The notion of “proud flesh” is so resonant for me.

For What Binds Us

There are names for what binds us:
strong forces, weak forces.
Look around, you can see them:
the skin that forms in a half-empty cup,
nails rusting into the places they join,
joints dovetailed on their own weight.
The way things stay so solidly
wherever they’ve been set down –
and gravity, scientists say, is weak.

And see how the flesh grows back
across a wound, with a great vehemence,
more strong
than the simple, untested surface before.
There’s a name for it on horses,
when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,

as all flesh
is proud of its wounds, wears them
as honors given out after battle,
small triumphs pinned to the chest –

And when two people have loved each other
see how it is like a
scar between their bodies,
stronger, darker, and proud;
how the black cord makes of them a single fabric
that nothing can tear or mend.

- Jane Hirschfield

The Seven Of Pentacles

Under a sky the color of pea soup
she is looking at her work growing away there
actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans
as things grow in the real world, slowly enough.
If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water,
if you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter food,
if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars,
if the praying mantis comes and the ladybugs and the bees,
then the plants flourish, but at their own internal clock.

Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
You cannot tell always by looking at what is happening.
More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.
Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.
Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.
Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.
Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.

Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: Make love that is loving.
Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,
a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us
interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.

Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after
the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.

- Marge Piercy

Anyways, Antony Robins guy was telling me I was downplaying myself. If I want a house, why don’t I just follow my dream and get one? Any single one I want! I was saying – well, there are houses, maybe even one house, that is meant for me, and I need to find that one. He was saying no! I should have whatever I want. I said: but what if I want something out of my head, and not out of my heart? How can I reliably tell the difference? Also, why should I want a castle? I personally would love a small house with a biiig yard. It seemed to me that he was just greedy and justifying his greed using some nice new age language.

Also, I was agreeing with him – most of us, including me, are not “playing it big” as we should. It doesn’t mean that we get castles and money, no, not “big” in Antony Robinson sense. “Big” in sense of daring to follow our dreams and living our lives to the fullest.

I spoke with Rick today and he scolded me for complaining. He said: “do not complain even if you have a reason to. Don’t complain even internally.” It made me think. Again, it is a fine line – because, I was complaining about something completely legitimately bad that needed to be taken care of. For example, the economic situation we are in is a legit bad case on the agenda. The wind and noise around my house is an issue for me. HOWEVER, how we deal with it matters. I NEED TO TAKE ACTION WITHOUT COMPLAINING. I need to just act. Cut if necessary, and all without complaining. Like a surgeon. Complaining seems to just dilute the energy. If the wind and noise bothers me – move. But do not complain while I am still here.

Complaining is always a sign to something way deeper, that’s what I feel. It has to be listened to and found out what and why is complaining. What is in pain, what hurts, what is disconnected from God? What action needs to be taken to remedy the situation? Is it a kid with a scratched knee that needs to be kissed to feel better, or is it a chronically bitter sour puss trying to kill it for everyone, and even intentionally. Or both. It is a red light and needs to be checked out.

Happiness is also a red light and needs to be checked out. It shows that something works, that something is good for me. Like African dance – congolesecamp.org made me very happy. Kind community.