12.12.12: January

This is PART 1 in a 12 part series for the Year of Sagely Living project, entitled 12.12.12: A journey of self-discovery for a lopsided soul.
To learn more: click here.

“Brrrr-BING!…Brrrr-BING!….Buurr-rr-RR-rRr-BI-Eee-Br-eeEEEeeeg-!”

This is the sound that my Corona Typewriter makes. To say that’s it rusty from negligence and misuse would be an understatement… my forgotten 1910 Underwood could attest to such inappropriate unrest. This is also the sound that my mind makes when I attempt to force out any creative endeavors, especially upon command. It seems utterly useless when the mechanisms just refuse to work. It’s like poking a dead fish out-of-water and telling it to swim. To elaborate further, the physical challenges that prevent my communication, I present to you a key cast of players:

1. A sluggish tongue: a muscular structure that gets too ecstatic and emotional about my thoughts. This meaty member proceeds to flap endlessly and aimlessly, badgering and exposing my poor listeners to topics that may not have any other relevance except to myself.
2. My brain, which twiddles like a noisy cockatoo on some occasions and on others, wags happily like an excited hound. Neither of which, despite the joys within, can adequately convey a useful string of words. Estimations of grammatically structured ideas result, leaving misplaced verbs and made-up words in its wake, leading to describe itself as a distant relative to a soft pad of butter.
3. And lastly my fingers… the excitement that stems from their tips conveys enough emotive force that it moves my laptop’s cursory movement to wayward directions that seem even more than tangential to my oceanic thoughts.

In brief, these three factors, in combination to lack of time, poor memory, and a clean bar of soap have prevented me from relaying my experience of January’s rendition of 12.12.12. At first glance, my preface appears out of place, a wanton of self-pity, however I would like to reassure my audience (a membership of perhaps a small scattering of individuals) that I am human, as well. I simply knew that this project would prove too constructive and purposeful for my blitzing psyche to understand… but I digress, I accepted the challenge, and this is what I have to show for January 2008.

This was the selfwork delivered from Deepest Health:

January - Gall Bladder, Zi 子 (Rat): Scholarship/Study: This category will contain practices to develop us into true scholars in the Confucian/neo-Confucian tradition. Why this pairing? The seasonal energy is still in winter, a contemplative mood prevails, but the Yang is rising. Similar to this, we can see scholarly pursuits as ACTIVE passivity. One generally sits still, but one’s mind is hard at work.

Unfortunately, this initially proved troublesome because most of my time is spent working for the Helfgott Research Institute, a rather scholarly activity, and my body is still recovering from the completion of NCNM’s Chinese Medicine MSOM degree. My life felt pretty heavy-handed in the scholarship/study department, and to knowingly pursue additional avenues into this line of thought seemed counter intuitive. Sure, I love learning, exploring, detailing the invisible threads of mechanism on the mathematical, intellectual, and brain-bending scales…. But this felt out of balance with what I needed on an emotional, playful, and a delight-in-the-world realm, all of which I’m seeking to round out after a four year absentee hiatus directly due to my scholarly study at NCNM. These parts of my life are as equally important to me. Hence the inherent difficulty. So perhaps I bent the rules for the Year of Sagely Living game an eensy-bit, but I discovered that the universe has a rather perverse way of dealing with types like me….

Along my path of avoidance, in accord with my dogged determination to remain stubborn and to advert any and all self-constructive exercises, I subconsciously abstained from libraries, bookstores, and even reading the daily funnies … “The cartoons were becoming a bit stale,” I told myself. That and my co-worker and friend, Erin C, left for India with the organization BIRD to pursue underserved diabetic populations and blood pressure, (she was in charge of providing the Oregonian every day). My opportunity to read the funnies was actually not a conscious choice, but rather a secondary effect resulting from a lack of Erin C in my life.

Enter coincidence #1: Erin C decided to go to India because of a book she read: “eat pray love” by Elizabeth Gilbert and in part because she has an enormous heart.

Enter coincidence #2: This book had recently entered my life via a childhood friend, who throughout the years has provided me with numerous fabulous reads. This friend has watched me grow, and blossom in the worst and best of times. Despite the large nation that separates us, I am forever grateful for her and her continued persistence with our friendship. Deciding not to act on such childishness, however, I played off the concurrence of events, thinking that synergistically two items combined might equal the force of four, but beyond that number, nothing added up to enough greatness for me to pursue the book any further (starting to notice a pattern?).

To cut right to the chase, now clearly labeled as coincidences #4-6, appearing in respective order: my neighbor, my shoemaker, and some odd character on a Trimet bus recommended the book to me. Fine, I conceded, I shall read the book. And read I did, pushing imaginary timelines aside, creating a chaotic “book-reading” jaunt at least once a day, I provided an outlet for the Year of Sagely Living to shape me.

Elizabeth Gilbert’s processing was exactly what the doctored ordered. In short my life lessons learned in January were:

1. Devouring a book is a delight that I seldom allow myself, and this is mostly due to an over-active mind and a “so little time mentality” that I construct.
2. Devoting myself to simple daily practices like book thumbing, bath tubbing, and aimless walking keeps me balanced in this stage of the game.
3. Overall, I adored the book: “eat pray love” and would recommend it to anyone seeking a change in perspective from the tired routine of self-conformist thinking.

In retrospect, I did achieve the goals outlined in the Year of Sagely Living, as I learned to passively pursue the simple. Enabling myself with more “self time” and allowing my academic pursuits to cool off once and a while. Life and learning is all encompassing, and coincidently can be found in a book.

Read more about 12.12.12: A journey for a lopside soul here and only here.