Like it or not, I like this world.
Musings on stress and great soup.
Enjoy The Reluctant Tarot Reader? Become a sub — or buy me a coffee. ☕️
Nothing calms me down more than homemade soup and great tea.
Simple and easy. One pound of sautéed ground beef (someday I’ll be vegan again — just not today. Thank you, cow), olive oil, fresh spinach and parsley, leftover lentil bread, black beans, a healthy pinch of coriander, cumin, curry, salt, pepper, chipotle and mustard powder, simmered low and slow in a cast iron Dutch oven.
Perfection.
I’ll eat this soup all afternoon, topped with nutritional yeast, warming my bones, my soul as I relax in patches of sun that light up the living room carpet. My gas fireplace sputtered out — perhaps a sign of early spring? — I’ll deal with that later. Now it’s typing this while enjoying a cup of Honeybush tea, which I prefer to Rooibos. Later I’ll heat a slice of homemade bread and continue enjoying my soup, after reading an afternoon client.
Ideally, everything in my world will rest in simplicity. A re-discovery, perhaps. Simple and easy. Food, shelter, beauty, laughter. But it’s not enough for my anxiety, which thrives in my past or future. What the hell happened then? What will happen next?
1st quarter tends to be the most difficult: slow calendar, cold weather, power outages, looming taxes. Fortunately, I’ve learned that asking for help actually works because people want to help, especially my woo friend and her husband who have now become accountants.
I’ve always wanted an accountant. Now I have one. Two, actually. I’ll never go back to dreading March and gearing up my courage with tax forms.
Turn my back on the world? Which one?
Growing up in religious circles, we were taught to Be in the world but not of the world which meant that I had to straddle the ins and outs of modern life while pretending I wasn’t a part. I was saved. I made the cut. I could look forward to a heavenly reward while battling sin and the “devil”. This broken, evil world wasn’t home — I just had to find a way to be happy and kind of ignore it.
I’m glad the schizophrenic ideas of my childhood religion are now in the past. However, I will admit that this idiom holds true when I view this idea of world. Which world? The one I read in the news? The one downtown? Another country? Another time? In silence?
The world in which I exist is exclusive. Meaning, I’m the only one who understands the world I find myself in every day. The world of my mind/thoughts/views/beliefs. The world of Raven who continues to weigh how much of this external world I wish to engage in. Money, taxes, marketing, social media, smartphones, investments, possessions, protecting what is mine.
Quite frankly, as little engagement as possible in those things. Many I’ve already given up and my nervous system is happier, though this is a years-long process. I joked with a friend that someday she will find me in my little “kuti” (meditation hut) in the woods, with warm stove a-blaze and off-grid as possible.
I can’t deal with smartphones, AI and this world, I said.
What world? she asked.
You know. Constant noise. The world of stuff. Social media, AI, etc. Nothing wrong with it. AI has been around longer than we know and it’s the dawn of the Android Age. I get it — it’s just not for me. Give me the forests and quiet for the rest of my life. This isn’t meant for living generations, anyway. It’s a preview of 100 years from now.
Though I celebrate the achievements of lurching humanity, I will take the forest anytime. Ocean, waters, soaring vistas. No more cities. No more traffic. No more grinding and searching for something. Just dark skies, stars and the quiet of deep night. That’s where I find myself; connected and universal. My friend tells me I’ll be famous — that’s fine. I’ll also be dead in a few decades. We’re all just fading shadows, as Xandra said in I Was Once A Person.
My quickie prediction for the next year? More people will give up social media because they can’t take it anymore — yet will find it extremely difficult to break the addiction.
I still love the world I see. It’s beautiful. Will that compel me to return to the world of samsara? Perhaps.
Pema Chodron once said — and this is my loose recall — that as she prepares for death, she reminds herself that the world of suffering (samsara) is very familiar. So familiar, it seems like a loving, comforting presence. So much easier to return to the cycle, rather than go towards the unknown as she leaves her body.
I agree. Towards nothingness — even if inevitable bliss! — can seem terrifying. We’d rather have the pain of this world because it’s known. We’ve gotten good at it. Negotiating our suffering and joys. Scar, layer, pivot.
Even the exquisite beauty of the natural world can beckon me to return. The trees and birds. The wonderful, loving people. The excitement of the next and the next. I remember some woo friends say that they can’t wait to return because they want to continue helping others. I thought they were rather crazy, at that.
It will be an interesting decision when the time comes. I wonder what IS next?
Ahh . . . even that is future tripping!