Sometimes I feel like the world is ending.
Little moments,
Of an ending world
That last less than a second each.

And so far, the world carries on.

That’s the tightness in my lower back — feeling the end of things is upon me, that I can’t quite sit in peace with the knowing; a spider-sense keeping me on edge.

So the endless parade of moments drag on… and the tension shows as a continuum, little moment to little moment pushing the anxious energy along like an ocean wave lapping an the shores of my emotion. My constitution.

We call the nation’s constitution as “The Constitution” for a reason. Maybe many reasons. Here’s what it means to me:

Constitution is our collective emotion, our shared reality of how we (together) show up in this world. How do we relate to each other? How do we relate to others? What are we here for? How does this inform the choices we make?

There are things that impress on my personal constitution. Maybe it’s one more well-intentioned task from my wife that puts me into overloaded. Maybe it is witnessing those leading our collective constitution in ways that offend and destroy what I believe we are here for. Maybe its the rumble of noise or shenanigans beyond my walls — the streets of Chicago sending me, leaving me hungry for peace of the wilderness and countryside.

Regulation is necessary.

(Well, this depends on my intention.)

Regulation

IF I want to succumb to the assault of messaging on my primitive mind that I am in danger, that I am not safe in/as my vulnerable and raw self… Well, regulation be damned. On with the anxious march toward death and what might follow.

I used to think this world was perfect. Not free from suffering, but still perfect. I believe that God had a specific plan for me, and that the all cleansing Love of God was working victory in this realm. That if I soldier on, there is just some place or part I need to play and the war would be won: peace would overtake the earth and heaven would be maybe some super-dimensional and totally safe and inspiring dance across worlds.

Somewhere along the way, I came to feel I was responsible — not in the actual sense we are all responsible: as stewards of our street, neighborhood, city, state, and nation, and responsible for the policies, laws, and programs that influence what happens to our families, friends, coworkers, and neighbors, as civic agents of community who are ultimately responsible for the trash in front of their house and the waste in their sewers and the cleanliness of their water and all the infrastructure they use and share.

Rather, I felt like Atas; the weight of the world on my shoulders and back. I was judge, jury, plaintiff, defense…

Well there’s the back tension, again. The knotting of my stomach.

Brings us back to regulation, the importance of.

Intention

I have an intention to live my life, to know love, to share love, and to be generative in inspiring love and the liberation of people’s creative spirit.

I can’t tell you how often I am disheartened in some way. Maybe the stress and pressure from “the world” (everything that is not me)… or maybe some story or sense that grows within me or I see/fear comes from my own choices. (I wrote “my own actions” but it didn’t capture what I’m going for. My choices become my actions. )

Despite being thrown off emotionally, I am compelled within to return to my mission, my intention: to live and to steward this life as a gift of love.

How do I return? I need to become aware, re orient, and move myself along my mission. This is measurement, analysis, redirection as needed, and power applied in that direction. It’s so sad to me that the current administration is destroying the Census Bureau’s ability to do its job. That is our unbiased agency that every day of every year is out measuring America by knocking on our doors and asking all kinds of personal questions. (All data crazy-super protected and made anonymous, of course.) I supported or managed Census field operations for 5 years — I am telling you the operation’s integrity and quality is under active attack by the games being made at and above the Cabinet Secretary level. If we are a ship, the Census Bureau is our compass. How do we steer this ship is we just depend on the loudest voices to tell us how we are doing, where we are struggling, and what needs most immediate attention?

I have to check in with my body. I get tightness and light burning along the tendons running from my ear to my shoulder. Regulation after this awareness looks like a simple stretch:

1. Sit or stand, breath in and straighten my back, shoulders, head. On exhale, find a relaxed-yet still straight place for my shoulders. Maybe do a few rolls of my head along my shoulders.
2. On my next deep breath in, lift up and stretch my arms — straight out like a ‘T’ with my body. As I breath out, let my shoulders relax but keep my arms out.
3. Tilt my head as far right as it will comfortably go. Relax my right arm a bit or entirely, and breath in while stretching my left arm out straight, head still tilted right. For the next 3 breaths, do the same stretch outwards with my left arm on my in-breath, finding a tolerable stretch in the tendons that run from my ear to my shoulder. Then with the out-breath, keep the head tilted right and the left arm out, but let each of them become somewhat more heavy — let them relax or fall ever so slightly away from each other as I am still breathing out. The tendon(s) will themselves be challenged into more of a stretch. Thats the point. I keep my focus on the tension of my tendons & muscles, with each in and out breath reflected in the the stretch: a kind of reaching-outward stretch with the in-breath, and then finding expansion in different parts of the stretch on the out-breath.
4. Repeat with the other side.

Yoga helps — both in the moment and as a regular routine. Mornings that I show up for a 15-20 min memorized set on my mat launch me into my day with a better grounding in my constitution.

Sometimes just counting back from 5 and taking a few deep breaths will work wonders for my frame of mind and blood pressure.

I see something beautiful.

Night Night at the First Landing album artwork by Wayne Shellabarger, as seen at Chicago’s Adler Planetarium