On Desire and Projections.

The world is a projection of our desires.  For instance, if you are hungry, all you will see are restaurants or food places.  If you are looking for a bank for an ATM, you will not notice the nice molding on the ridges of the historic buildings, but you'll be scanning feverishly for the street slot machine with a TV on it.  Just the same if you have to piss--the eye becomes a hawk for blue stick figures or Starbucks.

Everything we see is an inkblot.  Which do you see first, sand, city, polluted purple sky, crevices of sand, shapes, lines, shadows, footsteps, reflected light.. _____.????

I am guilty of projecting my desires onto others and following through with them as if they were on the same page as I am, then getting upset when my desires fall through (inevitably, they do...most of the time...since it's a cerebral dialogue or exchange anyway).  This is the problem with riding the clouds of emotion that bounce across the mind's sky--no grip.  No ground.

For instance, just this morning I felt as if this man was staring at me uncomfortably, wanting to talk to me or approach me, etc.  I wanted nothing to do with him.  Yet, I kept feeling this energy of being looked at.  Being pursued or watched, as if waiting for the opportune moment to pounce in and ask me what I'm reading.  Then I'd tell him I'm into Buddhism, read weird quacky theories about life, death, psychology, etc.  I read for escapism because television and movies are sometimes limiting to the imagination--too invasive for me sometimes.  I envisioned all of this happening and then I laughed.

Look at the lovely little story I created out of feelings of being watched.  The lovely little ego that got a cookie for being so god damn interesting and reading so many god damn books all the time.  What a god damn individual I am.  (As if no one reads books...?!) 

Simple feelings turned into a mechanism for action.  Which created more feelings (being special, ego pat on the head, pride, etc), more panic (not being accepted), a rise and fall within me as the man completely went on in silence and got up and left.  What was I looking for, approval?  A justification that I am desired or pretty or an interesting person or ______???

What are we looking for?  I saw an energy in the air because I put it there.  I envisioned it.  I breathed life into the idea that promoted the feelings within me.  Simply because I wanted to feel.  I had my back turned and my ego strolled in and decided it wanted to play.

Now how do does one get out of this trip?

The breath is the exchange of energy, as I read about in Ram Dass' The Only Dance There Is.
I experimented with this idea at the pool.  The dichotomy between underwater, above, air, water, detachment, and giving over to breathlessness (in order to really breathe) --> tangent.

The breath is taken into the intimate, dark places within you.  Things you've never seen but somehow have to trust to function.  The breath carries oxygen, a catalyst for energy to flow, a nomadic energy through the body invades and pulses out stale air.  What a lovely, refreshing cycle is all contained in the breath. 

My cat sees me and sees food because he wants food and I'm the food giver.  See? Here, he is realizing I have no food to give.

Come back to your body through the breath.  You will start to see the energies that are actually there and be able to laugh at them, as you realize they're all reflections of your desires, fears, and ego...playing it's little game.