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This is PART 4 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.
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Welcome to the fourth piece in a 12-month forum determined to redesign and realign a lop-sided soul, the program is called A Year of Sagely Living. All of April’s days were more than an average mouth full for this protagonist, my dear friends, and not to overwhelm my small gaggle of readership, we shall start with the basics. The word April comes from Latin aperire meaning “to open” and this simple interpretation neatly describes what occurred over the past month. My personal serpentine lessons appeared in a set of extreme, geminate circumstances raging from joy to sadness, familiar to downright unusualness, and to detail an honest description for the month of April includes a rather unpleasant, yet sincere groveling towards the finish line.

The process for April was akin to taking a rickety old can opener to a can of worms. Its mechanisms slow and cumbersome almost geriatric, its metallic construct bending under the weight of worldly pressure, leaving jagged edges to rectify, somehow mend anew. And as my vulnerable and visible gooey insides sluggishly escaped onto an earthen floor, I found myself following suit, burrowing deep into the darkness below. Much to my frustration, every servile attempt I made appeared half-baked, disappointments piled up in my wake. Time ticked by, minutes felt like eons, every day was a Sisyphean Challenge. Around day 28, I began to act slower, more methodic and deliberate, which enabled me to digest even the toughest of tests. Within this simple act of surrender, I was able authentically accept this lowly state of being, and only then was I able to discover a transformative worm-hole, where I curiously sat, detritus at my back, sunshine full-tilt ahead. Illumination had occurred.

By some means, I managed to bandage up the pieces of progress that steadfastly continued despite its painstaking headway into an account of what happened to me. I became the proverbial cicada, aware and accepting of the underbelly of my being, and also able to detail a rough tale of what underlies my earthly uncertainty. The instructions:

April - Large Intestine, Mao 卯 (Rabbit) - Care of the planet/consumption: This category will contain practices that develop us into compassionate and sane consumers, while helping to develop our deep relationship with the natural world. Why this pairing? April is a time when we can see the beauty of nature all around us, so is a great time to contemplate our dependence on it and responsibility towards it. Also, the negative side of LI/Rabbit is a tendency to run rough-shod over the needs and wants of others, these practices will seek to counterbalance this.

To give just an example of a reoccurring theme for my 30 days of “opening” I present to you a description of its second week. I traveled up to Seattle to see the Dalai Lama speak at the Seeds of Compassion Conference and how we, as concerned global citizens, can manifest compassion into the minds of a new generation, and more directly into the soft nervous tissue of our fertile youth. Neuroscientists and educators wrapped their minds around the complexity of the plasticity of the human brain: how it develops, how it records, and most of all, how pliable it remains through all the trials and tribulations of “maturation.” The conference divinely incorporated the inherent and dynamic nature of our brains, from the young to the old, into a plausible reality. Each discussion was incredible, and included ways for our mainstream scientific community to gain a genuine understanding of the bigger picture. To say the least, this was a wonderful act of opening my mind and heart to new possibilities.

However. When I made my trek up north, the timetables of Amtrak proved problematic. Somehow I managed to miss the train a grand total of four times before I began my holy trek to see one of my most revered mentors, the Dalai Lama. In the beginning, I was crushed, unsure of why the journey was so difficult; why, that despite best intentions, I still managed to miss Siddhartha’s proverbial raft; and why, once I got there, my mind was so muddled with what was wrong that clarity was so hard to achieve. As one might imagine, frustration reigned where comfort easily dwelt before, and there were no sweet mangoes littering about my toes. No, dear readers, the comforts of easy living seemed lacking: Seattle represented non-routine, unfamiliar surroundings, strangers, and a transportation system that seemed to work exclusively upon the chaos theory. Obviously to all those around me, I was a foreign satellite haphazardly orbiting the city. The sun was my guide, yet the direction and mechanism by which I should discover each conference event remained clearly undefined. I had thrust myself into the willy-nilly of the unknown. Normally… I delight in such circumstances, but it’s not every day you get to see the Lama, and in my coconutted mind, I was absolutely determined to be “present” for such an auspicious event.

Moreover, back on the home front, Portland took its sweet time moving into spring, using a southern term I’d say it lollygagged to the point of annoyance. The cold continued and the rain remained unchanged from our winter months, and when the season finally began to oscillate into being, it preferred to wildly fluctuate. The joys of springtime did not whole-heartedly greet; its normal cyclic nature of blooming patterns contained a stochastic quality, pops of sunshine flitted and flirted, forecasts became empty promises, and hail storms pelted the unprepared during nature’s mutable weather patterning. Never before had I realized how reliant I was upon the steady opening of spring; its structural support was glaringly lacking, I found myself feeling yo-yoed and abandoned in this whole new world of existence. Needless to say, I desperately wished to step out of my box of insecurity and sky-rocket to self-proclaimed higher grounds… but even that seemed unquestionably impossible.

These are just a few examples of April’s extremes, trust me its bipolar attitude happily swung me from one perspective to the next, and to sum up what April brought up for me: I wanted the month over. Come what may, the solution was not apparent and that the hardship was too great to bear. My heart ached, my lungs refused to inhale, be inspired by what was around. I was tired of not knowing. I felt like an impoverished guest at a poorly equipped diner, the usual fare was not on the menu. My desires of comfort were truly 86ed. What was all this misfortune and misdirection supposed to mean? My nature is to avoid suffering, the dirtiness of life, not play haphazardly with it, make mud pies, and be foolish enough to eat it, too. My general thought pattern, throughout the month’s tribulations, was: the external world contains erratic moods swings therefore I need learn to fend for myself.

At this moment a switch flipped, and I recalled my epiphany from last month: if the external world was a reflection of my inner harmony, then perhaps it was all about me being unable to see through my self-constructed obstacles. More investigation was necessary, so, through thoughtful meditation, I delved deeper into my inner self in order to truly discover my personal terra firma.

I discovered nothing, absolutely nothing. And as you might imagine, this was disappointing. I began to doubt myself, and my ability to gain any stability. I pride myself on persevering despite uncertainty. However, when it came time to rely solely upon me, no external bearings, no support from an earthly orientation, I held quiet reserve, unable to make any aspiration possible. I. did. not. believe. in. me. period. And why should I? Knowing that “nothing” was anchoring my internal taproot. I appreciated the honesty, but its straightforward nature caught me off guard, I tripped upon its sincerity and tried to make amends with myself… and… I wasn’t buying it. I became inconsolably dismayed, thrown helter-skelter back into a deeper spectrum of disbelief, a darker corner than ever entered before. If I didn’t believe in myself, then who would?

Luckily the solution to this predicament came, day 28, when I truly decided to consciously, subconsciously, unknowingly let go. It happened at Floyd’s Coffee Shop, a familiar neighborhood stomping ground. At this point in time, I was attempting to console my lost soul, and I found myself sitting across from a cup of joe and a chocolate doughnut. As one might expect, the conversation between me and these inanimate objects was solely prompted by yours truly, yet as lop-sided as it sounds, its translation was quite profound.

Last month’s postulation, popped into my head: “I am odd and yet I am even, therefore what am I?” and after an infinitesimal spark of deliberation, the answer came from one of my company: “You are a doughnut. Yes, a doughnut: a tender fleshy, circular existence with an opening for its center.” I sighed, feeling as though my intimate surroundings, the clang of the coffee shop, the chirping of customers were quickly becoming surreal. “A doughnut? You’re truly losing it,” I murmured to no one but myself.

Then the darkness of my coffee caught my attention and I focused all my senses upon it, literally wanting to black out life’s white noise, and I let go. This time I discovered something a bit new, slightly askew. The black void remained present, devoid of gridlines, matrixes, and just at that moment a customer left, and through a shifting of space light reflected wildly and beautifully within my beverage. Suddenly a solution became apparent to me. Ideas and creative thought quickly sprang forth out of the vacuum and extend into the realm of potentiality, a manifestation of anything. Literally a star was born right there within the confines of my coffee cup.

Upon closer inspection, I realized that the symbol of a doughnut precisely embodied the lessons of my spiritual turmoil. I focused in on my chocolate treat’s vacuous hole. Yes, I conceded, anything is always possible when you start with a framework of nothing therefore it is up to an individual’s choice of what to see and experience in this lifetime. All of these insights became glaringly apparent when I reflected upon the incompatibility of my inner injustices and the month of April. The more and more I attempted to understand what construct stood at my midsection, describe it with any sort of qualitative characterization, the Holy Grail appeared out of reach and unhappiness resulted. I chose to be dissatisfied with my duplicitous nothingness core. So, I quickly realigned, turned an about-Janus-face, and decided that my cipher would be comfortable, an empty space where imaginative intention could spiral into existence. And so it is thus written in the book of Kimberly Ann, how my new perspective of unshakable stability came to be: “I am nothing, therefore I remain infinite.“

To continue the analogy, the fleshy body of a doughnut is an expression of what we do, what we represent, what we put into the equations of our work, our societies, and our world at large. These constructs orbit in a 360-degree radius about us and continue to radiate (whether we know it or not) through how we think, feel, and act. It’s the cloud of what we carry around us all the time. It’s the qualifying and descriptive terms that our immediate relations use to understand us, so in essence it’s up to us to define it… and with that said, it’s important to be make these aspects pretty clear to our external audiences. For me it was about balance in any electrical storm, and through a stroke of genius, I made that possible.

Over the remaining two days of April, I began to wonder what my fleshy doughnut looks like to other people. Did I have sprinkles? Was I nutty? Curiosity got the best of me and I asked those around me, and this is what I discovered:

I am a cheerleader. One who despite all odds keeps a steady aim on any goal. When others feel disillusioned, I step up, remind them of the positive, the potential, the progression thus far, and what we need to do in order to keep on track. The Spider Plant Campaign serves as an example of this.

I am an artist. One who endeavors to create, use new mediums if need be, in order to express the beauty and the pain that surrounds all of us. The Helfgott Blog is representative of one such tour de force.

I am an observer and a collector. One who pack-rats the imperceptible: those small hand flyers in the foyers of coffee shops, images of geometric shapes off of sewer covers, four-leafed clovers, and the heart of black walnuts. I delight in the recognition of these organismal patterns, which quirkily record and evolve with our relationships to the external surroundings.

And lastly, I am a good person, as eloquently outlined by a foot traveler, someone just passing through, who was kind enough to offer conversation along a busy Belmont night.

All of these items define me. This is my shell. This is my fleshy appearance in my external existence.

Upon closing, I’d like end with these final thoughts: new knowledge presents itself with a forked tongue, especially any informational ilk that shapes us as human beings. When talking about balance specifically, this can be found in the external world; however one cannot always rely upon it. Seasonal changes and timetables for trains are mere examples of how the external can turn a cold shoulder to one’s best intentions. Change is an important aspect to life; it serves as a check-and-balance system, keeping everything dynamic. Therefore adaptation is part of life, too, and that even more importantly, when it gets chaotic (which it will, trust me on this one), it is essential to understand your point of center, your choice in the middle of your inner nothingness. Moreover, the brain contains the capacity to make sense of it all with its faculties of remembering; who knows what sort of civilization we’d have today without it. It took a doughnut, not the enlightening discussions from the Dalai Lama, for me to truly understand how to stay sane, healthy, and… well… able to lead a path devoid of unnecessary suffering. This just goes to show that our ambidextrous experiences are always up for a reinterpretation when new information comes to light. And I never would have thought to say this, but after experiencing the polarity of April, seeing the Dalai Lama has about the same profundity as a holy doughnut. Go fugure. Ich bin ein berliner all the way, baby.