Dharma Addicts

A Serenity Prayer Revisited - 27 Feb 2012 18:27

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

or

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I cannot accept and the wisdom to know that it is You that doest the work.

I have an old astrology book “The Secret Language of Birthday: Personology Profiles for Each Day of the Year” that I use to remind me of the Earthly time and seasons and where I stand in relation to the Earth’s rotation around the Sun. I’ve had this book for around 15 years, but I began using this book as a tool a couple of years ago. I remember thinking that if I stayed in the circle of these 365 or so pages I could watch my life develop and use these pages as the background of the spiraling dynamic of my own evolution in consciousness. I see each birthday as a manifestation of kairos in the Kosmic consciousness. Each birthday page gives character to the space of time that I hold in my awareness from my awakening each morning to my laying down each night.

A relationship with the cycle of time forms as each page reminds me of a day I’ve been through or a person whom I’ve met with the same birthday. It’s been interesting seeing new days pop up that I didn’t remember and wonder what I was doing. It’s been fun to meet people who are born on the days that I’m familiar with and see if their personality matches the traits in the book. As I turn the page on the new day, the random data of the day shapes up into the day’s strengths and weaknesses, and I apply the wisdom of the advice and the daily the meditation. I’m starting to remember the names of each day and the days are starting to take on a character of their own.

Today is May 22 The Day of The Serial Epic. Today Richard Wagner was born. Wagner, the book tells me, was a 19th Century German opera composer, poet, essayist, multimedia artist, and the first conductor to conduct all of Beethoven’s symphonies. Many of the other people born on this day – Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Abdul Baha, etc… – have similarly impressive curricula vitae.

Those born on this day…

have the energy required for epic feats. They are magnetically drawn toward serial creations and forms of entertainment in which they can exercise their talents again and again with development and variation. The excess of their lives does not necessarily lie in the amount of material wealth they pile up nor the number of friends they acquire, but in the production of work. May 22 people most often repetitively create within a model or construct, and their projects are rarely isolated or one of a kind. Those born on this day are also collectors – whether of lists, facts, numbers, birthdays or objects, and can often be found categorizing, naming and typing. They can even collect people, in the sense of friends and acquaintances.

The meditation for the Day of the Serial Epic is…

Alone among the animals, man loves noise

The weakness of the day are tendencies to be…

1. obsessive
2. compulsive
3. unrealistic

I often cover these so that I don’t obsess on them.

The strengths of the day are tendencies to be…

1. persistent
2. energetic
3. productive

I try to focus on these and look for example in the day when I can describe myself or my life circumstances in these terms.

The advise for the day is…

Work on emotional self-control. Learn the value of maintenance and don’t overlook the details. Lessen demands on your partner; examine your own faults. Don’t take on woo much and finish what you start.

Like Brahma, every morning I open my eyes is the birthing of a day with new potential, a new chance at life. No matter how rational I try to be, in the end, most of what happens in a day is just random data and sensation, grist for the dream mill to sort through as my head hits the pillow. I have trouble saying whether the events of a day are good or bad. Getting me to were I want to go or not or whether where I end up will bring me happiness. Sometimes something that I’ve thought was completely terrible has opened up a wonderful opportunity. I seek out wisdom in books as I collect wisdom from what the events of life have to offer me on a daily basis. I try to use this book as a bit of guidance to hedge my trial and error wandering through life. Everyday is more content for the story of our lives. As I’ve developed I learned that there are many different ways ones can tell a story and that owning one’s story is to a certain extent the ownership authorship of one’s own life.