Mysticism, God and the sea cucumber

It goes like this. 

 Once, many years ago, I was walking down the beach and came across a sea cucumber up on the sand. They are long squishy purplish animals and feel like burrata. Any evidence of sensory equipment - eyes, ears, mouth etc are pretty much absent.

Instead of tossing this rogue adventurer back into the sea directly I held it and walked down the beach  considering it's aspects and thinking about...well...'us'. 

 There we were - two animals together cruising down the beach on an adventure, then it dawned on me: our experiences of this moment were most likely very very different.

It was true - we were both there, both moving parallel to the ocean and  together - it was REALLY happening, but how it was being PERCEIVED by each of us had to be radically different.

And there it is...me, you, the universe and everything. God and magic all wrapped up in that difference in our biology, the gap in perception, our lack of understanding...and the subsequent desire to do so, to know, to understand the other.

I think it's entirely possible that many things happen to us (put yourself in the position of the sea cucumber) that we don't have the senses to fully perceive, or that we partially get but seem like magic or acts of God because we lac sonar and echo location and probably a zillion other things like that. Is it so hard to imagine that we are missing lots of sensors that other creatures have and subsequently that there are things in the 'natural' world that in part elude us? 

 I believe that everyone needs different things to get them through this life. I do not personally believe in the great sea cucumber in the sky, or aggressively sliming everyone with ones own righteous rhetoric (wait...what am  I doing?). Where does this arrogance come from? 

 I believe in the importance of an exchange. I believe that if there is a place that's more enlightened that we can aspire to be it will be found in a life long engagement, an ongoing conversation and exchange with our fellow human beings. Maybe 'God' is our differences and heaven the ongoing exchange aimed at understanding them. 

I don't know...it's just a theory. I might think completely differently about this tomorrow.

The projected end of everything

Will there be corn dogs at the rapture? I admit I'm totally out of the loop and didn't even know about this bizarre and news worthy (why?) projection until yesterday.

Will there be balloons and stuffed animals like at the fair?

Will there be bunnies in cages and painted flowers and merry go rounds and tasty sweet things?

Maybe there will be pink cups and lights and all your shots hit their mark. Maybe you always win! Oh man...I could use a win.

Will there be lemonade and sweet corn and lots of rubber ducks?

 I understand the idea that people need to feel taken care of, and one step further that it can be pleasurable to submit. But believing that some other power is going to totally take care of us seams like believing that this shaved ice is saturated with actual orange juice...and acting like it was so could be detrimental to ones health long term.

Maybe I've got it all wrong. I might be cool with that. I sure hope there's not a rapture where you get 'lifted up' though because in recent years I've been getting vertigo in a big way  and that would be terrifying. 

...

I don't know why the whole thing reminds me of deep fried snickers and funnel cakes.

After that it reminds me of how much pleasure some of us derive from dominating and others submitting. 

There's another part of this narrative that has to do with my sea cucumber philosophy, but i will write about that tomorrow.

Energy. Fear. Panic. Projection. 

The real question is what do we all do right now while we're here to make things like we want them to be in this imagined heaven? Blaming other folk for our misery is just giving our power away and imagining everything will be better somewhere else puts one in the position of being terminally dissatisfied. 

I wasn't intending to get all preachy. Oh no. I was really just thinking about corn dogs and sea cucumbers and the possibility of a god.

Tidepool

My daughter was home sick today and missed a field trip to the sea center...so we made our own tide pool - out of old cardboard. I like it.

Drive

You can hear the breaking, the individual explosions that rocket these small candy coated capsules forward – slamming through asphalt doors, concrete tunnels - burning, breathing…purring and screaming with pleasure.

Mehr als genug

Hooked – driven by a lust for speed, solitude, and precision, domination and beauty.  

Boys...men - mostly...what are they?

I'm in a world I know nothing about yet it's apparent that the boys have grown and the first grade wiggle has turned into something much more serious and beautiful. They have made their distraction their focus, their art...their defiance and speed have become their gift.

Unspoken. Unheard.  Empty but for the cyborgs they become in that moment the helmets go on. The stakes are huge as they embrace their ironic gamble…

these cars, fawned over,  and meticulously attended to – are now sent hurtling towards the boundaries of their ability and the dusty edges of the track. 

Their sacrifices are also their indulgences – their indulgences their gift.

I think it's important to choose. I think they have - unlike some.

Indulgence, endurance, speed and ritual.

It would be wrong to condemn this obsession as purely self-serving.

Here, luxury meets functionality, danger and comfort are bedfellows. The attention to detail and the devotion to these conduits of human propulsion is a sweet passion, an art form and a gift as experience and witnessing become drive. 


I want more. I have not had enough.

Felt creatures move into the cardboard house

Yes - it's true. The cardboard house is now inhabited. There are 7 shrews...

...a rat who's name is a mistake his dyslexic parents made on his birth certificate...

...a sweet bird named after the universe who didn't quite live up to his parents expectations, but he was ok with it...

and a hedgehog named Teasel (after the English thistle) who loved to cuddle, but found that her fellow creatures did not usually share her enthusiasm for the sport.

Shrew people

What...what is happening?

Introducing....

I do say...who is that out for a stroll on this fine Sunday?

Why it's the mouse and his companion hedgehog that I made at 3 am when I couldn't sleep. They weren't strolling about then!

  My little hedgehog - you're a little close for this felted frankenstein story.

yes yes, you're made of felt...don't have a  fit (as they come close to fainting when they discover their origins).

There there, have a cup of tea and a biscuit and you'll feel better.

And they did.

My tree house

I was informed last night that I needed a treehouse. Obviously, so here it is...subject to further additions.

I don't need to mention that this whole project is made from reused cardboard boxes do I?

 Here is my guest house/small barn/playhouse. Haven't decided exactly yet, and there's the little ornamental cherry tree I was working on yesterday. Aaah...a house of my own...satisfying even though it is out of cardboard.

Felt and cardboard details continued

OK - I'm making cherry blossoms and a garden play house now to go next to the big house. Why not dream big right? More details to follow as they unfold. 

A cardboard/felt tree

I thought it needed a tree...for shade while I work on the details of the reset of the house. It's a magnolia. 

Stay tuned for my continuing adventures in cardboard construction! Happy Thursday people!

What She was wearing: my boots

Getting dressed in the morning is important. I have no money. I have 4 pairs of shoes, and I love clothes.  The reuse, recycle theme continues in this daily of what i was wearing when i made that weird thing, where it came from and how very little I paid for it. Ha!

May 5, 2011

I'm dressed. Child in school. I've got 3 hours to do something really good - Woo Hoo! Art project, business plan, Etsy stuff (yes...I'm going to open an Etsy store finally) or what? Don't know yet! :) Meanwhile, the dress is from Community Thrift in San Francisco. It was under $10 but I forget how much exactly. Sweater is either Alpha or Out of the Closet on Polk in SF, stripy skirt form a friend who has given me some totally cool clothes (thank you Kristen!!) and my boots...my boots are the reason I'm sitting like that. They are so old and so loved - I wanted to show them off. They were $100 in Eureka over ten years ago - and as I've said before - I've probably worn them almost every day since.