiest man in Russia is seated.</p><p></p><p>The waiter brings a cutting board, a long, silver knife, and...an onion.</p><p></p><p>Like the other patrons, the wealthiest man in Russia begins chopping the onion.</p><p></p><p>Tears flow.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Joy.</p><p></p><p>The joy of the sun pouring through a sparkling window; the scent of a well run home where the lighting is perfect and dinner at the heart of it and the sheets are fine and clean and soft against the skin.</p><p></p><p>And we get there by chopping onions, and by understanding in our bones that the value of the work being done is that we are choosing to do it, that we are committed to our work.</p><p></p><p>The result is a forgone conclusion.</p><p></p><p>This is what our mothers took from us: We watched her eyes when the job was done, to know what the work had meant.</p><p></p><p>That is why there is anxiety.</p><p></p><p>Never see ourselves through their eyes, Copa. Defiantly, to see only through our own.</p><p></p><p>Misting the plants, like the Japanese lady. An act of faith, until finally we see them thrive, so healthy and strong and growing in our care.</p><p></p><p>But for now, we are just chopping onions.</p><p></p><p>The tears flow.</p><p></p><p>We blame them on the onions and then, one day...find them beautiful, and claim them for our own.</p><p></p><p>:O)</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Have you read <u>Aztec</u>, by Gary Jennings? </p><p></p><p><a href="http://www.garyjennings.com/" target="_blank">http://www.garyjennings.com/</a></p><p></p><p>One of my favorite writers. He has written also about Marco Polo, and at length about the myth and mystery and history of circus.</p><p></p><p>Very well written material.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Dream catchers and rosaries and Christian love and compassion. But these are scary things. Doubly frightening in that the energy will come back to the person who sent it out in the first place. There are always mistakes. I've read that there was a slight mispronunciation in the Word that created all things, and from that one invisible misspoken word, all the evil in the world was come to be.</p><p></p><p>That is very scary imagery.</p><p></p><p>What mean people, to do such a thing. Right up there with my stupid sister, praying a ring of thorns around myself and my family to "bring me to the Lord".</p><p></p><p>With whom she walks on a daily basis, apparently.</p><p></p><p>roar</p><p></p><p>Living in conscious knowledge of our own mortality, of death and disease and heartbreak is frightening enough without adding in weird, power-over people getting their jollies through scaring everyone else ~ generally, through some form of religious identification.</p><p></p><p>That is evil. To scare people is wicked, and very wrong.</p><p></p><p>It's been going on forever, though.</p><p></p><p>They say it has to do with focusing mental energy. With concentration, then. Like telling little kids spooky stories. </p><p></p><p>Then we grow up.</p><p></p><p>I am sorry that happened anywhere near you, Copa.</p><p></p><p>That is very scary.</p><p></p><p>I am holding your hand.</p><p></p><p>Okay, wait. I am holding your hand <em>invisibly.</em></p><p></p><p>:O)</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Ha! The kids and grands used to do this. We had a special lower cupboard in whatever house we were in and that is where the kids could crawl in or beat on pans with plastic spatulas or wooden spoons or store their coloring books or puzzles and etc and when they were not with us (grands) then that is where all their little special belongings could be stored until they came back.</p><p></p><p>My grandmother had a cabinet like that in her kitchen, too.</p><p></p><p>:O)</p><p></p><p>That is where I got the idea, I suppose. They loved that.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>We need to learn to see through our own eyes, Copa.</p><p></p><p>I don't know what I look like, either.</p><p></p><p>Some days, so grossly ugly. Some days, really pretty. Most people seem to respond to me as though I am really pretty. So, maybe that is true. Lately, as we have come through this, I only remember the eyes of people. </p><p></p><p>I remember my own eyes.</p><p></p><p>That is who we are.</p><p></p><p>Still, we have a responsibility, not only to the body, but to the joy in it. We are fortunate to have bodies, and hair, and eyes and fingers to feel things with. I sound so strange, I understand that. I believe we have been taught that our bodies too are things of the abuser. </p><p></p><p>They are not.</p><p></p><p>Our bodies are most singularly our own to play with, and to inhabit, and to see through and feel breezes and to smell fresh sheets and dinner.</p><p></p><p>And our men in our lives.</p><p></p><p>Woot!</p><p></p><p><img src="/community/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/emoticons/spaghetti.gif" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":spaghetti:" title="spaghetti :spaghetti:" data-shortname=":spaghetti:" /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This is where we begin to think about what we know of spiritual traditions. In every one, bar none, there is the teaching having to do the spritual value of work.</p><p></p><p>It isn't about the work. It is about commitment to self through work.</p><p></p><p>That is why we have a problem with it. The problem is common enough that every spiritual discipline addresses it.</p><p></p><p>Who are we to argue?</p><p></p><p>Simply begin.</p><p></p><p>Then, stay present.</p><p></p><p>Then, finish and begin something else.</p><p></p><p>The value is in us.</p><p></p><p>Learning this will require facing down our abusers. That is why the practice of work is of value.</p><p></p><p>Not the work, Copa.</p><p></p><p>Us.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I believe in massage. It's like yoga. I think yoga is better, though. We untie all the cramped places, enabling rich, healthy, well-oxygenated blood to flow.</p><p></p><p>We are meant to be whole and healthy, Copa.</p><p></p><p>This stuff we are doing? That's just how we get there.</p><p></p><p>This is meant to happen.</p><p></p><p>There is nothing we have to do but say "Yes".</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/stables.html" target="_blank">http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/stables.html</a></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>There is a belief system claiming that dogs have a ministry of love, and cats, and that everything we see and do and are is part of all of it in ways we do not understand.</p><p></p><p>Our animals, in their innocence and trust, demonstrate courage and a good attitude. One of the ladies who posts here has at the bottom of her profile something to the effect that she wished she were half the person her dogs believe her to be.</p><p></p><p>Life seems to work that way, sometimes. Those we believe we are helping or superior to or loving turn out to have been saving us pretty routinely. When we see our lives in that way, we see we have been doing the same, in our own weakness or uncertainty.</p><p></p><p>Isn't that something.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Oooh, I am pleased and excited. We are not meant to have lovely things that are ours, Copa. Only the abuser, and they claim it all. Steal it or denigrate it or, if they are like my sister and cannot quite duplicate it, pretend to knowledge about just how they would supercede whatever it is ~ even if it is only a rented condo on a beach somewhere.</p><p></p><p>I am so with you in spirit as you possess the beauty in this home, Copa. The quality of the light, the scent of it, the colors you will have chosen.</p><p></p><p>We will toast with Lagavulin.</p><p></p><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagavulin_distillery" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagavulin_distillery</a></p><p></p><p>Ring of crystal.</p><p></p><p>This happened to me, too. In houses I already owned, had lived in, and decorated. It was a question of self possession. Those freaking abusers!</p><p></p><p>I am pleased and happy for you, Copa.</p><p></p><p>And for me, too. Life is so rich a thing Copa, and we have been imprisoned.</p><p></p><p><em>So will I know you, by the stars</em></p><p><em>By these brilliant, icy stars</em></p><p><em>Shining undiminished in your eyes.</em></p><p></p><p>It will be like coming home for the first time, Copa.</p><p></p><p>Just think: <em>We have never been home.</em></p><p></p><p><em></em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>So did mine. Imagine what it will be Copa, to be home for the first time.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Savor it. You must allow and accept and cherish; you must give permission. That is what anxiety and personal appearance and every attack on you now is about. The answer: When chopping onions....</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Roar. </em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>I am stuck in italics and cannot make it stop even if I do push on the blue thing, Copa.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Cedar</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em></em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Scent of Cedar *, post: 673002, member: 17461"] I think you need Copa. And mercy for her. And compassion, and joy in her life, in the wonder of her survival, and of her capacity to heal. It's like a flower, Copa, opening when it is time, and the fragrance is so sweet. Or the caterpillar and butterfly. Let me see whether I can find this picture. I couldn't. But this one caught my attention. Further in the written part of the story, she talks about the caterpillar defenses. I found that interesting. I was looking for a brilliantly colored very cute caterpillar someone sent on my FB today. That is the one I was looking for, for you. But, I found this one, instead. That is the one that caught my eye. Beauty is a multi-faceted thing; a thing of form and function. Perhaps then, this is the most beautiful caterpillar of all. [URL]http://seabrookeleckie.com/2011/10/13/giant-leopard-caterpillar/[/URL] maybe, it was the Rastafarian hair look that little girl caterpillar had going on. [IMG]http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m37j42liLN1rukxn4o1_500.jpg[/IMG] It takes 10,000 hours to master anything. No less. The number of hours we put in is the degree of mastery we will attain. [I]Nothing to do with our mothers, who found our competence in pretty much anything we did (right down to keeping their homes spotless and their children fed while we were still children ourselves) threatening.[/I] Have mercy for Copa. Determine to mist the plants growing so beautifully, Copa. Like the Japanese lady. What was taken did not change who she was. Because it was taken, she was required to prove to herself that she was who she believed herself to be. She was like us in that way. Copa, I think the answer is: When chopping onions, just chop onions. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing to do with other onions we have chopped, or someone else has chopped better. Nothing to do with what we are cooking with the onion, or whatever else might happen to the onion once we have chopped it. When chopping onions, just chop onions. Tears will come. Here is a story I have not told in such a long time. I love it. Russia. Long ago, and on a very cold, windy night. Battling the snow and the wind, the wealthiest man in Russia makes his way to a tiny wooden pub, the tracks he's made filling with snow even as he makes his way inside. Twelve small, round tables for one person, a candle on each. There is no other illumination. The wealthiest man in Russia is seated. The waiter brings a cutting board, a long, silver knife, and...an onion. Like the other patrons, the wealthiest man in Russia begins chopping the onion. Tears flow. Joy. The joy of the sun pouring through a sparkling window; the scent of a well run home where the lighting is perfect and dinner at the heart of it and the sheets are fine and clean and soft against the skin. And we get there by chopping onions, and by understanding in our bones that the value of the work being done is that we are choosing to do it, that we are committed to our work. The result is a forgone conclusion. This is what our mothers took from us: We watched her eyes when the job was done, to know what the work had meant. That is why there is anxiety. Never see ourselves through their eyes, Copa. Defiantly, to see only through our own. Misting the plants, like the Japanese lady. An act of faith, until finally we see them thrive, so healthy and strong and growing in our care. But for now, we are just chopping onions. The tears flow. We blame them on the onions and then, one day...find them beautiful, and claim them for our own. :O) Have you read [U]Aztec[/U], by Gary Jennings? [URL]http://www.garyjennings.com/[/URL] One of my favorite writers. He has written also about Marco Polo, and at length about the myth and mystery and history of circus. Very well written material. Dream catchers and rosaries and Christian love and compassion. But these are scary things. Doubly frightening in that the energy will come back to the person who sent it out in the first place. There are always mistakes. I've read that there was a slight mispronunciation in the Word that created all things, and from that one invisible misspoken word, all the evil in the world was come to be. That is very scary imagery. What mean people, to do such a thing. Right up there with my stupid sister, praying a ring of thorns around myself and my family to "bring me to the Lord". With whom she walks on a daily basis, apparently. roar Living in conscious knowledge of our own mortality, of death and disease and heartbreak is frightening enough without adding in weird, power-over people getting their jollies through scaring everyone else ~ generally, through some form of religious identification. That is evil. To scare people is wicked, and very wrong. It's been going on forever, though. They say it has to do with focusing mental energy. With concentration, then. Like telling little kids spooky stories. Then we grow up. I am sorry that happened anywhere near you, Copa. That is very scary. I am holding your hand. Okay, wait. I am holding your hand [I]invisibly.[/I] :O) Ha! The kids and grands used to do this. We had a special lower cupboard in whatever house we were in and that is where the kids could crawl in or beat on pans with plastic spatulas or wooden spoons or store their coloring books or puzzles and etc and when they were not with us (grands) then that is where all their little special belongings could be stored until they came back. My grandmother had a cabinet like that in her kitchen, too. :O) That is where I got the idea, I suppose. They loved that. We need to learn to see through our own eyes, Copa. I don't know what I look like, either. Some days, so grossly ugly. Some days, really pretty. Most people seem to respond to me as though I am really pretty. So, maybe that is true. Lately, as we have come through this, I only remember the eyes of people. I remember my own eyes. That is who we are. Still, we have a responsibility, not only to the body, but to the joy in it. We are fortunate to have bodies, and hair, and eyes and fingers to feel things with. I sound so strange, I understand that. I believe we have been taught that our bodies too are things of the abuser. They are not. Our bodies are most singularly our own to play with, and to inhabit, and to see through and feel breezes and to smell fresh sheets and dinner. And our men in our lives. Woot! :spaghetti: This is where we begin to think about what we know of spiritual traditions. In every one, bar none, there is the teaching having to do the spritual value of work. It isn't about the work. It is about commitment to self through work. That is why we have a problem with it. The problem is common enough that every spiritual discipline addresses it. Who are we to argue? Simply begin. Then, stay present. Then, finish and begin something else. The value is in us. Learning this will require facing down our abusers. That is why the practice of work is of value. Not the work, Copa. Us. I believe in massage. It's like yoga. I think yoga is better, though. We untie all the cramped places, enabling rich, healthy, well-oxygenated blood to flow. We are meant to be whole and healthy, Copa. This stuff we are doing? That's just how we get there. This is meant to happen. There is nothing we have to do but say "Yes". [URL]http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/stables.html[/URL] There is a belief system claiming that dogs have a ministry of love, and cats, and that everything we see and do and are is part of all of it in ways we do not understand. Our animals, in their innocence and trust, demonstrate courage and a good attitude. One of the ladies who posts here has at the bottom of her profile something to the effect that she wished she were half the person her dogs believe her to be. Life seems to work that way, sometimes. Those we believe we are helping or superior to or loving turn out to have been saving us pretty routinely. When we see our lives in that way, we see we have been doing the same, in our own weakness or uncertainty. Isn't that something. Oooh, I am pleased and excited. We are not meant to have lovely things that are ours, Copa. Only the abuser, and they claim it all. Steal it or denigrate it or, if they are like my sister and cannot quite duplicate it, pretend to knowledge about just how they would supercede whatever it is ~ even if it is only a rented condo on a beach somewhere. I am so with you in spirit as you possess the beauty in this home, Copa. The quality of the light, the scent of it, the colors you will have chosen. We will toast with Lagavulin. [URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagavulin_distillery[/URL] Ring of crystal. This happened to me, too. In houses I already owned, had lived in, and decorated. It was a question of self possession. Those freaking abusers! I am pleased and happy for you, Copa. And for me, too. Life is so rich a thing Copa, and we have been imprisoned. [I]So will I know you, by the stars By these brilliant, icy stars Shining undiminished in your eyes.[/I] It will be like coming home for the first time, Copa. Just think: [I]We have never been home.[/I] [I] So did mine. Imagine what it will be Copa, to be home for the first time. Savor it. You must allow and accept and cherish; you must give permission. That is what anxiety and personal appearance and every attack on you now is about. The answer: When chopping onions.... Roar. I am stuck in italics and cannot make it stop even if I do push on the blue thing, Copa. Cedar [/I] [/QUOTE]
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