Are you tired of Dune references yet? I’m not! At the end of this email is a poem I wrote last week that I didn’t think I would share publicly.
Context: I have a couple of clients with time discontinuities aka memory loss or psychosis. My mom has dementia and goes on loop asking the same question every 20 seconds. After quite a bit of contemplation, I’ve come to recognize these as missing stitches.
I see in my mind’s eye a sewing machine stitching together our subjective awareness and objective reality. It stitches along in a nice linear line that constitutes our understanding of our past.
Everything is going along as expected until the needle skips.
One morning last week I was chatting to my housemate and he insisted that today was Friday. I insisted it was Thursday. Well, he was right. I was a bit panicked that I’d lost a whole day somehow. That was a missing stitch the size of a day. From my perspective, time folded. My subjective awareness skipped from Wednesday to Friday.
How do we handle such? Do we get reactive to the missing stitches in time? We usually do. They’re extra painful because it can feel like you’re losing your mind and grip on reality. The seams are coming unraveled and it’s hard to trust that there’s a force that will reweave you on the other side of this.
When I arrived in Portland after being in Mexico for a year, I was so exhausted upon arrival in the Lyft that I left my suitcase sitting out on the sidewalk. That cold lightning bolt of realizing you’ve lost something is a missing stitch moment. When I finally remembered and went back to get it 45 minutes later, it was gone. That giant missing stitch contained my ukelele, all the presents I’d bought for friends, my new favorite handmade clothes, etc. I was bereft. I walked back upstairs so physically weak I collapsed on the fluffy shag carpet in tears of grief.
I notice we get even more reactive to the stitches that were missed in the past that we didn’t even realize were missing at the time. The key to folding time is to not get reactive to the missing stitches to the point that we lose our center of knowing that we’re ok. That has us go back to the inertia of the status quo and consensus reality.
I know that these missing stitches are the keys to folding time. This is the crack that opens into the yawning void of the unconscious. These cracks are where the light gets in. (Thx Leonard.) The reweaving process awaits us on the other side. I’m starting to get glimpses of this sparkling Indra’s net, and it’s magnificent.
As we begin, as we begin, as we begin,
as we be again we fold time.
In the begging for time we fold time.
As we beckon to time we fold time.
As we see the inner working of time we fold time.
As we keep the clock from running our lives we fold time.
As we greater our awareness we fold time.
As we turn towards what grates on our nerves we fold time.
As we simply dis-attune from the noise we fold time.
As we hear our own folding we fold time.
As we listen to our voices above others we fold time.
As we listen to others we fold time.
As we ask the wisdom of drinking water we fold time.
As we copy the good and lovely we fold time.
As we let our fingers hit the keys we fold time.
We fold time. We fold time. We fold time.
We are always folding time.
There is nothing that is not folding time.
As we doubt we fold time.
As we die we fold time.
As we sell oranges we fold time.
As we pucker at a lemon we fold time.
There is no secret to folding time.
There is no sense to folding time.
There is only surfing and waiting and waiting and surfing.
Let the energetic blueprint of your remembrance of this
knowing infiltrate, and fill, and inter you.
Kk thx love you bye from smushy Eugene, Oregon,
Cris
P.S. Somehow last weeks’ message didn’t get sent out to email subscribers… a missing stitch indeed. Eep! It’s a very vulnerable and personal missive about the difference between falling and flying.
P.P.S. Drawing a card is a very good way to invite the universe to fold time with you.
P.P.P.S. The series Undone on Amazon is exactly about this journey. If you watch it and want to share reflections, just hit reply to this message!