Hello Jeff. I read you this Sunday morning. Now waving to you from Gaspésie, Québec, Canada. I work as a psychiatrist and paddle my canoe in whitewater for fun. Your parallels between whitewater rafting and the deap stream of life are beautiful. We could have fun playing with this comparison. You can’t fight the river. You have to commit. Dealing with obstacles is an occasion to find a calm eddy behind. You can surf fast moving waves, being in contact with their speed and power but finding your own pace and balance, and look around to orient yourself and make decisions in your way down the stream. You can paddle solo or decide to paddle tandem to share the challenges and achievements. The river is sometimes calm, but not for long.
So gorgeous David, I’d love to ride some Quebec whitewaters with you! I’ve done a little bit in a canoe, just enough to get a taste for the thrills and the satisfaction. I love how you extend the analogy.
Jeff, it will be a pleasure if you come over to paddle. The rivers here are pristine, turquoise and cold. I can teach you and we could paddle tandem in the rapids.
Let’s discuss more this theme, the comparison of the deep stream of life and the challenge of paddling whitewaters. I will sound crazy, but you could organize a special episode of your mind bod (it would be quite an adventure) podcast on the shore of a gaspesian river. :))
Wow, what a fantastic read this morning. I’ve never heard of the two streams related to meditation but immediately felt like I knew them intimately. I’ve always felt like an outsider looking in as other people move around me . This sounds sad or bad but it’s isn’t, it’s just how I’m wired I think. I observe and can feel overwhelmed and exhausted from too many emotions, my own and those I observe and consequently absorb and feel from others. I had to learn a certain level of detachment, of seeing without allowing what I see to consume me. As an empath I can feel very intensely and this can be incredibly painful. Especially when I see pain and suffering in animals or humans who do not have a voice and are helpless. I’m still trying to figure out how to see in this case and help without falling apart myself. The streams feel oddly like home but also like I’m not really a part of them. I’m standing in the middle of them as I watch everyone else in them. Maybe there could be bridges for people to get out and cross to the other one ? ( vivid imagination anyone ? ) in any case, I don’t want to go into either stream. I want to sit in the woods by the trees with nature and become nature.
I approach my own meditation in this informal way as well. Everything can be viewed as meditation. When I’m walking and my mind tries to take over, I bring it back to the beauty of nature. When I’m stuck in traffic or a long line I try to create a bubble of peace around me and focus on stillness in my mind and it tells me that I’m at home there and I can’t change my surroundings at the moment so focus on the self, just like coming back to home base.
Thank you for this. I feel very peaceful 💕
And apologies for my ramblings. I haven’t even had coffee :) but felt the need to respond and share how much your thoughts and writings touch me.
On another note, I love the neurodivergent retreat idea and would love to go, but am unsure if I can make this one. Hopefully this will become a regular offering
Superb ramblings Simone and as a fellow sensitive I can relate to a lot of them. I think sensitivity is part of what lets you detect both of those streams, one contractive, the other ultimately cathartic. Like you, I pretty much have to implement meditation all day long to get through it! Anyway, nice to be connected friend.
Simone, your ramblings ring true in so many ways. In particular, when you write "seeing without allowing what I see to consume me." I often have intense gut-wrenching reactions when I witness deep suffering, or someone inflicting harm -- it is as if I am one with it. But after many years of sitting, I also noticed a growing resilience in the face of that suffering. It's not that I feel detached from the emotions, but rather that they pass more quickly and are followed in some instances by a taking some sort of action. The action ranges from extend loving kindness to political engagement. Another thing you wrote that feels familiar is the possibility of viewing every moment as meditation. I have tried to bring that into some of my routine daily activities-- such as walking from the subway to my painting studio. My home base in those instances is awareness of sensations in nature, the feeling of the air, wind against my face, or the intensity of the sunlight. Looking forward to reading more of your ramblings.
Morning Jeff 🌟 sending you a lot of love and big buckets of thanks for what you provide. Meditation has changed me both inside and out. Your teachings are of deep comfort and help. I pilfer a lot of your stuff within my work as a therapist. I know you’ll be glad to hear that. Big hug, Karen
Morning Jeff! A nice gift to see this email and the 1st thing I read upon awakening! Your beautiful words, thoughts teachings and reminders of the Buddhist Paths are comforting.
Choosing to jump out rather than thrash and fight the stream’s current has been my challenge as of recent and you’re right ,, it can be lonely!!
I had an opportunity to break away from work and travel to a retreat center in the northern Italian countryside with my daughter ( the best!) for a week! For the first time in a long time was able to give way and slip into a peaceful routine of mostly unguided long meditations ( without falling asleep lol) in nature. Words cannot convey the joy and tranquility of mind-body presence and stillness! Especially in a world that seemingly continues to invade and challenge my meditation practice more than ever!
Thanks , Jeff for this momentary sanctuary as we go forth and navigate all that our streams offer today. Hoping to find a good line to paddle inn or around! Feeling empowered that loving kindness and meditation will steer us right!
So grateful for this community you’ve created and the content and camaraderie it provides. 🙏😊 🩷
First, let me say I love you and your work. I loved The Head Trip. Do I capitalize the T in the? Prolly. Anyway, not my point. You were one of the first meditation teachers that really got me going on my journey towards equanimity and I met you in Boone several years ago. It was such a pleasure.
I can hear Jeff say. BUUUUUUUT? 😉
Yes there is a but. It’s really just a question.
Does it ever concern you that saying things like “the world is fucked” perpetuates this false notion that things are way worse than they actually are and this combined with our tendency as humans for a negative default mode, could be harmful to some on that journey I mentioned above?
As you know the goal is to see the world as it is, not as we fear it is or hope it could be. Are there problems on the planet? You bet. Have there always been problems on this planet? You bet.
The reality is this is best time to be alive in history. Just about everything we measure has been and continues improving…Well almost everything. The one measure that seems to be getting worse is our mental health. Is it possible for the vast majority of people, we have it so well, our minds are searching for problems? We are seeing snakes everywhere.
After, 11 years of meditation work, I see more good and less evil, not the other way around. Like I tell my kids. You find what you look for, so choose to look for the good. Acknowledge the bad, see it, realize it, feel it…But don’t forget the good. The downward spiral of seeing the bad everywhere only leads to one place. Despair.
Anyway, that’s it. Just a thought. Love you and everyone reading this. Or ignoring it. Either way, I love you.
Hi Sean, so appreciate these thoughts. I think everyone will come down on this a little differently, mostly by temperament.
Temperamentally I’m actually an optimist. I’m genuinely hopeful for the future of life. And I do try to point out the beauty and even the perfection of reality quite a bit.
And, for myself, it’s been important to acknowledge the specific challenges of every era. I’m not at all sure measures are improving across the board (your exception of mental health is a big one). I think some things are better for some people in some ways, but they’re not better for a lot of other being on this planet – i.e. most animals and sea life – and they’re not better for one quarter of the world population living in extreme poverty. And they are not better for the huge numbers of people struggling with mental illness, living on the street, not being served by their respective governments. Anyway, not to quibble. Because of course you can know all this, and still be an optimist and still choose to look on the bright side. Something I do think is important.
One description of spiritual maturity that’s been influential for me comes from William James with his idea of “once born” vs “twice born”. For James, to be twice born is to be born again into a more complicated spirituality that really sees and acknowledges the relative hardships.
And… The mind does see snakes everywhere! Snakes!! Ahhh!
I’ll leave the last line with the great Crooked Cucumber:
“Things are perfect, and they could always use a little improvement.”
My point on human flourishing is simply that just about everything is relatively better for humans today than at any time in history. Zoom out a bit. Poverty, War, Health, Crime are all improving. Access to shelter, clothing, food, education, clean water, plumbing etc…all better today.
That’s not me being an optimist, that’s me being a realist. 😉Happy to provide some numbers on this.
We are bombarded by negativity 24/7. Our brains are not ready for this. I just think we need some balance. Ya know?
This was one of the most educational practices I’ve done. In fact, I did it twice today. I felt myself very slowly opening up to the concept of identifying where I currently sit within my personal stream of conditioning. I appreciated the description of awareness being the key to disembedding us from it, Jeff.
I had this visual image forming, and thought I would share. I was envisioning myself floating float in a stream, but vertically….as vertical and with as much stillness as possible. I imagined that with every “flex” of my clarity muscle and awareness of my stream of habit energy kicking in, I was able to get just a bit stiller, a bit taller, and a bit more “vertical”….sort of lengthening….and thereby finally able to dip my toes into the deeper stream….and allowing it to start to anchor me against the endless “hurtling forward.” And then…slowly allowing it to guide me in a new direction, which most certainly does feel like relief.
The momentum of my conditioning is no fucking joke. It’s REAL. It’s almost always about things I have to do, even related to meditation! Which is like so very NOT mindful at all. I was present at Omega for this discussion, and it was one of the most important segments of the weekend for me. It was important because I felt unsettled by it. I felt even slightly frustrated. At the time, I felt like I couldn’t connect. I didn’t feel I was reaching or achieving what we were discussing. Who knows why. was in a lot of pain for most of that weekend, and perhaps a deficit of equanimity around that pain played a role. Again, who knows. I couldn't figure it out.
But today, revisiting this concept, I realized that STRIVING ITSELF was the limiter. I was hurtling forward with my typical agenda of “mastering” or “perfecting” or “achieving,” and as such, I couldn’t sense the nuanced subtle current of that deeper stream touching my “toes” that day.
Your decision to dig deeper on this today was really educational, helpful, and useful. I am so grateful for you in our lives, friend!
I hope you are feeling the stream of surrender starting to nourish and guide you in your new adventures in BC.
As always, Richard, I so enjoy your perspective. Yeah: the momentum of our conditioning is no fucking joke. In Buddhism it’s known as “samsara”, a grindingly inevitable circuit that contributes to so much human suffering. Sometime I have to tell you about this intense experience I had as a kid where I really saw that cycle and how I was already and would continue to be helplessly subject to it. The most sobering experience I’ve ever had - I’ve never forgotten it!
Thank you. My intention: for every effort I make to study the tidal wave of bad news in order to be informed about the safety of my people, I will spend time developing my practice to remain a peaceful person, to heal real and perceived injuries and to navigate the chaos. Special love and kindness to victims and perpetrators of the war. May they find peace.
Jeff, thank you for the gift of this meditation. It seems that your Sunday morning meditations often mirror whatever I need in this moment. I found it very helpful to frame what we do habitually as one of several streams rather than something separate and of itself. That makes it easier for me to step back in the moment and let it go. And then the gentleness of being carried by the current made this meditation very peaceful.
A bit of an aside, but maybe not: the consciousness of the stream is present in my work as a visual artist. ‘Voices in the stream’ is the title of a group of recent abstract drawings, and an exhibit of paintings is titled ‘Standing in the stream’.
Jeff, thanks for the opportunity to do a bit of shameless self-promotion! But really, as I've been listening to your meditations over the past year, I've come to realize that as a visual artist, the way I see and my process have mirrored some of the understandings of Buddhist philosophy for a very long time.
For people in NYC, my exhibit is up through October 18 if you want to see my work in person (see second link).
Tamar these are incredible. I got them up on my iPad - they definitely take me somewhere stream-like. and meditative, even a bit discombobulated! happy to showcase your art anytime, that’s been by far one of the most fun things for me about having this Substack
Over the years, my work has zigzagged -- at times they have an expansive and tranquil spaciousness, and at other times they are more energized and tightly coiled. I embody multiple streams of expression......
Something completely different…and it was! Challenging (for me)at first as I was bobbing about without a usual direction.. but a sudden gust of wind came from behind which propelled me forward. Then all felt calm and refreshing…Thank you Jeff!
Definitely a fascinating thought experiment Marc. I think of the first stream as a temporary eddy that ultimately gets washed away, given enough time. But who knows, maybe those imprints also continue on…
Every Sunday I find myself looking forward to this newsletter! In fact, I start my day with it. There's so much here that resonated with me, but the most surprising is I found a title for my next poem here: "What doesn’t flicker"
Hello Jeff. I read you this Sunday morning. Now waving to you from Gaspésie, Québec, Canada. I work as a psychiatrist and paddle my canoe in whitewater for fun. Your parallels between whitewater rafting and the deap stream of life are beautiful. We could have fun playing with this comparison. You can’t fight the river. You have to commit. Dealing with obstacles is an occasion to find a calm eddy behind. You can surf fast moving waves, being in contact with their speed and power but finding your own pace and balance, and look around to orient yourself and make decisions in your way down the stream. You can paddle solo or decide to paddle tandem to share the challenges and achievements. The river is sometimes calm, but not for long.
So gorgeous David, I’d love to ride some Quebec whitewaters with you! I’ve done a little bit in a canoe, just enough to get a taste for the thrills and the satisfaction. I love how you extend the analogy.
Jeff, it will be a pleasure if you come over to paddle. The rivers here are pristine, turquoise and cold. I can teach you and we could paddle tandem in the rapids.
Let’s discuss more this theme, the comparison of the deep stream of life and the challenge of paddling whitewaters. I will sound crazy, but you could organize a special episode of your mind bod (it would be quite an adventure) podcast on the shore of a gaspesian river. :))
This is just about the best thing I can imagine
Wow, what a fantastic read this morning. I’ve never heard of the two streams related to meditation but immediately felt like I knew them intimately. I’ve always felt like an outsider looking in as other people move around me . This sounds sad or bad but it’s isn’t, it’s just how I’m wired I think. I observe and can feel overwhelmed and exhausted from too many emotions, my own and those I observe and consequently absorb and feel from others. I had to learn a certain level of detachment, of seeing without allowing what I see to consume me. As an empath I can feel very intensely and this can be incredibly painful. Especially when I see pain and suffering in animals or humans who do not have a voice and are helpless. I’m still trying to figure out how to see in this case and help without falling apart myself. The streams feel oddly like home but also like I’m not really a part of them. I’m standing in the middle of them as I watch everyone else in them. Maybe there could be bridges for people to get out and cross to the other one ? ( vivid imagination anyone ? ) in any case, I don’t want to go into either stream. I want to sit in the woods by the trees with nature and become nature.
I approach my own meditation in this informal way as well. Everything can be viewed as meditation. When I’m walking and my mind tries to take over, I bring it back to the beauty of nature. When I’m stuck in traffic or a long line I try to create a bubble of peace around me and focus on stillness in my mind and it tells me that I’m at home there and I can’t change my surroundings at the moment so focus on the self, just like coming back to home base.
Thank you for this. I feel very peaceful 💕
And apologies for my ramblings. I haven’t even had coffee :) but felt the need to respond and share how much your thoughts and writings touch me.
On another note, I love the neurodivergent retreat idea and would love to go, but am unsure if I can make this one. Hopefully this will become a regular offering
Superb ramblings Simone and as a fellow sensitive I can relate to a lot of them. I think sensitivity is part of what lets you detect both of those streams, one contractive, the other ultimately cathartic. Like you, I pretty much have to implement meditation all day long to get through it! Anyway, nice to be connected friend.
Simone, your ramblings ring true in so many ways. In particular, when you write "seeing without allowing what I see to consume me." I often have intense gut-wrenching reactions when I witness deep suffering, or someone inflicting harm -- it is as if I am one with it. But after many years of sitting, I also noticed a growing resilience in the face of that suffering. It's not that I feel detached from the emotions, but rather that they pass more quickly and are followed in some instances by a taking some sort of action. The action ranges from extend loving kindness to political engagement. Another thing you wrote that feels familiar is the possibility of viewing every moment as meditation. I have tried to bring that into some of my routine daily activities-- such as walking from the subway to my painting studio. My home base in those instances is awareness of sensations in nature, the feeling of the air, wind against my face, or the intensity of the sunlight. Looking forward to reading more of your ramblings.
Morning Jeff 🌟 sending you a lot of love and big buckets of thanks for what you provide. Meditation has changed me both inside and out. Your teachings are of deep comfort and help. I pilfer a lot of your stuff within my work as a therapist. I know you’ll be glad to hear that. Big hug, Karen
Love that Karen!
Morning Jeff! A nice gift to see this email and the 1st thing I read upon awakening! Your beautiful words, thoughts teachings and reminders of the Buddhist Paths are comforting.
Choosing to jump out rather than thrash and fight the stream’s current has been my challenge as of recent and you’re right ,, it can be lonely!!
I had an opportunity to break away from work and travel to a retreat center in the northern Italian countryside with my daughter ( the best!) for a week! For the first time in a long time was able to give way and slip into a peaceful routine of mostly unguided long meditations ( without falling asleep lol) in nature. Words cannot convey the joy and tranquility of mind-body presence and stillness! Especially in a world that seemingly continues to invade and challenge my meditation practice more than ever!
Thanks , Jeff for this momentary sanctuary as we go forth and navigate all that our streams offer today. Hoping to find a good line to paddle inn or around! Feeling empowered that loving kindness and meditation will steer us right!
So grateful for this community you’ve created and the content and camaraderie it provides. 🙏😊 🩷
Patrice, I can easily picture you in your northern Italian retreat center, thanks for taking me there and very happy to share community with you
🙏😊
Hey Jeff,
First, let me say I love you and your work. I loved The Head Trip. Do I capitalize the T in the? Prolly. Anyway, not my point. You were one of the first meditation teachers that really got me going on my journey towards equanimity and I met you in Boone several years ago. It was such a pleasure.
I can hear Jeff say. BUUUUUUUT? 😉
Yes there is a but. It’s really just a question.
Does it ever concern you that saying things like “the world is fucked” perpetuates this false notion that things are way worse than they actually are and this combined with our tendency as humans for a negative default mode, could be harmful to some on that journey I mentioned above?
As you know the goal is to see the world as it is, not as we fear it is or hope it could be. Are there problems on the planet? You bet. Have there always been problems on this planet? You bet.
The reality is this is best time to be alive in history. Just about everything we measure has been and continues improving…Well almost everything. The one measure that seems to be getting worse is our mental health. Is it possible for the vast majority of people, we have it so well, our minds are searching for problems? We are seeing snakes everywhere.
After, 11 years of meditation work, I see more good and less evil, not the other way around. Like I tell my kids. You find what you look for, so choose to look for the good. Acknowledge the bad, see it, realize it, feel it…But don’t forget the good. The downward spiral of seeing the bad everywhere only leads to one place. Despair.
Anyway, that’s it. Just a thought. Love you and everyone reading this. Or ignoring it. Either way, I love you.
Sean
Hi Sean, so appreciate these thoughts. I think everyone will come down on this a little differently, mostly by temperament.
Temperamentally I’m actually an optimist. I’m genuinely hopeful for the future of life. And I do try to point out the beauty and even the perfection of reality quite a bit.
And, for myself, it’s been important to acknowledge the specific challenges of every era. I’m not at all sure measures are improving across the board (your exception of mental health is a big one). I think some things are better for some people in some ways, but they’re not better for a lot of other being on this planet – i.e. most animals and sea life – and they’re not better for one quarter of the world population living in extreme poverty. And they are not better for the huge numbers of people struggling with mental illness, living on the street, not being served by their respective governments. Anyway, not to quibble. Because of course you can know all this, and still be an optimist and still choose to look on the bright side. Something I do think is important.
One description of spiritual maturity that’s been influential for me comes from William James with his idea of “once born” vs “twice born”. For James, to be twice born is to be born again into a more complicated spirituality that really sees and acknowledges the relative hardships.
And… The mind does see snakes everywhere! Snakes!! Ahhh!
I’ll leave the last line with the great Crooked Cucumber:
“Things are perfect, and they could always use a little improvement.”
Thank you for the response.
My point on human flourishing is simply that just about everything is relatively better for humans today than at any time in history. Zoom out a bit. Poverty, War, Health, Crime are all improving. Access to shelter, clothing, food, education, clean water, plumbing etc…all better today.
That’s not me being an optimist, that’s me being a realist. 😉Happy to provide some numbers on this.
We are bombarded by negativity 24/7. Our brains are not ready for this. I just think we need some balance. Ya know?
Ok enough from me.
Yes for balance!
Hello Jeff, and Home Base family!
This was one of the most educational practices I’ve done. In fact, I did it twice today. I felt myself very slowly opening up to the concept of identifying where I currently sit within my personal stream of conditioning. I appreciated the description of awareness being the key to disembedding us from it, Jeff.
I had this visual image forming, and thought I would share. I was envisioning myself floating float in a stream, but vertically….as vertical and with as much stillness as possible. I imagined that with every “flex” of my clarity muscle and awareness of my stream of habit energy kicking in, I was able to get just a bit stiller, a bit taller, and a bit more “vertical”….sort of lengthening….and thereby finally able to dip my toes into the deeper stream….and allowing it to start to anchor me against the endless “hurtling forward.” And then…slowly allowing it to guide me in a new direction, which most certainly does feel like relief.
The momentum of my conditioning is no fucking joke. It’s REAL. It’s almost always about things I have to do, even related to meditation! Which is like so very NOT mindful at all. I was present at Omega for this discussion, and it was one of the most important segments of the weekend for me. It was important because I felt unsettled by it. I felt even slightly frustrated. At the time, I felt like I couldn’t connect. I didn’t feel I was reaching or achieving what we were discussing. Who knows why. was in a lot of pain for most of that weekend, and perhaps a deficit of equanimity around that pain played a role. Again, who knows. I couldn't figure it out.
But today, revisiting this concept, I realized that STRIVING ITSELF was the limiter. I was hurtling forward with my typical agenda of “mastering” or “perfecting” or “achieving,” and as such, I couldn’t sense the nuanced subtle current of that deeper stream touching my “toes” that day.
Your decision to dig deeper on this today was really educational, helpful, and useful. I am so grateful for you in our lives, friend!
I hope you are feeling the stream of surrender starting to nourish and guide you in your new adventures in BC.
Love,
Richard
As always, Richard, I so enjoy your perspective. Yeah: the momentum of our conditioning is no fucking joke. In Buddhism it’s known as “samsara”, a grindingly inevitable circuit that contributes to so much human suffering. Sometime I have to tell you about this intense experience I had as a kid where I really saw that cycle and how I was already and would continue to be helplessly subject to it. The most sobering experience I’ve ever had - I’ve never forgotten it!
I look forward to that, my friend. In the interim, I will continue to find ways to decommission my samsara! 😆 I’d like to give it some PTO. 😆 xoxo
Thank you. My intention: for every effort I make to study the tidal wave of bad news in order to be informed about the safety of my people, I will spend time developing my practice to remain a peaceful person, to heal real and perceived injuries and to navigate the chaos. Special love and kindness to victims and perpetrators of the war. May they find peace.
Nicely said Elizabeth, that is exactly bang on the kind of intention I aspire to, but rarely manage!
Jeff, thank you for the gift of this meditation. It seems that your Sunday morning meditations often mirror whatever I need in this moment. I found it very helpful to frame what we do habitually as one of several streams rather than something separate and of itself. That makes it easier for me to step back in the moment and let it go. And then the gentleness of being carried by the current made this meditation very peaceful.
A bit of an aside, but maybe not: the consciousness of the stream is present in my work as a visual artist. ‘Voices in the stream’ is the title of a group of recent abstract drawings, and an exhibit of paintings is titled ‘Standing in the stream’.
Very cool Tamar! I’d love to see that. Feel free to include a link here to your work if you’re comfortable doing that, or you could email me.
Jeff, thanks for the opportunity to do a bit of shameless self-promotion! But really, as I've been listening to your meditations over the past year, I've come to realize that as a visual artist, the way I see and my process have mirrored some of the understandings of Buddhist philosophy for a very long time.
For people in NYC, my exhibit is up through October 18 if you want to see my work in person (see second link).
LINK to the drawing series titled 'Voices in the stream' https://www.tamarzinn.com/voices-in-the-stream/
LINK to my exhibit 'Standing in the stream'
https://www.markelfinearts.com/exhibitions/203/works/
Tamar these are incredible. I got them up on my iPad - they definitely take me somewhere stream-like. and meditative, even a bit discombobulated! happy to showcase your art anytime, that’s been by far one of the most fun things for me about having this Substack
Thanks for taking a look Jeff!
Over the years, my work has zigzagged -- at times they have an expansive and tranquil spaciousness, and at other times they are more energized and tightly coiled. I embody multiple streams of expression......
I would love to see this work, Tamar. Is there an online gallery that you can share?
Thanks Richard. Here you go......
For people in NYC, my exhibit is up through October 18 if you want to see my work in person (see second link).
LINK to the drawing series titled 'Voices in the stream' https://www.tamarzinn.com/voices-in-the-stream/
LINK to my exhibit 'Standing in the stream'
https://www.markelfinearts.com/exhibitions/203/works/
Something completely different…and it was! Challenging (for me)at first as I was bobbing about without a usual direction.. but a sudden gust of wind came from behind which propelled me forward. Then all felt calm and refreshing…Thank you Jeff!
So beautifully said. Thank you.
The question is, are the two streams moving away or towards each other… or perhaps the same stream from different viewpoints.
Either way, a fascinating thought experiment especially when applied to my own thoughts, prejudices, hangups and catastrophizing.
Definitely a fascinating thought experiment Marc. I think of the first stream as a temporary eddy that ultimately gets washed away, given enough time. But who knows, maybe those imprints also continue on…
Every Sunday I find myself looking forward to this newsletter! In fact, I start my day with it. There's so much here that resonated with me, but the most surprising is I found a title for my next poem here: "What doesn’t flicker"
Thanks, Jeff!
🕯️
Please send me your poem, Chelene!
A sublime experience Jeff! Nice work!
Thank you! Grateful this home base subscription is on my path :)
Thanks for this. Expertly expressed some ideas I’ve been thinking about
Thank you! This is great.