(Zap Oracle card 570)
| | | text and photo © Jonathan Zap | | 570 |
| Boulder, 28th street at sunset |
Often we set standards and expectations for ourselves that would be
more realistic if we lived in a world redesigned by our egos where the
first law of thermodynamics tended toward efficiency instead of
entropy. Many of us apply standards of perfectionism to ourselves, our
lives and others, that do not take into account the often darkly
distorted and backward conditions of the Babylon Matrix. When you do
take those conditions into account, you may find perfectionism replaced
by compassion.
For example, whenever I plan out how long a
certain chore or project will take, I have found that it often takes
two to four times longer than I think it will. When I attempt to plan,
I put on my ego's glasses. With my ego's glasses on, the fisheye,
backward, darkling distortions of the Babylon Matrix flatten out into a
chessboard-like landscape. The ego sees how it can checkmate the chore
or project in three or four moves. Through the ego's glasses, I
conveniently forget to see the dark, distorting fields of the Babylon
Matrix, the laws of mechanical resistance, the strange and sometimes
chilling winds blowing through my psyche, and through the whole
species, so that we make our moves quite
ofthttp://www.xanga.com/private/editorx.aspxen against the wind, and in
a landscape where gravity is unstable, and the blowing sheets of rain
are laced with psychoactive substances altering our moods and
perceptions. And when you make your moves against the wind, in a
landscape where gravity is unstable, and the blowing sheets of rain are
laced with psychoactive substances altering our moods and perceptions,
then you will find that many chores and projects take two to four times
longer than you thought they would when you were wearing ego glasses
that saw the world as a nice, neat chessboard.
My point is
neither complaint nor discouragement, quite the opposite. We learn and
develop more in the Babylon Matrix than we would in a chessboard world.
Also, it is encouraging to realize that we may be doing better than we
think we are given the conditions that we labor under. For example, we
may marvel at the wonderful novel or painting or invention someone
made. But if you read their biography you may often marvel all the more
at how they got anything done, even taking out the trash, given the
problems and conditions they labored under. Look again at Van Gogh's Starry Night,
and as you gaze at its cosmic magnificence, try to also hold in your
mind the horrendous life conditions Vincent labored under, his strong
genetic tendency toward bi-polar disorder, the failure to sell any
paintings to anyone but his brother while he lived, his woefully
deficient diet, and so forth and so on, and see if the star of Starry Night doesn't seem to glow even brighter in your mind as you realize the darkened sky under which he labored.
The night before I wrote this card, I had ended the evening feeling
like I wasn't getting enough done, and went to this oracle and the I
Ching looking for answers. The oracles didn't seem to cooperate with my
agenda. I was in a self-help mode; I wanted the five steps to an
effective and efficient life, but the Zap Oracle was emphasizing the
shadow aspects of life, and in the "What to prioritize…" place was the
card "Beautiful Friendship" when I thought key relationships were what
was getting in the way of accomplishment. The I Ching gave me "Inner
Truth" and "Difficulty at the Beginning." Not satisfied with what
seemed to be oblique answers, I attempted some dream seeding, inviting
my unconscious to manifest dreams that might address my questions about
efficiency and effectiveness. In the dream that followed this request,
I am a new recruit in a kind of boot camp. I'm aware in the dream that
I am fifty-one (my age in the waking life), but I know that everyone
else in boot camp is struggling too, and no one is going to want to
hear about my age or how special I think I am. My attitude in the dream
is one of modest acceptance and diligence. During the basic training
session — and it seems we are in what appears to be a school classroom
rather than an outdoor training field — we are told that a
psychoanalytic program is available to us that takes about forty-two
years. When I awoke from the dream, I realized that I'm about
thirty-one years into that program in the waking life, so I have about
eleven years to go. Now that I know what's involved much better than I
did when I was twenty, I realize that those will have to be eleven very
highly developmental years indeed if I'm going to finish so soon. The
message from the unconscious, in response to the questions from my ego
about how to live my life more effectively and efficiently, was that
life is like a cross between boot camp and a classroom, and the
psychological development part of the program, if you choose to engage
it, is a bit more than the expected ten weeks of boot camp, about
forty-two years more. Also, rather than complaining about these
conditions, my focus needs to be on modest acceptance and diligence.
Also
last night, during the same hour when I was resisting what seemed like
oblique answers from the oracle, I was skimming the news via internet
and a few sentences in a news story about obesity in women caught my
attention. There was an uncanny sense that the few sentences contained
a more direct answer to my questions about efficiency and
effectiveness. Here's what I read:
"Inappropriate restraint
was a third major factor tied to women with excess weight in both of
these recent studies. Restraint seems to have two different faces,
since it has been linked with lower calorie consumption and lower
weight, but also with weight gain and overweight. The European study of
middle-aged women adds important insight by differentiating between the
two types of restraint. Rigid restraint involves strict eating rules
and a downside that it may promote binge eating once you break a rule.
It was linked with greater short-term weight loss, but after two years
was unrelated to weight. However, flexible restraint, a habit of
moderate self-regulation and compensation for occasional high-calorie
choices, was one of the strongest predictors of weight loss at two
years.
"To encourage flexible restraint while avoiding overly
rigid rules, experts urge us to create stable eating habits to meet
nutritional and hunger needs without fostering a sense of deprivation.
The Center for Mindful Eating recommends mindful eating that honors our
food and our body's hunger signals, portions that make sense and
attitudes free of depriving rules and unrealistic expectations."
Source: "The Reasons We Eat" (msn.com)
In other words, under the difficult conditions of being an obese
middle-aged woman trying to lose weight, perfectionism was counter
productive, and a more realistic, tolerant, flexible approach to
discipline was effective. Working through the difficult conditions of
the Babylon Matrix in general is helped by letting go of perfectionism
and creating stable, flexible habits of discipline that you can live
with. You allow for slip-ups and compensate for them rather than
punishing yourself or trying to tighten the screws of control.
Last
night I also went to sleep early, and set an alarm, even though it was
a day off, for six hours later. Often I only need six hours of sleep,
but this morning I found myself turning off the alarm and sleeping for
an additional three hours. I woke up feeling discouraged that I slept
so long — nine hours — but I also realized that it was in the three
hours after the alarm that I had the dream. I also found that I felt
incredibly well rested and that I was in just the right state to write
this card. The flexibility to sleep longer seemed to have worked out.
A
couple of years ago, I was feeling really discouraged about the same
efficiency/effectiveness issues and tackled the problem in an all-day
writing session which became an essay entitled "Mechanical Resistance Matrix".
In the course of writing this essay I consulted with the I Ching which
helped me to enumerate principles for dealing with a mechanically
resistant matrix. Those principles paralleled what I found in the news
story last night, and added a few more principles like attention to
detail. I recommend reading that essay if this card seems relevant to
you. Also extremely relevant are Path Finding/Day Mapping Kill the Time Grid and Fire Up your Life — A Lesson in Practical Magic and other documents in the Warrior Stance section of this site.
Consider this a propitious time to heal the way you work through a glass darkly.
Feedback always welcome, send to jonat...@hotmail.com |
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