A New Home :)

My new desk J

It’s like coming home, again. Coming home to a place that I never knew was home.  It is not permanent and it will change, but it is new and it is where my writing will live.  It’s official, and real. I no longer have to write at my kitchen table, though that was a beautiful place to start.  I would not be terribly sad if I was still at home there.  I am not though, the chance came to get a new home, and I took it.  I am so glad I did.  It is, and will always be a work in progress, this space.  A starting point that moves fluidly through time, cradling my practice and evolving as my practice evolves.

I think I was always meant to be this, to do this.  I have written in many forms for a very long time, though I never expected that it would become my work.  It has though, and that is just awesome.  What a gift to have a skill, a talent that I can turn to when all other venues have failed.  And fail they have.  I am starting to get that this is the truth of the situation.  It’s not me that has failed.  Rather it is the venues through which I have sought success that have failed to produce satisfactory results.  My failure would be if I stopped trying.  

That is not my style.

This new space will refresh my motivation, and remind me to sit down every morning and bang out some pages.  I will get back to posting a blog a week, at the very least.  

Lovely to be back in the groove, dear readers.

See you soon. J

Unsought Words.

 

"Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come the most unsought for are commonly the most valuable." ~ Francis Bacon

My thoughts of this moment.  I'm hungry,  I have dishes  and chores to do, and I am sore in my shoulder.  This is my life today, right now, in this moment.  Coming back to practice, to presence, to mindfulness.  I sat this morning, and in sitting I reconnect to my mind, rediscover the spaces between my thoughts.  

I did not seek my anxiety, or my fear, or my anger.  Not directly anyhow.  In resisting practice, they sought me.  In ignoring the value of quiet, my quiet left me.  The spaces became filled with thoughts, fears, anxieties and doubts.  When I am not doing, I begin doubting.   

When the quiet begins to disappear, filling with fear, anger and doubt, I notice that it is my words that betray me.  The words that fill the quiet spaces in my mind - How could you? Why me? What next? - These words begin to spill out of my mouth.  

These words have sharp edges.  They hurt coming out.  They contort my face, wrench my mouth into uglilness, and break the heart of the person that they are flung at.  

These are my sins.  Sharp edged, thoughtless, unquiet words that tear at the fabric of my happiness.  

It is said that right speech is not the right of right and wrong, but the right of skillfulness, mindfulness and compassion.  This is why so often the right answer is no answer at all.  

Maezen has written that "Right speech is whole, perfected, wise, skillful, appropriate, necessary, and non-divisive. "  Lots of words to describe how to use our words.  

We tell children this often "Use your words".  We put no qualification on their use of words, because they are too young often to understand any other idea than just to use words to express what is inside of them, rather than striking out at the world with hands, feet, or wails. 

As adults, and particularly as adults who practice the Dharma,  we are old enough, and often wise enough to choose words with care and caution.  Compassionate communication creates understanding between people, and of ideas. When we use the words that we have learned in a wise, skillful, appropriate, necessary and non divisive manner we can nurture growth.  We can coax reluctant listeners,  we can open doors that were hitherto closed before.  Words can build bridges.  Right words build strong bridges.  

I suppose though the question now is what happens when we use our words in this manner and they still fall on deaf ears?  A bridge with only one strong, grounded side will crumble in the first strong wind.  

It is to the speaker to speak, and the listener to listen.  We can only be responsible for ourselves.  We build our own foundations. 

Therefore, practice.  

Build your foundation. 

It is the beginning of being responsible for yourself. 

Digital Dexterity Deficit?

I have been writing my morning pages by hand the last couple of days.  I can tell that I have not been writing with my hands for quite some time by the way they ache and cramp halfway through my third written sentence.  Digital Dexterity Deficit?  I wonder if this is a thing.  

Hm...I think this calls for some research.  Honestly.  I used to have the most neat and tidy hand writing.  When I was in university my hand writing was pro.  I could blast out pages and pages of neat, tidy, organized notes, complete with underlines, highlighting and bulleted lists without so much as breaking a sweat.  Now,  well now I can't write two sentences without having to stop and massage my hand.  

What does this mean for our future?  This means to me our children are losing somethng.  With the huge advance of digital technology in education kids are not writing like they used to.  Yes, in elementary school they do try to control for this by ensuring that children are hand writing at least a portion of what they are responsible for academically, but what happens when they move on to high school?  How about university?  There are thousands of laptops, and tablets in university classrooms now.  These students are not writing their notes anymore.  I wonder if there is something being lost here, outside of the obvious fine motor skills that it takes to manually form letters, words and sentences with accuracy at speed.  What changes when our relationship to our product relies on digital technology? Further to this, what happens when that digital technology inevitably fails?  

Fear mongering? Maybe.  Doomsday thinking? Perhaps.  

In my mind these are simply logical questions to ask when the media that we use to record our ideas and our learning changes and evolves.  

Fear mongering or not, these questions must be asked.  

How is that change going to affect us as a species?  Will the less fortunate countries become advantaged if the digital technologies of the more affluent cease to operate?  Perhaps, if they have retained some educational structures that are accessible to all.  Otherwise we will just become a generation of people who cannot accurately get an idea out of our own heads.  

What do you think, dear reader?  

Do you hand write anything?

Is it harder than it used to be?

What do you see coming in the future with this evolution in the relationship between dexterity, ideas and communication?