Since I last wrote I had a great sunset run along the beach and then I got hit with a pretty bad cold. I have horrible sinuses so inevitably I get the cold then have to deal with the lingering fall out in the sinus region. I did ride into work today though which means I am on the mend.
Left a little later then I usually do because my neighbor agreed to accompany me in to work. It was a beautiful still dawn morning. As we descended out of Hope Ranch onto more mesa there was a thick layer of fog that present in the foothills. It seemed like the landscape had a pastel glow. Absolutely beautiful.
I think dawn might just be my favorite part of the day. There is something prehistoric to it that I thoroughly enjoy. Very little cars on the roads and a stillness that comes with the majority of the population still tucked warming in their down comforters.
Then right as I was about to pull into work I happened upon another fellow bicycle commuter and feeling as good as one could feel I greeted him with salutations as I passed:
"Goooood morning!"
He obviously was not having the same kind of morning that I was because he blurted out an
"OHHH SH@&#" and pulled off the road with a long chain of obscenities nearly knocking over two trash cans.
It made me think about his life situation and wonder what went so terribly wrong that at 6:50 in the morning, with a beautiful cascade of yellows, orange, and reds in the sky and a soft pastel glow radiating from the foot hills, that this gentleman could be having such a horrible day. A flood of possible story lines came to mind that I will not bore you with here (but I might compose a short story out of one of them).
The underlying message I got from this situation is regardless of what was going on in this man's life, he certainly was not present or he would have surely sensed me as I approached with my 'bike of a thousand creeks'.
Sifu Gardener (a former teacher/ mentor/ and spiritual advisor of mine) used to say "When you do not pay attention, you get hurt." He was not just speaking literally, but metaphorically as well. On one occasion during a scene study he watched me and my partner rehearsing a scene from the back of the black box theatre with a bowl of rice grains resting delicately on his lap. Periodically he would flick these grains of rice with deadly precision at different parts of our body he thought were not "present" or "alive". Occasionally a grain of rice would land on my forehead that seemed to be saying "good morning Chester, welcome to life. You exist in this moment and that is the only true reality". With out presence everything is a lie. It is my opinion, good theatre exists in the moment. Purpose, Intention, breathe, truth. I don't think life is much different.
Good life exists in the moment. We must be on constant guard against anything that would seek to rob us of precious presence such as resentment, fear, dishonest, self seeking, self centered-ness.
Some days I do far better at this then others.
At any moment, you have a choice, that either leads you closer to your
spirit or further away from it.-Tich Nhat Hanh
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