fleeting thoughts

Thoughts these days are skipping around from subject to subject, not really landing anywhere, sort of fleeting and fluttering. Even my dreams are skipping around a lot from place to place and story to story with people suddenly appearing and disappearing, and then I find myself first in one place and then another, with it all making perfect sense at the time, but in wakefulness it is all just a jumble of strangeness with nothing really making any sense.

I went to the doctor yesterday for an eight-week followup on my surgery. It was nice to be declared healed from the surgery, but a bit discouraging to still be in so much pain. She can’t really explain it other than to say that the nerves are just turned on and don’t want to turn off. Hopefully with time they will get the message that all is well and they don’t need to be on red alert any more. I wish I could talk to them and assure them that they did a fine job of notifying me of the assault, and now they can take a much needed vacation. It would be nice if it really worked that way.

I am wondering too why it is consistently so much easier to default into guilt and self doubt, rather than self acceptance and love. I know it’s about conditioning, but I wonder why it is that conditioning seems to so often be negative rather than positive and why it seemingly takes a mountain of effort to overcome negative conditioning, and yet positive conditioning can seem so fleeting and difficult to accept. It is such a monumental waste of energy to be stuck in that kind of black sticky tar when there is so much to be done and enjoyed and lived and loved and enthusiastic about and hopeful for. It seems to be a continual process…look beyond the crap that is blurring the vision and choose to gain insight into something deeper, more real, and actually believe there is value to be found there.

If people were going to choose to write a major religion and worship a God, why didn’t they write one where people are talented and gifted and everyone loves each other, rather than one in which God is vengeful and egotistical and rule-based and punishes people with threats of hell and damnation and an eternal place without love? What is it about the creature known as the human that centered in that kind of God, and then decided to perpetuate that even when their own revered Man-God tried in earnest to show them a different way?

…And then consider what they did to their Man-God who talked about love and peace and acceptance and tolerance…

…they killed him.

gray bunny

I watched the gray little bunny rise up on his hind legs and with a great deal of temerity start chewing on a purple flower. It seemed strange that he would feel so bold given the number of people walking about. He also seemed a bit out of place because I don’t recall ever seeing a bunny down by the beach before. As quickly as he appeared he was gone when a bicycle came racing down the path where he had been nibbling on his purple flower.

Prior to the arrival of the bicyclist, all of the people who had been standing around going about their business stopped in their tracks when they saw the gray bunny, trying very hard not to scare him away. Two young men with cameras paused from their picture taking to shoot a few shots of the bunny.

Without exception, everyone who spotted the bunny was wearing a smile on their face…including myself. These simple moments are often all too fleeting, but I’m grateful for the gift that gray bunny with the cotton puff tail gave to about two dozen people at the beach today … the gift of a smile, and a moment to … pause.