While some people text in traffic, I take notes. As I listened, I dug around in my purse for paper grateful a light turned red so I could scribble what I had just heard.
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| from www.tvlicensing.co.uk |
I was outraged to hear this term related to Earth and Nature co-opted by the media since the tv watching is really anti-Nature, isn't it? (How many sitcoms, dramas or anything tv-related inspire people to go outside? The whole point of tv is to prompt the opposite, right?) Then while writing this I searched the phrase and found the diagram above along with several others showing the family tree of sorts to the tv ecosystem.
The interviewer suggested that surely his guest tires of watching tv at times up to 19 hours a day. On the contrary, the guest spoke of finding pleasure in this as it's a continuation of childhood in which he grew up watching tv.
I watched tv in childhood too. There was "Laugh In" on Tuesday nights, "Patridge Family" on Fridays and "Soul Train" and "American Bandstand" on Saturdays but I also rode my bike, explored in the woods, played softball, loved books, swam, sewed, made Creepy Crawlers and anything else I found to create and ran before running was 'in.'
Then the guest added, "Addictive tv keeps you hooked."
I'm presently watching men competitively bike around France because I savor seeing the French countryside, not because I'm hooked. Then I realized I'm different I suspect because most of the time Life keeps me hooked.
One of the few quotes I remember is from Depak Chopra's novel "The Return of Merlin." Merlin says, "Life is a mystery. Hopefully we are not too busy and miss the vital clues."
The unfolding mystery of my life keeps me hooked even when it comes to going medical appointments as I've done this week.
I've actually put this week off for two years, this being having my thyroid rescanned, getting blood work etc. With my childhood history of thinking I was dying for a significant portion of my elementary school years, I procrastinate when it comes to medical concerns. (In my line of work, I consider this compartmentalization for survival and fear-based denial.) And this is part of my life's mystery.
I experienced a renewed sense of that mystery even upon arriving at my doctor's office Monday afternoon. Unlike stories I hear, I was seen on time and walked out of her office and into and out of a mammogram on another floor within the hour. I got an appointment for an ultrasound within three days and blood work in two. Enroute home, I stopped at another office and signed to have my prior records released and ensured they were received the next day.
I share these things because they're part of my being 'hooked' on Life. I don't watch tv to find and feel wonder, mystery and magic unfolding much of the time in my journey. It's all around me. I only miss it when I'm unconsciously afraid or living on autopilot and non-local, thus not tuned in and present.
It happened again this week when I went to the scheduled ultrasound. I showed up ten minutes early, was called in for the scan and was out in fifteen. Then I signed to get a dvd of the images and the woman making the dvd said it would be ready in five minutes. I went upstairs to sign for a written copy of my results and while on the elevator returning to get the dvd was aware of feeling as if I had entered a flow by listening, taking action and stopping my procrastination.
To feel like I'm in a flow around medical things is a sweet miracle and part of life's greater mystery for me. To be in the flow is feeling a space of peace, trust and calm in my body even now as I await all these results. (This isn't to say I don't feel apprehension or fear awaiting phone calls and faxes, yet on the inside in a deeper place there's a knowingness that this is all part of my soul's journey and life's mystery.)
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| The Clinic at Vandy, Author unknown |
I was pondering all this while returning to the Vanderbilt parking garage for some reason I looked left before turning right. Three feet from me was this amazing sculpture.
I saw it and thought, 'It's the flow!'
Their open arms and bodies in flight suggested flowing through life yet I wondered how many people notice this powerful piece which for me was a 'vital clue' to which Merlin referred in the novel?
How many people instead notice the sanitation station next to the sculpture and miss the flowing figures? How many passers-by trying to stay germ free to keep from disease (ie. potential death) use the soap dispenser not realizing fear creates the foundation for dis-ease or not being at ease and in the flow.
I'm not yet prone to germ, weather or bug fears as perpetuated in much of society but I get it. I have lived quietly and unconsciously run by fear much of my life. My intermittent and at times pervasive unconsciousness has kept me from my personal flow.
Only an hour prior I was personally guilty of missing the sculpture as I was singularly focused rushing to get to my appointment.
It was only while exiting that I saw it.
Symbolically how often do we get out of the flow (busy in Merlin's words) upon entering this physical plane only to find the the flow later in life, near-er our exit then entry?
Inside I smiled even more as I drove home mindful when I'm personally in the flow, the ecosystem around me, through nature, people and art, provides clues as referenced by Merlin as to my journey's unfolding mystery.
I don't begrudge people for watching tv. I just hope as Merlin relates that they're being inspired to find pieces to their life's mystery and not missing the vital clues.
Where and when do you feel your life's flow? How do you experience clues that you're on to your life's greater mystery?
-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 12 July 2013
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