Chop Wood, Carry Water
Tend well your fortress of solitude
The whole quote from Buddhism is, “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”
It’s implied that during the journey toward enlightenment, one must also chop wood, and carry water. The chopping and the carrying are necessary and important the entire time.
The phrase kept popping into my head this week as the new congress prepared to take over. I noted that I’ve been throwing myself into my work and into my home as a balm for all the rest, and how effective it’s been for me.
I’m aware of what’s going on in the world, and I’m doing things help. This isn’t a post about activism or not. It’s about peace of mind. I am not reacting with devastation to the things unfolding outside me. In fact, because I know so very well that the worst things are, the better they’ll be on the rebound, I’m trying to keep my focus on what that other side will look like. And I know, with utter confidence, that it’s going to be better than we can even imagine, maybe better than it would have been had it come sooner, definitely better than it was before the bad thing happened.
The question is, how do I keep my focus on the positive, while working for change in a present moment that might not be what I wish it was?
And the answer is, I chop wood. I carry water.
The wood I’ve been chopping
Some of the most fun wood I’ve been chopping has been freshening up the house for the new year. I put away the holiday things, and they left behind a layer of dust. I’m cleaning and rearranging things, and hanging new pictures in new places, and it’s looking beautiful. I’ve got the chipped- and pocked-up 1960s-era brick fireplace almost bare and ready for its “before” picture. My husband is about to resurface it in stone. It will have an electric fireplace insert, easy to remove if we ever need to return to wood.
Some of the water I’ve been carrying has been equally fun. I really threw myself into getting a novella and 3 novels ready to release, after getting back the rights from their previous publisher where they’ve been neglected and gathering dust for 12 years. This meant scanning in the text, then reading to get rid of the scanner errors. Then someone else reads them to get rid of the scanner errors. Then I read them again to get rid of the scanner errors. (A handful of intrepid scanner errors will still sneak by us all, however.) Then I wrote fresh new book descriptions, or “blurbs,” as we call them in the biz for each of the four, and then I worked with the cover designer and new publisher to get the art just right.
Oliver Heber Books and I are releasing all four in February and March. I’ll pop their little ad at the bottom. I’m super excited. (I mean, if you want authentic witch fiction, read authentic witch authors, amiright?)
Throwing myself into projects that are fun, meaningful, and rewarding is a welcome distraction from the political situation and the fears it instills in me. It’s much better to feel good than to worry.
The benefits of feeling good
Focusing on tasks that require a lot of attention and that we find challenging, important, and personally rewarding allows us to feel good anyway. That is, to feel good, no matter what’s going on outside us. Some people act as if by feeling bad about a situation that can help it. Some feel they have no business feeling good at a time like this. But the opposite is true. Attention what’s wrong feeds what’s wrong. Attention is fertilizer mixed with super-glue. Things grow and attach themselves firmly to us in direct response to our attention.
By letting go of what’s wrong and focusing instead on what’s right, we change our vibration. We change the energy we emit and therefore, the energy that’s drawn to us in response. As we feel better, we create more of that positive energy and all the things that match it in our reality, and less of the bad stuff.
I’m not saying to check-out
One has to stay abreast of events in a time of such peril for democracy and for the world. This post does not advise checking out or giving up, but rather, participating from a place of positivity and strength. The other option is to bring our energy of despondence and defeat with us into the resistance, and that’s not the energy we want or need there.
The most challenging times call for the most resilience
Resilience cannot be found by staring at the stuff we do not want. It can be found by taking better care than ever before of the mundane, everyday parts of our lives where things are good. We must weed our own gardens, tend our own flocks, so to speak.
By paying more attention to the parts of our lives that we love and enjoy, the parts that surround us, and support us, and carry us through this lifetime, we become stronger. Our lives become stronger. Our families become stronger. Our careers become stronger.
By making the very most of everything we have (the true definition of “appreciation,”) we literally increase the value of every bit of it.
Our homes, then, should become as rejuvenating to us as Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. We should do everything we can to make them peaceful, warm, comforting, healing havens. We should keep the stress and strife outside our walls. Our homes are the places where we can retreat and recharge.
Our careers, too, can provide beautiful escapes from the harshness of the world. Especially if they involve topics far removed from all that, and especially if parts of our jobs are challenging, and especially if we feel that we’re good at what we do and find it rewarding and fulfilling.
As things unfold I suggest that for our own health and well being, the majority of our time should be spent on our families, homes, health, and careers.
This current fight
The current global battle between love and hate, progression and regression, forward and backward, has been going on from the dawn of time and will continue to rage. The pendulum will swing one way, and then the other over and over, but the arc of progress leans forward. With each swing, the pendulum goes further toward progress, and less toward ignorance. The fulcrum point is constantly inching left as we evolve ever forward. We can’t help it, we are beings of continuous expansion. If we stop growing we die.
We’re not going to win the war in our lifetimes because it’s an eternal struggle. We might win some major battles, though, and they’ll be well worth the fight. We will move the fulcrum, the center, further toward love, further away from hate.
But the underlying conflict will go on long after we move out of these bodies, and maybe it has to. Maybe the constant turning of the wheel from dark to light to dark to light is what powers life and consciousness itself. I don’t know. But it feels like there’s a powerful truth in there somewhere.
I think I know that hard times are what fuel change. And I think I know that change is desperately needed in the world of humankind to avoid disaster. So maybe this strange period of US history is happening for a reason.
I think I know we are here in this existence to experience all physical life can offer us. We’re here to eat from the amazing buffet of our lifetimes. We do our souls a disservice if we only eat one dish, or only eat the awful ones as if there’s some virtue in choking down muck.
No. Our souls came for the deliciousness, the sweetness, the goodness, and for the thrill of the ride. We owe it to them to show them a great time.
So relish all the parts of life that seem mundane. Fall in love with the chopping of the wood and delight in the carrying of the water. Bring all the fun and love and beauty into this experience that will fit!
Be guilt-free
The more time we spend on joy, the more joy ripples out from us into the world, and that joy is a real thing. It attracts more joy to it and grows exponentially. It keeps growing long after we’ve experienced and emitted it. It touches others who touch others who touch others.
That’s how we win, you know. By spreading so much light that the darkness is overwhelmed and driven into its own shadow. You can’t defeat darkness with more darkness. You can only defeat it with light. So shine, baby, shine! And don’t feel guilty for enjoying your life to the fullest. Understand that your joy is HELPING.
Fill your life with joy, bask in and beautify your home, make your experience more pleasurable in every imaginable way.
These things help us to feel better, and in feeling better, we can more easily find joy.
Our joy ripples outward without end, touching everything in existence.
And goodness grows.
She changes everything she touches
and
Everything She touches, changes.
Releasing back-to-back through February and March…
Pre-order is now available for the eBooks, which are Kindle/ KU exclusives.
PAPERBACK Pre-order is coming soon. Paperbacks will be available on the same dates as the eBooks wherever books are sold, including BN, Books-a-Million, Bookshop.org, Amazon, and many more retailers.
Distributed by Ingram’s, the books will be available to most retail booksellers.
LEGACY OF THE WITCH — Book 0.5 — Novella Prequel, February 4th
MARK OF THE WITCH — Book 1, February 25th
DAUGHTER OF THE SPELLCASTER — Book 2, March 11th
BLOOD OF THE SORCERESS — Book 3, March 25th