It was only a few minutes ago I was outside drying off a metal lawn chair that I had brought in from a welcomed gentle, morning shower. Putting it under the deck, I began drying the chair and our dog, Yogi, was curious, poking his sniffer wherever my hand went, sniffing away... a not-unusual occurrence. (Annie, our older dog, couldn't care less.)
"I'm drying it off so I can sit down," I was explaining to him, "You don't want to sit on a wet seat." I realized at that moment he wouldn't care if it was wet or not if he gave any thought to curling up in the seat. I've never seen Yogi sitting in a chair. He's done plenty of curling up in "his" favorite chair, but sitting..? No, never saw that. He's a good size Boxer/Rhodesian Ridgeback mix... big enough to be noticed if he sat in the chair.
I was drying the chair so I could sit down (which I haven't yet). Why did I say 'you'? Why say 'you' when I really meant 'I'? It's pretty common. We include others in our world. Whatever it is we're telling people about an observance of some sort or another, we toss in the word 'you' to include another... 'I' becomes 'we' and thus a dialogue begins.
"'Always hold 'your' hammer as low on the handle as 'you' can and it feels secure in 'your' hand. 'You' don't want to hammer as much as you want to drive the nail..." (made-up for the moment)
The 'you' is the 'I' as in "I always hold...", sharing how 'I' hammers. The speaker is including 'you' in the way s/he uses a hammer. But 'I' must be aware of not over-using the word 'I'... people don't like to hear (from another) the word 'I' too much. It approaches ego-centricty. Too much 'I' from too much solitude with oneself can cause 'I' to dominate 'we', something 'we' doesn't take to kindly to.
Solitude is necessary to reconnect, “I love tranquil solitude” (Percy Bysshe Shelley). Other times we find a forced solitude - isolation: "<i>The worst solitude is to be destitute of sincere friendship</i>” (Francis Bacon) We need to get away in order to get-it-together before we get together with others.
"The more together the better the get-together with others" (Cecil) 'I' becomes 'we'... like a drop of water in a river, where does the drop begin and the river end? River flows into the sea, sea is conjoined to ocean; 'I' am all wet, 'we' are all wet. If 'I' or 'we' dry out 'we' still are, only absorbed into the earth or the clouds... the circle so goes...
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What I have written here is what I call "Longhorn Buddhism" - speaking of the wholeness of life using a bit of bullshit, a damn fine fertilizer for the imagination to take no thing into some thing. I've been a practioner of Longhorn Buddhism for many years and during those times I've heard alot of the same from many folks, none of whom have ever heard of it. But no matter what you call it, the fragrance is the same...
Cecil
First Sunday of October 2005.
<center>Symbol of Longhorn Buddhism
This actual symbol can be found upon the staff of M.T. Mynd, within a work of imagination I named "Mezmerata" (not shown)</center>
