Sometimes

So I've been contemplating typing this blog entry for days, yes days, all sorts of quiet contemplative things... As you can tell from the date stamps on these posts, that hasn't worked out so good.

More immediate concerns presented themselves this morning. I had zero interest in eating anything, and settling on just giving up wasn't a good long-term solution, so I thought screw it, I'm gonna get stoned. Maybe that'll work.

Two disclaimers: First, I haven't gone into Cheech and Chong style "Get stoned, get the munchies, eat a lot" in decades. That's not usually the road I take, at least. Second, yes this is self medication and self prescription, which most MDs will tell you is OK if done judiciously. But I do my cannabis doses with multiple doctors's approval, so there. And like all those nasty DMDs actually do anything besides move money around.

So I go out onto the veranda, have a few hits, and in short order, I'm totally grooving on my second cereal bowl.

Then I come to the studio and type this.

Sometimes, self-medication works!

A rabbinical poof!

A wonderful moment with a beloved one... And here's how it went:

Concerning this Thing, which isn't at all important to the discussion, I was correct. My beloved one was correct. But we didn't agree at all.

And here's the good part: At some point, I said "You're right. But so am I. We just disagree about the connection we're trying to make. But you are indeed correct!

Conflict: Poof! Gone!

Being the "right one" doesn't help. Cooperating, however, does.

A friend spoke of a rabbi who was told by person A that Thing X was the way it was. And the rabbi said. "You're right!"

And then person B objected, saying that Thing Y was actually the way it was. Completely differently from Thing X. So the rabbi said, "Indeed--you're right!"

Then someone said "But X and Y are different. They're not the same. They can't both be right!"

The rabbi of course, then said "You also are right."

Being right matters sometimes. But the other person may also be right.

Remember that. Because if you can...

Poof! Conflict gone!

Personally I don't need to keep working over differences that don't exist.

This, too, might very well be right.

Poof!

A gift and a prescription

High time to touch on the actual gifts of MS.

Stillness. Paying attention. Just noticing. These are all things that have arisen to the fore. I don't "do" things like I used to... Going places away from the house, getting involved with things that I used to do a lot. An awful lot. And now I don't... Instead, I work on just paying attention. Just be here now, as Ram Dass often says.

i sit in the backyard and feel the wind. Smell the wind. Listen to the birds, and squirrels, and whatever else is nattering in the back yard. Listen to the sounds of the city.

Each one of these is a beautiful, beautiful gift. And what has brought me to said gifts?

Just sitting. I did, after all, supply a chair to sit & wheel around in... why not make the most of it? To simply sit, and simply live?

So that's the gift, and that's the prescription.

Pay attention.

And why not... enjoy?