Chinese New Year's, Mindfulness, and Babbling

Pig is favorable towards Dragon, so my hope is that 2007 proves positive. Dog year is over and Dragon is weary from playing puppy games and endless yapping. Rat and Dragon are best of friends and energy must be stored for 2008. Success comes slowly and focus on renewal is key. Fire Pig year will nourish Fire Dragon Alice—elements in sync and symbolic of regeneration.

I'm in the mindset for change this year. Not the drastic pendulum swing for which I'm better known, but a slow transformation day by day creating healthy patterns. 2007 has brought a revolution in my work life. I've been with the same company for 7 years but have recently changed departments. This is the first real alteration in career energy in about 5 years--a little vulnerable; very positive. Having at least 40 hours a week spent differently shifts perspective.


Charlottte Joko Beck describes anxiety as "a gap between the way things are and the way we think they ought to be." I get that… but really I see anxiety as more of a gap between the way we think things are and the way we think they ought to be. Perceptions are misguided. We often create reality that breeds fear or guilt, or excess pride and exaltation. We often create nothing but waste. I continue judgement based on what I think I should be creating. Where does the attachment end?


There is a tale of a Zen monk who upon walking home stepped on what he believed was an egg-bearing frog. Attempting to sleep, he tossed and turned feeling shame and sadness considering the Buddhist precept around taking life. When he finally did sleep, he dreamt of a thousand frogs demanding his life. The next morning, when he awoke spent and weary, upon journeying outside, he realized it was an overripe eggplant upon which he stepped—there was never a frog: a lesson in objectivity; a lesson in Zen.

I expend a lot of energy on attempting to dodge egg-bearing amphibians, as if they cover the surface of the world; my nemeses usually people or practices that tap-dance through humanity as if every squish were a squash. What if I could not obsess, just step, feel the mushy bump and keep walking; mindful of my path but without worry—no carefree thought that it was nothing, or shame in possibility—just the knowledge I followed my best thinking, my best path, and this was part of my journey.


What ifs…what ifs…
Leaving this open for now.
The road to Mindfulness, bitches.
That's how I roll.