Your Beautiful, Creative Mind (Blog #851)

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This morning I wrapped up a house sitting gig then came home, made breakfast, and unpacked. Well, sort of. I brought my bags in from the car. Now they’re on my bedroom floor. Anyway, after breakfast (and a nap), I read The Magician’s Nephew, book one of seven in The Chronicles of Narnia (and just before The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe), by CS Lewis. Somehow I missed this book as a child, but, y’all, it’s delightful. It’s about a young girl named Polly and her friend Digory, who get swept off to a number of different worlds thanks to Digory’s less than integrous uncle, who likes to dabble in magic. Along the way they encounter a terrible witch and, eventually, end up in Narnia, thus setting the stage for six more books about the same enchanting land.

Seven books in total. If you put them side by side, they’re thicker than a brick. What a beautiful, creative mind that CS Lewis (his friends and family called him Jack) clearly had. Sometimes my writer friends and I talk about what it must take as a fiction writer to build an entire world. I thought about this as I read The Magician’s Nephew today, and it seemed clear to me that Lewis must have had a map laid out for the series from the beginning. For example, both a lamppost and a wardrobe are prominent features in The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe, and the origin of each is explained in The Magician’s Nephew. When I read this I thought, This guy was thinking ahead. However, this was not the case, since The Magician’s Nephew was THE LAST book in the series to be penned. So what Lewis actually did was create something out of thin air (Narnia) then go back later and explain how it got there.

In other words, he was thinking behind.

This evening I finished reading Defy Gravity by Caroline Myss, and one of the points she drives home over and over (and over) again is that you will never, ever (ever) get a satisfactory answer to the question “Why did this happen to me?” I mean, Abraham didn’t get one. Moses didn’t get one. Jesus (the son of God) didn’t get one. Why should you? (Why should I?) And yet something shitty happens, and we all wonder–Why me? Caroline calls this a child’s question, and I think it has to do with the fact that most of us are much better at thinking behind than we are thinking ahead.

I’ll explain.

There’s a story about a man with poor eyesight who’s fishing on a quiet lake and notices another boat approaching him. However, thinking the other boat will turn away, he goes back to fishing. Next thing he knows, the boat has run into him, nearly tipping him into the water. Well, the man is pissed off and starts on this tirade (like you probably do in traffic sometimes). Who the hell do you think you are? and so on. He’s thinking the driver of the other boat is a real asshat. Probably did it on purpose. Like most of us, he wants some answers. However, then the man realizes the boat is unoccupied. Maybe it got loose from the harbor, he thinks. Quickly, he calms down. He even laughs at himself. Boy, I really made a big deal out of nothing.

If the point’s not obvious, it’s that often in life we get hit–physically, emotionally. Shit happens. However, as if almost getting knocked over (physically, emotionally), weren’t enough, we create a narrative about the situation. We think BEHIND and IMAGINE that the other person (or God, even) was out to get us. We take things personally. Of course, you might think, But what if the guy really had been hit by another driver? (I’ve been rear-ended before, and the car that did it was most certainly occupied.) But what’s the difference whether someone was in the boat or not or whether or not they did it on purpose? Either way, you got hit.

So here’s an option. Instead of thinking behind, you could think ahead. Okay, I got hit. NOW what am I gonna do?

This weekend while house sitting I took my friend’s dog for several walks. Honestly, it wasn’t best neighborhood, and I found myself doing what I often do–making judgments. Like, That’s a nice house, that’s a real piece-of-shit house, and so on. Well, if you want to know how to build a world, this is how you do it. What I mean is that the world as it exists is devoid of inherent meaning. My therapist says the universe is neutral. If you want to test this theory out, take a friend–just one honest friend–on a walk or to an art gallery and start comparing notes. What’s beautiful in your eyes will be rubbish in theirs. You’ll walk outside on a cloudy day and think, Disgusting, and your friend will think, Glorious.

In the last example, what we essentially have, at least for a moment, is two different worlds. That is, you’ll be living in a disgusting world, and your friend will be living in a glorious one. Byron Katie says, “Who created the world? You did.” Now, this doesn’t mean that you created the clouds in the sky, but it does mean that you–and you alone–created how you perceived or interpreted those clouds, and this means everything.

It means you’re more powerful than you’ve been giving yourself credit for.

Going back to thinking behind, whenever you do see something you dislike, let’s be clear–it’s only because you’ve reached into your past, found a negative experience, and laid its memory on top of your present moment, or, perhaps, your future. Let’s say I were to invite you on a skiing trip and you said, “No, I hate skiing.” Granted, maybe you DID hate skiing six years ago, but how do you know you’ll still hate skiing this December? You can imagine you would hate it, but how could you KNOW? You haven’t been yet.

I mean, anything could happen on those slopes. You could meet your soulmate.

Going back to The Chronicles of Narnia, it seems that thinking behind and thinking ahead are lovely skills to have for authors. And since we are all the authors of our own lives (or at least the internal narrative about our own lives), I grant that these are good skills for all of us. For example, if you’re deathly allergic to peanuts, it’s good to bring your past into the present–so you won’t die from eating peanut butter. If you want to redecorate a room or your life, it’s good to imagine what you’d like to manifest. But when you imagine another person’s (or God’s) motives or take a perfectly lovely day (what did THOSE clouds ever do to you?) and turn it into something disgusting–and thus cause yourself upset or distress–this is misusing your beautiful, creative mind.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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We are surrounded by the light.

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Scrooge McDuck and the Second Deadly Sin (Blog #850)

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Today while cleaning I listened to two one-and-a-half-hour lectures about spiritual alchemy and a one-hour podcast/interview about grief. Then I went to dinner and read Caroline Myss’s Defy Gravity for two hours (I’m on a Myss kick lately), then came back to where I’m house sitting and read it for an hour more. And whereas I’d intended to finish the entire book tonight, my body and this blog said no. We’re too tired, we have too much to do. So whatever, that’ll just be one more book I’ve started and “need” to finish. I say need in quotation marks because as my therapist often says, “You don’t NEED to do anything. You could stay at home and eat bonbons all day if you wanted to.”

Whenever she says this, I squirm in my seat.

Like the rest of America, I’m hung up on being productive.

In Defy Gravity Caroline says that of the personal healings she’s aware of, the healings haven’t come about as a result of the mind-body connection. Rather, they’ve come about as a result of the mind-body-SOUL connection, since, she says, your rational mind doesn’t have the power to heal you but your irrational soul (your spirit) does. If you’re a follower of Caroline’s work, this is why she talks about the healing power of forgiveness and how it will never make sense to your mind (your ego). It will however, make sense to your soul.

In discussing soul work and mysticism, Caroline associates each of the seven deadly sins, as well as the seven graces (gifts of the spirit) with the seven main chakras of the physical body. For example, the first (root) chakra is located at the base of your spine and is linked to one’s fear of and need for survival. It’s our connection to THE TRIBE, as in, What will THEY think? As such, according to Caroline, the deadly sin of the first chakra is pride, which is “rooted” in the fear of being humiliated. The grace for this downfall? Reverence.

As I understand it, a grace is something you can seek out and ask for, but it’s not something you can make happen. Likewise, it’s not something you can reason yourself around to with your mind because–again–a grace comes from or is at least given to the soul. It has an effect on your mind, but that’s not its home. And whereas it’s easy to think of a grace as something fantastic and spectacular that marches into your life like a Christmas parade, more often than not, it’s not. For example, the day I asked a counselor friend of mine for a recommendation for a therapist and he gave me my therapist’s name, that was a HUMONGOUS grace. Of course, I didn’t know it then. I just jotted down the number and off I went. It took time for me to realize how “lucky” I was to be introduced to that one person, how my much life would change for the better.

Back to the seven deadly sins, the one that’s on my mind tonight is greed, which Caroline links to the second chakra, our center of relationships–to other people, to money, to sex. Rightly so, I think, some yoga practitioners refer to the second charka, which is located at the level of your sex organs, as the emotional junkyard. Personally, I’m not afraid to say I have a lot of issues there–both emotional and physical. Anyway, it felt like a bit of a slap in the face when I read that greed is the potential driver behind the issues in my second chakra, since I don’t picture myself as a Scrooge McDuck. But one way Caroline describes greed is having the thought or feeling that “there’s not enough.”

Well, okay, fine, you got me there.

For me, the idea of “not enough” is deeply engrained and ever present. I could blame this on my particular life circumstances, but the truth is, scarcity is embedded in our culture. Just look at any form of advertising. All of it’s built around the idea that we don’t have enough–beauty, wealth, friends, or vacation time. Many spiritual books subtly (and not so subtly) convey the idea that we don’t have enough spirituality. Where I personally feel the most scarcity (or a greed for more) is in my finances and my knowledge-base. This is why I’m constantly listening to lectures, constantly reading. Granted, I enjoy these things thoroughly, but underneath it all is a fear that I don’t have enough of whatever it is and, therefore, need more of it. Personally, I think most of our ugly inclinations (seven deadly sins) have fear at their base.

Caroline says the grace we need to counteract greed (or the fear of scarcity if that’s easier for you to swallow) is piety, humility, or devotion to God. As I understand this, this grace puts us in touch with another quality of the second chakra–creativity. This is important because–and I can speak to this personally–our creative energy is a limitless flow of resources. Said another way, our creativity is abundant, anything but scarce. I’ve experienced this firsthand in writing every day for 850 days. Never once has my creative well run dry. Likewise, I’ve experienced instant creativity on the dance floor, especially when I’m in the moment and not thinking about what others think of me. This, I think, is where piety or humility comes in. Whenever I’m trying to impress someone, whenever I think, I’m hot shit, my creativity shuts down.

I’ve said before that I often feel or believe that good things happen to other people but not to me. Now, I can logically tell you that’s not true, but our feelings and beliefs are rarely logical. Anyway, my therapist says this is a dumb belief. “Good things happen to everybody,” she says. “If the Kardashians can make money, so can you.” Once while discussing this topic I said, “I guess it’s another way of feeling like I’m special–because I’m the exception to the rule.”

“Well, yeah,” she said, “but special in a real dumb way.”

Like I frequently do in our sessions, I laughed out loud when she said this. Why? Because it’s true. It is dumb to think good things happen to others but not to you. It’s another form of scarcity. Likewise, it’s dumb to think you live in a “not enough” universe when you’ve been taken care of and had more than enough you’re entire life. Like, how many pairs of shoes do you have? And yet you only have two feet. If you really get this point, you’ll laugh out loud too. This, I think, is another way grace comes to us, through those moments when we really see ourselves and how ridiculous we can be. Scrooge McDuck had so much gold that he could swim in it, and yet he wanted more. We have everything we have (we have enough, we are enough), and yet we want more.

Talk about funny.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"Not knowing what's going to happen next is part of the adventure."