ancient mind chatter

     Mrs. Scattergood was aware that at any given moment different songs were playing in her head.  Even when she practiced her weed and seed program throughout her property. Pulling weeds, replacing seeds of the flowers she desired in the hole she left.  As she was weeding and seeding one morning she realized that if humans are so used to mind chatter and if the Daoists and shamans of so many cultures have been writing about this and training people to control their thoughts, to focus and use intent and meditate, that this has been a human condition for a very long time.  It was then she realized that even the ancient Egyptians must have been dealing with mind chatter too. Baubo, of course, could talk about it from her lived perspective.  She knew the ancients.  ‘Imagine that’, Mrs. Scattergood thought, ‘even they had to quiet their minds.’

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     The racket woke her.  Birds in spring are noisy and when summer starts to cook they’re impossible. You need ear plugs and a mask to block the morning sun. Everything conspires to wake you and you just finally had fallen into a deep sleep.  But the damn wrens. And then, what’s even weirder, you wake up to find you’re in some kind of nest. Big sticks protruding all over the place. Parts of fish and chipmunks lined up like link sausages. Don’t know how but somehow you are the bird mother, part osprey, part eagle and you have all kind of birds waiting with screaming pink mouths opened for you to drop in pieces of meat. Life in the nest is not all that cozy. But it is your nest and you can own that.

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     We are often faced with the synchronous feelings of pleasing ambition and holding onto the dream.

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     Baubo came to Mrs. Scattergood in her time of need. She recognized in her someone who would find ways to repair the world.  The idea of this, Tikkun olam, has found its way to many through group work and through individuals. It is more than walking your trash out of the park but it is linked to that act of responsibility.  There are many who do the work of repairing the world and they all would welcome soup after that work is done for the day. Mrs. Scattergood has taken many detours in her life and many were obviously blessed with the goddess of synchronicity’s stardust.  While she was wandering back home from the beach, Baubo found her and stood with her in her kitchen, in her life and in her rebuilding process. Tikkun olam means repairing the world. There are worlds within worlds.  Anais Nin wrote that "Friendships nurture all that has been lost in our lives.”  And when our world is lost, friendship can help us find them. There is no better compass.  Our friendships and our loves are “differentiations or forms in the unified field of the Tao.”  There are friends for every point on our compass.

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     Mrs. Scattergood realized that the Spirit of the Land, whose presence she felt around her home, and the story of Demeter looking for Persephone were related.  She felt that the Spirit was either one or the same as Demeter or they were sisters. Quick realities attached to them. She had a really long day. She realized that Baubo was always weaving in and out of her life. She missed her mother but in one reality or another they were together and in the braided worlds of realities they were always connected. Why wouldn’t it be the same for her and her friend Barry? Or for anyone or any place she loved and felt she had lost?

raga or the 10,000 things (6), ancient mind chatter by freda karpf

Except from riding the waves:  a tale about being home in the world by freda karpf    @thewildblues