Cosmic Mulching

For most of my life I have had a consistent experiences of consciousness. That experience being of a consciousness that flows like a River. This River Flow Consciousness (or we could also call her Saraswati- the goddess of the river, of thought, of order, of culture, of music and arts.) I experience as direct and clear. Sometimes swift and rushing I am able to express my ideas in prolific manner. Sometimes being so driven by her that I find myself powerless in anything other than surrounding to the rushing and pouring power of this liquid streaming through my mind and into my whole being. I take what is gushing inside and make it into order outside. I write. I speak. I make shapes. I change directions. I make decisions.

Thought.
Feeling.
Action.
Like that.

Sometimes the thoughts become like wild rapids where so much water--so much thought and feeling--must be navigated or else I could fall into the cosmic abyss of a waterfall ahead. It can feel like a torrent. That I must navigate to either stay afloat or risk being taken under. Sometimes this consciousness overwhelms me and floods the boundaries of my body-mind. When I was young and learning to write essays, my parents would proofread my work. Sometimes they would ask me; "Well what do you mean here? This doesnt make sense. I think you left something out." The thoughts would come so quickly that I could not write fast enough to keep up. I would leave words, phrases, whole sentences even out and be certain I had written them. My parents assured me each time I must have thought it but not gotten it out. So you see I had to learn to slow down enough, to build levees, and river banks for my thoughts. 

Sometimes I experience this consciousness of the river as much more meandering. Thoughts stream in and I can float with them a while.

Thats always nice. 

I love the spaciousness I get with that. 

Since having Olive I have experienced a very new kind of consciousness. I call it Mulch Consciousness. Now, I have the same amount of thoughts, the same intensity, the same longing to carve my thoughts and feelings--all that is my consciousness-- out into the world in some way. But I have little or no time to ever do so because the various demands of being a Mother. And so the thoughts stream in, but I cannot direct them outward. I feel them fall like overripe fruit into the earth of my Being.

Thought.
Feeling.
Splat.
Woops.
Like that.

At first I was so very disheartened by this. Frustrated. Resentful even. Feeling like a primary identity and capacity was cut off. At first I tried to desperately tread water. Clamoring to find space to write what was arriving and arising. This was futile. Futile against the diaper changes, the feeding, the simple but necessary acts of living.

More and more I come into deeper understanding and even savoring of this new mode of consciousness pulsing through me. Actually, pause, let me reframe. Consciousness no longer pulses though me. It pulses AS me. Mulch Consciousness does not course through. It is the actual consciousness herself living not only inside a body but making the very body. Thoughts and feeling and ideas of a wild absurd plethora may rise, bloom, become fruit and then with the lack of harvesting to make a product, they over-ripen and fall to the earth. They fall deep into my being. Into the dirt. Way down into my mind. Into my unconsciousness once again. There it is mulched and churned into something I have yet to see.

Rivers are sacred. They flow. They cast away our sins. They make us clean. They sanctify and purify. All creatures come to the river to pray, and bathe, and be made holy once again. Plants live by its nutrients. Life is prolific at the banks of River Consciousness. And water is what makes life on this planet. 

We need this kind of consciousness undoubtedly. Let us bow to that which flows through us and into the world so powerfully. 

But.
Don't forget. 

Mulch is made from that which is decomposing. It's our cosmic recycling plan. Mulch is shit. Holy shit. That sweet pungent smell of decay that is too often tossed away and overlooked as yuck. Mulch makes fertility possible. You plant seeds in the ground. All that grows must come from the rich dark soil. And the mulch? The mulch is that rich and unapologetically potent mix of all that was, making life begin again.