KateThoughts

Ouch; scratch me, and my Ego still bleeds

I LOVE aging.
I love the piles of adventures and experience;
I love learning (at last) more about what my body will and will not put up with; when to push it and when to coddle it; when it complains out of laziness or is speaking of what it really needs.

I love listening: to my body, to my heart, and to rain and crickets and vocal harmony, and to the tears of a friend.

I love love love learning about (and in) relationship: with my wife, with friends, teachers, strangers…whomever. All of them are buddhas; likely or unlikely, I learn from them all. That was not always the case.

I love being able to translate these things and the life lessons they brought, into the chart that has become my spiritual and ethical center.

 

AND my capital E ego can still cringe at times. Even bleed a little. What makes it different now is the perspective that aging brings. What would have been a huge cause for major drama and lament only a few years ago, is now just a little scratch. It doesn’t need a bandage anymore. It just reminds me that I am still in a human body and still dancing with that ego. And I can smile and think, how wonderful that I am still learning. And that, now – usually sooner rather than later - I can tell when my dance partner is that Ego and when it is a better part of me.

 

I would not trade my years for anything at all.

For all you Crackpots out there...I mean 'cracked pots'...I mean... well...

You’ve seen this before, I suspect. But it is a lovely story

 

An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water.

Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments.
But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do ha lf of what it had been made to do.

After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream. 
'I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.' The old woman smiled, 'Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side?'

'That's because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them.'
For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table.
Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.' 

Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding.
You've just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them.
 
Remember to smell the flowers on your side of the path!

The Cutest Thing You've Seen in a While...

Kitties in a box

As for the practice...

It's as if I never mentioned the idea in the first place.

Oh, I can tell you several reasons, but there are really no excuses beyond profound laziness. Now, how on earth do I make that concept 'downstream'?

Meanwhile, I'm a little more than halfway thru this long pet job and contemplating never doing it again. 

So, off to the showers before a Rolfing session; later a guitar lesson, then Tai Chi and a meditation practice. sounds good. see you later.