59 days to go...

I am blank. I have no idea what to write. But I honor my commitment. No, I didn’t sit down in front of the computer because of my commitment. I came because I love writing. I honestly feel that my day would not be complete without it. Hooray! I’ve come to that stage, and I celebrate my progress to have this feeling.

Three years ago, my life went through a sharp curve, with that feeling of acceleration. I was drawn tonight to some lines I wrote then, while attending Jim Paredes’ workshop on Tapping the Creative Universe:

"At any moment, I can wipe the whiteboard of my life clean, I return to stillness, purity, nothing or zero. The empty balance between positive and negative, from which new things can grow in me, and at which I can make clear decisions. It is the Zero Doctrine -total flexibility, the absence of fixed ideas. It’s when I can hear the plants grow.

Tao … is the pathless path, like the bird’s trail in the sky, invisible afterwards."

Right now, I feel at Zero. Not a negative mood, but just on that balance point in between negative and positive. I feel flatly content. Anyway, what does it matter how I feel? Not a lot, really. I have worked out for myself that I don’t depend for my happiness on how I feel. Hmm, a courageous statement?

I took a lot of small positive steps on my path today. I felt energized, and I was in touch with a good friend through texting. Several other friends still sent their Christmas wishes, and I enjoyed getting them and replying.

I opened an email account for my daughter this evening, to her delight. I got a free replacement for a broken theraband that I use for exercise. I looked for a shop to frame the collages my daughter and I made yesterday.

I searched for software to help me explore the use of mind mapping for my writing, and I found one I liked (FreeMind).

I took delivery of a new stove, only to find out it had an electric rather than a gas oven, which I had ordered. I like using a gas oven, and the cost of electricity in the Philippines is second only to Japan, so using gas makes more sense. The shop manager was helpful on the phone to arrange replacement, and even offered me a rebate.

My camera ran out of juice, and I had to drive to office during my holiday to retrieve the charger which I had forgotten there in my travel bag. Then I realized that I had used the camera daily since 8 December without charging it. The battery life of my Fujifilm Finepix F30 is amazing, and it’s a great camera too. And… I have started adding hyperlinks to my post for the first time.

Now, late at night, my daughter is watching Shark Story with headphones, and I just feel… flatly content. Like a bird, I flew my path in the sky today. It has already become invisible, except for the trail in this posting.


Photographs: Existence, from Osho's Zen Tarot, and the butterfly in the FreeMind logo