Loose Leaf Notes

1. Freud is like the Old Testament and Jung is like the New Testament.

2. “Two men looked into a pond. Said the one: ‘I see a quantity of mud, a shoe and an old can.’ Said the other: ‘I see all these, but I also see the glorious reflection of the sky.’” via Alan Watts

3. A new take on the selfie: The photo pictured above is of a mirror image of Joe and me.

4. I’ve always felt that the world of reflections was more interesting than the literal world, in the same way that physical reality seems to be the watered-down version of my imagination. And why is it that we consider physical matter (which quantum physicists have shown to be mostly empty space) more real than shadows, reflections, or dreams?

4. Joe had taught a training at a West Virginia Resort on the addictions day program he runs that incorporates mindfulness and more. I tagged along for the perks.

5. I’m a mandala in your eye / a sunflower dancing / on black scrying mirror / where the sun and moon are lovers

6. We listened to talks by Alan Watts, the late scholar/philosopher and translator of Eastern wisdom for a Western audience, on the drive to West Virginia and back. Below is one of my favorites.

7. “Look, here is a tree in the garden, and every summer it produces apples, and we call it an apple tree because the tree apples, that’s what it does. Alright, now here is a solar system inside a galaxy and one of the peculiarities of this solar system is that at least on the planet Earth the thing ‘peoples’ in just the same way that an apple tree ‘apples’.” -Alan Watts

8. Joe added that the apple has everything it needs inside itself to also become a tree.

9. When I sit in my favorite chair with the Andrew Wyeth print “The Writer’s Chair” behind me and a window to outside in front of me, the window reflects a window front the Wyeth print and lines up and makes it appear that the birdfeeder on my porch has a window on it.

10. We say ‘I have a body’ not ‘I am a body.’ When we say ‘it’s raining’ who is it?

11. Someone mentioned The Twilight Zone. I called it an Escape Room Scavenger Hunt… Read more HERE. 

12. Buy postage stamps / with tulips on them / Color in your doodles / with highlighter pens / Dream about roses / Press four-leaf clovers / Kiss and tell the whole truth… Read Remedy for Depression II in its entirety HERE. 

13. “Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.”  – Alan Watts

___________Thirteen Thursday