Hope, Fear, Fantasy, and Caring

Lately I've been thinking a lot about hope and fear. In Chogyam Trungpa's teachings, again interpreted from very old and deeply studied Tibetan Buddhist wisdom, hope and fear are actually very closely related. Not even two sides of the same coin, they both basically contain wisdom and neurosis. Hope is not better than fear, fear is not worse than hope. Generally, we give hope big applause, mixing it in with optimism, expectation, and setting goals. And we avoid fear like the plague (avoiding fear itself is a plague of suffering), conflating it with dread, failure, and death.

Being in a pretty groundless state lately (can you tell? I haven't posted to this blog in over a month!), I've been watching as I use hope to avoid fear. When I get afraid, I can see hope wagging her tail like an eager puppy. I've also been watching the edge of hope and when it turns into fantasy. None of this feels any more comfortable than being afraid, but it feels like at least I am DOING something. At least I am not getting caught in fear and sinking, right? Not really.

All following quote from When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron:

We’re all addicted to hope—hope that the doubt and mystery will go away. This addiction has a painful effect on society: a society based on lots of people addicted to getting ground under their feet is not a very compassionate place.

Set This House in Order

Mannequin photo from my upcoming show "Mannequins and Miniatures" at EVP East in Madison, WI, May 1-May 26

I've got Shingles.

Because I am a linguistics nerd, my favorite part of the Wikipedia entry is about the etymology of the terms for this virus:
The family name of all the herpesviridae is derived from the Greek word herpein ("to creep"),^[77] referring to the latent, recurring infections typical of this group of viruses. Zoster comes from Greek zōstēr, meaning "belt" or "girdle", after the characteristic belt-like dermatomal rash.^[78] The common name for the disease, shingles, derives from the Latin cingulus, a variant of Latin cingulum meaning "girdle".^[79]

But the fact is that when I google "shingles," which, of course, I've been doing a lot lately, the most common thing to come up, along with the actual virus, is references to house shingles. You know, the things that make up the roof. And so it seems, again, I am setting this house in order.