connection

So my laptop caught on fire a little bit the other day and now it doesn't work. The crazy thing is, I wasn't really surprised. Every year around this time my cell phone and laptop usually freak out in some way. One year I dropped a phone down the elevator shaft at Daffy's Department Store. Last year I fell on the snow and my phone shattered on the ice and most of the big pieces were lost in snow piles. So yeah, laptop on fire...it's about that time of year.

After my initial attempts to revive it, I saw the bigger picture - the annual accidental winter hiatus from electronic communication. In the hours of the evening without access to email, wikipedia, itunes, dvd player etc. I began to think about the imbalance between the connection to the electronic media vs the physical world around me.

Some friends and me were talking about this a month or so ago. In certain communities there is still the barbershop or the diner or bar that is the hub of social interaction and community connection in a neighborhood. But for the most part, we've moved beyond that to an expanded connection with the world and a weakened connection from the space that physically surrounds us.

I can't even say that it's a stronger connection with the world. We may know more about other cultures. We have the ability to fact check or read a blog written in Ghana or buy a bag directly from a woman in Thailand via Etsy (it's a very pretty bag)...but the connection remains distant and cerebral.

~

In November I planted trees in Bella Vista with a local group. My reasons for being part of the group are a) I like trees b) I want to see more trees in my neighborhood. I didn't really think of it beyond these two points. Yet after planting a tree at 8th and Christian, I realized that I felt connected to that tree every time I walked by it. As if a part of me was grounded along with it's roots.

In the stillness offered by my burntout laptop and the snow outside, I thought about that tree. It's small tangle of roots that matched it's thin crown of branches. The branches of trees will only reach out as far as the roots go. This gives the tree balance. It is as grounded as it is spread out to the sky.

We don't really have that safeguard. We can reach out as far as we want. Spread our energy out into the world, our thoughts - keep it all out in this high speed information pool. But if we're not grounded in our physical body, our physical environment, our neighborhood...we are unbalanced. And then, what good is all that accessability? If we can't bring it down to earth - ground it in ourselves, or our community....what's the benefit?

From an energy perspective mental energy (thought power) is a higher frequency than physical energy (the power to move, to create physical change). When I think of the chakras, the energy vortexes in the body, I think of them as similar to a tree. The top chakras are about connecting our energy to the universe. The energy in these chakras is fast. The lower chakras are about connecting the physical world and our physical selves. This energy moves slower.

No matter how open our higher chakras are - how connected we are to the universe, if our lower chakras are weak and unhealthy and we don't feel connected physically, all of that high chakra energy cannot be grounded, cannot be brought into the physical world.

It's an amazing thing, the power we have to reach out and connect to vast parts of the world but it's equally amazing that we have the ability to take that energy and ground it in the physical world.

Maybe next winter I won't need a burnt out laptop to remind me to spread my roots as far as my branches. But until then, I'll try to respect the lesson. :)

ego

Sitting in a coffee shop this morning I noticed "across the universe" was playing. The phrase "nothing's going to change my world" struck me. Sounds peaceful...especially when Lennon sings it but I had another song lyric in my mind too "it's no better to be safe than sorry" (A-ha). Maybe because my mind was at odds, these lyrics seemed at odds too.

For starters, everyone has their own reality...their own world. And if we are in control of our minds, we are in control of our world. If we can calm the mind, we can create calm in our world. This can be incredibly difficult when the worlds of others are conflicting with our own. The nature of the mind is to react. And the nature of the ego is to fight against anything that doesn't support it or make it feel secure. If I want to be calm but there is chaos in this coffee shop, babies crying, dogs barking, coffee grinding etc. my mind's reaction will be to jump from distraction to distraction. My ego's reaction will be to reject everything that is not how I want it to be. "Why isn't someone picking up that baby? Aren't there laws against dogs in coffeeshops? How much coffee can you possibly need!?"

In Buddhism, the ego is like a kind of mechanism that protects our idea of 'self'. Because the idea of nonself is so scary, the ego tries to support our separateness and importance. One way the ego functions is by trying to feel bigger. When I imagine the ego, I think of this game . Cracks me up every time I see that. Another way is to control the environment. If the environment reflects our wants, feelings, needs or preferences in an affirming way, we feel safe and important. If more chaos breaks out in the coffee shop our ego feels threatened, small and powerless.

Sometimes, our ego chooses to protect itself by limiting interaction with others. We make a nice little controlled space and don't let anyone mess with it, don't let anyone in. I guess it's in response to this idea that my mind offered "It's no better to be safe than sorry".

And the true peace from the phrase "nothing's gonna change my world" doesn't come from isolation, control or being the biggest katamari on your block. It comes from knowing our own feelings, wants, needs, thoughts and not needing them to be reflected back at us from the outside. It comes from knowing that despite the constant triggers and actions that happen all around us, we have a choice about what we react to, what becomes part of our reality.

If we really know this, we don't have to reject outside influences, we don't have to try to control them and we don't have to try to find a way to fit in to the outside world. Because the outside world is constantly changing. It is made up of uncountable influences, diverse realities and unknowable factors. If we are always trying to react to the outside world or make the outside world react to us, we won't be at peace.

And before my sisters get all snarky on me, I admit I am the first person to freak out about static electricity's winter war against me, mall air and math jazz. I'm talking to myself over here. I'm figuring it out as I go :)