A WHOOPER SWAN'S DIARY: 01/07/17

THE STORY OF JOHNNY WHOOPER SWAN We go to school trusting our parents. We meet a teacher there who stands up front with a big desk, and a pointer. She or he trains us in an authoritative manner. We attach mentally to a life long need for authority in order to live lives successfully. Right so far? In my case, at the age of 25 I was ready to enter the practice of law where I hoped for success and a happy life finally. Very shortly, very shortly, I became anxious. There was a foreboding. I was made more uncomfortable with each experience. Law work is nothing like what I was told it would be. The system is corrupt. But I still cling to my expectation that career success is necessary to my happiness as a man. Each day my grasp of what the fuck success amounts to after all becomes more clouded, murkier. I hear songs on the airwaves and at concerts which describe my life as the life of a fool. What am I becoming? I want to rip off my business suit to run naked in the street with my hair on fire! But I am too afraid. In strange, weird (weird comes from a word meaning wise), fragmented steps I go about a journey of my own believing myself to be the first man to have failed in such a total way which journey works so as to break up my career, end a marriage, and start an entirely new way of relating with my two children whom I love deeply. Almost magically I meet a woman who is a career counselor who asserts a beautiful message that I am made to be joyful in my work everyday and at all levels. This understanding sets me on a completely new course. It is no longer a world of systems to me but an undivided one of unlimited beauty. It reminds me of a painting. A true masterpiece. I am drawn from within to learn the truth about my identity and nobody else can teach me that. From this point onward I will use thinking capacity for mastering mechanical processes and follow my heart, which includes my whole nature, which includes your whole nature and that of every human being for all the rest. I’ll go by the name Johnny Whooper Swan who does not explain itself to anyone. By my fruits shall I be known. Watch me soar!

Saturday, January 7, 2017

It Is Happening

There could be no people to be called artists where all people were living art fully.

Is it too soon? Too late?

What if every moment of every day of one's life were a brilliance? No performers, people living brilliantly?

Is it too soon? Too late?

What if all the world were a stage where nobody was a player because everybody was a player? If everybody were fully engaged by his own life who would be purchasing tickets to sit passively only to serve as the audience?

What if the script has been written on your foreheads? What if the scenery of the perfect setting for a play of a lifetime were present before your five senses complete and music plays all around you and you are, all of you, stars?

photo by Jon Wharton

Who would come to a show in a world filled with brilliance? Who is it would care? I was loading wash into a machine at the laundromat when I noticed a small grey haired woman folding clothes in a tall pile that grew to a point of tipping and her nonchalant response when the laundry tower she carefully built tumbled down. She dutifully picked it all back up and built two new piles. While my laundry was washing I listened to a woman in the room play a guitar who told me she would teach me for free. She said her music is her joy and she did not want it burdened with issues concerning money. We heard the sound that is made when a large drink spills on a floor and turned to see the older lady hobbling ever so quickly with paper towels to clean up her mess. Drawn automatically to be a part of the drama, and seeing the very tiny woman had four enormous baskets of wash, I scrambled to carry a load to her car. This happened somewhere on Earth yesterday so it is not too soon nor is it too late. It is happening as you sit and read. Get with it!