June 19

The beeps of the watch alarm seemed to be slowed down, half their usual rate, as I woke. A wash in the bath then straight to the cushion. Catch-up time: unfinished tasks at work, untidy ends to thoughts, ideas and conversations. Then at the end of each cycle of thought, the rush of energy of a more empty state, like the warm draft rushing ahead in the tube. Then in the more subtle elements of thought, how is thought modifying each feeling, each sensation? How is it being added to or manipulated? Later still, the body having the freedom to act, from quieter states of mind, a release through the arm, it taking on a life of it’s own in shaking, stretching, tensing beyond tension, then quiet again, animation over. Then a rocking through the head and neck. Hands extending past a normal extension. Jaws locked out in new forms, and a deep deep ache where a wisdom tooth is still, after all these years, causing the gum to adjust a bit painfully. An hour passes in minutes, and it’s quite a long way back to a normal state, after the watch beeping a reminder. The breath fast, steady, powerful, hands now in front of the heart and slowly, slowly the breath returning. Stillness of mind resumes before getting up.

June 20

Really didn’t want to do it. Let’s wait until after the weekend, why not, please? Start a new week afresh then, why not? I’m not feeling my best, so best to leave it for now. It’s already a bit late, better not start now. Etc. I’d rather go back to bed with the laptop and while away some time. Please, let’s not go there today. But I went there. I sat down. Within minutes, feelings of peace, that somehow it’s all right. Not to say all is all right within, and yet it is in a sense. In the sense that it is what it is. A cliche, but it means something in the inner world. Acceptance? What is, is. What’s to be done? Nothing really. Watch, listen, see, allow, wait – and yet none of these really: awareness is beyond them all. the mind catches up with the unfinished thoughts of yesterday. Can yesterday finish, be over? Starting new days with left overs. And then peace comes in through a door I can’t see, and washes over the scene. And later, intensity to the point where there is nothing I can do about it. Behind the eyes. Vision behind closed lids a squeezed kaleidoscope, white light all there is in the intensity beyond pain.

June 23

A light slowly filling the headspace. At the intersection of thought, dreams and this light, an operation takes place. I felt a cleaning device of some sort reaching up almost behind the brain, getting into areas untouched in decades. The light can pervade all areas. I’ve felt similar feelings like being operated upon many times over the years. Sometimes there’s an inner-audible click as something shifts, other times a dissolving, either at a large scale that leaves no thought behind, or at a micro scale where there’s a dissolution of a tiny hook or hang up. Cycles of thinking, dreaming, light, ending, then a new space is created.

June 24

I am an escape artist. Perhaps the very ‘me’ is a mechanism of escape. When it comes right down to it, after feeling the way in, towards that which I seek to avoid, there seems to be no difference between me and the thing to avoid. In that non-difference there is great freedom, although for the time being at least it is very uncomfortable physically. But even in the discomfort there is a freshness and vitality and the feeling that there is absolutely nothing else than this, that this is all there is right now and all the wantings and hopings and directions and aims are meaningless. The clue is there, calling, calling. Listen. It’s been calling you for years, decades: over here, over here – yet we think we know better, a better direction, based on ignoring, ignorance of the calling out. The calling out is suffering, pain, that we are taught to avoid at all costs, or maybe just dabble in its shallows like the creatives have. Go deep. Go gently, go very lightly but go there. Where else?

June 25

Excruciating in the face, deep into the cheeks, eye sockets, gums. Also in the neck and arms, a deep ache such that I just don’t know what will happen as it builds as I go closer, closer, until I don’t know if I am it or it is me, or if any such division is valid. And yet as attention moves throughout, this new learning has to be relearnt, as strong sensation pulses from a forgotten part of my body. Breathing hard, out of control.

June 26

All questions of the mind, big or small, pale into insignificance in the face of the fact of suffering, and vanish entirely in the light.