And so I thought for some reason that I would be blogging more this year than I had in the past. New site… new thoughts, fresh start 2009! Yes I can! But as many of my thoughts of how this year were to go have come to pass, so has my blogging. I’ve noticed this trend in other blogs that I read as well. Perhaps the micro blog has taken over with our twitters and status updates. Perhaps there’s just not a lot to say…
The year started off good. Really, really good. Everything seemed to be pointing to a fresh new start both in my own little circle and the bigger larger outside world as well. We were all excited that a new president, one unlike the old would be taking office… We being the many that I include myself in. Obama was inaugurated as we sat by our television screens with tears in our eyes, and the next day we waited on the edge of our seats to see what would happen next.
Shortly after, a smaller circle celebrated with The Steeler Six victory. I have to admit that I do believe this was the very first football game that I have ever watched start to finish. Sorry Pittsburgh friends… it’s true. But that game… OH THAT GAME!!! I was sucked in, yes screaming at times… drunk as a former Pittsburgher can get and totally engaged once again at the screen in front of me. I get it now.
And then the excitement passed. The news was filled with gloom, the economy sinking… paychecks coming later and later and my health took a turn for the worse. Maybe it was too much celebration, I don’t know but there really wasn’t a lot of hope left to grab onto. And so we waded forward, picking our feet up step by step waist deep in the muck.
The winter freeze.
John and I both knew that it would be a tough winter, not only personally, but for the world around. Daily updates for layoffs and others at unease only heightened our awareness. But what do you do? You pray and move forward as best you can because ultimately tomorrow is still going to come as the world continues to revolve.
Every morning we awake again and there the sun is, albeit it sometimes behind the clouds to greet us. The world has not ended. And so you say a little, “Huh” in surprise and drag yourself out of bed… again.
During these few months we have not been isolated with the effects of the economy. And once again I found myself in a world of wonder. Wondering what tomorrow will bring… what “this” means… where we will be… if where that is, is ok? And every morning I found that here I was at another day ready to go through that same cycle yet again.
And then one day I took a look at this blog here. The blog that I forgot about… was avoiding. I reread my entry of the “Good News, Bad News… I Don’t Know.” And then I was the one who was now saying, “Huh.” Because I realized that once again… I had forgotten my own lesson. The lesson that I was so sure of that I was NOW on solid ground and could walk forward through anything. Well… what I did learn that particular day is that I sure do have a lot of learning still left on my plate.
Interestingly enough I picked up a book during this time, After The Ecstasy, the Laundry written by Jack Kornfield which I have started once again because it’s just got such good stuff chalked full that I just don’t want to miss a beat.
This book talks a lot of enlightenment which of course has flamed a lot of other thoughts, but for here and now what I find most interesting is that in the path towards enlightenment, we reach “the summit” in moments. We meditate, dance, paint, pray… whatever you path is, and we get this glimpse of what it is all about. We see the answers to our questions, and in my case, for a moment I had learned.
In this particular circumstance I had learned that any moment or situation cannot be judged as good or bad until sometime after to see where that moment may actually lead. More or less… these difficult moments that I was experiencing at the time, well I wasn’t through them just yet to see where they were now leading. I was just looking at them through my own judgmental eyes and calling them bad, bad, bad… very bad!
And only two months had passed! How quick are we to forget…
The book talks about how that we live our life in cycles. Cycles that repeat themselves like a record. We learn along the way so that when we repeat the cycles, we can dig in deeper to get a better groove. We learn. And hopefully when we encounter a similar experience, we are better equipped to handle it again.
We learn... and we forget.
And then we learn it all over again.
An enlightened man comes down from the mountain, but the enlightened state does now stay. He has to return to his family, his 9 to 5 job, his responsibilities. He can only hope that when he deals with the frustrations and limitations of his every day life that he can remember that moment where he once knew.
One of the chapters starts with a quote:
You cannot stay on the summit forever. You have to come down again… One climbs and one sees; one descends and one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself… by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one no longer sees, one can at least still know. ~Rene Daumal
And so I am trying once again to remember.