Last tangent from the Gem Show:

As a person drawn to bright shiny objects and who picks up rocks, it's easy for me to think the word "touchstone," and to think it as a stone that you touch, and so a talisman, a symbol of go(o)d luck, a reminder. And of course it is all those things.

But there's more to it--more to it literally, and therefore more to it metaphorically--in a way that calls me, at least, to level up, up!

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.

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.

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.

I sure wrote a lot about the concept of the 100-day Gong back in November and December. But I've been pretty silent on the subject since starting my Gong on the winter solstice.

I've been more focused on doing/being/embodying the Gong than on writing about it, although the preponderance of posts in the "Mindfulness" category should attest both to the nature of my Gong and to how much it's in the front of my mind and experience.

Today, though, is day 30, and it's time for an update. 30 is a good number for this Gong's subdivisions: not quite a third of 100, it's also at the three-and-a-third point in my own nine-day-cycle subdivision, so that when my third "nundina" ended on Friday, I was already looking toward this 30-day review point. 

WIth this "buddy system for days," it's fascinating to see how much more comfortable I can be setting goals in the face of the unknown. If one day doesn't bring it, there are days around it to tauten the focus.

In creating a blog, in performing a gong, in writing a book, in planting gardens, in the march of days, nights, seasons, there's repetition everywhere. What do you associate with repetition? 

• "practice makes perfect"
• conscious replacement of memes
• focus, mindfulness, creation of second nature
• "fake it till you make it"
• tedium
• "why do I have to sweep the floor/eat/pull weeds when I'll have to do it all again later?"
• So many words I could pick for "word of the week" here ! To push against the negative aspects of repetition, I chose "rote."

Part 1 of 2
Most people have heard that a staggering percentage of our decision-making is done subconsciously, on autopilot (a study from the Max Planck Institute calls free will into question), which leads to the claim that much of the time, we're using a tiny fraction of our potential brainpower.

We know this --it's ingrained in our language and culture. What happens when you "push someone's buttons"? --They react in a completely predictable, reflex manner. Dogs can be trained to salivate when a bell rings, which has nothing to do with food except for an association they have "wired in."

Although there's all sorts of problems with comparing mind and consciousness to a computer's operating system, the metaphor of programming definitely fits here. We have little scripts ("memes") running in the background that determine how we respond to things around us, often in ways we're not proud of, and we don't even know the memes are there, we didn't choose them, and we wouldn't choose them  if we had the choice!

Rooting out and replacing these memes is at the heart of habit-changing and a guiding light in choosing the practices to make up a 100-day gong. Memes come from mimicking; what do you wish to reflect?