As I discovered a couple of weeks ago, the Roman god Janus was depicted as having two opposite faces. One face looked back into the past, and the other peered forward to the future. Likewise, on January 1, we look back at the year that just ended and forward to the new year ahead.
Three Good Things
Every morning after I feed Kedi, brew coffee, and unload the dishwasher, I try to make sense of who I am, what I am, what’s going on, and if there’s any way of stopping it by piecing together what happened since yesterday morning. I can’t remember anything until after I’ve finished my coffee, but I have a whiteboard I use for a cheat sheet.
Once I recap the day’s bullet points, I follow prompts to create my Three Good Things journal entry.
Name a good thing: (Something I did, learned, experienced, or noticed. Or something someone else did or shared.)
Name another thing. (Maybe something that I usually take for granted.)
One more thing…(How about an act of kindness toward someone else or my future self or someone else’s act of kindness toward me?)
To honor Janus, here’s my stab at three good things for 2023.
Non-Duality Equals Enlightenment
(Something I did, learned, experienced, or noticed. Or something someone else did or shared.)
I completed my first non-duality solo retreat in February. I prepped with some stuff from the Sam Harris Waking Up app, added a Vipassana retreat schedule, and sprinkled it with tips from the “Hopkins Griffiths/Richards Protocol for Psilocybin with Meditation for Enduring Benefits.”
Sam (not Harris) helped me with the psilocybin part. I could still experience things, but subject and object collapsed.
In May, I learned an Advaita Vedanta technique to access non-duality through “self-inquiry.” After that 5-day mini-retreat with non-duality teacher Rupert Spira, I got an email informing me that the non-dual insight (which I’d achieved through psilocybin and investigation) was all there was to enlightenment.
Who knew?
Life Story Crafting
(Maybe something that I usually take for granted.)
I made substantial progress in posting my NaNoWriMo story Understood Backwards this year. The twelve stages of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey are so embedded in the culture that they can’t help but provide guidance and meaning. I’m learning a lot.
Thanks to you guys for following along.
Showing Up
(How about an act of kindness toward someone else or my future self or someone else’s act of kindness toward me?)
During early 2023 I let go of organizing and hosting Zoom events, deciding that I could best contribute by showing up for others.
Showing up for a Secular Buddhism Zoom call in May, the day after I tested positive for COVID, I stepped in to facilitate the meeting because the host had Internet problems. The deep vulnerability of my croaky voice inspired others to pick up the slack and say more than they usually would. A man shared a story of how his PTSD had been triggered, how his emotions ran rampant, all of his coping mechanisms went out the window, and the only thing he could hold onto was the deep experiential knowledge that he was not his emotions. It left us speechless.
When Garvin had trouble joining a Nerd Break because of an endless stream of Zoom updates, we all showed up by changing our names to some form of Garvin and improvised a quest to rescue him from Zoom prison in the Tower of London.
I was still in pretty heavy non-dual mode when I attended one of Jo’s Gratitude, ITP, Kylego sessions. Maureen and I decided to switch identities and remember each other’s futures. Her memory of my next six months was uncanny.
A Braver Angels Workshop I showed up for at the Kennedy School Community Room broke through the stereotype that all Reds and Blues thought alike. On issue after issue, the Red State Coordinator held up one extreme position (All the Guns) and the Blue State Coordinator held up the other extreme (No Guns Allowed). People from both sides moved around the room to approximate where they stood on each issue. We do NOT all think alike.
At Intentionally Sam Game Night, I showed up to shout “7 O’Clock” at the exact moment chit-chat was to come to an end. Many people tried to distract me during the final minute, but I succeeded over fifty percent of the time.
After over a year of showing up to Monday Cluster without being able to explain what it was about to newcomers, Aaron showed up with an AI assist to come up with the definitive description: “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to the grand arena of intellectual discourse! It’s that time again, where minds collide and ideas converge. Gather ’round for a Monday afternoon extravaganza of thought-provoking discussions that will leave you astounded and inspired! But before we begin, let us not forget the words that echo through the annals of history. With a voice that ignites anticipation like no other, let us join together and exclaim: ‘Let’s get ready to cluster!'”
Letting Go
As far as the forward-facing Janus goes, Nancy from Secular Buddhism suggested we think about what we’d like to let go of.
I’m up for letting go of goals in favor of responding skillfully to what the new year may bring.
Your Turn
What are three good things from your 2023?
What would you like to let go of in 2024?
B.S. (as opposed to P.S.) Sam called B.S. on my hypothesis in “Love Lost in Translation” that we can learn about other people’s love languages by what they try to give us. I have updated the post with a B.S. alert.