Caught in a Storm

Good Morning relatives 

Have you seen the movie "The Martian"?  yeah I thought it would be boring too  the cover is not that remarkable  but I finally watched it and guess what it was great! 

so if you hate spoilers  stop reading and go watch the film you can probably rent it from your local library   I did  then come back  because just like the cover that kind of kept me from seeing the possibilities underneath there are some hidden things that matter things that may save your life some day  things that may save my life today if we just stop telling ourselves that what we can see is all that there is  that what we are faced with is the only possibility that can be real and that what we have done somehow determines what we do next

life is what you make it  well death can be also and while I have found that being on your path is unique and one of a kind for each of us and it can be the loneliest journey that we take  that small step that brings whats next after what was and becomes what is  it is ours to choose and belongs to no-one else   ever

don't forget it's our life yours mine to choose 
so choose as if your life depends on it
every moment it is your life, my life and that moment slips away as the next one is born  so how do I encourage you to see that idea  to incorporate it so that the joy the chi that each never before existed moment that comes into your mind, your heart, your brain, your eyes, your nose and your life is brand new  its right there in your hand  will you will I choose to live it or let it slip away unnoticed or destroy it with what was or what I wish was or had or didn't have? its my choice you know  each moment  I used to wonder what happened to my chi and I think this is it  I just stopped accepting what was offered to me freely every moment every breath

unfortunately for me it took a board to the head to bring me back to the moment   well that and my core orientation towards seeking the light   fortunately life cared enough about me to hit me in the head  and now if I can share with you if I can open up about what I see maybe you can get back to your chi too  maybe there won't be any boards to your head as you head out on your own voyage seeking where no human has gone before

well that sounds super heavy and sort of a little frightening to carry around that thought like a lens always trying to remember to see through the correct glass

good thing there is a difference in understanding something that changes your core perspective then letting it go trusting that you and it will merge and be guided rather than plodding on and on trying to juggle to be's and not to be's have and have nots should and shouldn't's  in keeping your core separate from life because you don't trust yourself as if that will save it    then yes every thing becomes a burden everything becomes a chore and life becomes heavy and seems un-winable and there you are standing on the shore realizing that what you have actually chosen to create is death rather than life and you are not sure or maybe not even aware that even in that moment when the predator that lives inside of us wants to take us from ourselves even in that moment we can slay that predator, we can take up our sword of choice throw away our shield and choose life choose each now in its individual preciousness and drink it in so that we are restored maybe for just one moment but what a full draft it is 
and look 
there again another has come into your hands 

choose from your core
choose not from your past or the idea of a future that will never exist 
choose from all the beauty that life recognized when you when I was created and is standing here right now receiving what is given

we get to choose never forget that as the martian reminds us its what we choose that determines the possibilities

libraries are great by the way   they save lives 

so back to spoiling the film 

I realized that the guy in the story Mark Whatney is pretty much just like me fucked from an accident that almost but didn't take his life  

he's stranded on an uninhabited planet 249,000,000 miles from home unable to communicate with the folks who the day before were his crew, his team, his family, his tribe, his country, his world.  he has lost all communication and the gulf between himself and anyone else is vast, unthinkably vast.  it's a bit overwhelming and I understand what that feels like 

isolation surrounded by immersed in perpetually in every way imaginable in every sense surface and option confronted with a hostile foreign environment that is not going any where that is until he figures out the next right step 

until he figures it out   

he is a lot like me abruptly isolated unable to communicate effectively his aliveness his willingness to come home to live to be restored he is surrounded by silence and nothingness and 249 million miles of impenetrable uncrossable space

I on the other hand found myself abruptly stranded on a planet of 7.8 billion people all of whom are creating sound that traumatizes me (remember that 20 decibel sound trauma threshold that got smacked into my head last summer?) every moment of my life   surrounded by an unavoidable hostile environment that is going nowhere and in fact follows me every where I go every minute of every day and into the night

I can't avoid sound altogether (although I try) and the people whom I share my malady with really do forget how to have a conversation with me about a half a nano second after I ask, then tell, then demand that they PLEASE SPEAK SOFTER

they forget that for me the noise coming out of their mouth or off of their corduroy trousers or from the papers they are flicking, the gum they are chewing, or the whatever they are doing is killing me loudly, very very persistently sound is hitting me just like the debris that is flying around the astronauts in the movie when they get caught outside in a storm  it's loud it's unrelenting and it's life threatening at least my brain believes it is which as it turns out my brain is kind of in charge of me 

crazy huh very loud very very never ending

it's really unexpected to be stranded on an uninhabitable planet surrounded by so many people 

 I can drink the water I can breath the air so unlike the guy stuck on Mars I have an advantage but his biggest advantage over me is that his trauma/trial/ life destroying threatening moment/time of isolation has an end date  whereas mine does not

oh and the other thing that Mars guy and I have in common, we don't want our travail to be over by death that sort of seems like cheating doesn't it?

while the astronauts ability to communicate with the outside/home world improves over the course of the movie mine is deteriorating with every passing day 

depressing huh?  maybe probably perhaps but maybe not

that guy on Mars  he has something that I also have something that makes all the difference in the end he has humor, he has a positivity that is endlessly renewable, he has imagination, he has willingness, he has a giant brain, he has what we Texans call True Grit  

and so do I  all of the above and more, and I have you relatives 
I have you

when we are stripped down to our core  when we have to begin again at the beginning and take the next step solve the next problem even when it was the same problem we solved yesterday we have to stop being attached to what was
we have to let go of anxiety, of anger, of fear, of the thought that we have the right (somehow the progression of school, of success, of learning to walk teaches us this false premise that we will have ever advancing changing new challenges new problems to solve) to advance that life is climbing a mountain, crossing a bridge, fording a stream, graduating; when in reality all life is    is 

being all I am 

in each moment

every moment 

as we come together 

in the moment 

without trying to make myself or the moment or anyone else who happens to be in my moment or me in theirs someone or something that is convenient for me or my imagination or my capabilities or my comfort or what ever 

success isn't being challenged by difference even if it is difference that shows up to be the challenge 

success isn't lack of redundancy even if redundancy is all there is (if living meant every moment was the same like a time loop of solving the same problem over and over) could you can I get rid of the concept of over and over so that it whatever it is simply becomes what is   what is for me to do right now as if it not only has never existed before but that I have never before considered the next step and how to take it as if my life depends on it using all I have been or tried before without being bound by the before as if after or next is and isn't itself and neither am I 

you see that is what he had even when he lost it and got scared or angry or frustrated or simply exhausted and overwhelmed by the moment that arrived on a song that destroyed all his work, all his hope, all his past thought of possibility or a wind that culminated his efforts into a magical never before imagined or accomplished achievement he 
that guy on Mars had inside of him had as his fallback had as his Beingness joy, kindness, imagination, willingness, and a letting go that enabled him to find his way back to the company of those who had been left behind 

but at the end 
at the end when he is safe on the bench with his coffee and his feet on a planet where he can drink the water and breathe the air  

he knows  deep inside  that he is and always will be alone 

the only one who ever will know what he knows be who he has been he is and always will be a world apart from those 7.9 billion people just outside his door 

and it seems he is ok with it  he still sees the magic in the seed sprouting in the leaf reaching 

the magic of life   of a life lived   of a life not yet lived 
of life right now 

so he doesn't quit  he doesn't become something he is not a living growing thing that pushes its way through the dirt that surrounds it so foreign so isolated 

can he teach what he knows   who can say  can a student listen   time will tell 

because the storm doesn't change how we perceive it does and all of that perception depends on who we are in our hearts  who we are when we reach out to the next moment that is our life 

love ya 
mean it