On not feeding the brain worms

In the bright dark wood of love, we wander, some days clear, on the path; others, scratching our heads or our butts, depending on the amount of "stuff"...you know, all those obstacles, mostly self-created that keep us in the endless round of psychological association either projecting the future or dragging the past. In a twinkling, a blink, in that tweaky specific moment the Buddhists call "the gap," the place between breaths, a dead zone, no man's land, the void where every choice is possible, we have the opportunity to do it differently, change the encrusted architecture of our memory, minds and nature...breathe in innovation; breathe out possibility.

If you are anything like me, I awake every morning with a conscious attempt to recognize the delicious newness of the day..."aha, I say, oh God, I get another chance to try it again." As I pad downstairs, let the dog out, check the bird feeder, put the water on, crack open the computer, I find the sneaky brain worms beginning their practice, too. They are hungry and are checking to see if I will offer them food...they love doubt, fear, anxiety. And if finding an appetizer, they could easily wipe me up into a veritable feast of main courses...panic, anger, hysteria. That's their job, of course, to get me, their nutrition into such a state of paralysis that they don't have to go hunting for other prey, having found a good kill on which to feed.

You may think I am speaking symbolically but this experience, that of allowing our minds' thought patterns with their concurrent emotional content provides literal energy to real entities which "need" us in order to maintain their existence. The Yacqui indians and the Toltecs call them "the parasites"...Echardt Tolle references this as the "pain body."

There is only one antidote for this madness; staying present. And the technologies for staying present abound, naturally, that is to say, there are many, as many ways as we humans have of being human with our unique and troublesome prefrontal neocortexes. I keep bashing my proverbial head against the paradoxical truth that "it's not about trying to figure it out." Rather to become more present, I must become more natural. The divine flow of nature is the source of our vitality..the more present I am, the more exchange I receive...and have to offer.

So what about those pernicious brain worms? They do their job, if we choose to walk a path of awareness, of forcing us to exercise our power of choice. It's always an inside job, I keep finding. Today, I am putting my mind to good to use by writing..that's an appropriate exercise of mental energy...and the worms, they dissappear when I don't let me fool me into identifying with one of myriad, self-deprecating "talking tapes" they spin in my head. Time now to don my winter fur and go out into the bright, white winter day.