Wednesday, March 24, 2010

the same old post, just a new metaphor


I am an autocentricist.

I cannot deny that the earth revolves around the sun.

But I envision a universe that revolves around the Self. For each of us.

My universe revolves around me. And my thoughts affect my reality.

Perhaps this is an egotistical view, but to me it explains a lot.

It explains why I can pour my intentions into an uncovered Bowl on the sunny front step, knowing they will evaporate into the atmosphere and pool in clouds above my head. It explains why then, sometimes unexpectedly, these evaporated intentions solidify into something very real and rain down upon my head.

Each day hands me a pile of sugar and a pile of clay. Everything goes into the Bowl.

Positive thoughts are like grains of sugar – light, sweet, easy to dissolve.

Childhood is magic. Spring renews me. Writing fills my heart. Every breath cleanses my soul. Love lives in this house.

But negativity manifests as lumps of clay – tough, grey, heavy.

I have no time. I'm too tired. Children and animals follow me everywhere. Noise assaults my mind. I have no predicable space of my own.

I have to stir vigorously and practically boil the water to dissolve the clay. And I do. All the time. Then, that grey sediment muddies the water, obscuring the delicate grains of sugar.

But the sugar – the sugar melts easily with gentle swirlings. And the clay cannot be moved by that.

So each day I have a choice: I can invest energy into negativity, or I can let that clay settle to the bottom of my awareness. I can create a rain that pelts me in the face with its mire, coats my outlook with a heavy mood, and knits my brow against the world. Or I can soak under a sweet mist, lapping lightness from my cupped hands.

Last night I went to bed with that lump of clay under my pillow. Today, I'm letting it sink to the bottom.

What will you choose?