I love that you are opening up conversation about desire and airing out desire- something so many repress. I actually am releasing a self love challenge tomorrow and desire is a key part of day 1.
It dawned on me recently that desire is useful when the main desire is to stop wanting😂
I love your shopping without shopping meditation- what a great practice!😊
Yes 😊 I agree with you Paolo…when I can feel the fullness of who I am desire is transmuted into joy, or the only ‘desire’ at that point is to share that fullness w others.
And while I didn’t mention this directly in my essay, I think it’s going to come up in discussion: the desire issue is one of attachment. Of course we “desire“ to eat when we’re hungry or to replace our car when the old one is unreliable. Unhealthy desire is desire for gratification without awareness of the cycle of unachievable self-validation we might be caught up in.
Love that Don! It reminds me of something I wa studying a few nights ago- the Buddhist wheel that has the snake and pig and bird in the middle, apparently the bird was the symbol of attachment- I found that interesting!
I am ever-awed by synchronicity in the world of ideas. I'm working on a poem about communion rather than dominion, and this essay explores the arena beautifully.
I wanted a barn, not just any barn, a post and beam, timber frame barn. I found a dismantled barn frame, numbered and lettered, for architectural purposes of reconstructing. That over 100 year old barn frame was in Minnesota and I was in northern NM. It was for sale on ebay. Here's part of the story: https://garygruber.com/lessons-learned-building-a-barn/. The other side of this is my current post about your Desire Quotient. Loved your piece and relate in many ways, thanks, Don.
Thanks, Gary. That's one heck of a barn you saved! I think the manifestation of your desires is a testament to how much you really wanted it in the first place, but also a comment on your entire life's conditioning; some people are raised to believe they can achieve their dreams and some are not. Self-confidence is a combination of nature and nurture and a profoundly powerful characteristic. I never got my barn. I have a dilapidated old out-building that houses raccoons it its upper crawl space. I made do and built three guitars in that space. 🙂
Great story, Gary, and a great looking finished product. I'm sure it helped knowing you had the resources (human and financial) to pull it off, and I love that the barn now gets to live a second working life rather than just ending up as a showy part of a new dwelling!
Thanks, Elizabeth. Now the barn has a new owner who upgraded it to a large workshop/studio for his art and crafts, loaded with powerful machinery, insulated and heated, finished upstairs inside. The pegged post and beam timbers remain in view but it's not the same barn nor am I the same person as I was then. However, the barn and I have other things in common, like being recycled into a new form for different purposes now.
Such a great piece, Don. I appreciate the more lengthy discussion of “greedy eyes.” So much of my desire to be elsewhere has come from the pain of the present whether it’s mental illness or chronic body pain or something else. But what I’m learning is that if I practice being here in the everyday, present with myself when I’m peaceful or not, I can feel the peacefulness if it’s there. And if I choose to feel the pain when it comes, rather than constantly deferring it, I suffer less. Enjoy the car show with all your senses!
Thank you so much, Emily! I agree with you; if I look my pain or any negative feeling, physical or mental, square in the eye, it tends to soften right away. 💕
This brought up a lot for me and it seems I get to play devil's advocate here.
Desire is a BIG topic for me, especially the claiming and embodiment of desire. What I believe is that the present moment is Divine Desire incarnating through every facet of consciousness. The goddess incarnating as the universe she wants to see. And that the impulse of desire within us is exactly that. Divine inspiration & invitation to claim it, to be with it, to let it expand through our consciousness and our way of being in the world. With that said...
I feel there is a huuuuuuuuge misconception about desire in the field — and forgive my articulation, this is just coming to me — that selfish desire is what pulls us out of the present. It's not quite true. That's a spiritual ego judgement about desire that actually disconnects us further from ourselves, from what I can tell. The deeper issue, in my experience, is that 99.9% of people can’t actually handle the sensation of desire, itself, in their bodies, their nervous systems. so they fixate on the "getting" part of it which pulls them out of their bodies & sensation and into their heads.
The easiest way to illustrate this is when a man comes almost immediately when having sex with a woman. He can't handle the sensation of his own desire so he releases it with great force as quickly as possible! Or when a woman does the same. Or the opposite, when we entirely detach from our sexuality) Or when people have habitual sex in which they're just "going through the motions" because they are unconsciously attached to the orgasm aka the END of the highly sensational experience. A skillful lover takes their time because they've cultivated the skill of holding and moving desire through their bodies.
We could talk about writing in the same way. When we desire to write, I wonder... is it a feeling we grow more and more skillful at channeling through our nervous systems? A sensational experience that pours through our brain cells and hearts and fingers and lips? Surely it is difficult, at first, to sit still and focus with all that sensation coming through our bodies. So we get up and walk around and distract ourselves with other tasks and tabs and snacks to avoid feeling the big swell of energy, that divine inspiration, that delivers the message.
This line points to something for me: "We often feel empty or incomplete; we believe that something is missing, and that if we can only find, acquire, or achieve this missing thing, we will be happy."
From all I've experienced, the thing we mistakenly believe is missing, or is *out there* somewhere, is the feeling of our own power, which is, fundamentally, desire, for why else do we do anything? It's all a matter of how we wield it.
Oh, my, Faye, how do I even begin to respond. Your comment certainly does not deserve a "Thanks for commenting!" haha.
My instincts are that you appreciate total honesty, so here goes.
First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to read my essay, and for becoming thoughtful enough afterward to want to share your thoughts with me and other readers. I really appreciate it!
Your idea about a goddess of divine desire doesn't really resonate with me, probably because I am a different person with a different set of experiences and feelings. I'm not opposed to metaphorical thoughts on divinity, gods and goddesses, source and power and soul, etc. Shoot, I'm loving this book I'm reading right now, Anam Cara, which is all about the soul, communication with our archaic source, with lots of christian and religious folk stories thrown in.
But I don't "believe" anything. I don't think it's necessary to believe in anything. It goes completely against my sense of logic (which I understand in itself is to be questioned). I'm happy to take great pleasure in the magnificent mystery that is existence.
In my essays, I try to only discuss what I have experienced to be true for myself. In this essay, I discuss how I have found that my desires have been more about trying to prove an image I have created about myself, and realizing that what is, IS, and I am whole and complete and do not need any material possessions to finish off the project.
If I were to buy ten acres in the Green Mountains with a cabin in an attempt to fulfill my dream of a writer's retreat, an idyllic fantasy that exists in a certain way in my mind, I would find that the actual owning of the property would be completely different than my dream. Awareness is understanding what a dream is. Hermann Hesse wrote, "...he saw that in a poet's dreams reside a beauty and enchantment that one seeks in vain in the things of the real world." Of course he was young at the time, probably feeling disenchanted himself, and just trying to figure things out. I am certainly glad I did the years of hard manual work that got me two houses on Cape Cod! Or at least I think I am. I guess I could have just been an itinerant poet and been just as happy (haha how's that for a turnaround!)
My essay isn't about sex. It also isn't about the kind of desire that leads us to work for money for food, or go to a good movie, or choose a mate (but I do believe it behooves us to understand our desires in order to choose wisely—as you well know, Faye. I just recently read your post/Note about your own process in choosing a partner.)
So, I guess what I'm saying is, you have some enlightening thoughts here, Faye. I'm just not feeling the link to my essay.
I know that in your life sex is profound, fundamental to your understanding of life, love, and existence. I will confess that my own experience in that area has been... meh. But I don't feel that that has gotten in the way of manifesting and understanding my true nature.
Thanks again, Faye. I look forward to your response. Feel free to take it to DM if you need to. 💚
Ooh, I was just reading about perception in "The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching." Here is Thich Nhat Hanh:
"We have an idea of happiness. We believe that only certain conditions will make us happy. But it is often our very idea of happiness that prevents us from being happy. We have to look deeply into our perceptions in order to become free of them."
Greedy eyes is so great! Also: "..a majority of the time I look at the world through a filter of desire, with an eye for how it can serve my needs." I am so with you. I call it strategizing based on my own limited ideas.
We want the idea of the house and the car which we already are that which is security and freedom. I love that we can both see from small self but in the end it’s the Whole self that is boss. It all is, we all are, we are all of this 🌹
This is beautifully written and stirred some unexpected thoughts about my own pursuit of desires. While I felt pretty mindful in how I interpreted them, this filter of every little thing being a different desire and the separateness it creates within will be chewing at my brain all evening.
Thanks for sharing this experience, this insight, and this part of your life! Enjoy the car show, there's a place you have to I'd have to pay attention to desires as well.
Thanks, Jody. Yes, it really was an eye opener when I realized that greed wasn't just wanting lots of money and stuff, it was also just being in a state of want all the time, feeling like what I have isn't enough, even if it's less material in nature. Wanting better experiences, higher realizations, new conceptions of reality, to be looked up to. That kind of dissatisfaction and desire is just as much of an obstacle to peace.
Now I understand my ex husband better. Every where we went he wanted to buy land there, or go to a real estate office and check out the houses for sale. It was impossible to just go on vacation and leave it at that. I didn't have that desire gnawing at me. You are right. We are one with everything anyway. We don't have to own everything. Being present is enough.
I love that you are opening up conversation about desire and airing out desire- something so many repress. I actually am releasing a self love challenge tomorrow and desire is a key part of day 1.
It dawned on me recently that desire is useful when the main desire is to stop wanting😂
I love your shopping without shopping meditation- what a great practice!😊
Thanks, Tara! 💚
When you appreciate the beauty; you have it, don’t need to pluck the flowers to truly embody and honor its meaning
Yes 😊 I agree with you Paolo…when I can feel the fullness of who I am desire is transmuted into joy, or the only ‘desire’ at that point is to share that fullness w others.
And while I didn’t mention this directly in my essay, I think it’s going to come up in discussion: the desire issue is one of attachment. Of course we “desire“ to eat when we’re hungry or to replace our car when the old one is unreliable. Unhealthy desire is desire for gratification without awareness of the cycle of unachievable self-validation we might be caught up in.
Love that Don! It reminds me of something I wa studying a few nights ago- the Buddhist wheel that has the snake and pig and bird in the middle, apparently the bird was the symbol of attachment- I found that interesting!
Tara, check out my current post about DESIRE and feel free to comment or offer some feedback.
I am ever-awed by synchronicity in the world of ideas. I'm working on a poem about communion rather than dominion, and this essay explores the arena beautifully.
That's so wonderful, Kim. I want to read your poem when it'd done! 💚
I wanted a barn, not just any barn, a post and beam, timber frame barn. I found a dismantled barn frame, numbered and lettered, for architectural purposes of reconstructing. That over 100 year old barn frame was in Minnesota and I was in northern NM. It was for sale on ebay. Here's part of the story: https://garygruber.com/lessons-learned-building-a-barn/. The other side of this is my current post about your Desire Quotient. Loved your piece and relate in many ways, thanks, Don.
Thanks, Gary. That's one heck of a barn you saved! I think the manifestation of your desires is a testament to how much you really wanted it in the first place, but also a comment on your entire life's conditioning; some people are raised to believe they can achieve their dreams and some are not. Self-confidence is a combination of nature and nurture and a profoundly powerful characteristic. I never got my barn. I have a dilapidated old out-building that houses raccoons it its upper crawl space. I made do and built three guitars in that space. 🙂
Great story, Gary, and a great looking finished product. I'm sure it helped knowing you had the resources (human and financial) to pull it off, and I love that the barn now gets to live a second working life rather than just ending up as a showy part of a new dwelling!
Thanks, Elizabeth. Now the barn has a new owner who upgraded it to a large workshop/studio for his art and crafts, loaded with powerful machinery, insulated and heated, finished upstairs inside. The pegged post and beam timbers remain in view but it's not the same barn nor am I the same person as I was then. However, the barn and I have other things in common, like being recycled into a new form for different purposes now.
Buildings learn alongside us. I love the idea of being recycled into new forms for different purposes. Evergreen!
Being recycled into new and different forms is more than an idea but it certainly starts there. Thanks for noticing.
Such a great piece, Don. I appreciate the more lengthy discussion of “greedy eyes.” So much of my desire to be elsewhere has come from the pain of the present whether it’s mental illness or chronic body pain or something else. But what I’m learning is that if I practice being here in the everyday, present with myself when I’m peaceful or not, I can feel the peacefulness if it’s there. And if I choose to feel the pain when it comes, rather than constantly deferring it, I suffer less. Enjoy the car show with all your senses!
Thank you so much, Emily! I agree with you; if I look my pain or any negative feeling, physical or mental, square in the eye, it tends to soften right away. 💕
Yes!
Reminds me, also, to remember to let go of my attachments and just appreciate what is in my life. :)
Thanks for reading, Keila. I'm so glad you liked the essay!
Desire is among the hindrances to our spiritual awakening. Lovely read.
Thank you, Mr or Ms Spiritual Entertainer! :-)
There’s such joy in just looking at the world.
Looking with awe and gratitude
Yes! Teaching my teen about the greedy eyes lately. Beautiful
Thank you, Lori. May you and your son find much peace and beauty in each moment!
This brought up a lot for me and it seems I get to play devil's advocate here.
Desire is a BIG topic for me, especially the claiming and embodiment of desire. What I believe is that the present moment is Divine Desire incarnating through every facet of consciousness. The goddess incarnating as the universe she wants to see. And that the impulse of desire within us is exactly that. Divine inspiration & invitation to claim it, to be with it, to let it expand through our consciousness and our way of being in the world. With that said...
I feel there is a huuuuuuuuge misconception about desire in the field — and forgive my articulation, this is just coming to me — that selfish desire is what pulls us out of the present. It's not quite true. That's a spiritual ego judgement about desire that actually disconnects us further from ourselves, from what I can tell. The deeper issue, in my experience, is that 99.9% of people can’t actually handle the sensation of desire, itself, in their bodies, their nervous systems. so they fixate on the "getting" part of it which pulls them out of their bodies & sensation and into their heads.
The easiest way to illustrate this is when a man comes almost immediately when having sex with a woman. He can't handle the sensation of his own desire so he releases it with great force as quickly as possible! Or when a woman does the same. Or the opposite, when we entirely detach from our sexuality) Or when people have habitual sex in which they're just "going through the motions" because they are unconsciously attached to the orgasm aka the END of the highly sensational experience. A skillful lover takes their time because they've cultivated the skill of holding and moving desire through their bodies.
We could talk about writing in the same way. When we desire to write, I wonder... is it a feeling we grow more and more skillful at channeling through our nervous systems? A sensational experience that pours through our brain cells and hearts and fingers and lips? Surely it is difficult, at first, to sit still and focus with all that sensation coming through our bodies. So we get up and walk around and distract ourselves with other tasks and tabs and snacks to avoid feeling the big swell of energy, that divine inspiration, that delivers the message.
This line points to something for me: "We often feel empty or incomplete; we believe that something is missing, and that if we can only find, acquire, or achieve this missing thing, we will be happy."
From all I've experienced, the thing we mistakenly believe is missing, or is *out there* somewhere, is the feeling of our own power, which is, fundamentally, desire, for why else do we do anything? It's all a matter of how we wield it.
Oh, my, Faye, how do I even begin to respond. Your comment certainly does not deserve a "Thanks for commenting!" haha.
My instincts are that you appreciate total honesty, so here goes.
First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to read my essay, and for becoming thoughtful enough afterward to want to share your thoughts with me and other readers. I really appreciate it!
Your idea about a goddess of divine desire doesn't really resonate with me, probably because I am a different person with a different set of experiences and feelings. I'm not opposed to metaphorical thoughts on divinity, gods and goddesses, source and power and soul, etc. Shoot, I'm loving this book I'm reading right now, Anam Cara, which is all about the soul, communication with our archaic source, with lots of christian and religious folk stories thrown in.
But I don't "believe" anything. I don't think it's necessary to believe in anything. It goes completely against my sense of logic (which I understand in itself is to be questioned). I'm happy to take great pleasure in the magnificent mystery that is existence.
In my essays, I try to only discuss what I have experienced to be true for myself. In this essay, I discuss how I have found that my desires have been more about trying to prove an image I have created about myself, and realizing that what is, IS, and I am whole and complete and do not need any material possessions to finish off the project.
If I were to buy ten acres in the Green Mountains with a cabin in an attempt to fulfill my dream of a writer's retreat, an idyllic fantasy that exists in a certain way in my mind, I would find that the actual owning of the property would be completely different than my dream. Awareness is understanding what a dream is. Hermann Hesse wrote, "...he saw that in a poet's dreams reside a beauty and enchantment that one seeks in vain in the things of the real world." Of course he was young at the time, probably feeling disenchanted himself, and just trying to figure things out. I am certainly glad I did the years of hard manual work that got me two houses on Cape Cod! Or at least I think I am. I guess I could have just been an itinerant poet and been just as happy (haha how's that for a turnaround!)
My essay isn't about sex. It also isn't about the kind of desire that leads us to work for money for food, or go to a good movie, or choose a mate (but I do believe it behooves us to understand our desires in order to choose wisely—as you well know, Faye. I just recently read your post/Note about your own process in choosing a partner.)
So, I guess what I'm saying is, you have some enlightening thoughts here, Faye. I'm just not feeling the link to my essay.
I know that in your life sex is profound, fundamental to your understanding of life, love, and existence. I will confess that my own experience in that area has been... meh. But I don't feel that that has gotten in the way of manifesting and understanding my true nature.
Thanks again, Faye. I look forward to your response. Feel free to take it to DM if you need to. 💚
Thank you for this. Such a simple concept, but a lifelong practice! It always comes down to perception.
Ooh, I was just reading about perception in "The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching." Here is Thich Nhat Hanh:
"We have an idea of happiness. We believe that only certain conditions will make us happy. But it is often our very idea of happiness that prevents us from being happy. We have to look deeply into our perceptions in order to become free of them."
Ahhh, this! 👌💖🙏💖
Greedy eyes is so great! Also: "..a majority of the time I look at the world through a filter of desire, with an eye for how it can serve my needs." I am so with you. I call it strategizing based on my own limited ideas.
Thanks, Kara. That's a very nice compliment. I'm kind of proud of "greedy eyes" because it came to me with the insight, not from a book haha 😊
We want the idea of the house and the car which we already are that which is security and freedom. I love that we can both see from small self but in the end it’s the Whole self that is boss. It all is, we all are, we are all of this 🌹
Thanks for checking in, Paolo. It's a pleasure to hear from you. Be well, my friend!
Wonderful writing and topic. Also, I love that you included links to books referenced and to bookshop. Glad to know about your newsletter!
Thanks, Catherine! 🙏💚
This is beautifully written and stirred some unexpected thoughts about my own pursuit of desires. While I felt pretty mindful in how I interpreted them, this filter of every little thing being a different desire and the separateness it creates within will be chewing at my brain all evening.
Thanks for sharing this experience, this insight, and this part of your life! Enjoy the car show, there's a place you have to I'd have to pay attention to desires as well.
Thanks, Jody. Yes, it really was an eye opener when I realized that greed wasn't just wanting lots of money and stuff, it was also just being in a state of want all the time, feeling like what I have isn't enough, even if it's less material in nature. Wanting better experiences, higher realizations, new conceptions of reality, to be looked up to. That kind of dissatisfaction and desire is just as much of an obstacle to peace.
Now I understand my ex husband better. Every where we went he wanted to buy land there, or go to a real estate office and check out the houses for sale. It was impossible to just go on vacation and leave it at that. I didn't have that desire gnawing at me. You are right. We are one with everything anyway. We don't have to own everything. Being present is enough.
Ha, your ex-husband sounds like me! I’ve come a long way, but still enjoy looking at and dreaming about property for sale.
beautiful. thank you for this reminder
Thank you, Kim 💚