Disco is My Cosmos

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas is a classic tale.  The main character, Edmond Dantes, is an innocent character who is betrayed and placed in prison. The sequence of his time in prison is beautifully summarized by wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Count_of_Monte_Cristo After six years of imprisonment in the  Château d'If , Dantès is on the verge of suicide when he befriends the Abbé Faria ("The Mad Priest"), a fellow prisoner whom he hears trying to tunnel his way to freedom. Faria's calculations on his tunnel were off, and it ends up connecting the two prisoners' cells rather than leading to freedom. Over the course of the next eight years, Faria comes to give Dantès an extensive education in language, culture, and science. He also explains to Dantès how Danglars, Fernand, and Villefort would each have had their own reasons for wanting Dantès in prison. Knowing himself to be close to death, Faria tells Dantès the location of a treasur...

As I drive over the bridge to the mainland each day, I am very aware that the speed limit is 30 mph.  I am even more aware as there is almost always a cop sitting on the bridge, waiting to issue tickets. 30 mph is so painfully slow, and I feel impatient as I cross the bridge, thinking more about this rule instead of noticing the beautiful inter coastal waterway surrounding me. External rules - that is, rules outside of us that we are expected as citizens to obey....are something we need to follow or we will suffer consequences.  Incidentally, these rules, for example the 30 mph speed limit on the bridge, were considered by a committee of government employees and issued with careful (well, hopefully careful) consideration. I can grasp this.  It's like a mathematical equation.  It has basically one outcome and it's laid out and methodical. But what about those "rules" I have inside my own mind? I don't have a committee sorting them out for me.  I general...

My cat has a new motorized mouse.   On the box, it said “batteries are included”, and I sighed with relief.   It’s always nice to buy something that is ready to go, without having to take the time to find batteries.   Without the batteries, it’s useless. I have been exploring my own, metaphorical “batteries” lately.   There are some days that there seems so much to do that I feel like my batteries are running very low, or need to be replaced entirely.   The old me would just struggle on, hoping to continue to be productive. The new me, the explorer, is not so sure.   It seems like productivity is a pyramid and at the bottom , the large foundation, is “rest.”   Without that foundation, the pyramid is compromised. Having dealt with a recent sinus, throat and chest infection, I was forced to rest.   There was nothing I could do about it.   I was not going to get better or get anything done until I allowed my body that rest time....

By trying to suppress the ego, we make it stronger. We hide it where it's safe, in a dark recess. If we instead call it for what it is, Take it out of the recesses And confront it with the stark light of day, We can then start to see it for what it really is.

Our sense of selves and our connection to the Universe ground us - provide a weight to our "balloon" so our life doesn't "fly" in a million directions.  If you have too many "paths" to explore, you can't go deeply into the paths.  You will only get a superficial knowledge.  But if you select the paths your heart really desires, you can spend your time exploring them to your hear's content.  And you will start to notice the subtleties and wonders that that you never knew existed among these paths  You can plant trees and flowers among these paths. You will begin to know them inside and out.  You can shut your eyes and imagine every detail of the paths because you know them that well. There comes a time when you make a choice...not about your everyday life and nuances, but a choice about how you want to live life.  That is the foundation upon which everything rests. Everything else is just details. To illustrate this: if you work on a landsca...

In a recent blog post, I made an analogy about having to chip away at a wall in order to cross it. But today I wondered, what if I have absolutely no tools or time to chip away at this wall?  What if I am up against it and it's so close I can smell it.  I can hear it.  I am completely terrified of what's inside this wall.  It seems so thick! Impenetrable. How on earth can I get past this wall?  Science tells me it is made of atoms and so am I, and if I try to move through it, I am going to meet its atoms and, if I run at it from a distance, I'm bound to hit it at such an intensity that I'll seriously injure myself. So I can't just run and crash into the wall.  That's out. As taken from the other post, this wall is infinitely wide and very tall. It's also very smooth - no way to climb. I'm at standstill.  I take a moment and cry my heart out. When I regain my composure, something has changed. That wall is no longer what it was. I gently ...