I dreamt this morning of walking along a beach. A strange beach with multi-colored sand and weird formations on it. Black men in purple cloaks waded lightly in the opposite direction as me. The heels of my now-missing boots dug into the yellow slope, keeping me from falling. My thoughts stretched back to dreams which had preceded it: a dream about being back in high school and having only one month left to go. Haven’t had one of those dreams in a while and the last one was a dream in which I graduated. Usually before that they focused around me having missed too many gym classes to graduate. Or that was the fear anyway. But this time it was math class. A new wrinkle. A teacher of mine from real life was in this one. He had worked at Grumman, supposedly, on some element of the lunar module. He claims that his name is on a plaque on the moon. Once a year he would bring in yo-yo’s and do amazing tricks. Other than that he was mostly a hard-ass. As I rounded a point along the beach where the landscape changed, I reflected on having only one month more of classes. Ordinarily in such a situation I would have been flipping out about still having one month left to go. But in this dream I was calm and I had strong resolve to keep my head down and simply keep going. An end of some kind was almost in sight, is almost in sight. I don’t know what that end correlates to in my waking life, but I feel like it might have to do with heading back east, “after all these years.” Feels like I have been out here for an eternity - I have gotten so much out of it - but it’s only been a little over a year and a half. It has been amazing and I wouldn’t trade any of it, even the “bad parts”, even the torment. Looking back I see too clearly just how necessary it was to strip away illusions and to teach me what in life to really focus on. One month more of classes though. One month more in this house which brought us all together. I’ve always believed that those of us who have ended up living here or hanging out here have been called, called together, called for a reason. Maybe we make that reason up as we go along. Maybe it’s simply being together and learning from each other. Maybe these things are only the seeds of changes which we will carry on from here into our lives and the world. The chessboard has changed though. And it will continue to do so long after I’m gone. Who will carry on?

Math must mean precision. Or something close to that. Calculations, corrections, perfection of science. Useful tools to manipulate destiny, to fly to the moon, as it were. I have been wondering lately also: is the moon really a liar or is it my fault for not being prepared for her wiles:

The path the Fool was walking is now a river, and he stands hip-deep in the powerful pull of its salty, moonlit waters. There is, on the nearby shore, a small boat, but it has no rutter, no oar. The Fool realizes he has only two choices. He can lose himself in this desolate, primal land of madness and illusion, howl with the wolves, be hunted down, or he can get into the boat, and trust himself to the river. The moon will be in control either way, but in the boat, his surrender to the powers of the unconscious and the natural world will at least take him somewhere. As the artists and poets and magicians know, inspiration, visions, genius, Moon magic, are the rewards of such surrender. The Fool gets into the boat, and shoves off. As the waters sweep him away, moon beams light his “path” and he feels the Mistress of this dark land gazing down at him with the High Priestess’s approving eyes.

I know, at least, that I am a fool either way.

If we didn’t care it wouldn’t matter so much emotionally. If we really didn’t care we wouldn’t be so hurt and angry. The truth is it hurts so much that we tell our selves we don’t care to avoid and deny the emotional pain. We lie about the emotions we feel to pretend they are not there. We lie to our self in an effort to feel better because we don’t know a different way to let go of the pain. We attempt to lie our way to happiness.

My ambidextrous experiment is going very well. My left-handed letter-forms are getting clearer and more controllable all the time, though they still take me a long time to execute. I enjoy the slowness though. It calms my mind. The Baoding balls I can now manipulate fairly well in both directions with both hands. I can even now - after only one week - snap with two fingers on my right hand. I couldn’t do this at all for the 27 and a half years previous to this, despite the fact that I’m right-handed. Still not quite as loud or perfectly crisp as my lefty snaps, but we’re making progress. Moreso than just these little physical tricks though, I have gradually noticed an increase in what I could call clarity of communications between my brain hemispheres. Which is really the best trick of all. Combined with a radical decrease in my chemical intake and a purification of my body, these ambidextrous efforts have rewarded me with a newfound ability to clearly see into the emotional roots of my reactions to events in my life and to communicate about them clearly with others and especially with myself. Which reminds me a lot of:

“Survival & mutual rescue can lead to living better. I can take care of myself & my needs. / Best sharing, what to say, what to write, & what to practice. Self cause effect exchange… / I’ll have to handle myself.”

That’s really a big deal when you can get it functioning correctly. It’s like the whirrings of a long-dormant machine stirring once again to life. First it has to flush out its ducts and shake off its dust before it can really begin to glow and shine. We have tomato plants on the porch now. I imagine that within another month we’ll have a nice little harvest.