Tag: zen

  • garbage zen

    Perhaps Zen is when you realize that all words are superfluous and find yourself listening to jays cussing at crows, watching cats watch chipmunks, feeling the unseasonable cool air chill bare calves as it drifts through from patio door to window, the taste of coffee on your tongue, that chipmunk chirping back at the cats.

    It is that moment that something clicks and you realize this is just it.

    Get up, eat breakfast. Tomorrow we will add work to the mixture. Chop wood, carry water — as the old wisdom goes.

    Today there is no writing that is wanting to be written for poetry, nor the tale I am telling mostly to myself. There is no music to be chased. Text one daughter or her twin, ask if the parent doing her sleepover at a friend’s house would mind terribly if I showed up closer to 11 instead of 10.30 because my last daughter will want a ride to job she hates and refuses to replace so she only has to pay for Uber one way. I’m still trying to figure out how her transportation woes are my own.

    Still… Chop wood, carry water. Just doing. because doing is all that we can know. We pretend we know what has happened and what will come, but we know neither very well. When you really examine it, now is all we know and it is gone before we can even ponder it.

    What do you know?

  • Tuning out

    I miss those days before 24/7 television. I think that’s when I actually still liked some of what was out there. There was no need for “reality television” that is anything but reality. Life was reality enough and we still fully embraced the escapism of turning on the television. If you needed more reality, you could grab it between five and six-thirty most evenings. And, again, for a half-hour at ten (here in the Upper Midwest anyway).

    The afternoon circus talk shows aside, it was all escapism. And that was fine.

    Twenty-six weeks starting in the autumn. Repeats the next half year where we could relive our escapism. And you had to wait each week for your show to come around again. Binge-watching was unheard of.

    My daughters sometimes make me watch shows, promising me that I’ll really like this one or that one. And sometimes they are okay recommendations. Good even.

    But then comes the inevitable binge watching requirement. All three pull that one on me: “Dad, let’s watch television for three hours each night for the following four days!” And then, the groaning about how they’ll have to wait a whole year for the next eight episodes of varying length will be available while I pray they forget to include me because I am utterly burned out on the storyline that has a weak premise to it anyway and is generally anything but escapism.

    But the part I miss most is the late-night station sign off. That crappy quality video of the American flag flapping in the perfect breeze to the Star Spangled Banner or America the Beautiful at midnight or one a.m. It could mesmerize when you were over-caffeinated, over-sugared and generally not intending to wake up until after ten in the morning. I would watch the perfect flag perfectly flapping in the perfect breeze between the wear artifacts in the magnetic video tape.

    And then… Suddenly… White noise visually and sonically. Big Bang residue, they said at least at one time, although who knows if that is really the case.

    It said nothing. It said everything.

    It was all very Zen, if you think about it.

    And I miss it.

  • ravensweald.art notes

    A couple of new things that I am trying out on the new site…

    A Curated List

    I’m leaning in on the idea of nontraditional means of cross-seeding readers amongst other writers I have met and appreciate on WordPress over the years. In the old days, they called it a blogroll and it sat prominently in the sidebar of your front blog page. This one is intended to honor the more “Zen” like aesthetic of the site and is tucked away behind a menu item. You can check it out here: Elsewhere

    If your name is not on the list, it is likely because we either don’t banter back and forth or your creative output on your site is less than once a week on average. No insult intended if you feel you should be included. Let me know and I’ll consider adding you.

    Reader Feeds: Entire Posts → Excerpts

    I’ve decided to start crafting “Argument” excerpts instead of publishing the entire episode part to the feed.

    Each feed entry will now read in order: Series/Book, “The Argument”, “Read this episode at Ravensweald” and a copyright notice. If you are using mobile JetPack, you may need to configure the app to open the actual page in a browser instead of in the app’s more limited browser, although the site is so lightweight that only the readability features are impacted (i.e., do not appear). And the floating Ko-Fi button… but I don’t know how many folks feel like buying a coffee anyway.

    This is quickly addressed by tapping the compass button that appears on the Jetpack browser, which will launch it in a proper browser.

    This is to encourage people to step outside the bubble of WordPress Reader, just like many of the other design decisions. Being in the bubble is not a bad thing, but it does have a “fixed” feel to it, which I think adds to the eye fatigue. Besides, the readability tweaks are really cool. 😁

    Other plans

    I have so many plans. But I really should get to actually writing the story more than designing the blog, so…

  • Half-penny thoughts | 12jun25

    a path in the middle of a dark forest
    Photo by Wes Hicks on Unsplash

    I’m doing some spiritual alchemy this morning. You know, calcination, dissolution, separation… yada yada yada. Fancy words for a messy process.

    As most of you know, I don’t have much patience with fancy language to describe simple things. I also don’t have much patience with elaborate processes when the processes themselves should be (and tend to be) simple.

    Stepping back…

    I was thinking again, about this process of rewilding my spirit, getting back to the beginning. Part of that involves taking what you perceive yourself to be and going all Zen by seeking out the face you wore before you were born. Or, as the kōan would have it, before your parents were born.

    [A kōan, for those unfamiliar with the term, is a Zen “public case” meant to help one realize satori, otherwise known as enlightenment.]

    What better place to set as a destination for rewilding your spirit? Your original face, before even your parents were born!

    Before nurture came around… Before your nature evolved…

    What face did you wear?

    And can you find it again?

    Note: For the curious, my philosophy is largely Taoist informed by Zen, my spiritual practice is largely animist, influenced by panpolytheistic understandings (with many of those trappings removed). Confused? Now you know why I think these kinds of thoughts.