Pissed-off Buddha

Well, this was weird - I don't know what key I might have hit, but it erased the paragraph I had written.  I'm not even more pissed off about it - just kind of interested how awful the hours of fire are in the month of Thunder Moon (which just passed full).

I had started to more or less apologize for the vulgarism, but explain that "pissed off" identifies exactly the mood I am in.  I am mentioning this in an educational way.  I like to alert people to how much we are affected by this weather.  I'll just bypass the unease we all have about the many weather disasters happening, the big drought in the southwest US, the fires, the heat waves. We have the feeling we don't know what's about to happen, which is exactly right.

August is a horrid month for many sensitive people, worse than February, and this year July is acting like August, except for the harvests, which are being killed off by the heat and drought.  Of course I'm talking US here, and I know some readers are not in our latitude, is it? Not in our climate. Hello Great Britain - you have your own problems now, but a marvelous scandal to take your mind off them (Goodbye, Rupert Murdoch).  August is high summer, which means the yang that brings summer in is decaying.  This is awful. Add to that the truth of the ancient medical theories that the hours of the day are ruled by different organs and elements in succession. What that means here is that roughly 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. are The Hours of Fire. (I wish I had a really wild font for that.)

Fire is an apt description for the high energy, the anger and restlessness and pain this can bring to us. Maybe not you. If you're an earth or water person, you may feel more energized, brighter, maybe you benefit from some fire.  But I am a Vata-Pitta (Ayurvedic system), air-fire.  Mostly Vata, the thin-boned artistic type, which is easily unbalanced and inflamed by getting too "hot."  Yow.

The truth of this came home to me half an hour ago as I sat in the cool dim (which I cultivate) at  my dining room table doing my weekly pills.  This is about a one-hour job demanding concentration.  It always generates tasks like seeing a doctor or getting a refill or updating the med list.  I did not have a bad attitude about it when I began.  But then I noticed I was mad at someone who was not in the room.  You know what I mean.  Then at something that might happen. What had happened to my quiet, pleasant mood?  What time is it? I asked.  Ten-thirty, Tom said.  I knew it!  Fire rising.

I just feel that part of my task in life is to elevate Westerner's awareness of the energies all around us.  We are deeply conditioned to believe we are individuals who determine our own destiny and attitude.  Well, what nonsense. We are connected profoundly to other energies of many kinds. You know this.  You've been places that felt all wrong.  If you were the scapegoat in an alcoholic family, you may have noticed that you felt depressed around the group, as if subtly you were being beaten - and you were, by their mental energies.  (Why would the electric storm of the brain stop at your skin?) If you've done spiritual practice, and maybe if you haven't, you've been around people you feel good around, people you might say have a nice presence. And then there's more interesting psychic experiences, which almost everyone has had at some time.

So, beware of high summer and especially the hours of fire.  They appear again at 10 pm to peak at midnight. Alcohol intensifies fire, no matter if it's in a frozen drink or not. Bright lights, loud music, a bunch of fired-up people - these things make it more and more.  I know some people seek that out.  Pay money to be in exciting fiery places.  I know.  I just hope they're not my grandson.

Meanwhile, if you want to stay cooler, avoid spicy foods and midday sun.  Keep your blinds drawn. Wear your blue sunglasses.  Be cool.
[The photo is me wearing mine. It was taken several years ago. I have a better haircut now.]
~~~~~
 
p.s.  Hello, Emma and Lola. Every person that joins this site encourages me to keep on being crazy honest.

A heart of winter

Another gray day in mid-Ohio, our most common kind of winter day. Yesterday the dentist's assistant told me "This kind of weather gets me down." Gloomy is the word. There is a kind of winter day we like around here, fresh snow on the ground (but not too much), sun shining, blue sky, air crisp (but not too cold). Want, want.

I often think about this issue of our response to winter. Within us there is natural sunshine - this is actually a "true fact" as my English students used to say, who had not learned that a fact by nature is true. From a scientific point of view, we are made of nothing but the light from the sun. We have to get that light by eating plants that have captured it (and to some degree by sun bathing, which Gandhi firmly believed in).

Many of us believe that we have a nature that is golden and unspoiled, whether you think of it in Buddhist terms or Christian, or other religious belief structures. Ah, why can't I call forth that sunny nature on an overcast day?

Maybe I should not be trying to feel that particular lift of the heart. Maybe my intention should be to be here within winter, and not try to build a sunny mood when my neighborhood is overcast. Just be at peace with it. To see what it is like.