Dear Renee, I keep coming back to make a comment and then getting lost in the pictures and then lost in the words, so I'm just going to say thank you for getting me lost. Love Louise x
Renée, this post is beautifully poetic. And what a wondrous place to go to and die. That which was once alive and teeming with fish, that became festered and toxic and is now dead. Followed by the experience of feeling the flies on your skin, like how they behave on things that are decaying. I appreciate how you let them be there without shooing them away, really taking in their presence and being the death they are feeding on. I can relate to the “I” being obliterated. I am in my own version of this as we speak. Quite the experience…
I will be in the desert this weekend... curious to see what arrives in my being.
Thank you for these reflections, seeing through the manifold layers here. The flies were teachers, Julie. Truly. And so, I am beholden to them.
How fitting that you are making a trek to the desert this weekend as you empty.
(The image of you with this intention brings a wordlessness as I sit here wondering what words want to come next as an offering. . . . I sit . . . and sit. . . [silence]). 🙏 Thank you for going to, being in, the desert. . . .
Reading this, I chafe at the limitation of this digital medium. If this were in print, I’d be marking little checks and stars and underlines at your motif of the flies, your body the oasis and desert. I don’t have a mark for the theme of unintended consequences, which seems like something with a long resonance. I wonder how much of last year’s travel had that theme.
Perhaps, drafts deemed ready for checkmarks and stars and underlines will be so fortunate to land in your hands in good time. ;) I'm combing through and yes, seeing layered motifs. For a conversation perhaps after you catch your breath. . .
This is of course a water world. Every biological form both human and non-human is essentially a form of structured water. The human body is composed of 70% or so of such structured water.
Perhaps then the key to understanding the nature of human life is to contemplate the meaning and significance of water.
Yes, this earth is a water world indeed, and on this earth, life is mostly water, as you say, and so, you make a good point: "Perhaps then the key to understanding the nature of human life is to contemplate the meaning and significance of water."
I'll play the both-sides coin here and wonder: Might we happen upon something unexpected and similarly significant if we peer into water's absence? Meaning, if we take the taken-for-granted of water out of the picture and imagine it not to be taken for granted, what might we come to of our understandings of the nature of the human? This is a thought experiment, of course. It could be revealing to look at the meaning and significance of water both ways. . . .
(Could be, you just planted a seed for a Beyond the Comfort Zone letter on down the road!) Thank you for this.
The Salton Sea is a place of quiet desperation. I visited it numerous times. Initially it was a cheap stopover in an RV on the way from Phoenix where we lived, to east of Sacramento where the kids were building their nest. Later the Salton Sea area became a place to meet my son and pick up his Husky so they could go on vacations. It was a good halfway point.
It was quite contrasting to see well developed and maintained California campgrounds down the road from abandoned rows of cottages and small houses, docks, and ghost marinas, relics of Fifties era recreational paradise of blue collar boom. The Visitor Center contained images of people boating and frolicking on the water. Once I foolishly tried fishing for Tilapia. Worms dunked in the water immediately died. That was before I realized the lake was a closed basin collecting poison and the salt content was climbing to astronomically high salinity levels.
The late Congressman Sonny Bono of Sonny and Cher fame, made restoring the Accidental Lake to a renewed Southern California paradise his passion, but complicated and expensive long term restoration ideas died with him.
Still, it was quite something to look across that vast expanse where one could not see shore due to the curvature of the Earth, and imagine what was.
Your words "quiet desperation" are apt. It is a wonder the Salton Sea is not a well-known phenomenon beyond that part of the world. Perhaps that it is not says as much about Salton Sea and how it came to be and the human condition as anything. . . .
The expansiveness of the results of human foible is quite astonishing: "look across that vast expanse where one oculd not see shore due to the curvature of the Earth."
I'm so sorry the worm died and so glad you were not poisoned!
So good to "see" you here, apropos Salton Sea. You and I have wandered many similar places.
Thank you for your reflections on this, and for your kind words. I find similar inquiry about the human condition in your work, which evokes the universal in the human no matter the circumstances, and as someone who reads your work, I thank you for this.
After meditating I read your exquisitely written journey in the desert 🌵 and found your portal from which to cross into comforting and hopeful for us all. 🌹
You touch on comfort and hope here. Thank you. What I would hope to come through this meditation is that there is comfort to be found in the present aliveness of the silence. It is an ever-presence that seems to cradle us in our darkest hour(s). We can find comfort there.
As you were posting at 5:17 am the bell went off as I started meditating. The journey of my meditation was at the point of dying …I noticed that at the point of surrendering I was afraid I couldn’t observe and know the journey any longer. You however walked through that veil and opened the landscape for others. Thank you for creating the portal. ❤️🧚🏻🐝
Thank you for sharing your meditation in the context of this one. I sense the poignancy of your experience--right there at the threshold "point of dying," the fear. What a fear. And what a natural fear. Perhaps this is our greatest task--to keep coming to that threshold in our meditation; perhaps this is why the Tibetan spiritual life is to meditate on dying, and why the mystics of the Western traditions enjoin us to "die before you die." Perhaps the practice is the portal. . .
Chanting with Inner Refuge and Bardo Prayers (with English subtitles) - Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and reading the Tibetian Book of the Dead I am working on. Thank you for your insightful gifts.
Dear Renee, I keep coming back to make a comment and then getting lost in the pictures and then lost in the words, so I'm just going to say thank you for getting me lost. Love Louise x
Louise,
You could not have offered a more touching comment if you had hand-scribed a thousand words. Thank you for getting lost.
With love,
Renée
Renée, this post is beautifully poetic. And what a wondrous place to go to and die. That which was once alive and teeming with fish, that became festered and toxic and is now dead. Followed by the experience of feeling the flies on your skin, like how they behave on things that are decaying. I appreciate how you let them be there without shooing them away, really taking in their presence and being the death they are feeding on. I can relate to the “I” being obliterated. I am in my own version of this as we speak. Quite the experience…
I will be in the desert this weekend... curious to see what arrives in my being.
Julie,
Thank you for these reflections, seeing through the manifold layers here. The flies were teachers, Julie. Truly. And so, I am beholden to them.
How fitting that you are making a trek to the desert this weekend as you empty.
(The image of you with this intention brings a wordlessness as I sit here wondering what words want to come next as an offering. . . . I sit . . . and sit. . . [silence]). 🙏 Thank you for going to, being in, the desert. . . .
With love,
Renée
Reading this, I chafe at the limitation of this digital medium. If this were in print, I’d be marking little checks and stars and underlines at your motif of the flies, your body the oasis and desert. I don’t have a mark for the theme of unintended consequences, which seems like something with a long resonance. I wonder how much of last year’s travel had that theme.
Tara,
Perhaps, drafts deemed ready for checkmarks and stars and underlines will be so fortunate to land in your hands in good time. ;) I'm combing through and yes, seeing layered motifs. For a conversation perhaps after you catch your breath. . .
I’d enjoy that! :-)
This is of course a water world. Every biological form both human and non-human is essentially a form of structured water. The human body is composed of 70% or so of such structured water.
Perhaps then the key to understanding the nature of human life is to contemplate the meaning and significance of water.
Jonathan,
Yes, this earth is a water world indeed, and on this earth, life is mostly water, as you say, and so, you make a good point: "Perhaps then the key to understanding the nature of human life is to contemplate the meaning and significance of water."
I'll play the both-sides coin here and wonder: Might we happen upon something unexpected and similarly significant if we peer into water's absence? Meaning, if we take the taken-for-granted of water out of the picture and imagine it not to be taken for granted, what might we come to of our understandings of the nature of the human? This is a thought experiment, of course. It could be revealing to look at the meaning and significance of water both ways. . . .
(Could be, you just planted a seed for a Beyond the Comfort Zone letter on down the road!) Thank you for this.
The Salton Sea is a place of quiet desperation. I visited it numerous times. Initially it was a cheap stopover in an RV on the way from Phoenix where we lived, to east of Sacramento where the kids were building their nest. Later the Salton Sea area became a place to meet my son and pick up his Husky so they could go on vacations. It was a good halfway point.
It was quite contrasting to see well developed and maintained California campgrounds down the road from abandoned rows of cottages and small houses, docks, and ghost marinas, relics of Fifties era recreational paradise of blue collar boom. The Visitor Center contained images of people boating and frolicking on the water. Once I foolishly tried fishing for Tilapia. Worms dunked in the water immediately died. That was before I realized the lake was a closed basin collecting poison and the salt content was climbing to astronomically high salinity levels.
The late Congressman Sonny Bono of Sonny and Cher fame, made restoring the Accidental Lake to a renewed Southern California paradise his passion, but complicated and expensive long term restoration ideas died with him.
Still, it was quite something to look across that vast expanse where one could not see shore due to the curvature of the Earth, and imagine what was.
Michael,
Your words "quiet desperation" are apt. It is a wonder the Salton Sea is not a well-known phenomenon beyond that part of the world. Perhaps that it is not says as much about Salton Sea and how it came to be and the human condition as anything. . . .
The expansiveness of the results of human foible is quite astonishing: "look across that vast expanse where one oculd not see shore due to the curvature of the Earth."
I'm so sorry the worm died and so glad you were not poisoned!
So good to "see" you here, apropos Salton Sea. You and I have wandered many similar places.
I've never experienced what you wrote about, so all the more my appreciation for your point of view and the gentleness with which you live.
David,
Thank you for your reflections on this, and for your kind words. I find similar inquiry about the human condition in your work, which evokes the universal in the human no matter the circumstances, and as someone who reads your work, I thank you for this.
After meditating I read your exquisitely written journey in the desert 🌵 and found your portal from which to cross into comforting and hopeful for us all. 🌹
Doreen,
You touch on comfort and hope here. Thank you. What I would hope to come through this meditation is that there is comfort to be found in the present aliveness of the silence. It is an ever-presence that seems to cradle us in our darkest hour(s). We can find comfort there.
As you were posting at 5:17 am the bell went off as I started meditating. The journey of my meditation was at the point of dying …I noticed that at the point of surrendering I was afraid I couldn’t observe and know the journey any longer. You however walked through that veil and opened the landscape for others. Thank you for creating the portal. ❤️🧚🏻🐝
Dear Doreen,
Thank you for sharing your meditation in the context of this one. I sense the poignancy of your experience--right there at the threshold "point of dying," the fear. What a fear. And what a natural fear. Perhaps this is our greatest task--to keep coming to that threshold in our meditation; perhaps this is why the Tibetan spiritual life is to meditate on dying, and why the mystics of the Western traditions enjoin us to "die before you die." Perhaps the practice is the portal. . .
With love,
Renée
Chanting with Inner Refuge and Bardo Prayers (with English subtitles) - Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and reading the Tibetian Book of the Dead I am working on. Thank you for your insightful gifts.
Such beauty, Doreen.