11/7/10 – Boulder Creek Refuse

The season of Autumn looks absolutely shoddy. The dead brown leaves look dirty, disorganized, and messy. Disheveled, unkempt, mottled - everything looks just a little bit unpolished and filled with refuse. It’s as if nature doesn’t give a crap about how it looks to the everybody else. Who is there to look good for? It has no need for external adornment and will look shoddy and disheveled because the whole refinement process is going on internally. There’s a feeling of preoccupation with something hidden and mysterious that surrounds this season. There’s a something internal going on that has me feeling like its hard to connect to the energy through the external shell to actually get to the essence as the shell looks and feels so inert.

The trees and plants show no need to polish up for everybody else around them. In a way I’m left feeling like they don’t care about anything but their self-absorbed process. It shows a lack of respect for self-images and how they treat their body – the vehicle for the spirit. It’s as if the shell, the very vehicle is so marginalized that they stop caring about it. Their elevated inner self-worth allows them to neglect their appearance and interaction with others. This is perfectly appropriate in nature for an appropriately long fall – but if autumn never let go of its inner process to move into winter – this self-absorption would become pathological.

What nature indicates is that is doesn’t matter for nature what the exterior looks like, its just the structure, its just the shell, and yes it was the body that was inhabited by spirit and created life throughout the whole yearly cycle, but there comes a time when the body must be shed, and the spirit returns to its origin.

In the spring the body becomes full of life and invigorated – enjoying all of manifestation because it's the body that’s required in order to live in the world, to function in the world, to interact with the world and form new meaning and memories. It is more than just the vehicle. It is the spirit incarnate – spirit moving out into the world, rather than moving within. But if we lived constantly in autumn, constantly in death, in decay – so that our houses decay, our relationships decay, our thoughts are self-absorbed or focused on the past – we create no opening for something new to be created. When I look at how disheveled this place is – I get an internal feeling of disgust with the clutter and dirtiness. If that is what I saw around me all the time, I’d never find anything to delight in, in life. This reminds me of the point LI 20, Welcome Fragrance, which allows me to see the essential beauty and once again recognize and take in essence rather than seeing only the worthlessness or lack of value around me.