[Secret Journal] Scratching an Itch (or Not)

8:00 pm. Sunday - So many itches I cannot contain! -- I will bust! It's over! No, wait, stylistically I cannot start with the climax and give up. Must bear and forbear, must be patient. My impatience points to truth of pursuit, not falsity. Simply scratch as always, I have 61 years of ingrained habit, Lord Itch rules the temple.

8:10 pm. Sunday - The last 10 minutes have been a roller coaster ride, wooden, not safety-tested, really rattled my bones. Centered in non-itch new beginning, having scratched till I'm raw in places. Took BIC pen to right ear, smaller than finger, not recommended, certainly, but no one was looking. The things I do in the dark! Clean slate, blank slate, one little itch under eyes, then they creep in and subsume consciousness. I'm lost!

8:28 pm [day unspecified] - What's it been, 20 minutes? Rome wasn't built in 20 minutes, I guess. There's no reason to keep counseling patience, I already know that. This harping on patience is making me more impatient. Counsel mercy, which, apart from a possible first mention, is only truly mercy when it's not mentioned. OK, mercy for myself, still busy scratching. What I need is one decent concentrated itch spot, of my choosing, not a million popping up everywhere. What kind of universe is this, for pity's sake?

8:29 pm Sunday - Brief entry to say, the universe, the world is mercy -- pity, if you will -- I'm not separate. You can't think continental drift, tectonic movement, doesn't itch like hell. That's why we have earthquakes, the Logos rolling over to scratch. Merciful to itself. Giving credence to my theories.

11:00 pm Sunday - Must've dozed off. Dreamed I was on the ground floor of a massive itch, turned out to be a volcano. False alarm?

5:30 am Monday - Woke up scratching, might wear oven mitts today, hands up like a surgeon, reminding myself to break the cycle. That's it, I'm just unconscious through habit (cf. above, Lord Itch, Temple.) Who is this f'n Lord Itch? How did I come to serve him? Who's his consort? Is she worse, prodding him from behind? "Exact tribute from him, you worm!" she cries, calling the Lord a worm? Who is this massive B? Called Lady, probably. Lady Scratch? I guess that's it, men always want to scratch their itch, and Lord Itch just happened to fall for Lady Scratch, etc. "I got you under my skin." Making progress, this has a whole mythic basis!

6:30 am Monday - Finished coffee, my head a lot clearer, scratch that Lady Scratch stuff, unintentional pun, I swear. Scratch that, too ... Oops, did it again. Lady Scratch has now infected my vocabulary, my thought process. More coffee, gulping it down between these pen scratchings, no!!!! Must reclaim temple, especially new deity of my own choosing.

6:43 am Monday - Every developing world/cosmic view starts as experience, then mythologizes in upward ascent, making sense and also making palpable. All I've got so far is the itch point likened to black hole or nucleus, and conjecturing that entering (through consciousness) at that point might (likely?) be a different realm of consciousness. Not realm so much, bad word, too early for mythologizing itch point as kingdom.

7:03 am Monday - Thinking about blog today. Time to throw out some red meat. Maybe crumbs. Nose suddenly itching, think I see Heaven.

Itching = Alt Consciousness Portals?

It's tough not to scratch itches. I've spent my life doing it. I remember some really bad itches right in the middle of my back, then having to scratch them against a tree. And my mother always bringing up that's how horses do it. I didn't like her nagging -- I always bridled -- but she usually reared her head back laughing, so I couldn't actually neigh say it.

But who knows about itches? I know I've always heard there's certain itches that aren't meant to be scratched. Like infidelity, no matter the temptation. The idea in this temptation is that scratching the itch is positive. Maybe it feels positive in the heat of the moment. But we've seen so many who've scratched to their regret. I've heard several cry out in despair: "If only -- woe is me! -- I hadn't scratched that cute little itch!"

I've been thinking lately that maybe these itches -- actual, literal itches -- are meant as portals to other realms of consciousness, if only we could survive the test and not negate them in the very process of their revelation. Ever think of that?

It makes a certain amount of sense. You'd expect portals to be in definite spots, and other realms of consciousness, if they're anywhere, to be accessible through portals. If it were all nebulous and omnipresent -- which I'm not saying it's not -- you'd be falling over backwards into it. But what if we're meant to have a definite grasp on these things, and to visualize them like this: A circumference (the zone) going into the center (the nucleus), somewhat akin to a galaxy and its black hole. That's what I'm working with. I'm theorizing "It's All Happening" at that center, exactly the spot we negate when we succumb to scratching. O! the tricky ways of reality!

I would guess advanced yogis know all this, but they've kept their tongues, likely out of a cosmic sense of humor. They know these portal points are so easy to overlook, and it's funny to them, with our first inclination always being to immediately scratch away. Funny? Sad, really, with the higher realms right there. Good god, what all might we be missing? You know those little baby heads with wings, our almost-children in glory, so prominent in Catholic artwork circa 1860-1920? They had such a work ethic in those difficult years, they didn't have a lot of time to scratch ... maybe that's what they saw!

This is good stuff, and very likely true. But things only got worse in our time. With the coming of modern conveniences -- washers, driers, food processors, radios, TVs -- we're all sitting around, tuned in to every itch and with time on our hands to spare, as it were, so our fingers are busy, scratch scratch scratch. So whatever portals were common for the working man back then are closed to us today.

OK, we might ask, Why didn't the working man reveal more to us about these things, just flat out say it? Because working men back then were slow to speak, with not enough time, and they assumed everyone knew. Everyone breathes, right? You don't tell people, "Hey, I'm breathing!" Or it could've been they were afraid; they didn't want to end up in a mental hospital, which back then were very much a total beyotch.

But, oh how difficult it is to test out these ideas! Even when I feel like I'm tuning in, I still scratch, more or less unconsciously, simply out of habit. So many times I'm that close to getting there and looking around and I scratch. Isn't that weird? The positive to it is I'm still here to write this, but honestly I think I would've maintained consciousness well enough to both experience it and write about it. (Cf. working men, above; they lived to work tomorrow.) I'm not likely to just be overwhelmed to the point of riding a major itch to glory just like that.

My intuition is working overtime. This is all very immediate. I'm not scratching while typing, therefore the insights are flowing more freely. I've also got the consciousness to forebear, and in response the revelations are presenting themselves furiously. I can't keep up, and my nose itches in a massive nuisance way. Something's trying to hold me back, something wants me to scratch, something I have to resist -- you filthy devil! also called Old Scratch (!)-- until, I relent and scratch. "Just a little touch," I tell myself, until once again I die in an orgy of itch relief. But cosmic deflation...

Yet I shall not despair; I've always got another itch coming along shortly; that's the kind of grace I experience. Thinking back, last night was a terrible night sleeping. At one point, 3:30 a.m., I had an itch in the middle of my back. Maybe I was dreaming* of horses; I don't remember, or my mom. It was bad enough that I reached as far back as I could to get it. Now I think, "That could've been it!" Because when I'm in bed, I have all the time in the world to center myself in a spiritual reverie. An itch right on the spine is very likely the gateway to the essence of a particular chakra. Meaning, what is of the greatest discomfort to us would be the very portal to our absolute greatest comfort!

I can't go on. I must break. I must seek out the worst itching I can have! I'm sorry, this is too important.

*Night before last, in a dream, one of my cousins told me her middle name was Abner.

Sudden thought: Pet dander -- Anything there? It has to itch.
Note to self:  Book possibility, the It-ching, 64 different meanings of your itch.

I'm One Pebble In A Vast Ocean

I guess I'm happy enough with reality. And if I'm not, it doesn't look like it matters. So I may as well be happy enough with it, even if I have to fake it.

But I'm not faking it, now that I think about it. I'm OK being one pebble in a vast ocean. That's the apparent reality, but according to what I'm also thinking, I'm also the vast ocean looking at the pebble.

There's no need to say, "So and so said that," because you can't improve on truth, so it's as much mine as it is his. Can openers, you can improve on. Garage door openers. The taste of dog food. Insulating houses. Making longer and better extension cords. Have at it, go for it.

But getting away from being the vastness ... that's all well and good ... there's still the daily realizations that you're a pebble in a vast ocean. I've got the four walls I've got and they're different than yours. Just looking around the room. Someone mass produced this keyboard but I've got the one I have. Others are plinking on their own but I'm plinking on this one. Others are writing their version of hogwash but -- modesty prevents me from saying what I'm writing.

I go could out in the back yard and see if the stars are out. They probably are, unless someone put them away. The sky's like a bunch of scattered toys that some tired kid forgot to put away, so if I trip over a star in the middle of the night, I'll burn my foot. Looking up and knowing that you can't really see them any clearer with a telescope gives you a humble thought. Except you are looking, and that should count for something.

Making Living Creatures Happy (Tweets)

If I were to make the slightest sign to my dog that I was willing to take her to the park, she wouldn't rest until we got there.

All I have to do, really, is look at her in a particularly interested way ... just that little sign would be a sign to her something was up.

In a few minutes it's going to happen. I'm going to do my part toward granting joy to the universe by blessing one little dog. It's cosmic!

Someday I'm thinking when she's on her deathbed, I'll say "Park" and she'll rouse bravely one last time, then finally fall back exhausted.

But that's sad to think about. It's never too early, though, in my opinion, to think of the blessings you can bring to other living things.

OK ... I'm just about ready to make my move. She's crashed out on the floor to my left. Sleeping, not soundly, but a superficial nap.

Do you wanna go to the park? Yea! Yea! Underbrush is very excited! Jumping, anxious, ready to go! Let's go! C'mon! Let's do it! Yes!