May 28, 2026

I told you a week or two ago that I’d been feeling a little boring lately. This happens when I’m doing the same things every day for long periods of time. My mind gets restless and my body stiffens a little because I’m thinking the same things over and over and using the same postures, so muscle movement becomes more limited as well. Mental and physical tension starts to build up as a result. Movement — emotional, physical, and mental — as well as variety, is important to keep me from becoming a dullard.

When it happens I need to change things up and get some flow going. I have to use a little creativity and imagination to get started. I usually have to challenge myself to get out of a rut, and that’s not always easy.

This time I reached for a book I’ve had for years, How to Be an Explorer of the World by Keri Smith. The back cover has a warning instead of a promotional blurb. First it says:

“At any given moment, no matter where you are, there are hundreds of things around you that are interesting and worth documenting.”

Then comes the warning:

“!WARNING
To whoever has just picked up this book: If you find that you are unable to use your imagination, you should put this book back immediately. It is not for you. In this book you will be repeatedly asked to… suspend your disbelief, complete tasks that make you feel a bit strange, look at the world in ways that make you think differently, conduct experiments on a regular basis, and see inanimate objects as alive.”

Following that is an illustration of someone with a picket sign in front of their face that reads, “Everyone is an artist” ~Joseph Beuys.

German artist Joseph Beuys’ famous phrase, “Everyone is an artist” (Jeder Mensch ist ein Künstler), encapsulates his expanded concept of art as a fundamental human capacity. He believed every human being, as a “freedom being,” can use their creative energy to shape, transform, and renew society, a practice he termed “social sculpture.”

Keri Smith’s book — which is handwritten, self-illustrated, charming, and quirky — has 150 ways to… well, in my case… quickly get myself out of a rut using the author’s suggestions for off-the-wall things to do that are fun, interesting, and creative.

Each suggestion in this book is designed to create curious little collections that you can group together in a sort of temporary home museum. For instance, “#25 WATER Find and/or research as many different shapes made by water as you can. And come up with some new ones.”

So I decided to look out for those and took pictures with my phone of water drops on my counters, sinks, of spills, and rain patterns on the window. And I even found one out on the road during my walk that looked just like an embryo, the picture above. Do you agree?

To come up with a new shape, I froze water in a plastic cup that had a bottom shaped like a five-pointed star. It bulged out on the sides, distorting it oddly, and shoots of bubbles formed from the center outward into each of the five star points. It was very cool looking. Pun intended.

Another one I did suggested choosing a few objects from around the house that date back to my childhood and writing about what they correlate to. I selected several, wrote each up, and sent the stories, along with the objects, to my boys, giving them stories and treasures to carry forward. They like that sort of thing a lot.

These are just small things, but they are working. My mind is creaking its way back into a more creative mental process by enticing it to think and perceive the events of a day in a fresh way again.

I’ve decided on one more. It starts with a Carl Jung quote: “Sometimes a tree can tell you more than can be read in a book.”

Then Exploration #59, The Language of Trees, suggests, “Collect as many parts of trees as you can. (Use things that have fallen naturally; you don’t want to harm the trees.) Arrange and rearrange your collection in pleasing ways. Play with it. Talk to it, listen to it. Hang it. Study the shapes and textures. Do drawings. Hang things from branches. Celebrate trees!”

Perhaps you’d like to join me in this, or something of your choice, and we can get our groove back together.

Smiling at the thought, and sending love,
Mayet

May 21, 2026

For a third (and final for now) time, I’m continuing the discourse with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, from his book, I AM THAT.  It’s another excerpt from an exchange between him and a visitor from the West.  This a time a woman, who is designated the Questioner, or “Q.”  “M” designates the guru’s reply, M being the initial of his title, Maharaj.

It’s yet another delightful mini-discourse.
Lots of love,
Mayet

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Q: I am engaged in the study of philosophy, sociology, and education. I think more mental development is needed before I can dream of self realization. Am I on the right track?

M: To earn a livelihood, some specialized knowledge is needed. General knowledge develops the mind, no doubt. But if you were going to spend your life amassing knowledge, you build a wall around yourself. To go beyond the mind, a well-furnished mind is not needed.

Q: Then what is needed?

M: Distrust your mind, and go beyond.

Q: What shall I find beyond the mind?

M: Only one thing, the direct experience of being, knowing and loving.

Q: But exactly how does one go beyond the mind?

M: There are many starting points – they all lead to the same goal. Some may begin with selfless work, abandoning the fruits of action; some may then give up thinking and give up all desires. Here, giving up is the operational factor. Or still another may not bother about anything they want or think or do and just stay put in the thought and feeling “I Am”… focusing “I Am” firmly in their mind. All kinds of experiences may then come to you – experience them indeed but remain unmoved in the knowledge that all perceivable is transient and only the “I Am” endures.

Q: I cannot give all my life to such practices. I have my duties to attend to.

M: By all means attend to your duties. Let all your duties become merely action. Action in which you are not too deeply emotionally involved is beneficial and does not cause suffering and will not bind you. 

You can indeed be engaged in several directions and work with enormous zeal, yet remain inwardly free, and quiet, with a mirror-like mind reflecting your experience back to you.  

In this way you have your experience of life, sometimes disturbing, sometimes painful, and you experience all this, but as tho reflected in the mirroring of your own awareness of them.  This makes of all experience that which does not capsize you in the extremes. 

Q: Is such a state realizable by me, by the common person?

M: I would not talk about it, if it were not. Why should I engage you in fancies?

Q: How will I receive instruction for this?

M: Your own Self is your teacher, satguru, the inner teacher. The outer teacher, guru, is merely a milestone, an aid, an enjoyable and useful choice. But it is only your inner teacher that will walk with you to the final goal, for she is the goal. An outer teacher can guide, share wisdom, point the way.  But it is the student who must walk the path and it is only the inner teacher who can hold your hand as you go.  It is not either/or.  Either inner or outer teacher.  Each facilitates the other.

Q: The inner teacher is not easily reached.

M: Since it is you and with you, the difficulty cannot be too serious. Look within, you will find the wisdom carrier.

Q: When I look within, I find sensations and perceptions, thoughts and feelings, desires, and fears, memories and expectations. I am immersed in this cloud and see nothing else.

M: And that which sees all this, and sees the nothing too, that is the inner teacher. She is alone there, all else only appears to be there. She is your own self, your hope and assurance of freedom; find her and embrace her and you are saved and safe.

May 14, 2026

This week I’m continuing the discourse with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, from his book, I AM THAT.  It’s another excerpt from an exchange between him and a visitor from the West who is designated the Questioner, or “Q.”  “M” designates his reply, the initial of his title Maharaj.

It another delightful mini-discourse, as I think you might agree.
Lots of love,
Mayet

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Q: So you are saying that bliss is also temporary and not the ultimate pursuit?  The memory of my wonderful experiences of bliss haunts me. I want them back.

M: Because you want them back, you cannot have them. The state of craving for anything blocks all deeper experience. Nothing of value can happen to a mind which knows exactly what it wants. For nothing the mind can visualize and want is of much value.

Q: Then what is worth wanting?

M: Want the best. The highest happiness, the greatest freedom. This is what desirelessness actually is… wanting the best.  Not things and possessions, not the physical-based wanting.  These are desires.  

Desirelessness is the greatest, highest bliss, and in it — tho it seems contradictory — is the fulfillment of all desires.  Certainly be aware of your desires and wants.  Knowing what you desire is not bad, there is a strength in the awareness of them.  Have them and be aware that you do. But craving them is another matter.  Craving is a hunger for which there is no satiety.  No amount of receiving can fill it’s gaping maw.  Be free of such desire.

Q: But freedom from desire is not the freedom I want. I want the freedom to fulfill my longings.

M: What you do not understand it that you are free to fulfill your longings.  As a matter of fact, you are doing nothing else, ever. That is life.

Q: I try, but there are obstacles which leave me frustrated.

M: Overcome them.

Q: I cannot, I am too weak.

M: What makes you weak? What is weakness? Others fulfill their desires, why not you?

Q: I must be lacking energy.

M: What happened to your energy? Where did it go? Did you not scatter it over so many contradictory desires and pursuits? You don’t have an infinite supply of energy.

Q: Why not?

M: Your aims are small and low. They do not call for more. Only God‘s energy is infinite – because God wants nothing for the self.  God knows it is the All, therefore God wants for the All… the All that god knows themselves to be.  Be like god, know you are the All and all your desires will be fulfilled. The higher your aims and your desires, the more energy you have for their fulfillment. Desire the good of all and the universe will work for you. But if you want your own pleasure, you must earn it the way all singular pleasure is earned — you must desire it, deserve it and then achieve it.  That is the way of earthy desires.  They can certainly be fulfilled.  By gaining them in this way.  And that takes much energy.