Monday, February 05, 2024

Acornology

I am a huge, huge fan of Cynthia Bourgeault, the episcopal priest, modern day mystic and retreat leader, and I listened to this story from her book 'The Wisdom Way of Knowing' as I was driving back from riding this morning. I'm sharing it because it feels pretty much perfect for a Monday morning.

Ancient oak, Big Sur, New Year's Day 2024


Acornology 

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, there was a kingdom of acorns, nestled at the foot of a grand old oak tree. Since the citizens of this kingdom were modern, fully Westernized acorns, they went about their life with a purposeful energy; and since they were mid-life baby-boomer acorns, they engaged in a lot of self-help courses. There were seminars called “Getting All You Can out of Your Shell” and “Who Would You Be Without Your Nutty Story?” There were woundedness and recovery groups for acorns who had been bruised in their fall from the tree. There were spas for oiling and polishing those shells and various acornopathic therapies to enhance longevity and well-being.

One day in the midst of this kingdom there suddenly appeared a knotty little stranger, apparently dropped out of the blue by a passing bird. He was capless and dirty, making an immediate negative impression on his fellow acorns. And to make things worse, crouched beneath the mighty oak tree, he stammered out a wild tale. Pointing up at the tree, he said, “We … are … that!”

Delusional thinking, obviously, the other acorns concluded, but one of them continued to engage him in conversation: “So tell us, how would we become that tree?” “Well,” said he, pointing downward, “it has something to do with going into the ground…and cracking open the shell.”

“Insane!” they responded. “Totally morbid! Why then we wouldn’t be acorns anymore.”




*This story originated with Maurice Nicoll in the 1950s. Jacob Needleman popularized it in Lost Christianity and named it “Acornology.” Cynthia Bourgeault retold the story in her book, The Wisdom Way of Knowing.


Have a great week. xo 

Thursday, February 01, 2024

Inspired by Elmo

It's February the first, always a good day to start something new. As Frank Cottrell Boyce says, "BEGIN...it doesn't matter where you begin but BEGIN because there is magic in starting something new." I keep a little scrappy picture of his handwritten IG post to hand and I refer to it liberally.

And the other person who is interesting on this subject is the slightly controversial Joe Dispenza, whose NY Times bestselling book "Becoming Supernatural" seems to inspire people. He says, and I'm paraphrasing, that you can't expect different results if you continue to behave the same way every day, that's it's only by changing things up that we ourselves change; that we should change our habits to change our lives.

I'm not an authority on change but I am someone who needs to make quite a lot of effort to be happy, especially in these winter months. I have to remember every day, and every time I catch myself in the rearview mirror to "turn that frown upside down." I'm a genuinely happy person, but it takes some work, and maybe you can relate.



On Monday, Elmo, everyone's favorite little red fuzzy Sesame Street character, tweeted, somewhat innocuously "Elmo is just checking in. How is everybody doing?" He was flooded with replies:

"I'm at my lowest. Thanks for asking," one person replied. 

"Elmo I'm depressed and broke," another wrote.

"Elmo I'm suffering from existential dread over here," another replied.

(source: CBS News) 

It's rough out there. And we're all feeling it.

I was at a dinner this weekend for 18 people and four of the people at the party told me that they had an adult child who was suffering from anxiety. One had trouble leaving the house at all. Another was obsessed with conspiracy theories. And another just hadn't found their place in the world, and was living at home, sleeping a lot.

So today I was thinking about whether there was something I could do to help. I've spent at least two years on an interesting path, a path to discover wisdom, a path that brings me back to when I was a philosophy student, but also something that is I suppose an effort to become a better or more realized person, to expose all the bits that have been covered up, and read books by those who are on a path of spiritual enlightenment in the attempt to understand better why we are here and how to make it a happier place for everyone. And also, I suppose, to expand in some way in an effort to find the truth.

A lot of the things I have discovered are about love, that it indeed makes the world go round, and, to a certain extent, that it is the basic building block of everything. I don't want to alienate people -- I am a bit woo-woo (I get the "you're so LA" a lot, as you can imagine) but hopefully some of this stuff is relatable. Here are some sure-fire ways to get you back on the right track, or at least to make you feel that you aren't swimming against the tide.

1. Wake up an hour or half an hour earlier. Get out of bed without looking at your phone (put it in another room; we are all addicts). Do something quiet for a few minutes while you're still in that beautiful, soft liminal state between sleeping and waking. Meditate. Pray. Do some yoga. Or write in your journal (I do Julia Cameron's three pages of longhand writing). Or do a combination of all of these things. This is what sets your intention for the day, so that the day doesn't just dump on you.

2. Get out in the world before the sun rises. You will start out grumpy but you will see the most magical skies shot with pink and orange, and the bare winter trees will sparkle as if they're covered in snow, and sometimes there will be geese or crows. And then, like an aria, the sun will rise, and you will stop in your tracks, or pull your car over, in order to photograph it or just marvel in its glory. (Even on blurgh days it's possible to witness a sunrise).

3. While you're making your morning cup of tea and waiting for the kettle to boil, get down on your hands and knees and commune with your dog. Everything else will melt away and it will just be you and your favorite thing in the world loving each other. (I was listening to Swami Medhananda who was talking about a particularly Hindu faith that believes that God so loves us that he/she manifests as what we love, so that for example, for Christians God manifests as Jesus, and for Hindus it's Krishna and so on. It struck me that for us dog lovers, that is exactly where we find God.)

4. Walking. 10,000 steps a day is a bare minimum. If you want to shift your energy or vibrate on a different level, walk or run or dance; just move your body. Lots of stuff gets stuck, so if you can't walk or dance or run, move your fingers, your toes, your arms, your neck, swing your legs back and forth, or do spinal flexes (cat/cow).

5. Be in nature. There is a character in Isabella Tree's Wilding who is an Oak tree expert, and does marvelous mystical diagnoses on Oaks and what they need to thrive. He refuses to wash at all because he believes that the spores and bacteria and bits of micorrhyzal ephemera that stick to us are important for us to thrive as well. Everyone knows about shinrin yoku/forest bathing now. I go as far as hugging trees, especially on the oak avenue in the field to the south-west of our house, and the ancient yew tree in the churchyard. It's surrounded with a bench and I stand on the bench and throw my arms around the trunk and feel my body fizz with good energy.

6. Be a good friend. Check in with friends. Send them notes and poems and bits of random information so that they know you are thinking. This will come back to you in spades. Yesterday, I received a little box of writing paper adorned with bumble bees, from a girlfriend who said, "I saw these and they made me smile and think of you." That little parcel brought me back from a deep spiral of feeling a bit lost. Like magic. Such kindness! 

7. Be in water. Drink it. Soak in it. Shower in it. Walk by it. Feel its energy (waves). Immediate mood changer.

8. Breathe. 4.7.8 or 4.4.4.4 or just a deep cleansing breath to reset yourself. I tend hold my breath when I work or when I'm concentrating and forget this. I get stuck in a bit of fight or flight. Every time you go through a doorway, think "breathe." It's like a little moment of centering or bringing yourself back to the here and now. Imagine Ram Dass smiling beatifically at you as you do this.

9. Be part of a group. Join a local bridge club. Find the quilting ladies in the next town. Learn campanology. Chat to people at the local shop, smile at the lady at the garage when you're buying gas/petrol, say hello to fellow dog walkers. Find people with similar interests (I love my barn/yard/horse ladies so very much and last night we all went to see the film Priscilla which I worked on.)

10. Turn off the news. Of course you should keep up to date and be informed, but the 24 hour news cycle is just bad for our mental health. You know that sour feeling when you've been disaster-scrolling. Just stop. And instead of dwelling on the horrendous situations in the world, find a mindful way to do something. Give to Save the Children, for example. Find a way to channel your concern into something that might make a difference. (I know this is really hard. We are so very divided in the world right now.)

11. Create. There is a theory I like that says God is creativity. I think I believe it. It's in creating that we find that magical wisdom we've been so yearning for. Write, draw, paint, arrange some flowers, bake a coffee cake, reorganize your bookshelves, compose an opera. These are all acts of creation. I love to think of it as making something beautiful that wasn't there before. If a day goes by and I don't do this, I don't think I've kept my promise to the world and I find myself feeling a little empty.

12. This may or may not work for you and I'm not here to judge (as I still suffer from bouts of depression) but maybe try not drinking alcohol for a bit?  I gave up drinking 13 months ago, and everything is better. I don't miss it either, which I know astounds people. I sleep better and I don't wake up with existential angst, and there seems to be more time in the day. I am less scattered, more focused, happier. It probably deserves a bigger post, but I'm here to say, as someone who used to drink a couple of glasses every single night, that this is pretty awesome. If you would like more information on this, please ping me.

13. You are not your thoughts. I cannot state this enough.

14. Take an afternoon nap. Block it out in your calendar as a meeting. Sleep only 20 minutes, no longer. (Alternately do a thirty minute yoga nidra which you can find on Insight Timer, which, just like Heineken, reaches the parts other things can't reach.)

15. This is a silly little thing but tremendously cheering. The iphone wallpaper now has an option to choose photos of pets in its shuffle categories. (Go to Settings, Wallpaper, Customize and you'll see a little icon at the bottom left where you can choose pets or people or views...) I have Bean (the lovely deceased dalmatian who is the face of MissWhistle) on there, and Dotsie, who died ten years ago, as well as Thistle, my Frenchie. I'm trying to get out of the habit of looking at my phone, but when I do, I'm faced with an image of DOG. :)

Good luck to you with your February journey. I'm happy to be back on the blog; please do tell me if you have other good ideas we can add to this list. You can find me on Instagram at @bumbleward or email me at bramblejelly@gmail.com. Sending much love and hoping that it reverberates around the world. ❤️




 







Friday, April 21, 2023

Failing and Flying

Failing and Flying

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

 

Friday, February 10, 2023

Co-vert

To say that this week has been a blur is an understatement. Due to my malady, I've been sucked into Emily in Paris, at my mother's and everyone else's recommendation, and have gone so far down the rabbit hole that I've started to look up Chateaux in Champagne, and I'm thiiis close to ordering these frames that Camille wore in an episode of Season Three, featuring Sofia the confessional artist from Greece. I want most of Sylvie's wardrobe and half of Camille's and I'm even considering moving my office to Paris. Oy.

I felt odd on Tuesday, odd enough to whine about it to Charlie, odd enough to say "I don't want to go to New York tomorrow," but somehow managed to get my packing done to the point of not fearing death the way I usually do pre-trip, with shirts and sweaters and trousers and cute shoes in neat piles (outfit coordination worthy of Emily) on the bench in the bedroom, ready to go. With a cute navy dress, some pearls, thick tights and a big furry scarf we headed up the M4 London-bound for a friend's birthday screening, and C, who is incredibly amenable, listened to Thomas Keating with me, because he knows I love him, and because it was miraculously tuned in to this podcast on my phone. The essence of what we'd been listening to is this "Let Go & Let God (Act)" which is, I suppose, the idea that if you clear your mind enough and create some quiet space, and trust, then God will help you out. OR Show up and the Universe will meet you half way. It's part of the twelve step too. It was a beautiful drive - bright, cold sunlight and pink and pale blue skies. But I still didn't feel like myself. At all. Even though I'd be looking forward to going to New York for weeks, to see my client's new film, get a breath of the city, and of course my lovely friend Jack who runs his antique/design business out of Sag Harbor. 

Then a ping from a client who was also supposed to be travelling to NYC to see the same film "Can you give me a quick ring?" And thus, the dominoes started to smack the table in a satisfying procession; his girlfriend had Covid close to him and wasn't sure he could fly as it was probably a matter of time, so what did I think? We could go but it was risky because he didn't want to be down for the count in New York for two weeks, and then the possibility of giving it to everyone else, but then when could we make the trip and was it worth my doing it without him? etcetera etcetera. Trip gets cancelled quickly. Somehow, my tickets are refunded and my hotel cancelled under the wire. Jack texts to say he can't in fact have dinner because he has to drive to Maine for a client. So in one half hour everything is cancelled and tied up in pretty bows. No New York trip. No disappointed client (more time to focus on the edit), no disappointed friend, and no travelling with a stuffy nose (me). 

By Wednesday morning I was feeling distinctly flu-ish but generally bright and even managed a zoom with a client. On a whim, I PCR tested myself and wham, two thick red lines. C banished me to bed in a thick cashmere cardigan and beanie, with Christmas socks, a small schnarfing Frenchie, and steaming cups of tea, and I've been alternately dozing and watching Emily ever since, completely in another world. C brings me supper and sits on the other side of the room in a mask. He brings me grapes and crudités and easy peelers and Dairy Milk with hot cross buns, and he comes in and checks on me while I am sleeping ("I can hear you breathing" I say). I am thoroughly spoiled. Thick slices of fresh sourdough from the local pub, slathered in Lurpak and chocolate caramel wafer biscuits for tea. I managed a shower today, and I walked to the garden gate and back to get some air, because you feel quite strange after almost three days in bed. I've also flung open the bathroom window to let the oxygen circulate. 

The pink geraniums who felt neglected on the kitchen sink counter have been in front of the bedroom window for a couple of weeks and are blooming, an astoundingly jolly fuchsia. I've been staring at them intently, and their petit Amazon arrangement to the right of them, and beyond that, the birds nibbling the fatballs in the cherry tree, endlessly, so that we're referring to it as the Garden of Tits. Thousands of tits. Tits are arriving from all over the world to be in our garden, it appears. The word is out. Birds are flying in with their suitcases, whole tit families.

I'm in a fog. A complete odd and blurry state, senses blunted (my taste is not entirely gone, but enough to not notice the flavours or whether there is dressing on the salad), occasional bouts of ocular migraine (kaleidoscopic vision which mildly absorbing if it weren't so annoying), brain thick and stodgy. But I have given in to it. God, I'm spoiled and lucky to be looked after so well. I wonder if this is a cleansing of sorts; a reset? Is it a kind of clearing out to make room for other things? Or perhaps that what we should use if for. A reminder of clarity, of the need for making space for clarity. Does that make any sense? Or is it the Covid talking?

Monday, January 30, 2023

Remain open

I've woken up full of optimism. The sky is clear, spotted with pink and yellow from the sunrise; I can see splodges of hopeful color through the branches of the oak tree in front of my bedroom window. The birds have started to sing and there is a glimpse, just a mere speck of spring, when you wake to a full dawn chorus and bright cloudless skies. Every new day is a blank canvas, a way to reintroduce yourself to the world, an opportunity to start again. I want nothing to get in the way of this moment; I want to channel all things into a funnel of positive, thoughtful nowness, nudging everything gently to the edge of what might be, what could be. We are standing around on the edge of a great river of flow and all we have to do is take one step in, one courageous step, eschewing fear, into the unknown, for everything to be revealed and available to us. It's that little push that takes us from our complacency and safety to the place where everything is happening all at once.

This used to be called "a kick up the backside."

We walked seven and a half miles yesterday with two great friends. It didn't seem like seven and a half miles because we were so engaged in the conversation and the trees and the laughter that we just kept putting one foot in front of another, and thar she blows. I jumped off the top of a barbed wire fence without ruining my knees. They constantly ache and I ignore it, but that is the age I'm at, where knees start to creak and lower backs start to moan. I steadfastly refuse to give in to it. It's fifty five years of riding horses; that must have some impact on knee joints. I fantasize about having my hocks injected, like a horse, and then immediately dispel the idea from my mind, because the idea of a large needle going anywhere near my synovial fluid makes my tummy hurt. But knees aside, over the years I've thought about my mother's solve for every sadness "go for a long walk" and I'm beginning to see the wisdom. There is enormous comfort in nature. Lewellyn Vaughan Lee, a Sufi mystic, talks about meditating under trees and their ability to take away emotional pain. (Before you roll your eyes, imagine this: imagine trying it once, imagine opening up your mind just enough to try something that you consider completely outlandish, imagine being open to an idea that doesn't fit with your view of the world, just once. Is there anything really more ignorant than scoffing at something you haven't tried? Someone said this, and due to a brain that's aging as fast as my knees, his name isn't immediately to hand. I do know that I had lunch with an old friend and her new husband, a venerable and senior correspondent, who, when the subject of psychotherapy was raised, became irate and said "quacks, quacks, all of them" and knocked back another large mouthful of red wine, his third glass.)

I feel as if I am pregnant and something is about to be birthed. Everything is conspiring. I am excited for it. I wish you all (if you happen to find your way over here) a very happy week. Remember to remain *open.

*On the subject of openness, the Christian idea of kenosis is rather a good one - my understanding is that it's self emptying so that there's room for the holy spirit. Or, in my somewhat less Christian interpretation, it's emptying one's mind (through contemplation, meditation) so that there is room for new ideas to foment. For example, if you are constantly bombarded with images from Instagram and bon mots from Twitter, doesn't all of that contribute to a foggy mind stew of meaninglessness, that's really just a distraction? Once again, nature is very good at clearing this out.  Good luck.


Friday, January 27, 2023

Faking it


Good morning from West Berkshire, where the snowdrops are just beginning to bloom, and the daffodils and jonquil are pushing up through the now unfrozen ground. January is the heaviest month; the heady realization that the days are getting longer buoys one, but it's still cold and muddy. My horse is still sharp. She is, like me, a summer princess. I've persuaded the lovely girls who make up her bed to give her extra shavings and to bank up the edges even more. Her bed is so cozy that I'd even lay down in it; with its round apron at the front, it's fit for a Queen. I was nervous today. I can say that now but for a long time I couldn't because I had a reputation for being brave. Balls out, they called me. BOB. But when the sharpness comes it feels like sitting on a tightly coiled spring ready to explode, and you have to do something with that thoroughbred energy. "I'm a bit scary-fied" I said to my trainer. "Last Friday is still in my head." I didn't think of it yesterday when we were out in the woods, but today, back in the school, I'm thinking of it. Last Friday she scooted across the school as if she'd been bitten on the arse by a tiger, and leapt in the air in an enormous buck. I sat to it, of course, but it was scary nonetheless. Today, she's sharp and tense, and looks at everything. Even prior to coming into the school she was irritable, flickering, anxious, cold. I try to breathe to balance it out. I know I have to find a way to fake it and to channel the energy correctly. "Let's just keep her busy so she can't think about it," Lizzie says, and so we go from collected to working to medium trot, we do shoulder in and travers, moving the base of the neck back and forth, pushing into a more extended trot across the diagonal. I know that when we are in our special box together, when she is on the end of my hand and soft, when I'm in the middle of her, riding the energy, all will be well. "Breathe" says Lizzie, and I do. "When your heart beats faster she will know," she says. And so I do my deep ocean breath and try to quieten my body. And slowly the thought dissipates. `Very slowly, focusing on her, and on us together, and trying to keep my seat deep and my shoulder blades together and my hands soft, and making sure I'm using enough outside rein, and keeping my legs by the girth and thinking hard to myself "channel Charlotte Dujardin" we begin to glimpse it. Suddenly the thought has gone, the adrenaline has gone, the spring is loosening, and the energy is going into these big bouncy steps, rocked back a little on her haunches. There is cadence. And we have created it together. "I love you Lizzie" I say at the end, and my voice begins to warble a bit. Getting through the fear at the beginning of the day makes you feel as if you've climbed a mountain. 

Thursday, January 26, 2023

Don't react

I've been thinking a lot about not reacting. I've been thinking a lot about accepting bad news and weird turns of events and seeking equanimity; by not reacting, the event itself becomes minimized, as alarming as it may be when first encountered. No matter what happens, everything is there as some kind of lesson, some kind of learning moment (as they like to say in elementary schools in Los Angeles). To leap from the overwhelming sense that one is exactly where one is meant to be, and so finely tuned and aligned with the world to be on the precipice of manifestation (this sounds so woo woo but I don't know another term for this - it's the feeling of being so at one with the universe that things aren't surprising when they're lovely or perfect or beautiful or joyful; a similar thing happens on a horse, when you and the horse are so in sync, when the horse is so on the end of your hand that the mouth of the horse and your hand are in complete harmony, so that it doesn't matter what you ask for, it will happen. When you are in this state of balance and mind-melding it doesn't matter what is asked of you because it will happen) to the dissonant feeling that things are creaky and weird and misunderstood and not in any way in sync, is very odd. Two things happened simultaneously: Oscar nominations with an overwhelming show of love for a client's German film and on the very same day (and not, I'm aware, by mistake) another client deciding that our relationship is over ("I respect you so much...it's not personal...I am looking at everything from a different perspective.." etc). A perfectly lovely Dear John letter which makes perfect sense and should not feel personal, and yet it does, and it colors everything, makes one doubt everything. It's my monkey brain I say to myself. This is just chatter. Breathe. I one hundred percent know that in this case I did everything I could and more and that I tried to remain true to my values and what I believe to be right and still hold a place for the client's desires, even if I didn't believe them to be clearly thought out, or for his own good in the world. But here's the thing: I am not his mother. I am not hired to be his mother or his moral compass. How strange it is though how the universe lists from side to side in that way from one extreme to another.

I was bruised, it's true. Embarrassed even. I worked very hard and I know I gave it my best. But now, after my 25th night of Dry January, after an evening of reading and contemplation, after a cold ride on a fresh horse this morning, through the woods, watching the jackdaws and the magpies, and breathing, just breathing in and out (I count one in/one out and try to make it to ten without my mind wondering. Try it. It's so hard!) I feel like it's right. I am okay with it. It was jagged and irksome and difficult and I'm not here on this planet to bend myself into a pretzel for someone else especially if they don't notice the effort...what is that? Instead, I tried to make myself one with my horse. I sat on her cold back and paid attention to the way she fidgeted at the beginning, on the lookout for tigers and bears and scary things. I made her walk past Jane's pigs with her neck bent right, like a shoulder fore, so that they wouldn't freak her out and make her snort. I made her trot more than she wanted to, pushing her into my hand. And finally when we walked, I put my bum properly down in the middle of the saddle so that she could feel I was resting and centered, and I felt the way her body was warming against my lower leg. We continued like that, stepping over the icy bits, swinging along, her tail out just slightly as it is when she's happy, ears pressing forward, alert. If my hands move in exact sync with her body, and I breathe like she is breathing, and I shift my weigh just a little deeper into the center of my pelvis, then perhaps she will think we are one, perhaps I will think we are one, not two, just one ball of breathing, walking energy. I was matching her. It was our special kind of equine kenosis. It calmed her and it calmed her.

In my job, I know how to get things. I know how to think about a goal and focus every effort into attaining that goal. I know how to not give up. I know how to push beyond obstacles. I know how to be not so polite. I know how to make things happen. I didn't realize I had this quality until my friend Marta told me that I have a can do spirit. Ha ha. I'll take it. This doesn't always apply to things outside of work however. It's so much easier to advise other people or make things happen for other people, or to see other people's problems so much clearer than one's own. Do you know what I mean? Everyone's else's trajectories seem so illuminated somehow, like the lights on the floor of the plane in case of emergency. I wish I knew how to do this for myself. 

So, not reacting.

I believe that we're trained to process minor trauma by reacting to it, that is, to tell our friends, to turn it into a drama, to talk about what a horrible person the other is, to demonize and catastrophize. At least, this is what I have learned. But in fact, the alternative, which is to notice it, and to catch oneself before we've made it bigger than what it is. For example, it's very possible that nothing is ever about you. And yet, this is what we tend to do, we understand things as happening to us, when instead - and this is supremely hard to do, but it's worth the effort - we could imagine that actually everyone is so self-involved and carrying their own set of worries and desires and fragility that it's not EVER about us/you. Isn't it better then to think about things happening for you?  Here's a simple example: You are in a rush and you are at a red light that seems incessant. You have two choices. You can yell and scream, and curse at the cars in front of you. Or you can breathe in and out slowly and use it as an opportunity for a mini meditation.

An apache helicopter just flew over my garden. And the sky is going very dark. I suspect rain.

One option leaves you with palpable anxious, frustrated energy in the middle of your chest. The other allows you to bring new loving energy into your lungs and allows you to pause for long enough to see that it just doesn't matter. There is an idea that the space between the in and out breath is in fact an opportunity to glimpse heaven. (Heady stuff when stuck at a red light, no?)

If you look up equanimity it will say "it is the steady conscious realization of reality's transience. It is the ground for wisdom and freedom and the protector of compassion and love." 

I suppose the other thing to look at here is the idea that one is in control of one's destiny. I'm not sure I am. And yet I don't advocate standing in the middle of a field and flailing. Our is a 50/50 relationship with the universe. If you show up and do your part, the universe will meet you half way. That has become clear to me. Maybe not when I was young, but now this is increasingly apparent, and there is something rather beautiful about it. You know, like the symmetry of a Wes Anderson movie. (OhMyGoodness, this poem so sums this up!)

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January really does suck, doesn't it. If you're not enjoying it, do take a look at the January Jeliciousness section of this blog. It was done one January when I was a bit miserable and so were my friends, and in an effort to cheer us all up, I thought "food"! And so I went to my favorite foodie people and asked them to share their very favorite recipes. I just dipped into them again and they're wonderful. Try Reza's chestnut and lentil soup or Coral's shortcut cassoulet or Suzi's Lebanese Messy Malfouf.

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(This is of course assuming that people are reading this, which I don't think they are. But just as a reminder that this is not edited, just spewed out there, so my apologies ahead of time. Thank you and take care.)