It’s early on a Sunday morning. The house is quiet. My usual vanilla latte is exceptional this morning. My heart is calm. My loves are safely here at home, and from this limited perspective of a quiet peaceful morning, all seems well with the world and the most important event thus far is seeing that the new plecostomus, still in quarantine, is out and about busily going about the business of being the fish that he is.
My morning meditation concluded with a strange sense that I was somehow ‘unstuck in time’. My consciousness was feeling very open to the future, aware of the past and vaguely disconnected from both, poised comfortably between them in this pleasant ‘now’. I soon found myself thinking about work, aware there are only 11 working days left- counting today. Left of what? Well, left of now, certainly, where work is concerned. There may be others in the future. There’s that word again. ‘Future’.
The thought of fortune-telling crones, and hucksters, of psychics, and favorite aunts with a gift for guess work, filtered through my thoughts alongside thoughts of my work (meaning employment). I’m an analyst by trade, and have been for most of my adult life. I make my living ‘telling the future’ in a sense, although I do so using math and trending and spreadsheets, rather than tea leaves, Tarot cards, stones, runes, or the stars in the heavens. The interesting thing about that, though, is that I’ve come away from a number of jobs wondering if the people who make use of analysts actually have a real understanding that it is something different than guesswork, tea leaves, or shamanism. It starts to cause me a moment of bitterness and frustration, then I left it fall away with a deep breath and a smile. Because it isn’t actually relevant to my own experience what someone else thinks about the work I do, beyond providing me with data to make a wise decision about whether or not to do such work for them. lol.
Yep. Getting to this place was that easy. Nice one, brain, happy to have you on board with the new processes. 😀
This morning, what is real and important is that I love, and I am loved in return – first and foremost by my own self, invested in me, and supporting my experience. The safety and comfort of my family, and by extension our more distant family members, our metamours, our friends – those are important, too. Even that wee fish in quarantine is more important than most of the things the world would have me attend to, using media slight of hand, and verbal trickery. That wee fish, living his life, figuring out his new world, discovering that he is safe and well fed, and finding whatever fishy contentment he may – even he is more important than most things, because he lives.
Ideologies do not live. Industries do not live. Governments do not live. Laws do not live. Societies do not live as entities independent of their individual members. What is more important about us, as individuals, than this precious life force, this simple existence, this presence to be felt, to experience, to share? All the rest is myth, lies, ‘color’, ‘spin’ – and distraction…or so it seems this quiet morning as I weight what matters most to me now. Where I to face the end of my life tomorrow, wouldn’t it be vastly more important as a measure of my humanity how I treat my friends, my family, my lovers, even a simple fish, than any task I ever completed for any employer? Life is quite specifically not about the paycheck.
So… on to more important things, then. 🙂 The wee fish is quite shy. Knowing he could be expected to be shy caused me to watch him ever so closely, and in just a day or two it was clear that the under gravel heater in the quarantine tank wasn’t keeping the water quite as warm as my community tank – nor as warm as the new guy would like it. I was also finding it irksome to keep referring to him as ‘the new guy’. He’s pretty fancy, as fish go, and really rather deserved a proper name all his own. Science doesn’t serve me well there, personally, and I found his taxonomic name rather cumbersome (Hypancistrus zebra). I purchased a better heater, and one of my partners – who understands how much I value the whimsy of words and of naming – helped me out with an exceptional name suggestion. This morning, I delighted in watching ‘Wyatt’ (his whole name is Zoot Suit Wyatt. lol) explore his world; the temperature change definitely improved his experience.
Mindfully living. Mindfully loving. Mindfully tending my underwater garden and the life it supports. It’s a lovely Sunday for compassion, for affection, for kindness – and it is a wonderful day to change the world.
Zoot Suit Wyatt – the new guy makes himself at home.
Evening Light 