Category: Health

When everything is tragedy

by MAÔ, posted in Europe, Faith, Mountain, Spirituality, Tragedy

This week more than twenty people lost their lives in an explosion. This week more than twenty families grieve the loss of loved ones. This week a world, once again, looks for reason and rationale. 

When everything is tragedy, where does one find hope? 

I don’t know the answer. I know that there are cries for justice. Cries for a cessation to needless killing. Cries for understanding, for tolerance, for recourse.

But where should we look? What is the meaning, the purpose? Why does it keep happening? 

It feels as if we’re on the edge of something, and pretty soon it’s going to tip. What will we find on the other side?

When everything is tragedy, where does one find love?

Back From Abroad

by MAÔ, posted in Europe, Past Lives, Reading, Travel

To wit, I’ve been back stateside now for nearly a month. I had every intention of keeping this blog going while I travelled through Europe, but there was so little time to sit and ruminate, let alone write. 

I did finish On the Road, which I started on the flight from Toronto to Amsterdam. I think I wrapped up the book on the ferry ride from Swinoujscie, Poland to Ystad, Sweden. Since being back, I’ve read a few more. Right now I’m working through Brian Weiss’s Many Lives, Many Masters. Most of the time back has been spent working, or applying to jobs, and practicing music. 

I’m enjoying the warm Florida weather and a cool tropical breeze out on the back patio. My dog is lounging by my feet, drooling contentedly. I had started a blog post two weeks ago, but it’s been lost in the nether regions of cyberspace, likely never to be seen again. I was lamenting the fact that many people will call someone who is well-read nerdy. 

Mind you, it’s been a long time since someone called me a nerd. Dork, yes. But I’ve been a gym rat for years, at least I was before I developed RA. I was also an avid partier, so people forgave my intelligence and habit of being well-read. No, I was volunteering, writing in one of my notebooks, and someone asked if I liked to read. Of course I like to read. She said that she didn’t, but her son did. He’d even started a book club with his friends, and was trying to read a book a week this year. I thought that was an admirable aspiration. She called him a nerd. So, I ask you, when did reading books & being generally well-educated become nerdy?

That was the crux of that lost post. More later!

Philosophical Art

by MAÔ, posted in Ego, Emerson, Faith, Gaiman, Mountain, Spirituality, The Artist's Way, Thoreau

Been on a brief hiatus, as I reoriented myself in a direction I’m comfortable with. Coming to terms with losing love, the balancing of material and spiritual, energizing my thoughts and, finally, discovering what it means to break life down into manageable segments.  

“It’s not the destination, but the journey.” – Attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Years ago I conceived Michael’s Musings to be a political soap box for my thoughts and views on the happenings and going-ons of American politicians. I was, and remain, an ardent Obama supporter, and remain convinced of his merits as president to this day. I’ve been non-vocal on my views following this past election, partly because I’ve been preoccupied with my own crises. Though not a major factor in the lives of most Americans, my dark night has been the Matterhorn looming in the foreground of my consciousness, waiting to claim a life. My life. 
It’s this mountain, this hard time in my life, this period of reshaping, that reminded me of Neil Gaiman’s Make Good Art speech. In it, he implored the graduates of the University of Arts in Philadelphia to find their mountains. Make decisions that put them closer to reaching it. To achieving those goals. 

Thing was, I had long ago lost sight of my mountain. in my proper job, with a desk and office and chair and computer, I put a little sticky note on the monitor. “Will it bring you closer to your mountain?” I wrote on it, using the Japanese character for mountain (山) rather than the word. And every day I would sit there and look at it. I’d wonder whether I was getting closer to it, not even remembering what I had planned for it to be.

Then, after so long spent wondering, the damn mountain came and crashed on top of me. I guess it got tired of waiting for me to figure out that I was supposed to be climbing it. Figuratively, I was crushed. I was now facing decisions that I had no clue how to handle. And only over the past couple of weeks have things began to once again come into focus. The mountain, now looming large in my vision, is calling to me. Beckoning me to come climb it. So I take the first step.

“1837. Oct. 22. “What are you doing now?” he asked. “Do you keep a journal?” So I make my first entry to-day.’ – The Journals of Henry David Thoreau.  

On Spirit

by MAÔ, posted in Spirituality, The Artist's Way

There is a voice that doesn’t use words. Listen. 

-Rumi

I began a journey, back in November. The inciting incident, as it were. Very recently, I was an office worker in local government, doing arts funding. It was rewarding, albeit unsatisfying work. 

I felt lost in my career. 

Partially my reasoning for staying had been to work on the life I was building with my fiancée. I lived in a crappy little house, impossible to keep clean. My two pets ran my life, and I was just waiting to get married. 

I felt lost in life. 

Over lunch with a young man who was leaving his job in real estate to do something in the arts, he had no idea what, he explained that he was doing this program by Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way. It was a twelve-step recovery program for stifled artists. 

Perfect for someone who was feeling lost. 

I ordered a used copy off Amazon, and when it arrived I started, more or less. Daily pages, which is journaling every day right when you a wake. A three-page long brain dump, hand written, for the purpose of focusing. 

Perfect for someone who was feeling lost. 

Nearly a year later, I’ve fought through severe depression, what I will address in later posts covering my dark night of the soul; drastic changes in my employment and living situation; world travel; a deeper understanding of faith and spirituality, as well as a more comprehensive exploration of those aspects of myself; and movement. A clearing of the path, so that I could find direction. 

I am no longer lost. I just have no idea where I’m going.