SHACK 123 DENIM

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Denim (Denim is a publishing textile in which the weft passes under two or more warp threads. This twill weaving produces a diagonal ribbing that distinguishes it from cotton duck).

There was a time when I was 'thirsty' after anything denim, jeans, shirts, jackets and most of all the frayed torn style as worn in jackets without sleeves, some call them vests, waistcoats and gillets(gilets) body warmers.  I just liked the feel and look of them.

I wondered why I had this panache for this?  During my stay abroad from the UK, I took with me a Denim assortment and going into the sea with them to cool off I became in the 60's what is fashionable now in 2017 -------holes in jeans manufactured rents and tears. 

The clothes had a subtle meaning; they felt like I was close to the Earth, getting hands dirty, sweaty, unwashed, bearded, eking out a living, hunting, fishing, gathering, farming getting holes in them worn out and faded through constant wear and washing, rough sowing and patching, a familiar feel and comfort, well worn and fitting snugly.  After a hard days work sipping tea, a simple meal, tired and aching, to bed early with the setting sun and rising with it, the bare wooden shack a refuge, home and sanctuary, the entertainment was the silence, the sounds of nature and repairing equipment and clothes. Ah the simple Life and a sort of satisfaction in natures abundance and supply and living with awareness necessity, innovation, creativity and not wasting anything or taking too much, everything had a use and recycling and composting the rules of the day.

The fashion now is a designer statement; for those well off it maybe a statement 'I know of the hard labor, the mind of the hobo, tramp and not having enough, I am simple and although I have so much, I know my roots-----lets hope thats true'  And for some I just like the look of it.  And for others a statement look I am really not well off----or give of your wealth to others.

In the long run nothing really matters for all is swallowed up by the march of time and destiny.

SHACK

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SHACK 122 PRAISE

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Sitting in quietness and sometimes just ruminating a fantasy or a daydream may come upon me.  I get so caught up in its net that I am fascinated and it seems so real, the emotions, the passion and sometimes I feel as though I am squeezing my head, my brain to get the last ounce of energy to fire it up to maximum enhancement. I t can  be more tiring and exhausting than a physical workout.

Then I snap out of it. I realize this is not reality or is it?  It seems the brain does not recognize what is real in its screen of mind or the actual physical event.  It is like the TV, whatever is on the TV is impartial and just plays it, the person with the remote control decides.

So could it be the ego which I feel is the sum total of life up to the point of the years one is, and has a collection, a library of experiences and is a self contained personality of a private world and is indeed a kind of person inhabiting the mind and body, a sort of take over to a personal local enclosed being.  A sort of ghost in the machine.

This invading being sets up standards, ethics, morals, behavior patterns and especially attack and defense strategies. The most important role or facet it has, is a self monitoring loop which is constantly lurking to see the perimeter fences are all in tact, the silent sentinel.

Should one breech the walls, then a punishment will be metered out, the most common is sabotage. In my early years and no fault of my family, especially my dear Mother I was told 'never expect anything good, but when it does its a bonus' and always 'there is a curse on this family' and when I came in late 'do you know what this does to me, its like another stone on my grave'.

So I never could enjoy a day out with my mates, there was watching the clock, a silent nagging, really saying 'I don't want to be responsible for killing my Mother and being at her grave'. I saw many a person with similar experiences in my clinician days.

However, if I did  manage to let go (this is where Meditation and the Japanese and Chinese arts came in) and my ego then got disappointed and silently said  'its like a feeling that suggests words, a silent whisper that compacts thousands of words in a flash, not to be taken as inspiration, this is an ego trick, what is inspiration or the ego imitation, I digress, it says -----'you are not allowed to be free of the silent dread, so your punishment is to be back in the dread and things will go wrong, a health problem, a relationship breakdown, bad luck, I 'm always unlucky, I never win anything, I let my habits down therefore I don't deserve happiness or fulfillment'.

When one follows a fantasy, a daydream, a sleep dream, or a so called physical outplay of the ego legacy' then I have noticed and become aware of an ego reward------a satisfaction or self praise----a sort of self recommendation of praise, although it is merely self generated from within the ego's repository of rules and regulations, its legal team.  This delights the ego and wants and desires more, much more, sometime insatiably even to its own downfall.

So what is it that snaps one out of reverie and hallucination and awakes the brain from its idling, as if the TV could monitor and become the viewer with the remote control, but that would be self serving again.

It takes something impersonal, non local, vast and highly aware indeed a super Intelligence and that is consciousness which is a razor sharp Mind, clear and focused which is not of body or brain but knows the TV and all is but a temporary, transient expediency and when The TV knows this it surrenders its own agenda to the Greater Being.  

The one may ask or inquire----what then is reality?

If the ego isn't what is?

SHACK
Grow like a tree---sways by the wind----makes the roots strong----gets rain drenched-------slacks the thirst-----snow-----gives the branches exercise-----human pruning and earth husbandry-----love-----who planted me and gave me life------the great mystery. (Shack)

SHACK 121 TARGET

TO BE SURE OF HITTING 

THE TARGET

FIRE YOUR ARROW

AND WHEREVER  IT LANDS 

THAT IS YOUR TARGET

TO BE SURE OF HITTING 
THE TARGET

WHEREVER THE ARROW LANDS
DRAW A CIRCLE AROUND IT

THE ARROW WILL ALWAYS BE CENTER

Sometimes we are too intense of hitting the target and it can be the end and be all even to obsession.  Then the kyudo(Japanese Archery) can assist.  

The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in the one and the further the other will recede. What stands in your way is that you have a much too willful will. You think that what you do not do yourself does not happen.

Eugen Herrigel

I did not learn Kyudo however in Aikido, Kendo and Judo, Kungfu, Taichi, Qi Gong and Meditation, there comes a moment when 'the will' lets go and the DO-the way, The Tao takes over.

What is it that takes over and is the Way?

SHACK

Images above by Merlin Archery and Regex Info

SHACK 120 BRAIN FOG

allergic living

Racking the brain as to the Mystery of Life hurts, can bring fatigue, sometimes madness, distraction in pleasures.  Running away from the awful fate of destiny ----death!

I may never know the answer before death and will death have the answer for me in another dimension, realm or place?

Yet in a strange way giving up not in despair or suicide neither reckless endeavor by just saying 'oh what the hell who cares anyway 'and yet secretly not meaneing it, if per chance just on the off beat one actually stops the struggle, not just a relaxing of a tired brain, exhausted by the quest, the burning desire to know and constantly being thwarted-----a sheer moment of total surrender to the unknown, unconditional and not contrived------one may slide into a real letting go of the known and settle into the unknown where a strange beautiful calm, a grace embalms one and all is well and the unknown remains unknown and it is still all very well indeed.

Then the nowhere is the known---perhaps?  

SHACK

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SHACK 119 AT ALL COSTS

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Perhaps as one reads this it may be very controversial and to others something else. 

Life in the human body and indeed natures inhabitants is precious, the attitude for me is ' I didn't create Life I have no right to take it wantonly'.  However be that as it may I tentatively suggest that Life at all costs is sometimes a bit over the top.

Doctors do a great job in difficult circumstances at times and yet perhaps they could be a little more aware of when Life should not be continued.

I have a note which  I carry which is 'if found unconscious please do not resuscitate'. I do not know whether this is legal and I found out if I want a legal document to this effect it cost lots of money and form filling with an executor to allow this and be named.

I am not referring to persons who are suicidal, depressed and what's the point in living, or quite stable and still have done it all and want to leave the planet.  Then those that fear death and want to be revived at all costs and of course those with terminal illnesses and disabilities which makes Life hard, some who love life and want to stay whilst some beg to be given euthanasia.

Life in a flesh body is Terminal at some point in time.  In fact every body of form from Flesh to Rock to Planet is Terminal. Its simply a fact of Life as we comprehend it now.

We are born to die and vice versa.  The reverse as in vice versa is perhaps debatable to some. To Die to be Born. How so?  Many take the opinion that when your dead your dead, no afterlife or heaven, no God perhaps.  Then there is the view that Nature recycles all and everything and our bodies feed other life forms and our minds die because the brain is just an electrical phenomena and when the light goes out all electricity which is generated by food and chemicals, cells and the interaction ceases then ------your gone for good ------you might say you were never real just an electrical phenomena caused by a freak accident called the big bang and over the 13½ Billion years of evolution(some say 14 ½  Billion)that by trial and error we are where we are today and evolution made its own cellular intelligence its all in the genes(jeans oh no Shack not now) there is no creator.

Then there is reincarnation and a working theory that I wrote about in 1960; the brains memory is actually stored outside the body in holographic magnetic memory fields and the neurons are the switches that facilitate and activate the 'picture show' to the screen of mind. Very much like pilots holographic displays on their windscreens.

Now like Radio and TV invisible waves some of the programmes are unfinished, like the computer when you sign off and it says 'some programmes are not shut down'  these lurk in space and seek to be finished off, so one might choose a similar position and reincarnate to do so. Like TV and Radio the antennae is tuned to a certain frequency and so the holographic fields of a family or female / male resonate and attract that programme and baby is born.

So the above supposes there is an intelligence at work, and of course even agreeing with the theory can debate and point out ' well its back in the realm of electricity and resonance and still doesn't prove God'.

The debate goes on and only a direct experience of the Informing Intelligence, the Source, God, The almighty will be proof for the individual, not necessarily for the masses. 

Then there is attachment; one lives a life with family and friends and perhaps a dearly loved partner and one wants to cling dearly forever to them.  I call this cloistered love---you old cynic Shack. True love as I see it is to love the whole of life partners and friends and so on, yet one has the sense of a Divine Love and can  love all equally a kind of unconditional love, for Life is like that it gives and gives and gives Like Mother Earth and then it takes, its a kind of impersonal Love.

I feel there is right timing for Birth and a Right timing for Death, birth and death are opposites---life has no opposites.

To be born at the right time is to experience what evolution and the Infinite Intelligence intended for you and when its time to move on and release the past and enjoy the next Life experience somewhere else.  In fact not wanting to die at the right time holds back one's evolution-----the Mother and the baby have an innate feeling when it is the right time for birth and the same innate feeling if one is quiet and aware when it is time to depart and carry on in the space of Eternity.

SHACK 

SHACK 118 MY WAY

emily quotes

POPULAR SONG

I DID IT MY WAY

MY SONG

I DIDN'T DO IT MY WAY

SHACK

What way is the right way, what is the way anyway?

Oh what a muddle and confusing.  Have a cup of tea.

(Shack) I need one

SHACK 117 MOUNTAINS

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Mountains of the Mind.  Maybe we should look at what is a mountain in the mind and its construct.  They are are thought bricks, each stacked up and forming ladders of inter connecting constructs like the neuron maps, the possible interconnections and computations.

Some of us can reach the plateau, the peak and then see heights not reached from this lofty ledge and so keep adding to the considerable tangle and caverns of information we have built.

Although we are told to keep the mind active may I suggest there is another 'mind' waiting to be discovered not in brick building and not necessarily breaking the bricks apart but leaving them in a safe place when needed.  

From the lofty perch one abseils either to the ground and begins again, perhaps to begin another brick building or another option could be to abseil into the void / emptiness held by a temporal rope named ego until it lets one go. 

This emptiness, this space dangling in the void is a very alive experience, this  is pure mind or consciousness and one realizes this is the energy and essence anent to brick building.

One realizes there is no death in emptiness and space is the only reality that cannot be threatened, throwing bricks into the vacuum is frustrating because they disappear because they have no place there and only clutter the peace and tranquility. 

There is no death-----only transformation.

Be not afraid, Life is with you always even unto Eternity ----Life is Eternity and Eternity is Infinity.

SHACK