Loose and Easy

Loose:  Free from a state of confinement, restraint or obligation

“Wear the world like a loose garment, which touches us in a few places and there lightly."

 St Francis of Assisi

This phrase has always meant a lot to me.  I have to be engaged in the affairs of the world but I'm not in control of the affairs of the world.  I can't just sit on the couch (Ed. Note: I don't have a couch) and let things happen - I have to locomote and then see where the locomotion takes me.  I'm in the canoe, floating down the stream but it's the stream's ballgame: rapids, pools, long, calm stretches, none of it is any business of mine.  The stream's the stream.  I can sit on the shore all day, pissed that nothing is changing, or I can get in the canoe and see what lies ahead.

I'm a spiritual being having a human experience.  It's OK to mess up.  I'm in this world but I'm not of this world.

Sometimes I get into these stretches of time when I feel a deep sense of calm, a deep sense that everything is fine.  I have no idea most of the time where this stuff comes from.  I no longer try to figure it out or make it last longer or bitch when it stops, but I sure enjoy it while it's happening and that's the big change in me.  Part of this sensation is the result of a loosening of my grip on my relations with other people: family, close friends, people who piss me off, everybody.  Their business is none of my business.  Quit trying to force things.  Stay in contact, but loosely.  There's nothing worse than someone who is bitter that someone else isn't playing by their rules.  What gives me the right to dictate how another person interacts with me?

Loosely, man, loosely, everything loosey-goosey.