Same as February last year, I went to the bank – with wary reluctance, mind you – to add funds which could last me until about November-ish. Unlike last February, there isn't a problem anticipated about the funds coming through, and unlike last February I didn't fall into a pit of squirming self-loathing regarding adding funds to survive instead of just facing the looming end of finances.

I think part of that self-loathing was borne out of the frustration of making the humiliating attempt to add finances and being told it might not go through because of the defective instrument. This time no defect, no problem anticipated, no frustration, ergo no self-loathing. But I also feel something else that helped fuel the self-loathing back then is different now, and does relate to recent posts about how I should be feeling now and what I should be doing.

I don't think I'm taking a lax attitude about continuing to exist or being comfortable about being here. I've established that these existential quandaries need to be bothering me front and center on a constant basis (even today, from my reading jumped out, "You understand that the time of death is uncertain, death comes quickly, change happens rapidly, and there is no time to waste" - Gampopa, Confusion Arises as Wisdom, p. 205). Maybe I've only found that I can't joke about it. But my finances keep getting extended. They got extended, obviously, after that bank failure last February. And it's alright for me to be alright with that. Finances aren't my great corrupter. They just enable dysfunction. Finances aren't the problem. You probably could've told me that.

Fine, all my past patterns indicate that I'll cruise along as usual until November. And then I have several more presumably non-defective instruments and all my past patterns indicate that I will continue to extend my finances as long as they're available. And it's alright for me to be alright with that.

The difference from before is having added into my awareness and mindfulness practice how suddenly things can turn. And I shouldn't let what all my past patterns indicate become cynical resignation to what will definitely happen. Even if they forecast what probably will happen, I need to navigate every section of time on its own merits of causes and conditions and contemplate whether it's finally my turn. Mindfulness zooms into moments and details, pixelating them, and stops time and feelings and all the old existential questions well up in new ways and dimensions.

And quite frankly, I think my practice – mindfulness practice with Vajrayana influences – has been becoming something that makes my existence at least worth something to me. That is to say if I happen to keep being able to live, practice is a reason to not feel so bad about it. It's no change of direction or reason to live. It may even help towards my goal as realizations, inspirations and even experience of the nature of reality align with them. It's good stuff. It's down the rabbit hole. But even I will stop short of the suggestion that practice can be a way towards suicide. It's not. But the more I write about it, the messier it'll get so I'll just leave it at that.

I found a blue feather today at the end of a 20-mile ride. It was about the last 100 meters when I saw it; swerving so that my wheels didn't go over it. It was an eye-catching blue and I figured it fell off of a pet tropical bird that I know at least one person owns and takes to the riverside parks to get some flight time. I've seen it. It didn't sink in immediately, but blue feather! As soon as I crossed my finish line I headed back to the area to look for it. Why didn't I stop immediately and pick it up? Why did I have to "finish the ride" first?

Anyone recalling Richard Bach's book Illusions would understand the significance of the blue feather. It's on the cover of the friggin' book! The master is trying to teach Richard something or another in response to one of his questions and ends up challenging him to conjure up something, magnetize it into existence. Richard chooses a blue feather, but fails miserably until later in the evening when he gets excited noticing the milk he's drinking is from Blue Feather Farms or something. It's not an actual blue feather that the master was hoping for, but Richard was pretty pleased with himself. Who wouldn't be?

I'm not sure where I stand on that sort of thing now. I used to believe in it, that coincidences were actually rare. More often things happened for a purpose and not just coincidentally. We bring things into our lives, good or bad, when we need them. Now that's more of an idealized, romantic view of possibility that's best reserved for the youth. Not so much for cynical grown-ups who are beaten down and embittered by reality, lol! I used to look for signs, signs of meaning, signs that could be interpreted to mean something. Nothing ever came out of any of that, now coincidences are just coincidences, but that's not the signs' fault. But that sort of reality manipulation by a master is not far off from what realized Tibetan lamas are claimed to be able to do. Miracles. Masters of reality to borrow a Black Sabbath album title. The historical Jesus may have been one according to some theories speculating he spent years as a young adult studying with yogis in India and became quite an adept, having become quite adept at it. 

It's not that I don't believe in that sort of possibility. It's just not manifest in my perceived reality now; causes and conditions, karma.

I was discouraged when I didn't immediately see it when I looked for it. The wind was gusting and it was possible that it was blown away, or maybe someone else picked it up in that minute or two to finish the ride and go look for it? I covered that short stretch of bikeway several times without spotting it and decided it was no big deal, whatever. But as it often happens, just when I gave up on it, I spotted it just off the paving, picked it up, stuck it securely in the brake cables on my bike headset, called it macaroni and headed home. 

But all this is not why I'm writing about it. Later in the day, I was re-reading one of the books I'm constantly reading and came upon this story that I've read and re-read many times and had to smile when I read it today:

There is a very moving story in the Jataka Tales about fearlessness. Once there was a parrot who lived in the forest, and one day the forest caught fire. Since the parrot was able to fly, she started to fly away. Then she heard the crying of the animals and insects trapped in the forest. They could not fly away like she could. When the parrot heard their anguish, she thought to herself, "I cannot just go away; I must help my friends."

     So the parrot went to the river, where she soaked all her feathers, and then flew back to the forest. She shook her feathers over the forest, but it was very little water, not nearly enough to stop a forest fire. So, she went back to the river, wet her feathers, and did this over and over again. The fire was so strong and hot that her feathers were scorched and burned, and she was choking on the smoke. But even though she was about to die, she kept going back and forth. 

     Up in the god realms, some of the gods were looking down and laughing, saying, "Look at that silly little parrot. She is trying to put out a forest fire with her tiny wings, lol!"

     Indra, the king of the gods, overheard them. He wanted to see for himself, so he transformed himself into a big eagle and flew down just above the parrot. The eagle called out, "Hey, foolish parrot! What are you doing? You're not doing any good, and you're about to be burned alive. Get away while you can!"

     The parrot replied, "You are such a big bird, why don't you help me to put out the fire? I don't need your advice; I need your help."

     When the little parrot said this with so much courage and conviction, the eagle, who was actually the king of gods, shed tears because he was so moved. His tears were so powerful that they put out the fire. Some of Indra's tears also fell on the parrot's burned feathers. Wherever the tears fell, the feathers grew back in different colors. This is said to be the origin of parrots' colorful feathers. So, it turned out that the little parrots's courage made the fire go out, and at the same time, she became more beautiful than ever. - Confusion Arises as Wisdom, Ringu Tulku.

That pretty much sorta qualifies as magnetizing. Finding a blue feather from a tropical bird that recalled the book which introduced me to the idea of magnetizing things into our lives, and then reading a tale the same day about how parrots got their colored feathers. Actually, even finding the feather qualifies, albeit taking 30 years for me to finally actualize my blue feather.

When I got home, I wondered what did I think I was going to do with this dirty, discarded, slightly tattered, beautifully blue foot-long feather (yellow underneath) that I had picked out of the dirt off the ground? It went straight from my bike headset to my sitting "altar". Of course.