Tags
Aztec calendar, Chapel Street, Constellations, Cricket, Dogma, General consensus, Greasepaint, Gypsy curse, Paris Hilton, Reality, Religion, Sport, Unrehearsed, What's left, Yogic studies
Today there was almost a teensy stoush at my office… a handful of us working the two and a half days til New Year’s Eve, with only my good self representing the female quotient. The boys – keeping tabs on the cricket.
I made the error of stating my opinion – I don’t think cricket is actually a sport – partly in jest, part seriously… which earned the wrath of certain geeky developer types… how dare I denigrate one of their sacred cows?
Is sport a religion? In Australia, possibly so! 😉
Which morphed into a ridiculous conversation on definitions, general consensus, labels, logic and meanings… as I purposely steered towards the whacky, the offended were determined to take issue.
Whoops, just slipped beneath the radar of ‘accepted’ reality for a moment there folks! Wrong audience, yeah, wrong audience…
Oh, and apparently Paris Hilton dropped by for a spot of shopping – Chapel Street is an uppity shopping zone – I missed the whole thing. Yawn…
If there’s anything I’ve learned from the past few years in recovery, as well as from my yogic studies… one person’s definition of anything is not another’s.
And whilst some may accuse me of dogma, that is their right. But – that does not make them right. And – at the exact same time, nor am I, for that matter. Stick that in yer pipe!!
What matters… is seeing reality as it really is. Not as easy as it sounds, slippery varmint…
I backed away from today’s is-cricket-a-sport-or-isn’t-it debate, knowing full well it could’ve become unpleasant.
Not because I’m incapable of holding my own intellectually. But emotionally, I’m in no place for a battle where unpleasantness is included.
Of course, it wouldn’t look like that to others. But I’m not explaining myself… and so the great divide of reality reveals itself, in part.
If you look close enough.
Who says everything has to make sense, anyway?
Get used to contradictions and accept both positions, a wise man once told me.
Then, if any-thing that’s without is also within, who am I to argue?
I’m turning, the year is whirring, there’s a buzz in the air. Magic’s happening, transforming, time returning to itself. Tendrilly strands float lightly – some forwards, others back. Yet all is here and now, anyways… so, what to do with that? There’s a pace, slightly speedier than a meaningful stroll to complete important chores…
I see now, where I am… it’s not so much where I’ve been, but that which remains… still real in some way. The apparitions fade as the year drains away; dying moments wafting like fragrant incense. But mostly… no longer here.
No, I don’t know what I’ll say tomorrow for the most part, or the next day. I purposely hold off from planning it out. Therein lays the excitement… possibility… potential.
I want it to be real, not imagined or rehearsed. My opening lines may sputter before natural brilliance is revealed, but then, you’re seeing me as I am. Without the greasepaint. No costumes.
Oh sure, there are bigger plans afoot, the constellations by which I navigate my course, now that I have a future again… if I ever did, if I have a say at all (I’ve sometimes doubted that), and assuming that gypsy curse ever has a use-by date.
~Svasti
Svasti: A Journey From Assault To Wholeness 
Svasti–I laughed out loud at your description of sports as religion–and actually that’s true here in the U.S. as well. Particularly in Boston, where I live 1/2 the time. People in this town REALLY take baseball seriously–it is very much a religion. Falling only slightly second to that is football (real football NOT soccer :P).
My friend, I wish you peace, happiness, and healing in the New Year.
Take care,
Melinda
The Ex was (is?) a great fan of cricket. I always thought it rather ridiculous that a group of men in coloured ‘pyjamas’ (although their white Test kits are quite elegant) running around a field could take themselves so seriously. 😛 *LOL*
“..one person’s definition of anything is not another’s”
How true.
Wishing you a New Year of peace and joy.
Cricket is bloody boring! Except when its naked calendar time 🙂 But I rarely say that outloud, about football and cricket because the unpleasantness it evokes is just not worth it and even more boring than the sport itself 🙂
The biggest mistake is making lists to do things, for me I have found its a sure fire way of never actually doing anything, well apart from writing lists.
I would like some of that buzz/magic myself or maybe I will make some of my own 🙂
Loved this post and the pictures you used, especially the mayan? thingy
🙂
I went a bit 🙂 crazy whoops 🙂
darn it 🙂
aha!
~ “one person’s definition of anything is not another’s.” ~
The same with reality and that my reality and therefore ‘truth’ is personal to me (as Jesus said to Pilate)…In the end, we create our own reality, life and afterlife and are our own
Gods (and demons) — it is all a bit like cricket (and equally boring)
henry
Eh… hem…
I love cricket (and as an Australian I can admit that I like it when the Aussies get their arrogant butts whipped) but I’m not fanatical about it. Why is cricket good? It’s a perfectly yogic sport. Patience. Ritualised action. Experiencing the doing, not the result. Ahh…but you need to explore the subtlties to really understand… and that takes time and patience.
I also love cricket because you have a conversation, read a book, study, do cross stitch – and still being watching the cricket. I find it incredibly relaxing.
I find the Victorian and South Australian (my other half is from SA) religious obsession with Australian Rules Football utterly incomprehensible. People from NSW and QLD don’t have the same strange compulsion about rugby league (please don’t call it rugby – it’s rugby league. ‘Rugby’ is rugby union). For example, you won’t walk into a cafe in a beachside suburb in Sydney and hear middle class mums discussing the weekend’s footy games.
But then, as you’ve said, one person’s definintion is not another’s …
On dreams and magic: I’m dreaming about houstboats now… I’m off on a houseboat for a week in a few days. And then we’re off to buy our land 🙂
That’s a dream and the magic and the buzz and I can feel it all glittery and shimmery with promise like I haven’t felt for ages…
@Melinda – haha, its even trickier in Australia with football, as we have ‘Aussie Rules’ (AFL), Rugby League and Rugby Union. And some people insist on calling Soccer, Football like those people who created the Australian colony. 😉
Wishing you much happiness for the new year, too!
@flawedangel – I simply don’t understand cricket, nor do I want to. My attention span simply isn’t long enough to handle a game that can go for days on end!!
@Claire – well, ya might not say it out loud, but you’ve certainly made your feelings about cricket very clear in your comment. Hehe!
The magic is there for the taking, just take some time to breathe deeply and connect…
The ‘Mayan thingy’ is an Aztec calendar actually. Glad you approve, oh smiley one! 😉
@soulMerlin – Indeed, we do create our own reality. Sort of. We create our own relative realities, I think. But, that’s just my opinion…
@Amanda – I’m sorry, I don’t share your passion for cricket. I can tolerate football well enough (the men wear tight shorts and show off their guns!), but unlike many Melbournites, I was never bitten by the AFL ‘bug’.
Your dreams sound wonderful – oh, for a houseboat and a river to float down! And your property, wow, that sounds incredibly exciting.
Can’t wait to see the pics. xo
The contradictions can be the hardest to accept. A guru I worked with for a number of years told me repeatedly, “It isn’t this OR that. It is always this AND that.”
@Immi – Exactly! Quite difficult for us to wrap our minds around, especially because from a societal perspective we’re used to this or that…
I’m not a fan of cricket or football. Oops. Maybe I shouldn’t let that be known? I do enjoy your writing though… and your take on life and yourself. You seem to have a lot of wisdom for one so young. (Yes, to me you are very young.) I hope I will be around to see you come out on the “other side”.
You are obviously a winner. Go get ’em.
Svasti, people can only ever really relate or not to what you say based on their own experience. You will naturally relate to people who have had similar experience to you because certain feelings do not need to be translated into worlds. You can simply look someone in the eye and there is this unspoken level of awareness and self-understanding. This is also a form of shared love.
@tricia – I told the guys in my office I could probably come up with a signed petition of a bunch of people who also don’t think cricket is a sport! 😉
Thanks for your lovely compliments *blush*, any wisdom I’ve gained is directly proportionate to the wonderful teachers in my life. In that, I’ve been incredibly fortunate.
I too, very much enjoy your blog and writings and I’m glad we managed to connect in this bloggy world.
@Liara Covert – Absolutely! Thing is, there’s so many human experiences that all boil down to the same outcomes. If we all would let our ‘inner demons’ out a little more, we’d see that for ourselves…
Paris Hilton’s on your side of the world? Any chance you can keep her? Or possibly our nation’s could make a trade? Australia gets her and we get you?
@Jay – I’d love it if we could arrange an international trade – me over to the States in exchange for Paris over here… But poor Australia – they’d be getting ripped off in that deal!