on labors and Love

I have become a bartering laborer.

Yesterday, I helped a friend jam a storage shed, far too small for the job, full of possessions acquired over his some sixty-plus years. It was an insanity of odd angles, with futons and ladders jammed into the last square inches left amidst fragile boxes shotput over the top of previously avalanched stacks. I offered to do it for nothing, or a meal or whatever, but he threw a Franklin at me. It was great fun.

Conversations, on the other hand, with their projections and politics, issues and confusions, I have little taste for. It is fascinating to me that work has become tremendous fun, while socializing has offered the greatest suffering. Even this as I wrote in my journal last night brings forth a prayer: May this suffering initiate my attention to blessing and my intention to bless.

A few days ago, I unloaded some 50 hay bales, after work, before transporting a friend's sauna in a borrowed truck. I got home after 9 pm, and a 14-plus hour day. I was very sore the next day, like I haven't been since old farming days. I even felt a touch of anger, from the sheer stiffness and exhaustion of the body. But I was still able to unload a couple tons of wine at work. And the following day, the soreness had given way to normal wellness.

I am grateful to realize I have moved beyond anger. I noticed hanging out with another friend I enjoyed last night, that what we had in common is an absence of fighting-mind. I hadn't fully realized it until then, but I have felt almost no anger the last couple months. I think the combination of facing mortality near me this year, vegetarianism, and living with a focus on spirituality and service has granted me an energized life with little room for that indulgence.

I see how we have only this moment now, and I will not waste it attending to anything other than Love.