List-lessness
Today's NYT has an article about lists, those "100 Things to Do Before You Die" things. Enjoy reading others', don't have one.
For me, they obviate the dailiness of life, the appreciation of the small things that give texture and depth: making plum jam, getting a chortle from the newborn next door, the deep realease of truly breathing after a draining week's work. Chop wood, carry water.
Last winter, my yoga teacher showed me photos of the estate in Goa where she planned to take a workshop. With uncharacteristic spontaneity, my friend Joan and I signed on, and plunged into a chaotic, vibrant, life-expanding journey. Not on any list. There are peak events, and there is also the deeply satisfying moment, or hour- or two, like my recent watching of Louis Malle's doc, "God's Country". If you rent it, watch for the last frame: worth the price of admission.
If you have a list, I'm happy to read it!
Louis Malle 1932-1995
Un vrai de vrai
experience life lists travelMy thinking about life and death and doing has gotten so sparce that what "to do" before death in any concrete sense isn't something that really registers on my gauges. Whenever I consider dying these days I can't help but think of Joan Halifax. She's among my top ten people in the world. Do you know who she is? Stan Grof's first wife, and before one of Joe Campbell's research assistants. Became a Buddhist nun and runs a hospice outside Santa Fe called Upaya (skillful method). Made an extraordinary audio program called, "Being With Dying." I think Joan is top notch.
Anyway...as an exercise, I guess there are two things I would like to get done. One is finish a treatise on life, a draft of which I posted on the site, but which has not been public until this morning! Detweiler likes it and has encouraged me to knock it out. I need some kinda juice I haven't found yet. (mango? papaya?)
http://www.ithou.org/node/995
The other is a model environmental code that I drafted for a small country. I won't say "recently" because it took me the better part of a year. Now it's in deep limbo, and may never really see the light of day. On one level I don't care because, as a work of art, it's finished. On another level, I wonder how it would feel to see it, or any substantial part of it, actually implemented.... What kind of juice would that put into my experience of life?...I wonder.
Interesting...
dying is fine but death e.e. cummings
dying is fine)but Death
?o
baby
i
wouldn't like
Death if Death
were
good:for
when(instead of stopping to think)you
begin to feel of it,dying
's miraculous
why?be
cause dying is
perfectly natural; perfectly
putting
it mildly lively(but
Death
is strictly
scientific
& artificial &
evil & legal)
we thank thee
god
almighty for dying
(forgive us,o life! the sin of Death
Yes, through the Zen Peacemaker Order.
Approached without empathy, the list business looks like another type of consumption; the wish behind the list, I guess, is to live in more harmony with ones' needs.
Yes, through the Zen Peacemaker Order.
Approached without empathy, the list business looks like another type of consumption; the wish behind the list, I guess, is to live in more harmony with ones' needs.
Kathleen-- I wonder if you remember the title of a recent film about an oddball professor from Montreal with cancer, whose son comes back from Geneva and ends up buying him heroin to help him die. Would like to rent it, but can't say the name. -j
The Barbarian Invasions, director is Denys Arcand. It's terrific. You might also enjoy The Decline of the American Empire, which is about the same professor some years earlier, and his friends.
I agree, lists are distracting ..I forget most of the things I write anyway ..better to just chop wood, carry water
Living and Dying (in three-quarter time)