I took off from my routine again on Tuesday and took in some more of the Gem Show. Whereas last time was inside a convention center, this time was the more grass roots, street party face of the show, the sprawl and hustle and bright colors and sunshine lining the motels that line the frontage road on the west side of the I-10.

So much is happening at the moment, and as I said before, it would be so easy to miss out on this. During my wanderings, replete of course with conversations with strangers, I ran into people who've lived in or close to Tucson for decades who were finally coming to see what all the fuss was about with the gems.

Even the way I got myself out to the show was a beautiful illustration of how life converges. I experience myself as the center of my own web, giving meaning to the connections between different parts of my life.

Today for me is day 51 of the 100-day Gong.  Can you believe we've come that far from Winter Solstice already?

Essentially, we're halfway between solstice and equinox. We've moved out of the still point of midwinter but we're not all the way over to plowing the fields yet. It's time to ask groundhogs for their predictions. In the Celtic calendar, it's Imbolc, where old crone energy is replaced by maiden energy. And in the Jewish calendar, originating farther south, it's Tu b'Shvat (was just last week), which is the New Year of trees!

So, what does it mean to be halfway through a 100-day discipline, halfway between midwinter and spring?

Eighty-eight years ago today Hazrat Inayat Khan died--inspired musician, messenger of the divine, and bringer of the Sufi message to the West.  It's a day of celebration, called Urs, which is nothing to do with bears but literally means "wedding anniversary."

The death of a Sufi saint is understood as the transmutation of their physical existence into union with the Divine. (It's interesting that early Christianity had this metaphor also, although in that case Christ was the bridegroom and the Church, the collected body of worshippers, was beloved bride.)

What I appreciate about the metaphor of marriage between departed saint and God, aside from the gender-neutral conception of marriage contained therein, is its reciprocity. By means of the marriage--a union--not only is the saint taken closer to God, but God is brought closer to the world of the saint--whatever God means, whatever the world means to you. You are "this" close to the divine--and to death.

Every year from January 31 to February 15, Tucson plays host to an international gem show. I knew this before I moved here, but more as a fairytale, almost, than with any real sense of cognition around it. After five years in extremely white-and-homogeneous Homer I appreciate how international Tucson is in and of herself. And she's definitely rich in gems, metaphorical and literal--petrified wood, wonderful quartzites and schists.

But for this two-week period a whole separate reality plays out in the convention centers and hotels, the motels that line the Interstate 10 frontage.

I imagined I could easily miss the whole thing by simply sticking to my routine, such as it is. But over the weekend I had the opportunity to be a fly on the wall at one of the convention centers.

It was as if the Silk Road had been transported to the Southwest.

Irony of the day: I have so much to say on the subject of framing, I've been having trouble getting started (choosing a frame of reference)!

Perfect, right?

The plot thickened and deepened with the etymology of "frame," discussed in the previous post, and how it carries that positively oriented baggage of advantage/benefit. Round and round my thoughts have gone.

Then, too, this blog is a frame, but I also need to carefully frame this blog. Like pictures looking back at you from their frames, this business of providing, defining, refining context can be a two-way street.

"Frame" and "reframe" have been a recurrent theme lately.

• Trying to provide for family, or wanting to deplete fossil fuels to the point of no return?
• Dressing provocatively, or wanting to maximize vitamin D absorption?
• Sharing the benefit of hard-earned knowledge, or trying to sell more books by whatever means?
• Deepening my mindfulness, or starving myself?

I'll be writing more about this, but let's start by looking at the word "frame" itself.

Today is about fasting and dreaming.

I've been posting so much of late about creating chosen habits, crowding out habits that don't serve, cultivating practices to enable this, raising our awareness of what we do on autopilot and how to ensure that the "autopilot" habits are the ones that make us who we want to be.

I hope it's clear that I'm making no claim to have it all figured out. I write in a sincere spirit of sharing, my part in a dialogue, my endeavor to help put out the message that we can take steps to influence our own thought patterns.

Here, I take a step further into the unknown, looking at how fasting--largely a physical mechanism --affects the unconscious, as experienced through dreaming.