same as ever, 10 years on

Speaking of totems, two flying GBH's this morning as we turned the old stud out and went to get the night turn-out field.  Flying, flying, circling, flying; and definitely interacting although I don't know enough about their habits to know if it was a pair or two of one sex having some controversy . . . but I rarely see them other than solitary.

And on the way home, wind blowing leaves.  In one place a whole pile you could have jumped in in the road just from an eddy in the currents.  The world here now has lost its paintedness and taken on its winter greyness but the brown leaves blew and blew and swirled and a solitary leaf would be all picturesque as though seeking its destination.

And I couldn't help but think of all the people and all the leaf blowers.  And here was the wind.  Leaf blower: time, money, energy.  Or wind: art, freedom.

What does it look like vs. what it is.  Always something that has been of interest to me.

We did rake leaves when I was growing up, and maybe it might have made a difference in the slightly damp and tree dense lower back yard in allowing grass to grow there.  I remember mowing on that big lowboy mower with a bikini on and my grandmother running over to tell me it looked like I was naked.  "Well, I'm not," I said, refusing to be more concerned with how it looked than with how it was.  Of course, I was almost naked in that bikini.

At home, now, this afternoon, I split wood, lots and lots of wood, because we had lots of slightly pithy wood down and if it rained on it, it would be damp through but if we got it split and in, we'd have wood for days taken care of.  And it isn't even going to be that cold (although it isn't going to be that warm either).  In the same kind of way we often hear neighbors mowing seemingly incessantly in the summer, in the winter our sound is the "shhhsssshhhh" of the saw and the whack whack of the ax.  You mow, at least if you mow more than twice a year, for appearances.  Ok, if you are really lucky you'll get three mowings for hay in but you KNOW that ain't what I'm talking about, and you know that is rather rare 'round these parts.

You cut wood, split wood, know wood, love wood, for real reasons, not because your woodpile looks good.  Although at one time, perhaps, judgments were made based on that but still, so much . . . depravity in appearances.

What's the harm? people ask.  That article about how to revive a tired bee, that's just encouraging people to be kind to bees.  What's the harm?

Well, what's the harm in believing that those four tea candles under a flower pot will heat your whole room?  What's the harm?  You'll be cold, that's what.  And that cold would be a good thing because in that you'd touch reality instead of living in delusion.  Yeah, people don't like that much.  Makes 'em mad.  But really, has anybody, ANYBODY, gotten the tea candles and the flower pot and done this?  Has it encouraged anyone to actually do, say, turn down the thermostat?  Well, duh, of course not.  Because people know when they are lying to themselves, and they get really really mad about it.

The harm, obviously, is perpetuating delusion.  The harm is that delusion prevents what might be real action, real life.  At least if you TRY the tea candle trick, the delusion will be relieved.  If you want to help bees, put a hive in your backyard and learn bees.  It is easy to appear to be kind -- it is far more challenging to actually be kind, which is why (if you think about it) the Dalia Llama  can make it his religion.

Delusion is always easier than reality but it will catch up with you.

Go back.

Grasshopper:  Is the sandpainting delusion?

Master Doh:  Do you need for it to be something that it is not?