Fog afield Beebelbrox

opens his eyes.  Reality

catalyzes from probability.

White mice scurry other where.

So this thing about a good habit becoming a bad habit, how does that work? Ah, Snipperwhapper, it’s the old story of attachment.  You know.  "Familiarity breeds contempt."

A long time ago I received a mantra to use while meditating.  That’s a good thing.  Over the course of time I found myself using it not just while sitting in meditation.  Hey, I remember reading Ram Dass, who wrote about using his mantra while driving his car.  I thought that was a bit scary, but it was Ram Dass after all.  He was an advanced being as far as I was concerned and could set his own rules I figured. 

Anyway, I did find my little mantra was pretty handy in those odd moments in life when I was waiting for the next thing to happen.  That’s a good thing.  I found the mantra was handy when I was standing in line waiting for my turn.  That wasn’t so pleasant, but using the mantra was a good thing I decided.  I found the mantra began to come spontaneously when I was experiencing moments of minor stress.  That was a good thing.

Then one day when I was on my way to a new high school to give some classroom presentations and I was late and I was not sure if I had picked the right road to get to the school and I was focused on figuring out if I would make it on time, it happened.  I wasn’t aware of feeling stressed.  I mean if you had asked me and I had turned my attention away from looking for familiar landmarks along the road, I might have owned up to a mild feeling of stress.  Maybe sublimated panic.  Maybe even hysteria.  But, you weren’t there, and you didn’t break my concentration on the drive by asking me that question.

Nope, I myself noticed my little mantra screaming for attention.  It was so engaged in trying to get me calmed down that it made me even more anxious.  That was not a good thing.  I said to myself, hands gripping the steering wheel, “It must mean something significant.  It must be significant if some part of my subconscious mind has recognized that I am in need of calming and has turned on the faithful little mantra.  Has just gone ahead without any CONSCIOUS request on my part.  Has just taken the NECESSARY step of revving up the ultra-calming, LITTLE GIANT MANTRA due to my ANXIETY level.  THEN it must mean that I am truly stressed out.  It must mean that I am near the state of irrational PANIC!”  Now that was a really, really not good thing! 

It wasn’t too long after that initial experience that I noticed my subconscious was using the Little Giant Mantra Calming Elixir quite often.  I began to notice that my subconscious was a pretty fidgety, pretty nervous character.  He, my subconscious, was becoming obsessed with whispering that calming mantra while I was trying to get serious and meaningful work done.  He was, in fact, using it so often, I got worried.  I – the conscious, wide awake, rational person – began  to wonder if maybe I was living a much crazier life at some subconscious level of my mind than it seemed to my conscious mind so busy dealing with stuff out there in the real world.  If it weren’t so crazy, I wondered, then why was my subconscious trying to get me to slug down another round of Mantra Calming Elixir.  Overriding love of the Little Giant Mantra Calming Elixir is a bad thing.

Eventually and to this day, I have had to be cautious in using that little mantra.  Now when I notice it running in the background beneath my interactions and trysts with Mother Life, I do pause long enough to do a sort of quick internal scan.  I check to see if my fidgety friend, the subconscious, is on to something I should be paying more attention to or if he is just over reacting again.

I’m not sure I can say that I’m truly a recovered Little Giant Mantra Calming Elixir addict.  But, I can say that I do not become frantic when I become aware that the mantra is singing its siren song somewhere off in the distant rocks.  I see it like the proverbial canary in the coal mine.  As long as the little mantra is warbling, then some degree of anxiety must be going on somewhere in my mind.  But, it isn’t cause to go to red alert and raise the shields against attack.

I simply apply the counter-mantra, the admonition stamped on the cover of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe.  “Don’t panic!”

Not even a good likeness.

Jagged stroke on rice paper.

A solitary tree trunk?

Merely a line.  One black stroke.

It is garbage day today.  Thank God!  I have a lot of it to get rid of today.

First of all, I’m feeling depressed. The primary elections aren’t going the way I would prefer. While I look forward to change, especially the change of US administrations in 2009, it seems as though the term “change” has become sufficient unto itself and has become the sole criterion required. One recognizes this political fact when one hears every Republican and Democratic candidate tout him/herself as the change agent. I’m no political pundit, but I wonder how much of this change phenomenon is really just an expression of Bush fatigue, a desire among voters to latch onto the best sounding messiah to get the country out of the mess it is in.

So that should go into the garbage for sure.

Waste Management dropped off new recycling bins in our community. Pretty snazzy ones. Yellow lids. Wheels. Makes it very easy to get the recyclables out to the street for pick up. Just toss the cardboard, news print and magazines, glass, cans, and many different types of plastic bottles and containers into the bin.

I wonder how they will recycle my container of depression. Maybe they won’t even notice the depression swirling around inside the container. They’ll just sell the container to a recycling plant. Then when the recycler starts to melt the container down, the depression will burn up. Or possibly some enterprising entrepreneur will recycle the political depression for use right after the November elections take place. Look for colorful plastic bottles filled with ExChange inhalant, but be sure to read the warning label before inhaling too deeply.  ExChange: It’s the way you feel when life gets too real.

Another thing that will go into the garbage is the shredded paper from all the fiscal year 2000 bank statements and expense receipts. I know a lot of people – my dad was a firm believer – never throw those things away. But I only clutter up the filing cabinet with them for seven years. Then they get shredded and dumped. So that goes as well today.

The real reason I am feeling down, depressed, and full of garbage is because a beloved friend passed away last week. She had suffered with her illness for many years. So on the one hand I am happy that she does not need to deal with her pain any longer. But, I miss her, and I have to work through my grieving and come to grips with the unpleasant change in my life. I’m not ready today to toss that grief and depression into the garbage.  That will take more time. It will take its own time and manner to work itself through my consciousness.

The way I feel today reminded me of the photograph I’m posting with this blog entry. This is the Buddha dying with his arahats assembled around him. The statue is a part of the Buddhist site at the DaZu Rock Carvings in Chongqing Province, China. I didn’t see the subject matter – that is, the death of the Buddha – as emblematic of my feelings.  It’s really the physical state of the limestone carvings themselves. Exposure has corroded the limestone. So even though the Buddha is dying in calm repose and his devotees seem totally unconcerned about him, it looks as though he needs some good plastic surgery. Life is like that some days, some weeks, some years.

I do not wish to make light of my friend’s passing. I do not mean to soften what her death is by sandwiching it between paragraphs of political sarcasm and odd bits of stuff for the recycling bin.

I am grieving today. And, I do need to get the garbage cans out to the street curb.