Wednesday, August 02, 2006

The House Guest

I am feeling very low today. The thought of Bush and his posse getting their hands on Cuba; the likely commission of ballot fraud in the next election; having brought down the world trade centers to create a neo-con revolution, or at the very least, having used the attack to carry out their agenda; the immoral wars in Iraq and Lebanon; the possiblity of journalists and activists being targeted via phone and email tapping and then accused of abetting terrorists so they can be rounded up and thrown into Halliburton's state-side internment camps; the inevitability of rapid climate change and ecosystem failure; the slow rebuilding of poor neighborhoods in disaster zones like the gulf coast; the potential demise of an equal-access Internet; the outright unfairness of life; the return of my hot flashes; and the fact that Americans are so goddamn ignorant to all of this, really makes me want to cry.

I haven't posted lately because I've just not had anything constructive to say. Let's face it, the world is going to hell in a handbasket. But I don't want to get bogged down in the negative completely, I've been working on my own evolution, and keeping my eyes open for opportunities to have a positive effect, I haven't wanted to slog around in the shit that is current affairs and then blog about it.

So, like I said, I am blue this morning, and then this arrived in my inbox, from Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter:


"The Guest House"

by Jelaluddin Rumi,
translated by Coleman Barks in his book *Essential Rumi*


This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.


That really helped (I'm not being sarcastic). I have a different attitude already, and the sun is even coming out! Doesn't it make you feel like singing??

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hot Flashes! They go on and off for what seems like an eternity, but they will someday ebb. What bothered me even more was the "mood of gloom" much as you described above. I would be skipping along on top of the world on a bright cheerful day and just like that I would be crushed by a feeling of gloom, and it didn't pass as swiftly as the hot flashes nor could it be fanned away with a folded newspaper. I did, however, figure something out that helped me get through it. Maybe there is something real about my remedy or maybe it was just mind over matter. Don't laugh, but my solution was cottage cheese! I know that sounds ridiculous, but one day I felt the crushing of gloom come over me and I suddenly remembered an article I had read some time before about how certain foods could trigger different responses in the brain. Cottage cheese, when eaten without carbohydrates triggers dopamine or at least that is what the article claimed. On that oppressive afternoon I scooped myself a bowl as I went about my business and do you know what? Later in the day I realized I had completely forgotten about the gloom for it had disappeared about the same time as I rinsed out my empty dish. I had actually managed to do everything on my daily list that needed to get done. I had never been plagued by depression before, so I must attribute this oppressive mood to menopause and it would come upon me so quickly. It was heavy like a dark cloud and I could feel it wrap itself around me. My arms really felt the weight, but the cottage cheese chased it away. If you don't like cottage cheese, I am sure there might be other foods that create a positive flow of emotion. As for the hot flashes, a folded newspaper is about the only thing I found that worked:-)