Work

[greenstorm]

I need to think very hard about how I struggle to connect impermanence and gratitude, and think of ways to honour and cherish things that don't involve permanence. This is revealing a gap there for me, because everything composts in the end. Why can I not honour gifts given me and also allow them to return to the earth?

Comments

[yarrowkat]

i think of the sacred act in both Hopi and Tibetan traditions of sand painting. much care, devotion, and time is spent creating an exacting and beautiful art object which is then swept away or allowed to blow away in the wind, to release the prayer/energy. intentional impermanence.

[yarrowkat]

thinking more about this, i think it is the act of release as the part of the spell where control is relinquished and it is up to the Universe, given back, and specifically in terms of gratitude, i see value in that letting-go; when blessing is surrendered to the world, the world will return it in further blessings. law of 3 and all that.

[greenstorm]

This makes a lot of sense to me, and is pretty much why I need to turn my attention to it. I need to send some curiosity towards relinquishing control of my past, even the parts I loved, even the parts I chose.

[greenstorm]

Gardening is this, for me, and making all the myriad food things I make: it's interacting with a thing through process and experience and then letting that experience fall away. Then I grow into the next experience.

Somehow that is fine, but the thought of letting certain moments fall away is so sad.

[yarrowkat]

my tantra teacher Alex would say, "let it fill your battery and then move through you, don't try to hang on." that is always their advice. i'm highly imperfect at following it, myself, i tend to clutch certain things. and also to try to remember that my spine is a battery & holds energy & potency that can be pulled from one time to another.

[greenstorm]

I've been thinking about this and I think I'm relatively good at doing it with actual things, but not good at doing it for memories or records. Like, it's ok if the experience passes, but I want to hodl on to the memory of it and I know it can't.

Hm, hm. Lots to chew on.