Still Waking Up

Lately I’ve become more “conscious” of my mental habits, and I’ve noticed how I tend to hold on to grudges and other old stuff much longer than needed. (Hint: I only “need” to hold on to the past for about a second.)

I have also become more aware of important messages in my dreams, usually as metaphors. Last night I had a dream that there was an accident at a cemetery, right next to a busy street, and a grave was ripped open. Decayed body parts spilled out into the street. The dream was brief and not overly graphic (one of those out-of-focus dreams), but I got the feeling when I woke up that the dream held a message for me.

Upon consulting my dream dictionary and my own intuition, I asked myself the question: What unpleasant things from my past have I brought up again?

The lesson I have learned from this is that the past belongs in the past. Bury the dead and leave it buried. Bringing up any kind of guilt, shame, pain or anger from the past is like opening up a grave and hauling out the corpse to have another look. We don’t need to do that to ourselves.

Here’s wishing you all presence of mind in 2009. Namaste.

December 11
Today was my last day with Jacobs Engineering. It was my last day at the Waterton Complex, my last shift in Trailer #4, and my last time seeing the Rocky Mountains from that hilltop. I sent my last email from my company email address, set my out-of-office to redirect inquiries, and changed my voice mail. I filed my last email to the network, cleaned out my desk, and packed a box of paperwork to be sent to the Home Office. I said my last good-byes, packed my bags, and took the last bus off the plant site. And as I sat there looking out the window at the full moon shining down on a plant I dreaded going to every morning, I actually found myself grieving.

Grieving? I couldn’t believe myself. After four and a half years of work that I did not enjoy, and weeks of counting down the days to this last glorious exodus, here I was sitting on a bus full of construction workers, wondering why I felt sad instead of deliriously happy. This was it – my Liberation, my Graduation Day, my Great Escape, the day I had looked forward to, at times, with desperation. Now, here it is: a disappointment.

Well, not so much a disappointment as a sense of passing. Yes, it is grief. Despite escaping the pain of having to get up and go to work every day, I’m grieving the relationships I’m leaving behind, and my sense of place and purpose in this community.

I felt it called for a ritual of some kind.

So, here I am, having my Last Supper at Luigi’s Pizza and Steakhouse – one of Pincher Creek’s few fine restaurants. I’m having the veal cutlets, which I’ve had before, but this time I’m having it with fetuccini marinara instead of fries, which I’ve never had before. Usually I like trying new things, but some occasions call for the familiar.

Ritual gives us a sense of meaning in a chaotic world – a sense of place in the cosmos. Whether it’s blowing out the birthday candles, or receiving Holy Communion, ritual allows us to grasp onto the comfort of the familiar. Not familiar in the tawdry sense of dirty underwear on the bedroom floor, but comforting, in the sense of… the sound of dad’s car in the driveway, or a lover’s perfume, or the feeling of one’s own bed after a tiring trip.

I grew up with a strong sense of religious ritual, and although I’ve happily moved on to a broader sense of Spirit, I sometimes miss the ritual. The same liturgy repeated week after week, the sound of the organ, the smell of the old wooden pews, and the taste of the wine. I don’t remember these as being boring (although I recall skipping church a lot) – I recall a sense of comfort in the familiar repetition. It had meaning. I had a sense of place in God’s family, in the community, in the cosmos. I had a sense of self as part of a greater whole. It was a profound sense of the divine captured in the simple woodwork and wine of a small church.

December 12
This morning as I left my apartment in Pincher Creek, I did a closing ritual. I thanked the apartment for protecting me and keeping me comfortable these last 10 months, and I did a little bow with folded hands. I blessed the place. Then I blessed the town, and the countryside. Then I drove away with a sense of completion.

Tonight I burned my business cards in the fireplace. That didn’t have the same sense of completion attached to it.

Maybe I was just expecting too much.

Today I bought a liquid soap dispenser for a dollar. How is this possible? That is about one or two minutes’ wages in Calgary. Of course, this item wasn’t made in Calgary – it came from China.

So, people had to mine and process the materials, ship the raw materials to a factory, spend time making the soap dispenser, then put it on a truck, then a boat, then a truck again, warehouse it, take it to the store, put it on the shelf, then wrap it and bag it for me at the till. That doesn’t even factor in the overhead and profit.

Something isn’t right here.

http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html

The other day I watched the movie “Zeitgeist” – a 2-hour movie which argues that Christianity is based on an elaborate lie, that the world is increasingly controlled by a few wealthy people, and that 9/11 was a complete hoax designed to take away any last remaining liberties.

Now… It’s not that I disagree with all the facts presented in the film. I’ve learned similar ideas from other sources. In the last two months, I have watched two similar films online which have basically the same format and tout the same “truths.” But I’m left with a couple huge questions:

If the makers of these films are exposing an elaborate hoax perpetrated by the most powerful people in the world, who control the world’s media, and this is a hoax that the whole world’s media has bought into and have helped promote, then how did they manage to get this thing produced and mass-distributed? How come it has not been quashed? How did it manage to win awards in Hollywood?

And secondly, the whole idea is that our enemies are our governments, controlled by a few elite bankers, and their agenda is to promote fear and panic among the people, therefore convincing the people to give over their power to the elite. So then, why do the makers of these types of films also try to promote fear and panic among their viewers – painting a world where we are all enslaved and left to starve? Why create the very thing that they claim to be against?

First, if you have not done so already, watch the movie: http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com

Then, see if you can answer my questions.