Entropy

Where Does the Energy Come From?

Dear Friend,

I’ll speak for myself when I say that we take so much for granted. If we were to truly feel appreciation for being in this world I wonder what that would feel like.

Zara the Romanian shepherd dog has come to stay for the day. She’s lying on the rug having polished off her breakfast in about seven seconds flat. Every now and then she turns her head and looks at me, resting her chin on her paws.

Do I know what she is, beyond her name and the word dog?

She is a living mystery. That’s merely dog on a rug. One who snaffled up some fast food from the pavement and may or may not later be sick, hopefully in the garden.

The bodies that shows up as me and you. Trillions of cells co-operating with one another. Muscles and bones and joints, the skull, eyes, lungs, heart. All of that plumbing and cabling. Blood and electricity flowing so that we can be ordinary.

One individual human eco-system, sitting at a desk typing words. Another somewhere in space and time hearing these thoughts as if they were your own.

It’s too much maybe.

That’s why we need language so we can label it all and pretend we know.

But we don’t.

Not knowing is something our false self cannot stand. As we become more progressive in our thinking we might use words like energy as labels. We see the effects of energy, but we don’t know what energy is.

Life is mystery. How do we live in it?

The more we can live with paradox and uncertainly the closer we move towards wisdom, where all that matters truly is our capacity to love.

We trap ourselves in things that are of little real value, when all we want or need is to feel love flowing out of us and returning like a wave returns when it reaches the shore.

Love for the mystery with which we are one.

On Friday nights Nana and Grandad would baby sit and Mam and Dad would go to Senhouse Street, to the saloon bar. They had bands playing and Mam might be able to persuade Dad onto the dance floor, though he was prone to treading on her toes.

Maybe they’d sit and tap their feet. I imagine they were happy.

Nana would fill a green and white striped bread bag with an assortment of sweets and chocolate bars. The bags came from a Scottish bakery where they’d cut off the crusts so the slices were peculiarly square and made good toast. We’d watch westerns and episodes of Starsky and Hutch. Me and Kevin on the sofa in our pyjamas with Nana. Grandad in the chair by the window smoking his players filterless cigarettes. Nana, like Mam and Dad smoked Benson and Hedges. We knew the brands because we’d be sent to the shops to buy them.

I guess today that would alert social services, but this was another era.

In the bag would be a regular cast of low quality chocolate, high sugar treats.

Curly Wurlies, Rolo’s and the crown jewel a Fry’s Chocolate Cream. Sometimes it would be peppermint or occasionally orange but mostly the classic original.

We’d look forward the bag, but we knew it was only a prop. The real deal was to be on the couch with Nana basking in her love. No “how was school?” or any other chat.

Half the time I was watching the cigarette smoke curling round Grandad as it climbed up and across the nicotine stained ceiling. Two of his fingers on his right hand a shade of ochre yellow, a lighter shade running through is brylcreemed snowy white hair.

Don’t under estimate yourself. When you’re loving it flows all around you, like the sun.

Sure life is full of petty frustrations. Zara is bugging me now, moaning and whining because she wants me to take her on the marshes.

I’ve the type of personality that finds having my concentration broken jarring.

That’s the surface.

Just beneath the surface there’s an infinite field of loving energy. Ever present, everywhere and in everything.

This is the peace that passeth all understanding.

We don’t have to do a thing to be deserving or worthy of it. That’s an old story to which the false self clings. It can make a life raft out of it or a battle cruiser.

Let it drown.

That’s the dying before you die the mystics are pointing us to.

Don’t get it confused with the body.

It’s a change in identity.

A change we’re going into together.

It’s not that much of a difference, certainly not something to turn into a goal.

Who knows how long it takes.

Which part of us is it that needs to know?

The part that deals in certainty.

It could be hundreds of thousands of years before humanity becomes peaceful.

It doesn’t matter.

When it comes it comes now.

Each individual adds to it.

Don’t wait for the outside to change.

It changes when we change on the inside.

Forgive.

Abandon judgemental thoughts.

Leave them to bake in the sun.

The dogs and the foxes will come for them.

They have the stomach for it.

Till tomorrow

Love

Mikey