No Snooze Alarm Today

Seems that I have an unusually large amount of tediously nagging details to take care of today. Annoying, frustrating and irksome. But they all need doing. I can put them off, procrastinate, look the other direction or do something I like to do instead. Every time I attempt this common gambit, I end up with a small, uncomfortable feeling that I am supposed to be doing something other than what ever I have chosen to replace the responsibilities that I am shirking. It is like a relentless snooze alarm firing a reminder message every minute or so into the vacuum of my consciousness. 

That is the what always happens UNTIL I decide to stop the alarm, push the off button and do the thing that needs doing. No matter how small, seemingly insignificant or inert. Matter of fact the smaller the detail, the less its impact on my self-imposed daily quota of productivity, the better I will feel upon its completion. 

This my dear friend is what I base my Zen upon. This is the level of attention to detail that our practice thrives on. And practice it is. BECAUSE IT IS ALL PRACTICE. Everything and all the time. If I can focus so intently on whatever menial task needs attention, and then preform a ceremonial execution of its upgrade, with compassion and presence, I have made the world a better place. If not for the fact that I have removed a shed-load of psychic stress from the cosmos by tending to the banal, then by the opening of space in my heart and soul for more love, joy and kindness.

As you know we are now in day seven of or little snow session. It has impacted everyone from seniors without power, school kids land-locked at home with parents unable to get to work, first responders, tow truck drivers and grocers to politicians attempting leverage from the hardship. I have a good friend in the Coast Guard who says that if nothing moves there is no commerce. Ice, snow, freezing temperatures, cars in the ditch, power outages and people relying on communications for survival suddenly without service, are all part of the equation. We did’t ask (directly) for this. But here it is. Meaning that our response is what will determine our outcome. 

Very much like that nagging small voice, the alarm on snooze, is the bigger picture telling us that there are things to do, ways to help, people in need. One needn’t own a snow plow to assist a neighbor in clearing a path from the street to their door. We don’t need to contribute to the calamity, we need to reduce the volume of those in need. We must be a part of the solution and not a part of the problem. 

Because my truck was covered by two feet of snow and traction-less on the resulting black ice, our weekly trash was hauled out the half-mile from the home site to the road end my landlord neighbor in his 4WD ’96 Ranger. Two days ago. This small chore is normally my job. This morning I realized that I needed to add a large bag of my own recycled refuge and so set out on another trek, this time like Santa toting his bag on Christmas Eve, to the cans where no less than ten families line them up like dominoes for the weekly pickup. It was another spectacular pre-dawn morning and as I trudge closer to the row of containers I see what I was fearing. Trash everywhere. Our beautiful local coyotes are smart. Especially when threatened by the elements. Knock the cans over, sift for leftovers and dine like entitled royalty. 

I will tell you now that the twenty minutes it took to clean up the mess was worth every second of satisfaction, solitude and peace of mind I was rewarded with by this small task. 

No snooze alarm today buster.