COMPLEXITY VS. SIMPLICITY

As I navigate my homebound space I discover how past versions of myself have created a complexity of order in an attempt to make sense of and work with the details that comprise my life. Now I find that order too difficult to maintain, and crave a simplicity I never before found adequate to the many-faceted reality I have cultivated. The filing system is vast, over-flowing with bits of paper and computer bytes. It has become nearly impossible to find things that come to mind, but seem lost in the pile of data. Often a search needs criteria where there is none.

Every year or so I go through things and cut, glean, re-order with a newly simplified system, but the years have blessed me with accumulations only I know, and it becomes increasingly difficult to get help in this endeavor, since most of it is specific to me and known only through my memory of it.

Found this quote in a 2015 Journal entry:

“I try to keep a “strainer” nearby to catch the thoughts as they emerge from a mind too active, well beyond its capacity to cope. The result is a great accumulation of unprocessed notes representing varying degrees of value towards any future work. I am inundated with a plethora of thoughts that appear to go nowhere, don’t fit, and float off into the fluffy dust of history.”

But I was taught to honor the creative flow when it happens and catch the result since work can always be cut, but rarely reproduced – “there is no such thing as too much, only the dearth of not enough.”

And so, as I re-witness a vastness of words that have tumbled out of my mind over decades, I am overwhelmed with a need to grab them and give them a renewed life of witness.

As a diversion from the ongoing reports of this aging life, I am going to start the fall editing these. The first one was sent in Downhill Slope as Fast Affair in March of 2024 and many reported liking it. 

This one has been performed many times in live performance, the latest being 2019.

Bear In The Woods

                     Went walking in the woods.

                     The neighbor said there may be bears and to carry a stick.  

                     I always walk with a stick, usually two.  

                     So I walked and found a place by the stream to sing, 

                     and thought "what would I do if a bear confronted me?" 

                     Would I retreat, fight, or use stillness and mental communication to let it know

                     I was non-threatening? 

                     Then I began singing and realized I was creating a sound shield. No wild

                     animal would come near. 

                     They would avoid a confrontation with the telegraphing sounds. 

                     And the singing got better and better, and death felt further and further away,

                     and afterwards, walking back, I was aware that I have a purpose in life -- to

                     offer what I have, when I can, to any who might care to receive, and to be so

                     clear and centered in my engagement with whatever it is I am doing, that it will

                     serve as a shield enabling me to go further into unknown realms and be

                     protected from those who might seek to kill me if I threaten their peace.

                     Then again, one must also carry a stick or two.

Blessings on you for a new glorious fall season of color and bounty to combat the constant play of bad news generated by the “bears” who threaten our world.

2009 pigeon in a hole in an ancient wall at Mirepoix, France – jr-l