last friday before i left the ghost town that is our office during the summers, i lay down on the floor of the cramped file room with the door locked and the light out. at first i was hesitant and had to test just how dark the room would be without the flourescents on. afterall, i am afraid of the dark. after deciding that it was tolerable i went about the business of making myself comfortable.
the cool air had settled to the floor and once my eyes adjusted, i was comforted be the halo of light seeping through the spaces around the door. i grabbed two packaged-air cushions that our printer cartridge has been delivered in and propped them under my head. i’m easily pleased and physical comfort is often easy to achieve if one isn’t too picky. i slipped on my headphones, found the quietest music available on my ipod and allowed my arms and body to sink into the floor.
when my immediate atmosphere is settled, it only takes me a few moments to drift out. my mental imagery goes first on a wooden raft, huck and jim. then my thought process, jagged rocks distorting and stretching into smooth lines. then my physical body, dissolving sugar in water. it’s something i’ve been able to do since childhood. i stay still long enough to forget that i’m anything or anywhere but everwhere.
i started thinking about religion and spiritual traditions and the hesitancy that my peers seem to be faced with. gone are the days when young adults easily adopted the tradition they were passed through family. i feel i’ve been fortunate to have been exposed, mostly through my education, to many different types of spiritual traditions. everything i come across is lacking. of course, along with my education comes a degree of cynicism. the usual. and i look at each religion and see that the Jungian archetypes are present in each. i have an objective appreciation for other religions, much the way i can appreciate art. i used to read the sacred texts and let it all jumble together in my mind to attempt to make a full picture. but all i ever find is the weak semblance of certainty. and when i observe those who purport to lead others in those same teachings i get disgusted. themselves flawed in their understandings and passing along flawed teachings to hungry baby birds. my hypothesis is that everyone is on their own.
i pick and choose ideas along my way, mental activities and ideas that i find useful while discarding the rest. i can’t imagine putting all of my eggs in the basket of some individual in spandex sitting in a commercially owned complex thinking he or she is on the way to oneness. i shudder melodramatically at the thought. i also could never religiously dedicate one hour of my existence each week to listening to rote regurgitation and interpretation by a man who operates his institution like a business. my cynicism prevents me from staking much of myself in anything.
i’ve acquired a few valuable things. i don’t intend to explain my beliefs. i haven’t got the energy. but i like to draw as much water as i can from any well i visit. one exercise comes to me often, like habit. when my mind is quiet. i probably learned it at some saturday morning chai and meditation class with every new age yuppy trying to heal their inner wounds through breathing and stretching. it just doesn’t seem fair to mix prozac and yoga. that’s cheating. digress. digress.
it was something to the effect of: welcome your thoughts and memories. thank each one for its emergence and send it off with a promise to return to it when it is time to process. i hated the instructions when i heard them, irritated even more so by the soporific monotone of the teacher. but being “open-minded” means you can’t have mean and sarcastic thoughts about what someone else is trying to teach you, so instead, i did what i always do. i took what i wanted and made it my own. i discarded the rest on the way out the door; a child picking the prettiest fruit from a suspicious tree and running away to tear it apart and examine its contents. what i took was this…
my thoughts collect. one at a time. silver lotus prayer lamps floating on the ganges. accumulating at the meanders. hopes and dreams, fears and regrets, precariously surrounded by the acrid waters of that ancient stream filled with the lost prayers, empty wishes, and bitter tears of countless hopefuls. do i send them away to be doused or do i embrace them and extinguish each flame with my own tender gesture?
impatience is my constant companion. agitated and awaiting the passage of the hours. the hours are the only thing in between me and eternity. my many worlds all converging. sometimes i don’t care to experience. the bombardment in the present with images of ifs and ares. i scold myself for the parallel paths i have taken, castigating myself simultaneously for the ones i have not. my many worlds always streaming side by side some as frothing rapids, others gently lapping over cobble, chiming with the allure of hope. and my woolfish hands are dropping stones into my pockets.
