Conducting the pitch

This morning, planning my day as I have done since spending time with “Skillful Means” and “Mastering Successful Work” years ago, it occurred to me that I rarely get through my List for the day.  Energy runs out.  Or as MSW puts it, Awareness, Concentration, and Energy, only stick around for so long each day.  I have found those three to be very useful allies and that planning goes at least part way to focusing awareness, harnessing concentration, and welcoming energy to join whatever I am hoping to do with the hours that Time makes available.   Time, Space, and Knowledge are more allusive allies. They are not as easy to incorporate into plans for the day.  (It is helpful to remember that the planner is part of the plan.)  Perhaps an image from Baseball fits with how I approach my day.  Time pitches the ball across the plate and I think of myself as the batter poised for the moment of contact.  The pitcher is part of the pitch?  Meanwhile I am part of the swing, (and the strike, the ball, or the strike-out that  the future may bring is part of my time on earth).  Space is more than the area over home plate across which the ball flies by at 100 miles an hour, more than the diamond of bases, more than outer field,or the bleachers full of spectators, or even the clouds passing overhead.  And as in life, our roles change, sometimes the batter is out in outer field, less focused perhaps the when standing on home plate at the moment the pitcher’s arm flashes down.  For the outfielder there may be more opportunity to feel a broader sweep of time and space, even notice for a moment a flock of birds flying over the stadium.  But if he gets too caught up in a meditative contemplation of the open blue sky (TSK practice in the first TSK book), he may lose the game as a pop fly lands at his feet (and become an unpopular guy among teammates and fans).  So while noticing the conducting in our conduct and the story teller in our stories, it seems that we must remain present to our personal conduct and strive to be the a character of good character in the stories we are living. –Michael