Broken Hammers, Soffits and Lots of Words

I broke my first hammer! Legitimately! Not for vandalism or anything! Real construction work: soffits! The soffits are done! If I have any say in it, never again will I do soffits! 
Getting closer and closer to being able to spend the night up there!
~
​A few days ago I commented on a quote I had read recently in a book*: "What is the answer? That is the Question!" It is presented as an absurdity, but I find it comforting.

Today, I was reminded about some things that happened a while ago--and these things directly relate to what I am "doing" in Vernonia. So far, life is a dream in Vernonia--an incomprehensible alternate universe. Where am I? 

Once, long ago, I asked a question I thought was deep and difficult to understand: "What is real?" The answer I received was pretty simple and over the years I have decided that it is true:  "What is real is your perception".

Once, long ago, someone told me that there were "no straight lines in Nature". Boy, that messed me up for years. Turns out, after putting it to the test over and over, I think that person was right; there are no straight lines in Nature.  (Straight lines--it appears, are an invention of The Man.)

Once long long ago, someone told me that if I ate dirt, ate a apple seed and drank a glass of water, an apple tree would sprout in my stomach and grow up my throat and out of my nose and my ears . I am not convinced this is wrong, but it hasn't happened yet--and I have eaten a LOT of dirt. 

Once, long long long ago, a philosopher guy (Kant?) asserted that the ultimate proof of the existence of God is the human concept of perfection. That we cannot perceive something that doesn't exist--like a color outside the known light spectrum--strangely enough it is impossible to conceive of a color that doesn't already exist. It's like sneezing with your eyes open. Well, no, it isn't like that, but the point is, in our current incarnation, perfection and new color conception can't be done (and open-eyed sneezes can't be done without assistance and bad repercussions).

Once, a longish time ago, a person asserted to me once that when we listen to music, we are not listening to the notes of the music--- we are listening to the spaces between the notes. That the absence of sound creates a melody--not the presence of the tones.  Turns out, I think that is true also; and it doesn't apply to just music (however,  this may have something to do with the reason I can't dance.)

Once  long ago a spiritual mentor of mine commented: "You've got all the answers but you don't know any of the questions." Now, depending on who is saying this, it could sound like a taunt--but in this case it was meant to refocus my attention. What good are answers unattached to their questions? A little misleading, maybe? Well, again, I was given an idea I didn't know what to do with. So, I carried it around for years until I decided, "Yes. Answers without their questions can be a dangerous thing." I believe it may be the concept out of which the saying "A little knowledge is a dangerous" sprung.  A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. 

Once long long ago, when I was a kid, my Aunt Deborah told me that if you got a splinter, and you didn't let someone get it out, the tiny piece of wood would be sucked into a blood vessel, travel through your bloodstream and poke a hole in your heart, effectively killing you. (Propaganda works! The next time I got a splinter I went running off to my mom, screaming that I was going to die and to get it out get it out get it out!!!   By the time I calmed down enough to show her where it was, the splinter had disappeared. But I knew where it was! It was in my bloodstream on its way to my heart looking to kill me!) Later, this turned out to be a fabrication of my Aunt Deborah's; a LIE. Splinters do not do this. But, oddly enough, years later,  I found out that sometimes, actually, splinters can do this! Just not very often.

Once long long ago I read a book and then I read it again. In this book there was a side story; a side-side story actually. It went a little like this: A mother and her four girls go tramping into the wild jungle to have a picnic (yes, it is a little crazy) and they search around for a place to lay their blanket and eat. The approach a river and see, across the narrow waters, an Okapi. The Okapi looks at them and they look at the Okapi and then--poof--it spirits away through the trees. It is a lovely, private moment and it is a story they tell for years. We, the reader, are a part of the moment and we remember it fondly every time it comes up. The narrator/God of the Story tells us, years later, that the Okapi had been looking for a place to have a baby--close to a water sourse is always preferable, but nowhere too crowded. The area the Okapi was standing when the mother and her four girls appeared, was the fourth time the Okapi had visited the spot and, if nothing weird happened, she was going to choose this space for her birth. But after seeing the humans, she determined it was not a good choice and left. The Okapi baby ended up dead because the mother Okapi could not find a suitable place in time. We, as the readers of the story, are sad about the Okapi baby! Wow! Something that was such a lovely moment for the humans was in fact quite tragic for the Okapi! Much later, the narrator/God of the Story tells us that a few short weeks after the mother and her four daughters saw the Okapi and the Okapi ran off never to return, a band of hunters came through the area and, if the Okapi had stayed and had her baby, she would have been shot dead and her baby killed. Instead, because the humans scared her off, she lost her first baby but lived to have another. Now we, the reader, are forced to stop interpreting the story in terms of good and bad. We don't know what information we are going to find out next--we don't know what we don't know--so we reserve judgement. 

​Once long long long ago (last one, I swear) I heard a Native American folktale (and, like a lot of folktales, it turns out there is a Chinese version and an Aboriginal version, etc.) about a village chief who was given a beautiful pony as a gift from a neighboring tribe all the people said: "Oh! You are very lucky!" and the chief said, "Could be." Then the pony ran away and all the people said: "Oh! You are very unlucky!" and the chief said: "Could be." Then the pony came back leading a string of wild horses into the chief's corral and all the people said; "Oh! You are very lucky!" and the chief said, "Could be." Then the chief's son attempted to ride one of the wild horses and broke his leg and all the people said, "Oh! You are very unlucky!" and the chief said, "Could be." Then an enemy tribe invaded the village an killed every young able-bodied male, but spared the chiefs son because of his leg and the people said; "Oh! You are very lucky!" and the chief said, "Could be."

I was raised by atheists. Active practicing atheists. Not your average, lazy, dime-a-dozen atheists. These were people who honestly hoped to abolish the concept of God in the name of Art, Poetry, Philosophy and Music. (As you might imagine, the Art, Poetry, Philosophy and Music was kind of heavy on the existential side.) But Atheism was my truth growing up. Yet, as a child, I often experienced things that did not fit easily into that paradigm. Eventually, though, the mystical nature of the Universe broke through to me, bludgeoning me over the head repeatedly with its Mystical-ness, testifying about a "knowable unknowableness" beyond the veil. As a result,  over the years, my experience has told me there was clearly more going on than our 5 senses only are able to perceive. I know that whatever "it" is, it has a binding quality, creating wholeness and connection. Putting a name to it is more of a convenience than a truth. Sometimes what what looks like a lot of disparate, unrelated information is actually only one thing--one knowable-unknowable thing.

So that leads me here:  

"Nature can never be completely described, for such a description of Nature would have to duplicate Nature.
No name can fully express what it represents.
It is Nature itself, and not any part (or name or description) abstracted from Nature, which is the ultimate source of all that happens, all that comes and goes, begins and ends, is and is not.
But to describe Nature as "the ultimate source of all" is still only a description, and such a description is not Nature itself. Yet since in order to speak of it we must use words, we shall have have to describe it as "the ultimate source of all."
If Nature is inexpressible, he who desires to know Nature as it is in itself will not try to express it in words.
To try to express the inexpressible leads one to make distinctions which are unreal.
Although the existence of Nature and a description of that existence are two different things, yet they are also the same.
For both are ways of existing. That is, a description of existence must have its own existence, which is different from the existence of that which it describes; and so again we have to recognize an existence which cannot be described."

-Tao Teh Ching, by Lao Tse
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What is the point of sharing all this? It probably wouldn't surprise you if I confessed I forgot what my point was. And that is just it--the above is a whole lot of words and thoughts that occupy space and require energy and I am so very tired. I am an alcoholic and I have enough problems with my brain as it is--I certainly don't need to look for more things to think about. 

Vernonia is the first geographical space I've occupied in which all those thoughts seem to settle down and rest at my feet. The thoughts actually inhabit a different physical space--if that makes sense. The thoughts are not herding me in one direction or another--they are simply available, passive.  "Haul water, chop wood" is a Buddhist principle. I feel like I am "hauling water and chopping wood" for the first time and for me I had to actually haul water and chop wood to get there. Everything is quieter and I am quieter. Portland seems noisy and exasperating and draining--because it is! Cities are like that and I used to love it and live on it! Something in me is ready for quiet and it is a little daunting it sometimes feels like I am making a fool out of myself-- IF I THINK ABOUT IT. 

I'm not going to think about it.

​*The Blood Doctor, Barbara Vine
** The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver