Decades ago, before I had encountered the Gurdjieff ideas, when I had left the church I was "raised" in and first began my search for something that would fulfill my desire to be, in various religious and spiritual literatures I encountered the concept of dying to oneself.  To me, at that time, it seemed an extreme and frightening idea.  Recently, I find that how I identify myself, to myself, is an obstacle; a prison.  Interestingly, I notice that the behavior and reactions of others to me reinforces that identity.  I'm feeling the desire to radically shake up, break up, maybe even destroy that identity; in order to make room for the higher energy, consciousness, that is always there but with which connection is more often lost than present.  When I sense how I usually identify myself, the desire is there for that identity to be gone but I don't know how to make it go away.  What am I, if not that?  How do I function without that?  And, this is where I stand, on the edge of a cliff, wanting to jump but also afraid.

I never sought asceticism or self flagellation.  There was a time when monasticism seemed attractive but it was brief.  There are enough difficulties in life to provide substance for study of my self; who and what I am; I don't need them to be created for me.

There are realities that I see and have learned to accept.  There are others that I feel can be changed with the same effort needed to accept them.

I'm feeling that certain artificial complications designed to put me in front of myself are not only no longer necessary but not something I'm as willing to accept.  I'm willing to make a clearly necessary effort.  I'm willing to endure necessary discomforts.  I'm no longer willing to do either in some cases simply to accept a form or tradition.

Perhaps I'm wrong and I should continue to comply with these artifices. Perhaps it's my age and I'm more interested in my personal comfort than in suffering unnecessarily, particularly when there is suffering that is unavoidable.

There are adjustments in my external life that I've made and continue to make because I see no reason to put myself in the middle of a situation that takes more of my time and effort than I feel I benefit from.  I once had an appointment with a physician who had neither parking nor a receptionist.  I arrived early and drove around for nearly half an hour trying to find a parking place and waited in an empty foyer for longer than I felt was courteous before seeing him.  I never went back.  Why would I?

Perhaps I'm being too easy on myself.  

In everything, it's possible to see my functions, my considering, my wish.

I sit in question....

Sitting here this morning, my mind is racing, first to the supermarket, then creating images of a painting I’d like to do.  My feelings, my horse, are slightly restless, feeling a little confined, a little cabin fever.  The only part of me that’s quiet is my body sitting here with only a few sensations created by the activity of my head and my emotions.  My body is the only thing that’s quiet.  Or, is it?  Who is it that’s quietly, patiently watching?

This morning, my effort is to see the truth about myself; to see that most of what I am is acquired automatic, mechanical thoughts and reactions to whatever appears in front of me; the truth that for most of my day, most of my life, I disappear into whatever thoughts and activities present themselves and cease to exist because I don’t sense myself.  

I have to see and accept that I don’t wish to see this truth; I prefer to disappear into that sleep.  It’s comfortable, familiar.  

But, this morning, for a few minutes, I wish to see this truth; I wish to remember that I exist; I wish to see how I am, in my life, in my deepest internal world.  When I’m able to accept this truth, to be present to it, then, sometimes, something opens, something else appears, something else is possible, but only if I’m willing to see the truth about myself.

On this holy day - and ALL days are holy - I have to say there is danger in the world but there is also beauty.  Whichever you give your attention to is a choice. 

And, there is no Daddy in the sky to rescue you.  The Creator set the laws in motion which are the source of endless evolution and change.  You're on your own in adapting to and forming a relationship with Creation.

We live on a tiny little piece of earth that's full of life and beauty.  Even on our tiny home, our individual life is inconsequential in the midst of life on this planet, we are only a tiny part of the whole and yet the whole is part of us.  Giving your attention to danger, fear, hatred is to turn away from the oneness of existence and Creation.  Letting go our egoistic perception of life and accepting our place in the vastness of Creation is a movement toward peace, understanding and growth.

"Now we can define suffering at this stage as the consequence of the difference between things as we think they are and things as they really are."  Franklin Earnest III, Transitional Man 

There is almost nothing that can be said in response, if I'm able to truly see this.  I am released from unnecessary suffering, if I'm able to stand in front of reality, this minute, and accept it; accept what's real outside myself, accept what's true inside myself.  

I may dislike what's so, and that's part of the truth, but what's real is real.  I may dream of what I will do to change it but thus the suffering begins.  What's so, this instant, is real.  Being in the midst of it, releases me.

Today I say a tearful prayer to a tiny mouse caught in two kill traps:  leg in one, broken neck in the other; nearby another mouse in a no-kill trap.  The safe mouse I released some distance from the house, across two streams of water, where there is much high grass.  The other mouse I assumed dead having seen it, still and silent, in the two traps, the night before.  Opening the cabinet where the death took place, neither trap was visible.  Clearly, it had not been dead when I first saw it and had dragged the two traps behind a wash tub during the night; all that time dying.  Removing the wash tub, I saw a tiny, tiny foot moving; still alive, trapped, in pain.  I released the foot from the first trap; it slowly pulled its leg toward its body.  As I picked up the remaining trap, the little thing cried out in pain, its neck broken, its eyes squeezed shut in a grimace.  I released it from the trap into my gloved hand.  It twisted to find release from the pain and from the giant holding it.  As I carried the tiny dying thing outside, I stroked it and spoke to it quietly; foolishly thinking I could comfort it.  Its matchstick leg was skinned to the bone, its head and neck twisted.  I laid it in the grass next to the truck of a tree.  I am so sorry for its pain and suffering.  I left it there to die in peace.

I’m not afraid of mice, although they can startled me; they don’t repulse or disgust me, although their habits, in my house, may inconvenience and frustrate me.  They are tiny, soft little creatures trying to live and, unfortunately, are at the bottom of the food chain, fodder for many.

I don’t want them in my house to make messes I have to clean up but I don’t want them dead and I don’t want to see their dying.

“If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.” – St. Francis of Assisi