Today started out gloomy. Outside and inside.

For months, I had been planning to attend the Midwest Permaculture Convergence. Had even paid for a camping spot.

But plans didn’t ever jell in terms of actually getting there and back. My car has a problem which the mechanic can’t fix until July 3. Plus, just looking at the long way up there (4.5 hours) on that (awful, very crowded, with narrow to non-existent shoulders) —  six lane freeway bordering Indianapolis on the east, made me think twice anyway. Plus, we’d be camping. Do I still have a tent? Not sure. Plus, if I went, I’d rather sleep in the car, etc. etc.

I could have pursued car-pooling with others, but surprised myself with only half-hearted attempts.

So I woke up on the morning that I had planned to go up there, mainly to see my permaculture teachers from over 15 years ago again for the first time, and instead, I was still here; stuck here.

And boy was I stuck! In the muck. Internally. Extreme gloom. Gloom which I noticed. Gloom which I did not identify with, though it still got to me, somewhat. Gloom that the fair witness in me was amazed by; how a single, sustained emotion can still spread its poison throughout my entire mind/body/soul/spirit. The witness watched, bemused, risking obliteration by the gloom that held ego in thrall.

An even deeper part of me noticed, and was fascinated by this double consciousness (fair witness/gloomy ego).  In fact, utterly amazed. Have I ever been able to hold a double consciousness before in such a sustained manner? Because it lasted throughout my hour-long morning walk with Scampi.

But the amazement didn’t stop the gloom.

I had taken a raincoat with me in case I needed it (turns out I didn’t) and on the way back home went over to a beautiful beech tree and stood with my forehead to its trunk for many many seconds: the gloom temporarily evaporated to admit the overwhelming embrace and infusion of the tree’s patient, silent, stalwart, spreading presence. Grateful.

But that mysterious, mystical interruption was momentary.

The gloom returned, took over.

Poor me.

Then, when I returned, I decided to drive to nearby Target, for a soup pot, since the one I have is not only very very old, but its top screw will no longer keep the handle in place (I had gone to the hardware store yesterday to get another screw, but it didn’t do the trick.) I had made bone broth yesterday in the old pot from chicken bones frozen from several Community Dinners, and today decided to also boil some extra veggies from our gardens in it, and plan mush the whole thing up later this afternoon.

Yes. I went to Target to see if I could find a similar pot.

And right away, as I entered the store, with this aim in mind, the gloom lifted . . .

“What?” Said the witness part of me. “Does ‘shopping’ serve as a dopamine rush even for one such as me, who thinks of herself  ‘above’ such nonsense?  If so, how disgusting.”

So now, I was furious with myself for not feeling gloomy?

In any case, I got the pot, though not as big as the one that it’s replacing, and then, when I left Target, for the large nearly full parking lot — and damn it, I had forgotten to note where I had parked the car! — I was faced with a deluge. Massive, continuing buckets of rain instantly flooding everything.

And I was going to find my car, with purchase in hand, in that deluge?

Yep. Did it; in fact spotted it right away! Though by the time I ran to the car and opened the door, I was already utterly drenched, and I mean even my underwear.

Suddenly, and I mean just then, right then, I noticed that the gloom had vanished! GONE!

To me, it was as if my internal state had precipitated the outside deluge. 

Then I came home, and, once the rain let up, went outside to take this photo.

Whew! The single bloom of several days ago is now joined by many others!

And bursting buds promising more to come!

Oh wow, and I just looked up their name: STARGAZER LILIES!

I could riff on how gazing at the stars above is polar opposite to feeling gloomy for any reason down here below.

But I won’t.