Snack And Be Lost [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Years ago I wrote to Rob and told him that I felt lost-in-the-woods. His advice to me was to be lost. To sit down in the woods and rest for awhile. Orientation would come with a clearer mind. It was sage advice.

Yesterday Rob wrote to me and told me that there was a hole in his life. My advice to him was to sit in the hole for awhile. Let go of attempts to fill it and experience the hole. Wholeness would come in time. It is grand to return sage advice to the very person that offered it to you.

Lostness. The hole. They are not fixed states. They are fluid. The same is true of wholeness and found-ness. They are never forever. Life rolls on and each new day brings surprises and change. Comfort and discomfort. Thank goodness.

Rob’s message to me was simple: I never resist the comfortable experience of knowing-where-I-am so why should I resist the uncomfortable experience of not-knowing-where-I-am. The discomfort comes from the resistance so stop resisting. Be lost.

The sun is setting early these days. Our shadows stretch long on the trail by 3:30. I’ve not adjusted and it throws me for a loop. Disoriented, I stop, turn and look at the orange ball low on the horizon, shining through the trees. The seed pod glows and reminds me of a crazy muppet in mid-howl. In an attempt to orient I ask, “What time is it?”

“Snack time,” she said.

Ah, yes. With a lifetime of sage advice swirling around my soul, to this latest disorientation, I willingly gave over and offered no resistance to her suggestion. The lesson I wish I knew when I was younger: disorientation, sitting in my lostness, is always easier done with snacks.

read Kerri’s blogpost on LOW SUN AND SEED POD

share. like. support. comment. and, for heaven’s sake, snack no matter what you decide to do.

buymeacoffee is a table for two set in the deep woods made available for anyone lost and willing to sit down and rest for a spell.

Stand In Time [on DR Thursday]

Stephen Hawking asked why we remember the past but not the future. Yesterday, in the middle of a meeting, I received a slack message with a sentiment from Russ Ackoff: entrepreneurs stand in the future and look at the present. I was fascinated by an article by Wade Davis, writing about a culture that experiences time as movement backwards; we row our way into the future.

Declan Donnellan writes that it is impossible to try and be present because we already are present. We live in it. We have to try very hard not to be present. In fact, we have to split ourselves in two halves. One looking backward. The other looking forward. We are, each and every one, Janus.

It is the time of year that time changes. It’s an odd ritual to “fall back” in time. What was 5 o’clock will soon be 4 o’clock, not because of a strange universal movement between planets and stars, but because we say so. A few states in the union don’t participate in the ritual so their time stays the same.

Time on a line. So many different realities, even in the most basic experience. Constructs of time.

I’ve read that old age is a return to childhood. Many, many great thinkers and writers from many disparate cultures tell us that we will journey through life and arrive where we began. The destination is ourself. Have you ever tried to describe your self and found the task impossible? Words simply cannot reach that level of complexity. There is a notion popular in the self-help world to define your life mission, your single life purpose. It’s meant to give you focus-of-action and certain-location on your line of time. It is also nearly impossible to articulate and becomes an exercise in metaphor selection. I’ve smiled knowingly as people in my past have asked, “Is this my mission or am I making it up?” The answer to both is, of course, yes. In a more universal peek, the exercise is meant to take you one more step around the circle that will bring you back to your self.

When I was doubting myself, judgmental because I “didn’t know” what I was doing, Quinn pointed to the tallest building and said, “The person on the top floor is just making it up, too.” He was standing in my future, looking back.

It’s just a matter of time.

Just.

read Kerri’s post about TEA LIGHTS

Greet The World © 2011 david robinson