I was visiting friends in the town of Woodstock, NY. I could feel the town not only in my memory but in my bones. It was that visceral. I’d been visiting there for years. And it wasn’t about the music festival. The visceral feeling I had was very different from drugs, sex, and rock ‘n’ roll. In1969, I was in Sierra Leone, West Africa, in the Peace Corps and didn’t attend the festival.

I did go to a festival a year or two later, to see Joe Cocker. I also went to Woodstock to stay in a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery for a few days. I went there to climb a mountain nearby, to visit a native American site, and a Zen Monastery. And then friends began moving to the area.

And now I notice that whenever I visit, or wherever I walk in the town, I am engulfed in a mood, and expectation. Except for when I see my friends, everywhere I look, everything I see—the mountain just out of town, the central square, the tourist shops, bookstores, art galleries are covered by some deep-seated sense of a reality originating somewhere beyond sight; it’s more of a walking myth than a touchable reality.

And it’s clear that nothing I touch can live up to that myth. That’s one nature of a mood, and myth. They don’t fit into normal boxes. A mood sets the tone for emotion and actions. According to psychologist and pioneer in the study of emotion and facial expression, Dr. Paul Ekman, moods “lower the threshold for arousing” emotions. They set us up, ready us. Think about a time you were in an irritable mood, for example, and how ready you were to get annoyed, or angry. We pick from the world whatever will call forth the anger, or depression, sadness, frustration, inadequacy, etc. and we become less willing and able to stop the emotion.

If we’re in a “good mood,” or we feel open, then euphoria, joy, insight all might come more readily. Emotions are more short-lived. Moods can go on for much longer, for hours, maybe on and off for years.

Ekman asks, what brings forth a mood? One source can be physiological changes. For example, lack of sleep or food can make our children, or us, cranky. Sometimes, lack of sleep can also do the opposite. We get out of bed in the morning, and our cat or dog sees us, rolls over onto its back, shows us it’s belly, and puts its paws behind its ears. And we start laughing crazily.

But Ekman also speaks of dense emotional experiences, ones of high intensity, and often repeated, as causing a mood. For example, someone insults us, repeatedly, and a mood forms around the person and the place we experience them. And if we don’t get the chance to fully respond to the communication or provocation, to honestly express our emotion or to fully experience what we needed, there’s more of a chance a mood might develop. And we no longer see the person and place as an immediate, alive presence. Our freedom of mind, of action can be narrowed or lost. I remember as a nine-year-old having to harden myself in preparation for rebuffing the efforts of another student to insult or make me look foolish and hide my fear. It didn’t take long before the sight of the schoolroom began to evoke a mood of threat.

And this fits the myth of Woodstock. My visits to monasteries were short. I never stayed for a long enough session to fully grasp the meaning of the place, its teachings and practices. The experience was just a hint, a mere taste. A bell was rung but never allowed to ring in me. And now I enter a store and have an expectation of finding a book that will reach deeply into my heart or provide me with what the monastery promised. A mood can narrow our mind or remind us of expanded visions we haven’t yet seen. Stores sell myths; but myths that can be bought are never ones to be lived.

One day during our recent visit, my wife and friends went off shopping for flowers and I was alone. I went down to a stream in a wooded area, sat on a chair someone left on the rocks probably for just this purpose, and meditated. I started by counting my breaths; but once focused, I let go of the counting and just listened. Cars and trucks were passing by on a road nearby. There was this constant, steady, almost humming sound, which, as my mind quieted, was recognized as the stream speaking. And so many birds. So many I hadn’t heard until then and didn’t name until later– crows, robins, nuthatches, the harsh, loud voice of a pileated woodpecker. The quieter I was, the more I heard. And the less– no more myths or moods. No more getting lost in thoughts and memories….

*To read the whole post, please go to The Good Men Project.