A brown UPS truck pulled up in front of the house today and sent M-dog into a frenzy of barking and charging at the door. The driver brought me a good-size box from Mona in Wyoming.

I had a melancholy sort of day up to this point, me and dog wandering around the boarded up ruins of the old base that surrounds us here. My indecision about what to do about various job options has been wearing on me. More on that later.

So I brought the box to the kitchen table, and opened it. The first thing that appeared was a beautiful small rug of plush red oriental design, rolled up in the middle. Then I saw several pieces of gnarled weathered wood (Mona and I can't help but call it driftwood, although it is from the high desert over thousand miles from any ocean). Almost immediately, I started to cry uncontrollably - which continued while I pulled out of the crumpled pages of the Platte County Merchant several twisted pieces of rusted barbed wire, two votive candle holders, a box of tea light candles, some "Potala" incense from Tibet, a bunch of stalks of various wild grass seeds (protected in two taped-together cardboard toilet paper roll tubes), and a cassette tape Mona thought would be helpful to me in view of all the suffering I have been experiencing over change and loss and worry about the future. I was just so touched by the thoughtfulness, and nostalgic for the source of the artifacts from Wyoming.

I stumbled around the house for a while sobbing and blowing my nose, while I tried in vain to find a small vase for the grass seed stalks among the half-unpacked boxes. The futility of this effort reinforced my sense of loss of home, and temporariness and groundlessness of our present circumstances.

Later, when I regained my composure, I called Mona and thanked her for all the treasures, and discussed my sorry circumstances - or rather my sorry reaction to circumstances, which is the real problem. I know this is all because I am not yet able to have a mature and clear view of change and uncertainty.



The tape from the box was a reading by Leslie Temple-Thurston, a South African immigrant who offers a range of guidance and insight on spiritual matters. This reading is called Change, Grounding, and Balance. It couldn't have come at a better time. It summarized and reinforced a lot of things I've been reading recently about change, and fear of change, and discernment of reality from illusion, and transcending the limitations of a life of negative conditioning.

I tromped up the stairs with tape player, a big glass of red wine, and a candle, and filled the tub with hot water and bubble bath. Then I lay there wrinkling but calm while I listened to the entire thing.

There were a lot of ideas, most of which I have been running into over and over in various books while the troublesome ideas and anxieties crowd into my hours and days and weeks and months. There is an essential inner self that is calm and capable, if only it can be allowed to emerge amongst all the delusional egocentric gnashing of teeth. There is a clear and non-threatening view of the world and its activities available, if only we can stop projecting our fearsome fictional movies in front of us. With all the uncalled-for drama we create in our dealing with our surroundings, our lives hardly even qualify to be called a documentary.

At times like this, after days like this, and weeks and months like this, I have just a glimmer of the truth that it was ultimately for the best that we gave up our perceived comfort and security with our jobs and our house of so many years. It was probably the only way I could be set out on the path toward learning that the only real comfort and security is derived from knowledge that one is complete internally, by their very nature, and all the uncertainties of the external world can't dislodge one from that solid place.



Now I know that - if only I could reach the point where I genuinely feel it. It is important, this adjustment to a more real view of the world and the changes it brings continuously. As in the John Denver tune Mona played for me that day we were in the mountains...sweet, sweet surrender - live life without care - like a fish in the water - like a bird in the air....



Text © 2003-2004 Stanley J. Wolf