Inner Space of Beauty

“The easiest way to observe your past thinking is to look at what is present in your life today. Whatever it may be is a certain indicator of where you're thinking has been.” 

-- Joan Gattuso from her book “The Lotus Still Blooms"

As I read the above-quoted passage, I was moved to look around the inside of our house, specifically the living room. From where I was sitting reading, I visually examined the environment that the wife and I have presently surrounded ourselves with. I should note here that the wife and I generally choose together what we populate our home with, be they decorative items or the color palettes of the rooms. What struck me immediately was the earth-tone colors and organic elements that are represented literally everywhere. 

We have brought Mother Nature's artifacts into our habitat. Pictures on the walls depict leaves, trees, and landscapes. A favorite picture is of a woman dining, hair blowing in a sea breeze amongst the backdrop of gently rolling waves of the ocean in the Horizon. Earthen pottery resides on the shelves, among leather-bound books. Dried grasses and cattails harvested in fields and ditch sides, and collections of bird feathers randomly found in our travels are tucked here and there. We even have a wing feather from an osprey that I picked up off the surface of a lake. This came about as I witnessed this raptor snag a fish from the water's surface while fishing from my kayak. As this magnificent hunter rose into the sky, shaking and sloshing off the lake water, fish in its talons, a single wing feather separated from the bird. The memory of how that single feather fluttered and spiraled down to rest on the still surface of the lake feet from where I was paddling is vividly recalled when I see it now currently standing in the “jar of feathers.”

Plants, both artificial, dried, and living, are nurtured (or dusted) inside our home. A few small carvings and sculptures of birds, fish, and other wildlife are also set among the shelves, reminding us of the joy we both get from the natural world. We have a few decorative birdhouses in our rooms, serving no purpose for raising young feathered friends, but pleasing our souls in some mysterious yet significant way.

So what does all this mean? To me, it shows that my preset, my inner nature, is all about the interactions of life, moments in time, and experiential experiences that have left some mark on me, especially in what brings safety, security, and emotional comfort to my existence. My surroundings feel like a warm blanket of past memories, as well as possible themes of future adventures. When I sit with this thought and am present and mindful of what I am feeling, I am more hopeful about what has been given to me in the past moments I have walked, and the memories yet to make that are ahead of me, whatever those may be. 

I would challenge you, dear reader, to pause where you might be at, mindfully look at what presently surrounds you, and observe how what you see that speaks from the past dwells among you in positive and enriching ways, and might just predict beauty, joy, and astonishment in your life that lies ahead of you.

Drivin' Down the Road Having a Vision Quest

"Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. Ask the infantry and ask the dead." -Ernest Hemingway

I found myself silently contemplating Hemingway as I motored through Seney Michigan and crossed the Fox River a few weeks past. The story goes that the Fox was the actual location for the setting of Hemingway's classic short story, "Big Two-Hearted River." The story discusses a disillusioned and wounded soldier who embarks on a somewhat vision quest of a camping and fishing trip in the northern Michigan woods. I would recommend at this point you write down a note to self to take the time to read this story if for no other reason than to try to understand what it would mean to seek peace and a sense of balance after having your soul traumatized by war. After all, there is a lot of our family and neighbors returning to us having experienced first hand these experiences.

A quiet and peaceful break was part of my reason for being in this part of Michigan, and since silent contemplation seems to be one of my true talents, something that is not easily judged, I am often lead down paths of wonder. In fact, this is how this post came about, wondering about my world on a mini "vision quest while driving down the road" in remote Schoolcraft County. I was specifically remembering the above quote and was formulating how you can "ask the dead" so very many of the questions that we face or the adversarial encounters we experience, and mine from them their collective knowledge. Or, as our parents used to tell us, to learn from our mistakes. We can also learn from the collective wisdom and observations of historical, literary, family, mythical, and anyone else who either wrote down, spoke, carved or painted on a cave wall, or similarly have shared their thoughts (and often their mistakes).

As George Harrison said, "We can gain experience from the past, but we can't relive it." In my experience, the past is filled with everything I failed to be as well as all I have succeeded at. I realized in my mini vision quest that in order for me to move forward I needed to let all that "stuff" die--both the good and the bad--so that I can be free to live now and keep inventing this gift of life that I have been granted. Every time I visit my past it cuts me somehow. It seems overly endowed with very sharp edges. And I have been fortunate to not have experienced the trauma of war. What sharp edges must cut at those who have.

As John Buchan so well stated: "We can pay our debt to the past by putting the future in debt to ourselves." Basically, throw away the present and future by dwelling on the past.

The Golem

"If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past."
–Benedict Spinoza, Dutch philosopher

Studying the past is different than dwelling in the past. When you dig down inside your psyche, and mine the stored memories it holds, enlightenment may follow.

Have you ever stopped doing something because you had a feeling that it was wrong? Not the moral equivalent of right from wrong, but the not-wanting-to-repeat a mistake kind of tingling sensation? That is how the past signals to you that it can aid in the shaping of the present. Error prevention. Like dashboard warning lights on a car. How many times do you touch a hot stove before you realize not too? Only takes once for most of us, though I keep banging my head on the rear-lift door on my Jeep on the cold days when the hydraulic lifts don’t take it all the way up. Physical pain may be more poignant about teaching us certain behaviors than other sensations. And maybe I shouldn't have such a hard head so I so easily forget.

Creativity may also be the benefit from stored memories. Some people believe that to truly be creative requires a brand new spark, a unique vision of the present. On the contrary, the best of the creative world uses history--global as well as personal--to conjure up its imagery, sounds and vision. Van Gogh was constantly redoing his paintings, revisiting the same places and trying to capture a certain madness that was embedded in his mind which he wanted to paint. Canvas after canvas were covered with the same fields and people, yet every one was unique. His colors meant nothing to the realism, yet everything to his present feelings.

Every news story out there has some similar relation to the news of the past. Health care as a topical example has been dealt with by just about every president since Franklin D. Roosevelt. Everyone working on it now is trying to avoid the pitfalls of past attempts at it by carefully crafting a plan that will somehow work. They are trying to shape a program that won’t end up an enormous and uncooperative golem, that to try and fix piecemeal would be a difficult and dangerous endeavor.

We need to adopt the lessons from the past but we cannot let it crumble upon and crush the present.

Footnote: Jewish tradition holds that the golem is a creature created by magic, often to serve its creator. Some mystics believe the creation of a golem has symbolic meaning only, like a spiritual experience following a religious rite. A golem can became enormous and uncooperative and the creator may have to use trickery to deactivate it. The creators hubris may bring them down as well as the golem when this is attempted. Think Dr. Frankenstein and the monster or Social Security.

Finding a "Reason to Believe"

Seen a man standin' over a dead dog,
by the highway in a ditch.
He's lookin' kinda puzzled,
pokin' that dog with a stick.
Got his car door flung open.
He's standin' out on Highway 31,
like if he stood there long enough,
that dog'd get up and run.

-from the song "Reason to Believe" by Bruce Springsteen

Lyrics from songs enter my head and become metaphors of life. The quoted lyric above, sings to many points encountered in living. How many times, having faced in disbelief occurrences in life, do you try to deny it, try and make the past return. Unravel what has happened by trying to weave together the memories that told your story...Your belief in what was real and that you may have loved. I know I have stood with both feet firmly planted in the past's slipstream. Puzzled, mired in memories, so confused by what had happened that I knew it could only be made right if I just believed hard enough in the past. I think the best I ever did was to fill the present with a whole lot of sad longing and emptiness. How I figured death must be like.

I have never successfully made "that dog'd get up and run"--no matter how hard I poked it--so now I am content to love the dog that was. And more importantly, look to embrace the puppy in the moment.