Computer Whirrs, Goats, and Wanting to Jump to the Top of the Mountain

It just keeps whirring and whirring. It is so busy that I can’t even get internet explorer to run. After a dozen double clicks and a few expletives, all I’m getting is the little spinning hourglass. Of course the worst runs through my head – perhaps I have caught some nasty spyware program that’s busy running through my thousands of files, collecting all kinds of data about me that will be used to create countless spam emails and ad pop-ups! Don’t be silly I tell myself. Norton’s standing guard, ready to throw boiling oil on any would-be threat to my system.

As frustration and adrenalin pushes the fogginess out of my brain, I do the ‘ctrl-alt-del’ maneuver on the keyboard to open the task manager and see just what my computer is up to. On my screen a window mysteriously opens revealing a list of complicated sounding programs that my computer is tasked with running. Right now it says that the ‘dumprep’ program is active. Well just what the heck is a dumprep anyways? It sounds so insulting, like my computer is preparing to lower itself to my level of intellect and communicate with me. I certainly know how to use a computer for God’s sake! And, I sure know how to turn this program off – the ‘end program’ button. My hand hovers in readiness above the mouse, and I’m so ready to just double click this obstacle to my quiet time on the internet.

My sanity returns as a pop-up reminds me that ‘terminating a process can cause loss of data and system instability’. Well I certainly don’t want to be doing that. So I take another sip from my steaming cup of dark roast and stare angrily at the screen. Just what do you do when it’s your time to surf the net and your computer is busy in the wee hours of the morning?

With my early morning plan to check the status of my favorite blogs thwarted, I stare dumbly at the little whirling hourglass, listening to the endless whirring. Frustrated, I sit back in my armless office chair and wait. Tick tock. Another sip of java. With a sigh, my eyes move to the wall of my little cubbyhole in the basement, which is filled with a somewhat eclectic collection of items. One of them, a recent favorite, is a picture of a goat in a most remarkable place.

Since I’m a Capricorn I can relate to goats. I remember having a runaway goat in my backyard a number of years ago when I lived in the outskirts of Pickering. It was my first meeting with a goat, and this particular goat was quite big – his head was almost even with mine at five-foot seven! I hadn’t expected a goat to be this big, and had encountered it in the back entrance stairwell of my home, which is where it remained until we found out that he lived on a nearby farm and called his owner to come and get him. The goat in this picture is the same type, fairly big, and must take quite a bit of skill to have arrived in this particular spot.

I put this photo up on my wall to remind me to stay in balance, and take one step at a time. Just keep at it. Relentlessly! That’s how goats get to the top of mountains.

Another sip of java and a sigh. My furrowed brow relaxes and my glance goes to the little basement window with beams of light now making their way in around the pulled blind. Maybe this is what the universe is whispering to me today. Stop, get your balance. Then take a small step. You don’t have to jump to the top of the mountain today.

And then I remember to just ask myself: ‘why?’ Why do I want to be jumping to the top of the mountain this morning? Is it the notion of being asked to do more and more, faster and faster, that I am feeling? Isn’t that what all of us are feeling: the insane job workload, the commuter behind us beeping if we’re not leaping out of the gate when the light turns green, the next person in line at the grocery store shoving their items towards the cashier the microsecond the change is in your hand, someone stepping on your heels in the subway.



http://www.thevenusproject.com/



Or, maybe this is faint remembrance, that I used to be able to do much more, in fact, as the glimmering grows, I recall doing miraculous things seemingly at a snap of the finger. Actually as I sink deeper into this memory I remember being able to visualize what I wanted to build, and then using my thought direct the efforts of unseen energies that would assemble beautiful buildings! A memory fragment from eons ago, downloaded from the consciousness of the planet, a race of advanced beings living on continents (Atlantis for example) that are now submerged under thousands of feet of water.

‘Arroow. Arroow!’ My cat, Mrr, a beautiful Russian blue, has ventured down into my cubbyhole and announced that she wants some attention. As I bend down to stroke her velvety fur, she rewards me with very loud purrs (we call these ‘mrrs’) and then she touches her little wet nose to my bigger dry nose. Being ‘nosed’ by Mrr is like a kiss from a loved family member. And then in a flash, my little grey ghost turns and jumps up the stairs two by two, and then I hear her galloping around the house, sounding like a herd of elephants.

I turn back to the computer – the whirring has stopped and my home page is up on the screen. I’m reminded of ‘the mountain’ that I came to climb. I had intended on surfing the net to gather ideas for writing my blog… But it seems that the Universe is providing the ideas, not me. By listening to these whispers – the possibilities are infinite!