Hoping for a little more peace in 2025...I started doing daily meditation last month and will continue...It's already helping me feel more grounded and calm.

ART
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/mocha-zen-energy-neutral-art-sharon-cummings.html

Found a rusty old barrow wheel in the garden. Looked right leaning against the tree, with Buddha, so there it stays.

I now know why. It’s the Dharma Wheel, the Eightfold Path, and the Bodhi Tree. Enlightenment sought, found in the unexpected.

#buddhism
#dharma
#photography
#fall
#meditations

Reflecting on casual meanness this season of "thanks," I'm reminded of Marcus Aurelius' #Meditations. His thoughts on handling ignorance and wrongdoing, well, I want to resonate with it.

Cooperation over division, pity over anger.

I'm trying my best, Marcus, but I think your thinking was more evolved than mine. So, maybe you can find some pity for me, too.

https://copingalgorithms.pika.page/posts/a-brief-meditation-on-pity

Whispers of Aloha card draw for November 9th, 2024
35. Sage Advisor - Seek the guidance of lived wisdom. #meditation #meditations #whispersofaloha #mindfulness
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DCKN7i0yYYs/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

When you hold a lot of space and give a lot of energy, sometimes you end up finding that you're surrounded by people who require a lot of space and energy but who aren't capable (for one reason or another) or willing to hold that same space or give that same energy to you.

There is so much to community building that becomes so complicated, and everyone is unhealed in their own ways. Sometimes those ways are compatible with the ways in which you are unhealed: and you find that you are able to hold space for one another, mutually, and that the space you hold doesn't open up into wounds (or it does, but the very act of holding space becomes healing, less self-sacrifice than a pouring into one another). Sometimes, though, those spaces are incompatible, and the opening of space feels like the opening of wounds, and if not at first then after a time, as though something has rubbed you raw right down to the bone after the accumulation of each time you've let it touch you. Sometimes this is just a critical incompatibility, perhaps you aren't the right people to be in community with one another at this time. Sometimes it's the result of someone not being able to recognize the ways in which they demand. Boundary holding is so vital, but often leads to the triggering of maladaptive defenses and sometimes the ending of the relationship you were trying to preserve by setting the boundary in the first place. Some people advocate for boundary setting loudly, but are also the loudest to criticize you and claim you are abandoning or harming them when you do so.

The bringing together of people and the fostering of intersecting relationships requires time and effort and very careful communication and consideration, and is sometimes the rolling of a snowball gently towards the cusp of a hill: from there it flows so holistically and genuinely and easily, and these people find each other and fold each other into their nets and the shared net of the community. Sometimes it is Sisyphus rolling the ball up the hill over and over again until eventually you realize that perhaps one or more of these nodes must exist in satellite to the whole, and will not or does not desire to integrate within it.

Right now I am tired, and feeling as though critical boundaries must be held. A few of the relationships I've spent the past months fostering are crumbling for their own reasons: one because the other person is determined to remain in a power position that I refuse to engage with any further (giving the benefit of the doubt has to stop at some point, but the loss of this relationship impacts more than just me, which is hard) and the other because boundary holding is causing the other person to feel abandoned. After weeks of holding space for this person through a crisis, at the very moment I need that space held this person is pushing away and yet dragging me towards them -- unwilling to hold space but still demanding mine. And I am just tired, and wondering what patterns exist that push me to continue to forge unequal relationships in my own life, or if this is just really how most people are.

What many lack in their practice, in their learning (of many things, but spirituality in general) is nuance. When learning anything it is critical to intensively separate that of value from that of no value, or that counter to *your* values. Yet, it must be understood that there will be things of no value, or things counter to you value, inevitably.

When you reject all imperfect mentors you reject all mentors, you place yourself at the center of your own learning and reject opportunities for critical feedback -- in other words, for actual learning or progress.

Alternatively, when you reject all imperfect mentors but claim those who you think are perfect you engage in idolatry, in the pedestal-placing of necessarily imperfect human beings and you lose the crucial lessons of criticality -- your mentor may then be able to provide you with critical feedback, but then you are not reciprocating, assuming they are not imperfect, assuming they themselves do not have more to learn. You inevitably absorb that of no value or that counter to your own values, inverting or bastardizing your quest for knowledge or attainment.

While our culture remains obsessed with its own purchased values, and the perfect expression therein, there remains the obsession to not just critique but to throw away all of those who it doesn't see as attaining to its own standards. And yet, in this way it continues to glorify those that attain to its purchased values, values that shift and change at will. Therefore, it has no values, and engages in the same glorification of humans as the previous generation it sees as barbaric for its idols, and the cycle goes on and on, unaware of itself and its ignorance.

Sometimes it's hard to live out here, and winter is especially isolating. As we all retreat and focus on inner work and reprieve from the often constant movement of other seasons, we tend to reach out less, travel less. This is true for both us and our friends we see often, usually, and so since the Solstice it's been quiet here at the Ranch. We've really not gone anywhere, and no one has really come to visit.

However, I'm reading "The Independent Farmstead" by Shawn & Beth Dougherty, and feeling renewed and inspired. Sometimes this path feels too difficult, and I reminisce on the period of my life where I was ignorant of the depth and multitude of the issues that plague our species and where I just lived in the way that society dictated. In a way, ignorance really is bliss. In a way, it was just easier.

But I think back on the suffering I experienced then: the suffering I experienced at jobs, at the hands of others abused by our society, the suffering I experienced feeling like I was drifting along without a purpose, and the suffering that came from seeking purpose in careers that I could never attain because of my chronic inability to engage in personal politics. In a way it was easier to work many hours a week, eat out, go to parties, and move through life unthinkingly chasing the next thing that made me feel alive, connected, loved, despite that those experiences never lived up to my memories of them and despite that they were always so fleeting.

So it's not that we don't suffer now, of loneliness or of hardship or of our own interpersonal shortcomings. But we feel guided by purpose and by duty, and in so many ways that eliminates suffering. Though we don't always have other humans here to feel connected to, we do often, and in their absence we are connected to place, and to other living things that help sustain us and which we sustain in return.

When it was just me, I spent a lot of time holding ritual, meditating, exercising, and engaging in other forms of spiritual practice and education. However, when my daughter came, as divine an experience as that was, every so often I'd find myself (and still do, sometimes, but less now that she's older) lamenting the lack of time for myself to engage in spiritual practice.

It's really fascinating the degree to which all of the facets of our lives are defined in relation to this socioeconomic reality within which we live. I learned over time that the difficulty I encountered in adjusting to life as a parent were related to economic expectations: I no longer worked a day job, and that created a kind of crisis of identity in which it never felt like I was accomplishing Work (economic or spiritual) despite that I was constantly "working". Secondly, the recontextualization of existence as a member of a household or community rather than as an "individual" (interdependence vs. independence) was difficult and innately tied to social programming that prompts us to find "our own thing" -- our own house, our own job, our own identity (usually filtered through consumer goods we purchase) and so on.

It took me about the first year to really realize where these feelings of frustration came from, and to begin the journey towards reidentifying and recontextualizing Space, Time, and Work. It was difficult for me to reconcile my total belief and understanding that the creation and care of another human being is incredibly divine and profound with the superficial and constantly reiterated (socially) belief that it was really difficult and monotonous and a part of my life I just needed to suffer through. Eventually, though, what I've realized is that most of my day is ritual: these are intentional, powerful, profound actions and events that shape not only my reality and future but that of the members of my household. Additionally, many of these daily rituals provide me space to connect with the Divine, to demonstrate gratitude, and to offer service in a magickal way.

Once I was able to understand and truly internalize this, I was able to reclaim Time and my own agency in a way that unfortunately I see a lot of other new parents struggling to find again. Not everyone is walking the same path, or is able to contextualize this journey the same way, but I think that it's incredibly important to not lose sight of the profound power in daily Work.

Introducing new REEL honorary bandmate, Siin ( @siin ) who is contributing strange beat poetry & eschatological meditations to our Music For Psychedelic Duelling Vol. 3 - out sometime soon! #PsychedelicDuelling #experimentalmusic #Meditations #eschatology #apocalyptic

My book, OCD-Free, is a compilation of personal essays and stories about obsessive-compulsive disorder. It chronicles my struggle in overcoming OCD and includes #meditations, #affirmations and other suggestions to free yourself from #OCD.

Here's a link to my book on the US Amazon site: https://www.amazon.com/OCD-Free-Eric-Gordon/dp/B0CHLFPB47/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3H3BPIC3P1DEN&keywords=ocd+free+gordon&qid=1702389546&sprefix=ocd+free+gordon%2Caps%2C109&sr=8-1

To find it on your country's Amazon site, try searching for OCD-Free by Eric Gordon.

Desert Winter 11-26

Welcome, winter! Welcome, crisp pink mornings and cerulean full-moon evenings by bonfires dug into the sand, burning away the year's resolutions and warming bare blue feet.

Welcome, winter! Welcome openness and all day outside, coming in red-nosed and panting.
---
High desert winters are harsh and yet somehow mild, with biting dry winds and freezing nights, but tolerable chilly days and not much snow. We're around 2000ft above sea level, so we don't have quite as harsh a season coming as those who are higher up in the valley.

The climate here is tricky: it's dry, with a moderate growing season, but the extremes of summer & winter make it a little tricky to choose crops & sustainable shade trees that can survive both the extreme heat and the severe cold. Many species that are touted as being "drought tolerant" and that are popular are unlikely to make it through the freezing nights and occasional frosts. Succulents and cacti are included in this: I've noticed that once the liquid in their pads freeze they're unlikely to survive. It'll be interesting to see how our agave, aloe, and nopales do this winter now that they've had a few months to establish themselves. I know that they're possible to grow, because there are many, many homes here that have enormous specimens of all three. So I'm optimistic, we'll just have to see how it goes.

Last year, wild things began to sprout in October, including a wild species of lily, wheat and other grasses, and a kind of daisy. This year, with significantly less rain, I haven't seen a single lily shoot or a single daisy flower, and the wheat that began to optimistically poke its head out after the single August storm has stayed brown. There's an urgency here, amplified in my mind by the tourist hype: off-roaders will be making noise and carving up topsoil for the next month or so en masse, and camper vans and Subarus have taken over nearby Joshua Tree, making the most of camping reservations they made last year and milder temperatures in the park for bouldering and hiking. Some visitors come with respect for the delicate altered ecosystem, many with the misconception that this land, if left alone, will itself save desert tortoises and chollas, and spring forth abundance. Some come with the misconception that this land is useless, and all it's good for is spewing gasoline and destroying native grasses with rubber tires.

This winter will be full of making plans as we weather the weather and the influx of visitors. We have a plan to try to buy some vacant land nearby to expand our regeneration efforts, and in the spring hope to (finally, we hoped to this year but weren't ready) introduce ruminants and poultry to help manage our existing property.

I recently watched a video of Cedar Springs Ranch in the high desert of Western Colorado, and the owner said something along the lines of *us* needing to become the animals that once managed this land. Settlers eliminated the bison & buffalo that trampled grasses, grazed & spread manure, and the beaver that once dammed streams and slowed down water. So we must be the bison, we must be the beaver. Through holistic management of livestock and thoughtful earthwork, we can coax life back here while maintaining the existing ecosystem.

So, anyways, this is a long, rambling update/rumination as the seasons change and my mind is full of considerations, possibility, and energy to work through cooler days.

Something spurred my partner to begin building a temple to Osiris, and this temple site was the location of the altar we erected for our Dia de Muertos celebration. It was fitting, the idea that offerings were being made both to our ancestors and the god who watched over the underworld.

The altar I hand painted with symbols related to Egyptian, Western occult, and Meso-American systems. This practice of ours is growing oddly eclectic, but somehow feels placed and connected with the landbase despite its tenuosity of place literally.

The temple site itself is an island 14 feet in diameter, hand carved from the land and built up by my partner. The 'moat' around it is encircled with rocks, and he likewise created a spiral path off of one of our walking paths to enter the temple. We've planted four marigold plants and a date palm at strategic points along this path. You enter the temple from the East, and face West as you worship.

There are plans to build a structure here, but for now it is freestanding, an altar in the middle of our land, in the middle of the desert, covered still in marigolds and offered seeds, petals and incense.

This morning my daughter & I walked out there, and sat with the altar for the first time since the event. I offered new flowers, seeds, and scattered petals. My daughter made herself busy arranging flowers on the ground in quite an intentional way, although she can't tell me about the designs in her head yet. I sat and meditated for a few moments below the altar, as the sun rose over the valley.

I think that this is to become a daily ritual. It's been a long time since I've properly engaged in prayer or ritual on a regular basis, and even my once-daily meditation practice has become "here and there, as I have time". There is something so powerful about structured practice, and I really don't know if I can explain why.

This might become a thread of other updates with regards to my spiritual practice, since I feel as though a lot has shifted in the last few months.