I drive to the store. Not for snacks, but for donuts and coffee.
I think of my mom. Likely not an actual lover of football, although she claimed to love the Vikings. But more like just wants to be a part of life, of whatever is going on.
Today she may or may not have the super bowl on. And if it is, she won’t watch.
My mom has dementia. She sits alone—except on the days some of us in the family get to visit her.
I reminisce about past super bowls. It was all a party to her. I cry for the woman she was. The woman I lost.
I get my coffee. My donuts. I find when I get home, I don’t want them as much as I did before the tears fell.
Walking through the front door of my home, I understand I feel, something I have noticed lately. I feel. Tears fall, and not from a place of pity for myself or cyclical suffering, but from somewhere real.
Driving home from the store, I understand I can feel something other than what has come from a 33-year relationship (perhaps, we will get into that another time).
The year 2021— it said to me: I will be bittersweet.
As I age, and my body morphs into an older characterization of my younger self, my feeling of myself within my mind has not changed. That is to say, in my mind my identity, my character, the way I use my energy, has remained constant. And further, this felt quality of myself would remain the same even as I awakened from sleep, even if I were hit on the head and lost consciousness, even if I awakened from a coma, even if I had amnesia. This individualized quality of being is experienced, at sometime or another, by every spiritual awakened human being. Even though there is unrelenting change bombarding our being, there is also a place of constancy within our consciousness, and this constancy gives us our feel of our unique quality.
All manifest things have a certain predominant quality. For instance, if an oak tree seed were planted, an oak tree would manifest, not a pine or maple tree. The oak tree’s DNA has instructions and memory to form an oak tree; of course within the instructions are continuous adjustments of internal relations to external relations. Therefore, not all oak trees would look 100% identical, but their oak treeness, their quality, their essential characteristics, and their function would predominately remain the same.
You the reader, have probably noticed the difficulty of confidently understanding some of the meaning of certain ideas put forth in this blog. This difficulty arises first, from your unfamiliarity with the ideas put forth, and the limits of the English language for explanation. The English language has no equivalent words for some of these ideas. They are beyond its syntax. That is the reason Sanskrit and other languages are used. These other languages have incorporated these ideas into their word syntax.
This glimpse through a sunroof tells a story. I did not know this when I took the shot. I only knew I just bought a new car and had pulled it into my driveway after saying goodbye to my mom, who was recently discharged from a hospital into a nursing home.
Leaving my little mom who is, as she says, “not aging well” in a stark room, is that darker cloud hovering over the others. The other clouds are the week that had just ended. It was a week of juggling work, family, self-care, and my mom. The glimpses of blue sky are the new car and the experience of holding all of this while maintaining steadiness, stability, and even some joy.
This is the individual story.
The larger, universal-soul story is we have tremendous capacity to hold any and all of what comes to us. Yet, many of us cannot because we are full to the brim, often running over, with clutter. The clutter is both internal clutter and external clutter. When we are filled to the brim with clutter, we are at capacity. When we are at capacity we do not run efficiently, and therefore, either do our lives and relationships.
This used to be me—I was at capacity and not running as well as I am capable or as I am now. My clutter expressed itself in controlling behaviors and overall rigidity. It also looked like shutting down and isolation. Don’t get me wrong, I am still in the recovery process, as these patterns were deeply rooted and honestly kept me sane for a long time. One of my more useful patterns is being VERY organized. Being organized kept the overwhelm at bay. My most useful companion on this journey is my burning desire for space, order and understanding WHY.
I compare myself to the Princess and the Pea. I am sensitive to discomfort. It does not matter if the discomfort is internal or external. If I feel it, I deal with it. Dealing with internal clutter takes diligence, patience, commitment and courage. What comes from this process, at first in small glimpses and then expanded ones, is self-knowledge, flexibility, enthusiasm, inner spaciousness, creativity, freedom, healthier relationships, clarity, calm and overall graciousness and generosity toward ourselves and therefore, others.
This is our potential. Our promise. Our possibility. And, it’s an ever-evolving process that I desire for us all to be consciously attuned to. It is also my desire to be a companion on this journey. So, follow here on this site, and here @adailyglimpse Facebook and Instagram for more.
Stay tuned for a breakdown of internal & external clutter.
The Soul Reporter 