...it’s hard to do that living in the present thing...people meditate and do yoga for years, sometimes their entire lives, just to get to the present day...the skeletal grip of the past often feeling unbreakable as it digs into present-day flesh...
...ever get into a fight with a skeleton?...me neither...not literally...but I don’t think it’d be anything like that Jason and the Argonauts movie...though might be kinda cool if it was...
History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
James Joyce
...there’s this great John Sayles movie called Lone Star...a skeleton with a sheriff’s badge is found in the desert...leaving the present day sheriff to figure out how it got there...and, as it turns out, all kinds of events are intertwined...as they tend to be...and half the people in town seem to know more than they’re letting on....one guy tells the sheriff a story about rooting through old things and uncovering a rattlesnake...says it goes to show, once you start rooting around, you never know what you’re gonna find...and the past, as is often the case, turns out to be fucked up...with unexpected consequences for the present....nonetheless, in the end, the sheriff goes on with his life...skeletons are dead...they don’t kill you...
...thanks to Skyewriter for making this humble blog one of the first batch of honorees for the Funny Bone Award....it suits my sense of irony perfectly to accept it in a post that’s not particularly funny...though it does involve bones...
16 comments:
funny way of exploring skeleton in the closet cliche.
I like the picture too.Rather fight the skeletons once and for all than keeping them warm in closet.
"rooting" around in memory can be a good thing...creates a propulsive energy to creativity ... sometimes. It's also a place to wander and get lost. It might be easier to have that skeleton pirate in front of oneself - creating boundaries to the past. Wrestle it to the ground and retain only the bones that prove useful.
Congratulations on the award!
The past is always with us, in good ways and less good. Not living in it or regretting it is one thing. Leaving it behind altogether is not as possible. The great trick is not letting it weigh us down.
Did one of those personal developmnent type courses years back (before I got serious about being a yogi). Much of it was hokey, but they did say one rather interesting thing (this is me paraphrasing):
We live with the past in our present and look to the future. In order to live our lives powerfully, we need to untangle the past, the present and the future and live right where we're at.
Tough to do when those skeletons are rattling their bones at us. Rattling them really loudly sometimes, so much so, its hard to think straight, or sanely.
So perhaps the benefits of meditation include making peace with those skeletons so they can relax too, and no longer feel the need to rattle those bones. Don't ever think they vanish, they just learn a little zen.
Anything that uses Jason and the Argonauts as a visual in a post is funny in my book...
You know, it's a little off topic, but I didn't like it when they 'colorized' old b/w movies, and I didn't like it then the GD colorized the original Sullivan illistration, either - which isn't a crit of your blog, just so you know. I always enjoy your humor, and am glad you got recognized for it.
Maybe we can think of our skeleton like our core--it's always in the present and that's ok. The crap from the past is just the skin and flesh. The skeleton always stays the same.
The skeletal frame makes us what we are, so trying to put them away in a closet has always seemed a nonsense to me. You lay them to rest by facing them and standing in the truth. Easier said than done, but really the only way to stop them rattling about.
Skeletons are what we are framed around. You can't put them in a closet and not be who you are. We have to embrace them in truth to move on. Hard to do.
Too right, a skeleton in a closet (the closet) has to be put there! If you are the one who releases it ... you may be the one who lands in the manure (how polite is that!)
It is interesting to read all these comments. So I am going to add one more of my own to to the mix. I'm not sure it is healthy to believe that "skeletons" can be locked up any where in the mind. They are just memory. We do or we do not come to terms with moments that have become memory. Surpressing memory drains energy in the effort. Noticing skeletons/memories (without being obsessive, releases) allows the mind and body to work in concert. Isn't part ofthe practice yoga about noticing?
When those skeletons start rattling the best thing to do is laugh the damn things out of town.
Thanks for your return comment - in fact, you gave me the idea for today's post (gave you a bit of a shoutout, too)
Judging from all the recently aired sex scandals ranging from John Edwards, Silvio Berlusconi in Italy, and Padre Cutie, there's a lot of flesh spilling out of the closet, too ;->
Hmmm, not too much really new though..boys being boys times a millions years
I like that James Joyce line, drjay, though I wish I didn't "get it."
And congrats on your Funny Bone Award. Well deserved and I liked your acceptance speech there...I found it funny.
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