I have been perfectly suited
for most of the stuff
I have done in my life. 

I did not belong subbing
for a third grade class,
and knew it when I agreed 
to do it--
at 8 AM the day of.

I did not belong in a scuba diving
church camp trip with Sr. Highs,
but if I did not chaperone
no one else would
so I did.

Mostly, when given the option,
I have known clearly
what is me and not-me.
And have championed the me
over the not-me.

Still doing it.
And am perfectly suited
for sitting in the backyard
with a camera
waiting for a photo to come into view.

Block parties and yard sales,
not so much.

Being your own best friend
means yea-ing what needs to be Yea-ed!
and nay-ing what needs to be Nay-ed!

How are you coming along with that? 

–0–

Which is the greater miracle:
that all of this is the result 
of a meticulous Grand Plan
(The Plan of Salvation),
with everything worked out 
in the finest detail,
like the number of feathers
on every bird at any time--
or that nothing is?

That everything is the result
of randomness and accident,
with circumstances spinning off circumstances
from the beginning/end of nothing?

Which is the greater miracle?

–0–

I think things do not ever settle
into how they are going to be.

Never settling is as settled as it gets.

Something is always happening.

Circumstances beget circumstances,
and things go to hell again.

Another war comes along.
Another pandemic strikes.
Floods and droughts
chase each other throughout eternity.
The latest incarnation of the U.S. Cavalry
is always riding over the hill
into the Indian village below,
disrupting,
destroying,
laying waste...

And we have to pick ourselves up again,
and put things in some semblance of order again,
until the next thing rises up
to smash down.

It is the way.
And the way to deal with the way
is to not have much 
in the way
of a way,
and to find ways
of making out 
as best we can
while staying out of the way,
as much as possible.

It helps to sit loose in the saddle
and be light on our feet,
and fine with things 
being not fine at all.

Congenial, 
convivial,
amiable,
hospitable,
you know,
like that.

The more we have to have things
the way we want them to be,
the more often we find ourselves
stunned and astounded
at the mess something just made
of our life.

The less we need to get by,
the better our chances of getting by,
or as Jesus liked to say,
"Let the day's own trouble
be sufficient for the day."

–0–

The point is not
to have what we want
and live happily ever after.

What does wanting and happy know?

The point is to be who we are
within the terms and conditions,
context and circumstances,
time and place
of our lives.

To be true to ourselves
in each here/now of our living.

To work out the contradictions
and conflicts.

To do what needs to be done,
anyway,
nevertheless,
even so.

To not care what our chances are.

To follow the white rabbit.

To not know what we are doing.

To do right by ourselves,
and our responsibilities,
and our obligations
and duties.

Nothing to it
but to do it.

"Get in there and do your thing!
And let the outcomes be the outcomes!"

–0–

Ourselves--the term sounds strange
until we understand that "we" are composed
of a multitude of layers,
all with something at stake
in who we are,
and our conscious exterior's
rightful place
is to tune into our interior's
(Which we call "The Unconscious"
because we are not conscious of it)
interests/leanings/drifts/directives,
so that we form a collective,
collaborating with ourselves
in the production/expression/exibition
of ourselves,
giving physical form to ourselves
in the life we live.

Ourselves have an interest in how we live,
and we would do well
to take ourselves into account
as we go about shaping and forming ourselves
into the life we are living.

We do that by attending our nighttime dreams
and our daytime daydreams,
walk-abouts,
drifts of imagination,
urges,
interests,
noticing the things that resonate with us,
the things we have an affinity for,
the things that come easily for us,
the things we enjoy doing/love to do...

Ourselves are showing themselves to us
constantly,
hoping that we will pay attention
and get on board
with what we need to be about
while there is still time 
to do something about it.

Time moves on.
We are on the edge 
of the spring months of 2023.
It is hard to see that we have
matured much at all
in the what, 12-15,000 years
of a reasonably livable climate
(Whose time is quickly running out).

If we are going to attend our inner levels,
we had best be getting about it,
learning what we can of our inner-selves,
and how we can best assist ourselves
in coming forth in the life 
we have left to live.

There is no time to waste.

–0–