I do care, and that’s enough.
Field Notes 20260702 - Thursday
The pull to go inward and sit with nagging, unresolved, forgotten, or ignored issues, aspects, and situations is strong in recent days. I know this, I speak of it, yet my ego has been doing a good job of living in denial, “but that’s not me!” So, taking my own advice, today’s meditation was all about a particular line of thinking that has been slowly, but surely, coming up to the surface more and more.
Throughout the day, questions would surface in my mind such as, “Why am I doing all of this? What’s the point? Does anyone even care? Do I?” These were all squarely pointed at Percept Index, writing, and illustration.
Initially, I did the normal sanity check and ignored the negatively charged inquiry from within; oftentimes I don’t believe it’s even our own doing, but that’s a different subject. When the echoes of these thoughts persist for days, however, I begin to move them to the center, shine the light of my consciousness on them once more, and interrogate. If they don’t dissolve just by doing that, then I know that it’s time to sit with it, really sit with it.
That is what I did today.
Today’s Field Notes illustration:
The Hermit is the ninth card of the major arcana and the Rider-Waite-Smith deck’s figure of the light turned inward. Pamela Colman Smith paints a gray-cloaked elder alone on a snowy summit, eyes cast down, right hand raising a lantern in which a six-pointed star burns; the left steadies a golden staff, and the peaks fall away below him into the dark. The card speaks to withdrawal, patient searching, and counsel taken from within. As a meditation focus, its lesson lives in the lantern — a light that reveals only the next step, carried for the walking rather than the watching, burning the same whether or not anyone follows it up the mountain. One flame, held high, enough.
Afternoon
Meditation
- 30 minutes.
- Expand app, timer section, F12 (expanded awareness).
Before lying down for the session, I briefly thought about it. Usual default is to practice presence, stillness, or drop into trance and cast a query, or maybe practice focus point techniques, shadow work is never done, etc. There’s a lot, and I often find myself not really knowing where it’ll go, unless something yanks my mind and drops a hint.
The shadow has been calling all week, and the last, so I picked up again, and sure enough, that nagging self-doubt came back like an unhinged voicemail. Prep and settling into F10 (mind awake, body asleep) wasn’t difficult; I dropped pretty quickly this afternoon. Once I expanded into F12 (expanded awareness), I brought the doubts up as I normally would with any fear or uncertainty.
I tossed the subject matter into the ether. I tossed the emotions that were covered by it into the vast ocean before me. I then looked at the core of it all.
Somewhere along the way, my longest project by far, Percept Index, began to be held as identity by the ego. Of course it was — it’s nearly impossible to keep the ego out of every single aspect of yourself; it’s nosey. It’s also anxious, highly opinionated, and afraid of its own shadow (heh). So that lens has been slowly forming over my otherwise clear view of what Percept Index is.
It’s ironic, really. Right from the “about” section:
Percept Index: an esoteric illustrator and writer documenting consciousness in real time.
That is the mission with a side quest of, “Your mind is my mind, re-arranged.” Nowhere does it state anything about evaluating the worth of the project based on attention, likes, restacks, shares, engagement, etc. All of that is regarding the platform from which I distribute my work after it is published on perceptindex.com, of course.
So, where did I arrive with: “Why am I doing all of this? What’s the point? Does anyone even care? Do I?”
I do care. I write to release the default tension I hold as I navigate my life. I smile and feel a great sense of accomplishment when the tiny illustration takes shape and I put my brushes down. The process of navigating difficult subjects to integrate them and realize a sense of lightness with each one that is resolved is gratifying. To go to sleep in peace and wake up to an empty mind is liberating.
I do care, and that’s enough.