My Sunday List
June 2, 2024
Words
Happiness is often confused with the sensation of pleasure. Whenever we come in contact with something agreeable, a subtle pleasant sensation will move through the body, and we react to it with craving. The problem with pleasure is that it quickly becomes an endless chase. We keep trying to place ourselves in situations that give us the feelings we are attached to. The unpopular truth is that the unbalanced pursuit of pleasure is a pathway that leads to dissatisfaction and sorrow. Pleasure is so fleeting that it is not reliable enough to be the center of our lives. —Yung Pueblo
I don’t know how to respond when someone asks me if I’m happy. Happy isn’t a general state, in my opinion. I wrote about that idea in Blood — how we put so much pressure on one fleeting emotion to stick around all the time. And we’re told to pursue that one emotion with everything we’ve got and that we’re lame if we don’t consider it something to chase. I guess I feel like maturity starts to show itself when I accept where I am at whatever time and give myself permission to wholly be there without feeling the need to change it for someone else. Of course, I have to constantly seek a way to be in my emotions with some modicum of sanity. I fear that’s been beyond me for most of my life, and I know it will remain beyond me until I learn not only how to contain myself regardless of what happens around me, but why it’s almost always in my best interest to do so.
Song
I so very much dig this recording by my sister, Shelby Lynne. It’s from her new album (coming in August), Consequences of the Crown.
I watched
I stayed up late last night and watched The Boys in the Boat. I admit I’m a sucker for an elegant George Clooney movie — he directed this one. It isn’t flawless, but it’s a good story and has a charm that’s sorely lacking from most modern cinema. It took me somewhere that had a good and thoughtful feeling — and I can’t complain about that. I don’t feel like I want my time back at all.
Book
I finally finished How To Know a Person. I could go through my copy of this book and tell you every page I stuck a sticky tab on, but that might be another post. If I do it, it will be an extensive list — there is so much great thinking in this book.
Okay one quote:
Every child, even from birth, is looking for answers to the basic questions of life: Am I safe? Hoes does love work? Am I worthy? Will I be cared for? Even in infancy, we internalize answers to those questions based on what we see around us and how we are treated. This education happens even though later, as adults, we have no conscious memory of this period at all.
So — it’s quite helpful to have some idea of what the person to whom I’m trying to relate experienced as a child. The crazy thing is, most of us hardly remember enough to be able to give a clear picture, or even if we do, it’s hard to verbalize feelings. It’s hard to explain why a certain kind of upholstery on a sofa might send me running for the woods or why a certain four-way stop gives me the bel hevi. And some, maybe even most of us, just don’t like to talk about it. We don’t mind keeping it buried.
That saying about everyone fighting a battle we can’t see? Of course, it is completely true.
The most important thing from this book that I’m keeping close to me now is something I’ve already said about it — how we show up in the world may be the most important detail of life. How we listen and see, how we match our actions to our words, how we shift the energy with our presence (are we adding to the environment positively or negatively?), and how well we’re able to mentalize and empathize are priceless life skills. Mine could stand some vast improvement.
Highly recommended, but it isn’t easy.
Favorite moments
A rainy Saturday morning at home.
Getting a new herb garden going.
There were so many great moments with John Henry and his new and amazing summer therapist! We spent the week together easing into the summer program. They have a great rapport and I’m excited about seeing what they accomplish together.
What I’m wearing
I took the week off of work so I could get everything up and running for John Henry at home, so I spent all week mostly trying to figure out when I was going to shower! I didn’t really have time to worry about what I was wearing. This is what I’m talking about when I say I love structure. When I don’t have it, I tend to go off in a million directions and leave a lot of things halfway done, and I can easily slip into doing everything but making space for myself. Working on it!
What I’m cooking
The weather is changing, though we’re so lucky to be having a few cool days at present. I tend to cook light during the summer months and base what I cook around rice, light protein, and salads. So, I made shrimp scampi one evening (a NYTimes recipe), a mexican-inspired cumin chicken another night, a few giant salads — if you use a salad spinner you can keep the leftovers and they don’t get soggy in the refrigerator for about 24 hours. I think John Henry and I will have some fish and broccoli for supper tonight.
I also ate tons of fruit. I love cherry and strawberry season.
Favorite Photo I Took This Week
My sister got a new puppy and her name is Cleo. These are her back feet on a book that was beside me on the sofa. She was behind me, naturally. I love her.
I’m grateful for
A quite bumpy but somehow steady trajectory of forward personal development — starting to understand how I haven’t shown up for myself in the past and how to make sure I do starting now.
What I made
Wishes.
Something wonderful I noticed
Once again, same as last week and same as the weeks before:
The more I let go, the better life gets.
What brought me joy
Recognizing in myself a burgeoning knowledge of how to feel safe in the world.
It isn’t anything like I was taught. Safety is found in true love, openness, acceptance, honesty, and trust. It has nothing to do with making sure no one pulls anything on me and making sure everyone knows I’m not to be messed with. It has to do with making sure those five principles — true love, openness, acceptance, honesty, and trust — are what I offer myself first and foremost. I deserve to receive those things from myself. And I won’t be able to give them away unless I have plenty in me to go around. So I have to sit in that and feel the emotional depth of what it really means, and what it means that I haven’t been able to do it, and what damage that failure has caused in so many situations. And then let go of my desire to be anything other than what I am right now, because what I am right now is okay and all there is. This is a moment. Failure is failure and success is success and I’d bet absolutely no one is capable of only one or the other. We have to do both in this life. We have to know joy and we have to suffer. There’s always room (okay, a lot) for improvement, but compassion cannot live only outside of me. I have to know it to show it, and that starts with how I treat and take care of myself. Yes, I’m a work in progress. So is every single other living creature. Breathe peace in, breathe love out. It takes SO much practice to even begin to grasp the concept. Oh well, better to die trying than having given up on myself.
Prayer
Thank you, Great Spirit, for giving me the strength to let go of everything I cannot control, which is everything outside of myself. Allow me to let go of shenpa and exchange it for shunyata. Only through you can I do that and know peace. And finally, please give me the strength that is required to clearly see what I need to see.
(shenpa - what hooks us. shunyata - being empty of what hooks us, no ego, no separate idea of self)
Intention for the week to come
May I be present before I am concerned with being anything else.
May I breathe peace in, and breathe love out.
May I meet others with kindness and acceptance and still keep my boundaries.
May I feel confident enough in those boundaries to be flexible in my actions.
May I use my words for good.
May I be grateful.
May I trust.
May I have CLARITY.
May I be patient.
May I be open to what the Great Spirit knows is for me, and may I walk my path accordingly by remembering I can only take it one step at the time.
Something I’m thinking about
The art of making a home.
I’ve always enjoyed being a homebody, but lately, I feel a comfortable arrival into my own skin and am relishing the time I spend working to make home better and better. I’ve put so much of myself — heart, soul, blood, sweat, tears, and money — into this little rectangle of earth, and I feel blessed to be its steward. It’s so special to have a place that holds me and my family. I’m grateful to say the least.
Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. — Buddha
Habit
5:15 wake-up. Coffee. Read a little. Prayers. Yoga.
Best Word or Term
Shank’s Mare: one’s own legs
Well, my car’s in the shop so if I’m going it’ll be by shank’s mare.
*I must admit I got this one from Nanny.
Wishes
That I recognize every opportunity to feel joy, and that I take each one.
That my fellow creatures do that too.
That you all are content and well.
That you will forward this to one person you think might like it.
Have a wonderful, peaceful, joyous week. And thank you for supporting my work here at The Autotelic.
Peace. Love.
Allison
There are first edition copies of I Dream He Talks to Me and Blood in the shop. I will sign each copy that is ordered. If you would like it personalized, please send an email with your order number and the name you would like on the signature page to allisonmoorercontact@gmail.com.
Paid subscriber benefits:
Access to the chat feature on the Substack app.
Paid subscriber only Saturday posts.
A discount code to use in the shop for 24 hours when I list paintings.
Surprises from time to time — free merch, access to things in the shop before free subscribers.
Powerful post!
I breathe in peace and breathe out love in my morning stretch. Thank you for that.
LOVE Shelby’s Over and Over. Turn it up loud!
Your art is inspiring.
You are inspiring!
I love the new track by Shelby. This track really shows off her voice It has a very gospel sound to it. I’m curious to see if the entire album has that same kind of sound.