This is Grey Cup week in Canada – kind of our version of the Super Bowl (without quite the same number of viewers, without the cool TV ads and with only 3 downs!).  And I’m wondering about sports in general and the role they play in our societies and our lives.

They bring us together in unity and in devisiveness.  Another version of Good and Evil?

The players (and fans) often pray to God to make their team successful.  Petitioning the almighty for the Good side of ledger?

An opportunity to play out our emotions in an arena where the result really doesn’t matter in the big schema of things?

What about when it is taken too seriously though?  There is a big spike in domesitic violence incidents on Super Bowl Sunday.

Enough wondering … I’m going to organize the ingredients for dip!

Wondering about email and its relationship to connection and communication.

Noticing that I frequently delete the majority of the email that I get on a daily basis, without even opening it.  Sure a lot of it is marketing email but I did at one time sign up for something that I was interested in and have now either become disinterested or annoyed by how much stuff someone is sending me.  And … I don’t unsubscribe, I just delete.

Wondering about friendships and acquaintances and how this relates.  Wondering how often I maintain friendships that no longer serve me just because it’s too inconvenient/awkward/embarrassing to “unsubscribe” from them.  Realizing that there have been times when I have just stopped tending to a friendship (kind of like deleting the emails) rather than overtly (or even covertly) admitting that I no longer value the friendship in the same way I used to and possibly taking the opportunity to morph it into something different.

Do I maintian connection and communication for old times sake, to avoid conflict and discomfort or because I am (like we all are) a social creature who relies on connection as a basic life-sustaining necessity and I’m afraid to have any of it fall away?

What if all my friendships and acquaintances were deliberate, thoughtful and open.  Would I have more of them or less of them?  Would I care how many of them I had if each of those number was clean and clear?

Wondering …

Jane

Wondering about the act of wondering.  Rather than thinking about something or figuring something out, I can choose to wonder about it.  Which means what exactly?  This is how I see it:

Thinking about something: Puzzling over what it is, what it means, how it works.  Setting my mind to it.  Focusing and concentrating my thoughts to considering the details of the something, the nuances of the something or something of the something.

Figuring something out: Applying rules of logic and structure and certainty and the seeking of truth about something.  Looking for complete understanding of why and how and when and where this something works or applies.  Finding the answer so that I know exactly what to do about something.

Wondering about something:  floating something around in my consciousness as I go about my daily business.  Being open to what wild and crazy and out of the box ideas might occur to me about something.  Allowing my body to relax into the delight of possibilites about something.

Thinking and figuring take effort.  Wondering takes willingness.  Thinking and figuring take focus and time.  Wondering takes willingness.  Thinking and figuring give rise to solutions.  So does wondering.

Wondering if thinking, figuring and wondering all together give rise to wildly creative and practical solution?

Wondering how the effortfullness can be removed from thinking and figuring and their gems retained?

Wondering if it’s really all the same thing and it’s just my attitude that’s different?

Hmmmm …

Jane

We’ve been spending a lot of time away from “home” in the last few months and are jumping on another plane this afternoon for six days in the California sunshine.  And I got to wondering about “home”.

When I in the physical space that I “own” I feel relaxed and at peace and comfortable in the reliability of my surroundings.  And when a pipe leaks or the sink blocks or I decide I’d like to refresh and renew the colour scheme then I react (or initiate) and take action.

When I am hanging out with people I know and love I feel relaxed and at peace and comfortable in the reliability of our mutual love, respect and commitment to our relationships.  And when someone gets angry or takes offence to something or I decide that I want to investigate deeper layers of our relationship then I react (or initiate) and take action.

When I am playing with the work-in-the-world that I love to do I feel relaxed and at peace and comfortable in the reliability of expressing my genius qualities.  And when a curve ball gets thrown into the mix or things don’t go the way I anticipated or I decide to change direction then I react (or initiate) and take action.

Thinking that all of these are “home”.

Hmmmm ….

Jane