231108 - Heaven is just a mindset away

“Heaven is just a mindset away”

… I’ve had a lot of experiences of restlessness - the hole of despair worse than that numb, melancholy one colloquially referred to as depression. Restlessness seems to be the mood of the age. The one that rushes forward, because today is too much to deal with. Stumbling, falling, desparately avoiding feeling what is there to be felt. Since we’re on the topic of music anyway (Nothing but thieves can be thanked for the namesake); Jimi Hendrix “Manic Depression” captures that feeling perfectly. This quote struck a cord with me, as I closed my eyes and let myself feel the electric buzz traveling down my spine and out my fingertips. I had to shake them a bit to let it go. A part of me knows it’s the nicotine. I don’t normally smoke, but tonight carried something different and I rolled myself a small cigarette with a 50/50 mix of tobacco and a herbal mix we bought in some Ayurvedic store nearby. A big grin has been slowly unraveling itself on top of my face, maybe even more inside of it than the physical reflection reveals. The fragrance of the night lets me slow down enough to actually feel it. The fact that we basically spent the whole day in bed certainly aids such an exposition. I feel my hands, my fingers, as they move. My lungs: up, down. Air moving, as I breathe: in, out. Again, I’m alive. Curious, how that plays out. How the contrast transforms everything. Was I alive, before, too? Probably, but it never looks that way, as I’m standing on this hilltop looking out over the City of Memories. I guess the perspective play tricks on me. Time slows down, and phenomena - when allowed to be - acquire a scent of meaning, are imbued with the essence of something always going beyond itself. Ephemeral; trying to pin it down would be as fruitful as grasping at water. As such, some would define it as non-existant. The triads of a poetic fool, or perhaps more accurately: a foolish poet. Yet, this is the space I reside in, again. I would call it familiar, except for the fact that it doesn’t exist when I’m not here. By definition the imagining of a mind space is entering it, and although surely possible if one can navigate the treacherous roads, its landmarks are easily forgotten. So I say, along with a madman, having learned that they are the best ones to agree with if one hopes to say something true, something real, I say:

The distinction between sanity and insanity is narrower than a razor’s edge, sharper than a hound’s tooth, more agile than a mule deer. It is more elusive than the merest phantom. Perhaps it does not even exist; perhapts it is a phantom (Philip K. Dick - VALIS)

How could one understand him, and keep oneself sane? A fool’s errand, dare I say! This is the space I reside in. Heaven might be a bit presumptious, but anyways I echo his notion. Heaven is just a mindset away.