I am on a climate imposed retreat. I'm not a huge fan of extreme weather which is not a good quality for someone who lives in Wisconsin of all places. I'm sure someplace like Costa Rica would be much more to my liking, but it is what it is. For the past several days as the temperatures have ranged just below or at 100 degrees I've found myself spending the vast majority of my days and nights sprawled on my couch/bed staring at the computer screen. This is causing a couple of problems. One, I am accustomed to walking, a lot. I don't have a car and public transportation is nice when you need it but it's generally simpler and more healthy to go on foot. So I'm feeling sluggish and alternately, antsy from my lack of exercise.
The other problem is boredom, a boredom that causes me to spend hours a day wandering around the crazy hedge maze of my own mind. Like all hedge mazes this can be fun until you hit the moment of panic when you turn the corner only to realize you have seen this place before and good Goddess how do I get out!? The 12 step groups have a saying ( they have a lot of sayings) about not spending too much time in your head because it's a bad neighborhood, or something to that effect. I'm not a big fan of the 12 step groups for several reasons, and that statement is probably one of their more dangerous messages.
SO let's think about that for a moment, both on a micro, or personal level and on a macro, or more global, level.
Stay out of the bad neighborhood. Pretend it doesn't exist. Latch on to some external message that will tell you what to think and what to do and all will be well.
Well, you have a good chunk of our society's problems summed up right there in the possibly well meaning, but dreadfully misguided, advice.
If 'it' is a 'bad neighborhood' and is already suffering from neglect and mismanagement is walking away from it going to solve the problem? Of course not! And it doesn't matter if we're talking about your mind or your neighborhood because they both are in fact your environment, your home.
Being the Aquarian Community Advocate I am I've decided to clean up the 'hood. If I stumble upon some garbage along the mind maze, I look it over. Where did it come from? Is it useful? Recycling is more than just reusing, it asks us to take the trash and reformulate it into something serviceable.
And how about those vacant lots in there? The hotter it gets, and the more depleted I feel the more I tend to stumble upon these spaces....the duh spaces. How about planting some seeds? I've started taking some notes, ideas for projects, future blog posts another written project I have in the works. Hey maybe a piece of that garbage over there has a place in that memoir project.
And when all else fails and the place is such a mess, get out the broom sweep it all away and practice some meditation. Like a candlelight vigil or a community gathering that follows a neighborhood clean up lets bring a little Peace into the neighborhood.
Translate it either way, in your mind or in your hood, but whatever you do, please don't be afraid to go there.
© 2010-2012 Nanakoosa’s Place, authored by Jennifer Hazard
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