Eyes in the Gravel

Stepping outside to take a breathe and clear the mind from the negative energy flowing through the office I glance down at the gravel that is the foundation of the road and parking lot for my workplace. Looking up at me where hundreds of shining eyes, not thick but every few inches another eye shined. The flecks of rocks that make up the gravel where reflecting the brilliant sun that was shining down, bits of rock no bigger than a pin head, vibrant with light. Wow another blessing of learning to be still and see with open eyes!! How many times have I stepped out back to smoke or breathe, yeah I know smoking and healthy breathing don’t go together but hopefully this is my last year of smoking which is a whole different blog post (suffering and addiction to cigarettes), I know I have noticed the reflections before but never gave them a second thought until yesterday when the beauty struck me. With calm mind I moved around, noticed how the tiny eyes and focused on interdependence, how the rocks and I are one and the same and they are a part of me and I am a part of them. Awareness still blows me away and I am just barely touching the wonders of being aware. I don’t strive for awareness nor to a crave it, in the morning I mediate on being open and removed from bondage of self and this helps opens the channel if I allow it to. Yes I do need to push myself on the awareness of those defects of character that are getting in my way. The biggest one I am aware of is ego/self centeredness, sometimes when I am sitting in a meeting listening to a speaker I wish they would just hurry up because I either want my turn or I want to move on to something I find more interesting or just be done with the meeting to I can go about my business, when this occurs I have to force myself to focus on the moment at hand and what is being said instead of my wants. There are other feelings/actions that I am becoming more strongly aware of and do the best that I can to improve them and make a baby step towards the middle path. Every moment is a chance to live in the moment if I open my eyes, seeing the beauty of nature, hearing the sound of a bird’s wings flapping in flight, smelling vegetation growing these are easy but seeing myself is a bit harder, breaking down the individual to become a complete part of the “we universe”. The literature of recovery and Buddhism both stress being patient and practicing to the best of our abilities on a daily bases and I am grateful, it is better for me to work on small pieces of things that need to be done than to look at the big list which will in turn become overwhelming. When I am overwhelmed with something I stopping doing anything at all, part is perfectionism, if I can’t do it perfectly then I won’t do it at all, the other part is pure laziness, seeing there is a ton of work to be done instead of seeing the ounce of work I can do today. I have been talking to a lot of people in recovery about perceptions lately and it has done me a lot of good because the more we talk about them the more I understand my own perceptions and ignorance’s.

Lighter side: my daughter and granddaughter have moved in with me on a temporary bases, could be a couple of months, long enough for her to get a job and a bit of financial stability. I don’t believe that once the cubs have left the den they aren’t allow back in, my parents have helped me out most of my life for good or bad in some cases, I feel my way of paying them back is by helping my daughter and granddaughter. I have set down some rules and also I will not enable her, she has to take action, I will not become a permanent babysitter either. My daughter is really good about keeping the house clean so that is a bit of repayment. The young lady who was staying at my house and turned around and stole from me has disappeared from the recovery community and so has her boyfriend for the most part, sucks to see but hopefully something will happen that will being them back, but like all of us sometimes it takes having life kick the shit out of you before you are willing to change. Starting to itch for spring and day I can put my shoes in the closet for a few months and only wear sandal or flip flops. Visited a place where we are going to camp for a couple of days over Memorial Day weekend, beautiful canyon with lots of trails, it is not a place that gets a lot of people so it is fairly private, there is an awesome fire pit where we can have bonfire meetings, burn some hot dogs and marshmallows, basically just have a very spiritual recovery weekend.

Well that’s the ramble for now.
Namaste
Scott