deferral

God says,

"By deferring my generosity I am helping him.

His need dragged him by the hair into my presence.

If I satisfy that, he'll go back to being absorbed

in some idle amusement. Listen how passionate he is!

That torn-open cry is the way he should live."

-Rumi

Vulnerability

There is a new vulnerability within me. I think it's really a strength. Whatever the case, Rumi makes me laugh. Merton makes me cry.

"It took me time to find out: but I write down what I have found out at last, so that anyone who is now in the position that I was in then may read it and know what to do to save himself from great peril and unhappiness. And to such a one I would say: Whoever you are, the land to which God has brought you is not like the land of Egypt from which you came out. You can no longer live here as you lived there. Your old life and your former ways are crucified now, and you must not seek to live any more for your own gratification, but give up your own judgment into the hands of a wise director, and sacrifice your pleasures and comforts for the love of God and give the money you no longer spend on those things, to the poor."

-Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain

a nine pound hammer or a woman like you

Point 1) I've been studying addiction. Really, I'm studying the symptoms. I know addiction occurs when I want something, seemingly out of the blue. My mind tells me that I just want it, as though I were fulfilling some random craving, as though anything were random. This is how my addictions play out. Suddenly I want coffee (out of the blue), and ignoring the craving, a headache arises. I ask myself where this headache came from, missing the causation.

When I took the five precepts, I was instantly filled with intense craving for these very things. I thought this was a strange sort of reaction, being that these intense desires were nonexistent a few days earlier. Then it started to become clear - I am addicted to these pleasures. As (most of) these five desires begin to die down, I notice similar reactions towards other things. Coffee, meat, sugar, self-loathing, fear, Taylor Swift... I have nothing to do but keep observing these symptoms. The strangeness of it all is that I'm no longer sure what isn't an addiction.

Point 2) When sitting, my mind wanders. There comes a certain point in every sitting where there is a strong "kick" from within. Something inside me wants to stop meditating. Like the addiction, however, I have no causal awareness. I have always attributed this to an outside cause. It's my legs hurting, the need to check the clock, the five bugs scouting my neck and ears, that dog seemingly barking at me. The list is as beautifully diverse as one would expect. Lately though, I noticed that it happens the same amount of time into the hour...

Oddly, as faith in mind dissolves, I feel relieved.

Spiritual children

Whenever two are linked this way, there comes another
from the unseen world. It may be through birth,
if nothing prevents conception,
but a third does come, when two unite in love,
or in hate. The intense qualities born
of such joining appear in the spiritual world.

You will recognize them when you go there.
Your associations bear progeny.
Be careful, therefore. Wait, and be conscious,
before you go to meet anyone.
Remember there are children to consider!

Children you must live with and tend to,
born of your emotions with another, entities
with a form, and speech, and a place to live.
They are crying to you even now.
You have forgotten us. Come back.
Be aware of this. A man and a woman together
always have a spiritual result.

-Rumi

This fear

What sort of thing is this fear? Someone told me I'm different after returning. I knew that already, but I didn't know if people noticed or not. As I've been searching for jobs and being busy, I let my meditation slide. I didn't even sit yesterday, and at first I can hardly tell the dIfference. But I'm fairly certain there is all the difference. When I go to yoga with my teacher, it is as though I shed many layers in his presence. This allows for such a different experience than when I used to push and push in other classes. The other day we did a long series of hip openers and by the end, I was ready to scream out and cry. The poses just touch a deeper part of me when those barriers drop away. Similarly, when I meditate, layers of rationalization, compromise, and excuses drop out of my thought processes. It's like I see a truer version of myself, and the funniest part of it all is that I don't know the man who is exposed. There seems to be a steep learning curve to life, when one has never done it well before. How do you interact with people? How do you deal with your emotions?

I seem to make make innumerable mistakes. I find how unruly my mind can be, and I wonder if it's really possible to do the things I'm aiming for. Maybe I'm just where I need to be - paralyzed but growing in my self-awareness.

--------------------------------------------------
"Like the beginner the swordmaster is fearless, but, unlike him, he grows daily less and less accessible to fear. Years of unceasing meditation have taught him that life and death are at bottom the same and belong to the same stratum of fact. He no longer knows what fear of life and terror of death are. He lives - and this is thoroughly characteristic of Zen - happily enough in the world, but ready enough to quit it without being in the least disturbed by the thought of death. It is not for nothing that the Samurai have chosen for their truest symbol the fragile cherry blossom. Like a petal dropping in the morning sunlight and floating serenely to earth, so must the fearless detach himself from life, silently and inwardly unmoved.

To be free from the fear of death does not mean pretending to oneself, in one's good hours, that one will not tremble in the face of death, and that there is nothing to fear. Rather, he who masters both life and death is free from fear of any kind to the extent that he is incapable of experiencing what fear feels like. Those who do not know the power of rigorous and protracted meditation cannot judge of the self-conquests it makes possible. At any rate the perfected Master betrays his fearlessness at every turn, not in words, but in his whole demeanor: one has only to look at him to be profoundly affected by it."

-Eugen Herrigel

There's the art I'm seeking

"Spend ten years observing bamboos, become a bamboo yourself, then forget everything - and paint."

-Eugen Herrigel

fear

As I live my life, I find a deep existential fear within me. I call it existential, because I can't find a specific cause for it. I can't trace it back to its roots, but it reaches into my entire life. When I'm walking down the street, it creeps into my steps, whispering into my ear that I need to make sure my legs work right. I need to MAKE them move. And then I put unnecessary tension into my legs, becoming less efficient and putting the fear into my physical body. When I'm doing a yoga pose, it creeps in, saying that I shouldn't let myself go in that particular direction. When I'm dancing, the fear tells me that I'm about to miss the beat - it says to step now, before the music passes me by. The fear tells me I need to seek out a way to make a living, it tells me to worry about the amount in my bank account, it tells me to grab the closest thing and hold on for dear life.

And when I meditate, this fear abates, but a strange new feeling takes over. This is a certain aloofness from the world; it's a real sense that everything around me, including body and mind, is distinct from something inside me. It's as though I'm sitting on a bus, watching the world drift by, except that drifting is every sensible thing. In these moments, I intuitively sense that I am nothing but spirit, and this world truly is molded by the intent of that spirit. I feel that no action must be done, no heart won over, no dinner prepared, for all this is already finished as my spirit dictates. The world is something entirely new and strange, where I find that my actions ring hollow like the tantrums of a three-year-old. The fear sucks me away from this realization, and I am compelled to act. But these actions yield nothing. I end up dancing a dance of neuroticism, narcissism, nihilism. I end up denying everything I sense myself to be.

But I don't deny the existence of matter, and I don't mean to speak as though it doesn't matter. I think that once I can truly see from the perspective of spirit, I will understand the deep import of my actions. But without this understanding, believing that the true action is indeed the outer one, I feel that I doom myself to a wasted life. I really feel that I haven't done anything in my life - only meditation hints towards true action. I am reminded of the Marianne Williamson quote:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

eating meat

I stopped eating meat, but even as I write that, I ask myself whether it's true. I have been eating meat recently - I had some last night, just because I really wanted it. And I ate it at my father's house, because it was what was served. As I woke up this morning, I felt hung over. My body felt heavy and achey, my head was groggy and unclear. And I'm not sure why that would be. I got a lot of sleep; I wasn't up too late. But I did have some barbecued chicken fairly late in the night.

The reason I'm moving away from eating meat is because of the teaching to maintain a state of morality as a base for meditation. It's not that I particularly feel that killing animals is wrong, but simply that the teaching says not to kill. It seems like I should give it a full trial. I've left alcohol, lying, sexual misconduct, and stealing behind too. Of course, I try to. When I first made the vow to follow these five precepts, I was filled with a feeling that this is the first real action I've ever taken in my life. It felt deeply respectful of myself in a way that I've never felt before.

The more I consider this morality (or sila, as it's called in Pali), I understand it to form a wall around myself. It is this wall that protects our own individuality and values. It prevents us from hurting others, and prevents others from hurting us. So often, I've been living in the world like a mess. My interactions with others have no discipline - they resemble a shoddy dance connection, pushing, pulling, leaning, falling... barely making it through the dance on our feet and congratulating ourselves at the originality of it all.

i need the clay

As a young man, I was distraught by my inability to play sports. I was ok, but never very good. I have a horrible memory about playing in a basketball game, and they inbounded the ball to me after the other team scored. I got so nervous and excited that I just shot the ball. It was my only basket for the season - for the other team. I remember the awful shame - the silence of the entire gym, my inability to face anyone, the desire to evaporate. That was extreme, but I never excelled or felt very comfortable on a sports field. Looking back, I realize that this was very simply because I was not born with an athletic body. My posture was bad, I was gangly, lacking developed musculature. And this prevented me from feeling comfortable and in control on a sports field. I used to not understand.

So now I realize (and have accepted) that to walk the path of a dancer, I need some clay to mold. I need muscles and better posture. I need to work if I want to become something - this body must be shaped.


----------------------------------------------------------
On another note, here are some quotes from current reading:

"It must, however, be borne in mind that the pculiar spirit of [archery], far from having to be infused back into the use of bow and arrow in recent times, was always essentially bound up with them, and has emerged all the more forthrightly and convincingly now that it no longer has to prove itself in bloody contests. It is not true to say that the traditional technique of archery, since it is no longer of importance in fighting, has turned into a pleasant pastime and thereby been rendered innocuous. The "Great Doctrine" of archery tells us something very different. According to it, archery is still a matter of life and death to the extent that it is a contest of the archer with himself; and this kind of contest is not a paltry substitute, but the foundation of all contests outwardly directed - for instance with a bodily opponent. In this contest of the archer with himself is revealed the secret essence of this art, and instruction in it does not suppress anything essential by waiving the utilitarian ends to which the practice of knightly contests was put."
- Eugen Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Archery


"On the last day of January of 1915, under the sign of the Water Bearer, in a year of a great war, and down in the shadow of some French mountains on the borders of Spain, I came into the world. Free by nature, in the image of God, I was nevertheless the prisoner of my own violence and my own selfishness, in the image of the world into which I was born. That world was the picture of Hell, full of men like myself, loving God and yet hating Him; born to love Him, living instead in fear and hopeless self-contradictory hungers."

"When I think now of that part of my childhood, the picture I get of my brother John Paul is this: standing in a field, about a hundred yards away from the clump of sumachs where we have built our hut, is this little perplexed five-year-old kid in short pants and a kind of a leather jacket, standing quite still, with his arms hanging down at his sides, and gazing in our direction, afraid to come any nearer on account of the stones, as insulted as he is saddened, and his eyes full of indignation and sorrow. And yet he does not go away. We shout at him to get out of there, to beat it, and go home, and wing a couple of more rocks in that direction, and he does not go away. We tell him to play in some other place. He does not move.
And there he stands, not sobbing, not crying, but angry and unhappy and offended and tremendously sad. And yet he is fascinated by what we are doing, nailing shingles all over our new hut. And his tremendous desire to be with us and to do what we are doing will not permit him to go away. The law written in his nature says that he must be with his elder brother, and do what he is doing: and he cannot understand why this law of love is being so wildly and unjustly violated in his case.
Many times it was like that. And in a sense, this terrible situation is the pattern and prototype of all sin: the deliberate and formal will to reject disinterested love for us for the purely arbitrary reason that we simply do not want it. We will to separate ourselves from that love. We reject it entirely and absolutely, and will not acknowledge it, simply because it does not please us to be loved. Perhaps the inner motive is that the fact of being loved disinterestedly reminds us that we all need love from others, and depend upon the charity of others to carry on our own lives. And we refuse love, and reject society, in so far as it seems, in our own perverse imagination, to imply some obscure kind of humiliation."
-Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain


It seems that the true intention of our denial of love is to assert our own independence (and false sense of strength). This would seemingly allow us the abililty to exist in the world without the potential to be hurt by betrayal or loss of love, but it's not true. Because, as Merton says, this goes against our very nature of being. We are not ourselves in the sense we think ourselves to be. We are awash in a great societal, generational, planetary, psychological, aeon-long turmoil. This turmoil is the truth of our lives, not some puny (and imagined) sense of individuality. To understand this is to be as we are meant to be.

maybe not so dead

(Aug 3, 2011)

I think I've decided to start blogging again. It happened unexpectedly. I was sitting at a Nationals baseball game next to an old friend, and he mentioned something about my life that I was surprised to hear him know. And he referred to my blog. Another friend just a few weeks ago did something similar, and it occurred to me that people actually read it. And maybe people actually liked it. That vaguely crossed my mind before, but the reality didn't sink home.

Suddenly when I realized I was returning to Portland in what will be my second go at making a life there, I wanted to write again. Maybe I'm becoming an addict. The current question, as the scope of my life shifts, is what to rename the blog. What better place to find a name than Rumi's poetry?


The presence rolling through again
clears the shelves and shuts down shops.

Friend of the soul, enemy of the soul,
why do you want mine?

Bring tribute from the village.
But the village is gone in your flood.

The cleared site is what I want.
Live in the opening where there is no door
to hide behind. Be pure absence.
In that state everything is essential.

The rest of this must be said in silence
because of the enormous difference between light
and words that try to say light.


The new title is “A cleared site.” And this is what I will try to be. There's a long, joyous path in front of me, and simultaneously I am weighed down by a new understanding of my grief. I feel the wound dealt me when born – the one I've been picking at, not letting heal for 27 years. I see it now, and I see all the ways that I made it deeper. Now comes the process of recognition, of moving towards that vulnerability that I so long denied. Now comes the truth and the healing. And with it, just maybe, success.

My ambition is no smaller. In fact, the past year has made it larger, and the past months have honed it. I drop away all that is unnecessary, and what remains defines the path of my life. There is little I can do. I still feel like I got on an express train, and my faith alone keeps me from going mad thinking that the whole thing is headed nowhere. I could never be a nihilist. Long ago, in the recesses of my mind, I stumbled across solipsism, and in fact I may still be a believer, but nihilism reeks of untruth to me. How can one deny the deep lost connection, the wound of separation from something that I have no words for? I never could. And now I will consciously never do so again.

There is a deep need to acknowledge the truth of my existence. I hope that as I learn to do this, I turn myself into a cleared space. I hope that I take this knife and do my killing. I am not walking the path of consolations.

Brenda and Steven

Sorry, everyone, the blog is dead. For now at least. My journey has turned inwards, and publishing it has lost relevance.

www.brendaandsteven.com

manhood and initiation

Initiation is the departure from the world of women. It is often a fear-filled experience - one intended to shock boys out of the world of their childhood. There is a wound. There is the gift of knowledge. There is self-awareness.

Modern man has lost the ritual, and now there's talk about a world of boys. Marie-Louise von Franz talked about it in Puer Aeternus. She describes the archetype of the child god, who wants to fly to the sun - a modern-day Icarus. After reading the book, I began to see the phenomenon everywhere.

I just reread A Separate Peace. On the back cover reviewers talk about the "evil" in the book. I think that's a load of bull. It's a story about a bunch of boys - blind, animalistic boys. It's only through a destructive act that they find their bearings in the world of men. It's a book about how everyone grows up - some through the war, some through the machinations and mistakes of boys. In essence, to grow up means to take responsibility for our actions - it means to know our mortality. In fact, the book ends beautifully as Gene takes responsibility for his actions, and Finny accepts and forgives his friend. The death should not bother us, because these are two boys that have become men. And the world of men is a world of risk and death. Gene and Finny's world is no different from the shores of Normandy. We should be happy for two boys who completed their path to manhood.

In a world where we lack initiation, we are often induced to wound ourselves to break the bonds of our childhood. The real problem is that we seem to get stuck in this masochistic reality. We must take the necessary steps to healing. The wound is perfect and natural; it is a step towards manhood. The question of healing is different though. When we have wounded ourselves, we are often doing it unconsciously, though deliberately. It is this unconsciousness that prevents healing, because healing only comes through awareness.

to meditation

I'm off to meditation for a while, and won't be blogging.

a latenight birthday blog

IF we are everything we have been and everything we will be, if the notion of time is misguided, then my world makes sense. If you can feel the silence and yearning in a moment, because you are not yet fully what you know yourself to be, then you will understand me. If the goal of my life becomes to find that stillness - that silence - that knows itself beyond time, then I feel right.

I am worlds - a dichotomy of this physical body and the motion within. This motion shapes the body like wind the dunes. There is a surging within me. I see far, and I want to see farther. I want to see the ultimate motion - the revolving of worlds. I step; you step. And when we forget that this is a dance we are learning, there is deep magic in our rhythm. When we lose ourselves to the motion, nothing remains the same. Pushes and pulls do not encompass it. It's the silence of held hands in the park. This is the rhythm I'm yearning for. If you don't know it, how will you ever?

I'm a man like any other, and yet... and yet the static nature of my being grips me. My breath shortens. Can I break these bonds? No, I'm wrong. These are not bonds. They are my freedom, my creation, my wisdom and love. The true action finished long before the act is complete. The motions, the thoughts, the impulse, and the intent defined what you see. Every moment we're swaying, like bamboo in the breeze. Just as empty. Who is the man who sees beyond, who understands the whole, whose intent echoes through eternity?

If you tell me Jesus was a God placed into the flesh - like a fish made magically to survive on land, I do not understand. If you tell me Jesus did not fear, did not sin, did not stray, I do not know him. But if you tell me he was a man fragile, empty, prideful, full of the longing that I feel, then something rings true. If he was subtle and human, then I have something to grab onto. But if you present him as a steep rock face - insurmountable, unknowable, a mystery incarnate AND you deny the same to me, then what am I? And what was he? And how could we ever know each other?

a heaviness

A heaviness settles on me. This is a long journey - life. Short and long. A tour guide in the Chinese garden quoted five blessings today: health, wealth, long life, love of virtue, and a happy ending. The happy ending surprised me. I think a part of me (though results oriented) did not want to outwardly accept an end goal as a good. I think about moving along the road of life, and so often I hear that we must love the road, not focus on the end. I believe that. But it occurred to me that this doesn't negate the good of the end.

I'm always searching for answers to put into my schema of the world, and lots of times this leads me on dead end paths. Because I realize that something is so much larger, more complicated, subtler. And life... I'm overwhelmed. It's too much. I try to take in all the surroundings, and it's staggering. There is so much happening. It makes me wonder about the smallness or largeness of myself. Another man: what difference does he make? How can something so mutable mean anything, and yet... and yet.

I'm getting more and more into yoga, and this has me less excited about Vipassana. They don't want you to do yoga there, but maybe I'll just go for a shorter time. The fact is that I need to learn about my death, and this is what meditation ultimately is. It's a study of our own existence and therefore our mortality. When I first heard the phrase, "To philosophize is to learn to die," I thought, "How beautiful. I must study that." I may or may not have finished with philosophy, but the yearning to understand death pervades. Don Juan said that death stalks him, one arm's length off his left side. Death only needs to tap him on the shoulder. Paulo Coelho imagines his death as a beautiful woman. She says, "I am going to kiss you," and he responds, "Not now, please." And Socrates, oh Socrates. His irony and humor resonate through to me. How lightly, yet with such seriousness he treats his death!

I grow older, and I watch my body change. My powers grow. My mind focuses. My intent grows clearer. I become myself, carving away pieces of stone like the great masters. And yet... and yet. Every moment is nearer my death. I've heard Buddhists say that every inhale is a birth, and every exhale a death. Our life literally waxes and wanes with the moments.

through fire

IS it necessary to live through trial? I could abandon the trials, but not without abandoning my path. Are we born to want the greatest thing we can achieve? And therefore the most difficult to attain? And then we have to decide how much it means to us? I don't know anymore, but it's my suspicion.

on the internet

I swear before the anonymity and celebrity of the internet that I will dedicate myself to my purposes. I remember that I am borrowing this energy, and I will put it to best use.

Remember:

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.

Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?

I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere,

I am sure of that, and I intend to end up there.

This drunkenness began in some other tavern.

When I get back around to that place, I'll be completely

sober. Meanwhile, I'm like a bird from another continent,

sitting in this aviary. The day is coming when I fly off,

but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?

Who says words with my mouth?

Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?

I cannot stop asking. If I could taste one sip

of an answer, I could break out of this prison for drunks.

I didn't come here of my own accord,

and I can't leave that way.

Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.

(Rumi)

lists

I've been making lists of things I desire. I have a few files dedicated to certain areas of my life, and I can think of nothing missing. What a strange feeling: the world feels infinitely more immense, and my life infinitely more picayune.

the power of one

The memories of my car accident are still haunting me. It's not the accident as much as the sense of reality that I had while in it. Everything outside that moment feels dull, covered over, as though I'm not really experiencing the world.

To know that I have sensory input capabilities far in excess of what I'm using - that is frustrating and a mystery. In the past day, things have seemed brighter and clearer. I see more detail. Sometimes I get captivated by something as mundane as a broken old streetlight outside a bar. I don't know what's causing it. Maybe it's the yoga I've been doing - that's the only noticeable powerful thing I'm doing right now.

I think about my powers, and the potential of my powers. I don't believe in limits. Maybe the inertia of myself does inherently believe in limits, but I see beyond. And I don't know what that means.

I think about the self and the journey one must travel.

I think about dance and my future. I am yet ashamed of the grandiosity of my desire.

I think about man's relation to the things around him. Today I noticed how every single thing in existence has a a story. A history, a future, a composition of qualities that give it it's suchness. And there's really nothing else.

I wonder if man must become an abstraction to truly be one with the world.

man's gotta find his groove

Kool and the Gang - Get down on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qchPLaiKocI


--------------------------

I was riding the bus, and in comes this Persian guy, greeting everyone, "Hello! Salam!" He moved to the back of the bus near me, talking and talking about God, love, Sufism, and self to a 17 year old girl. I was giggling so hard. I love this stuff. People on the bus preach the truth, even when they don't mean to. I was sitting next to a lady who knew him from elsewhere; she had enough of him before he entered the bus and could hardly conceal her annoyance.

But listen to this - as he talked and talked about God, more people around him began to talk. Some of them, like the lady next to me, did it in a way to join forces against his bubbling personality. But all the same, they were talking. Perhaps it was due to my perspective, but I swear that I've never seen a happier and more communicative bus. This is God's work. I understand now. His perspicacity pervaded throughout, and though the lady would never have admitted to being under his influence, how obviously she was! That guy was like a rock chucked into a hornets' nest. That stone moves the world.

tango at the Luxe Milonga.

I got all dressed up and went out dancing last night. My tango has started to feel good in the past two weeks. It occurred after two incidences. I was dancing with Brenda at Valentango, and she made a little comment about leading pivots - it had to do with shaping and engaging the lower abdomen. Suddenly pivots were clear and grounded. Then at a yoga class last week with a teacher named Todd, I started to feel the lengthening of the spine and the suspension of the body. (These are the same issue.)

The body must actively seek the ground, and actively seek the sky. This creates a feeling of suspension to replace the feeling of weight and falling. Now I feel how dancers such as the Nicholas Brothers or Fred Astaire moved so lightly. This also pulls the pressure off my knees, hips, and back. And best of all, it's let me start to play with footwork in tango without affecting my partner. Ahh, freedom.

Death, Life, and Ikiru

That time of year thou mayest in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon thouse boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Shakespeare, Sonnet 73

-----------------------------------

Words of Rumi:

There is one thing in this world you must never forget to do. If you forget everything else and not this, there's nothing to worry about, but if you remember everything else and forget this, then you will have done nothing in your life.

It's as if a king has sent you to some country to do a task, and you perform a hundred other services, but not the one he sent you to do. So human beings come to this world to do particular work. That work is the purpose, and each is specific to the person. If you don't do it, it's as though a priceless Indian sword were used to slice rotten meat. It's a golden bowl being used to cook turnips, when one filing from the bowl could buy a hundred suitable pots. It's like a knife of the finest tempering nailed into a wall to hang things on.

You say, "But look, I'm using it. It's not lying idle." Do you hear how ridiculous that sounds? For a penny an iron nail could be bought. You say, "but I spend my energies on lofty projects. I study philosophy and jurisprudence, logic, astronomy, and medicine." But consider why you do those things. They are all branches of yourself and your impressiveness.

Remember the deep root of your being, the presence of your lord. Give yourself to the one who already owns your breath and your moments. If you don't, you'll be like the man who takes a ceremonial dagger and hammers it into a post for a peg to hold his dipper gourd. You'll be wasting valuable keenness and forgetting your dignity and purpose.

----------------------------------

"Ikiru is a cinematic expression of modern existentialist thought. It consists of a restrained affirmation within the context of a giant negation. What it says in starkly lucid terms is that 'life' is meangless when everything is said and done; at the same time, one man's life can acquire meaning when he undertakes to perform some task that to him is meaningful. What everyone else thinks about that man's life is utterly beside the point, even ludicrous. The meaning of his life is what he commits the meaning of his life to be. There is nothing else."

-Richard Brown on Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru

----------------------------------

I had one of my best yoga classes ever today. I went to the new studio, and although I did not go to class with the male teacher yet, I assume this class was in the same style. It was a slow class - probably slower than I would want in my regular practice, but that gave me time to focus. the entire class included small stretches designed to work up to trikonasana. It's a beautiful posture. It's a hip opener, a spine lengthener, a twisting motion. In most yoga classes, I am pushing harder into the stretch to get maximum benefit (or something...) Everything was so slow in this class: we took such time to focus and relax into postures that I had a large release in my lower back when leaving class. This simply goes to show how all our actions are energetic. Somehow when I stretch harder and deeper, without the requisite focus, breath, and forgiveness, I loosen my muscles, but it's not the same. In reference to this type of yoga, I have heard twice now: Do no violence (even towards the self). What I was doing in all that slow time before the final posture was finding my center - slowly identifying and communicating with it. Once that is done, I am ready for the pose. But before, it's all superficial movement.

I see this phenomenon in the dance as well. We move, we explode, but in all this time, we have not connected with our center of movement. If we can't even take a simple step, how can we accomplish something more complicated? It can be a catch-22, because following this train of logic, how could we ever begin to dance? There are naturally differing schools of thought on this subject. I read once about a samurai school that made you practice nothing but the most basic strike for three straight years in order to gain entrance into the school. Only upon accomplishing this, without any missed days, was one ready. I think there's another way. We can certainly dance and live and search for our center along the way. The problem, however, seems to be that we forget our search in our desire to get to the living or dancing or fighting. We lose our focus, and suddenly we are left with lots of movement - lots of noise, but where is the essence? Then we look around and wonder how we have been surpassed by those we used to think little of.

The essence of action is intention. But what intention? We live to eat and work. What can we possibly intend to do? I can't answer this, but it certainly has to do with the relation between life and death. I hear of people who really live their lives once diagnosed with terminal cancer or something. It's a common theme. What have these people realized? It seems to be the fragility of life. Once we understand this in our bones, something changes. What is that? How do we live differently when we know our death is stalking us?

Joseph Campbell notes that the hero must leave the path of the known. Dante begins his journey lost in a dark wood. It seems to me that to live, we must strike out on our own. We must find our "particular work" Rumi speaks of. We must leave behind the warnings of those who have never walked our path. Life is, in essence, newness. This newness is paradoxically the oldest thing in the world. For this reason, every story, opinion, and situation can shed light on our our predicaments, even if they can never speak to particulars. It's a big mystery and no mystery at all.

I'm going to figure it out. Every day I get closer. I can feel it. I'm doing the only thing I know how, and that must be the right thing. Everyone's got some path, and this is mine.

how to save a life (Joseph Campbell)

"I have a firm belief in this now, not only in terms of my own experience, but in knowing about the experiences of other people. When you follow your bliss, and by bliss I mean the deep sense of being in it, and doing what the push is out of your own existence... you follow that, and doors will open where you would not have thought there were going to be doors, and where there wouldn't be a door for anybody else. There's something about the integrity of a life, and the world moves in and helps."

-Joseph Campbell

foundations

If I ever do make anything of myself, it will be due to one thing. I was never really good at anything. I wasn't strong, or particularly gifted in school. Never excelling in sports or games. I could make it through most everything beyond the median, but I was never the best. That wore on me as a kid. I always wanted to be the best at something, and I went through phases of practicing magic or playing basketball, but I never emerged as a prodigy of anything. Dancing was no different, and in fact, I was probably worse at dancing than most anything else. My first teachers tried to teach me to triple step for a long time. That was the hardest thing in the world for me.

Now I realize that I can turn my weakness into my greatest gift, and in fact, strength only comes out of weakness. As a child, I wanted to magically possess talent, but because the prodigy doesn't have to work, he cannot understand the struggle. The man who inherits money cannot understand the real value of that money. No matter what we are given, we are all spiritually weak until we forge ourselves. In asking to be talented, I was given nothing... and this may turn out to be my greatest gift.

"We're all in this together."

"Everyone move on back! It doesn't matter which seat; it's all the same bus. Come on now, we're all in this together."

-Trimet Bus Driver, Line 4

------------------------------------

The above quote speaks to Rumi's story of the hot bath. It was nice to hear the same message coming from the mouth of a bus driver. The idea that we're all on the same bus, and you might be the smelly person, or sitting next to the hot person, or the old man driving the rascal, or the cursing angry youth, or the guy who can't find his transfer stub, or maybe you've got everything just right - we're all on that bus. The final destination is the same, and we never notice it because we're busy being caught up in our own worlds. Small worlds.

I was riding the bus to the Chinese garden, so that I could walk barefoot on the stones. All the stone in the garden was imported from China, and there are many paths with intricate patterns where small stones are used like tile. I was walking barefoot in order to help open and relax my feet. It's painful, but I think it's a good pain. I think it's a pain that will help me grow. Once my feet had enough, I sat in the quiet of the teashop watching the weather change.

Also, I've gotten a lead on a good male yoga teacher. This is good, because I need a mentor in Portland to help me shape my body and spirit. He is a healer, masseuse, and yoga teacher - and he sounds very proficient in all. I will check out his class on Thursday.

lessons from cutting hair

I've been cutting my own hair for about two years now. I'm ready to start paying someone to do it, but I have learned some things:

1) Don't be afraid to cut. Errors are rarely as bad as you think they'll be.

2) Don't cut too much at once. Mistakes arise when you think you know what you're doing.

3) When cutting hair that isn't visible, your hands can tell you everything you need to know.

4) Always cut hair while naked.

class with Etienne

"If you're bigger or taller, you have to make your movements bigger... or more grandiose."

Etienne talks about moving the pelvis and letting that rhythm carry through the body. He slows down his movement to show the integration. He says you must smile. You must let your happiness shine forth. Don't block your face; let your arms frame your face. Smile. Radiate. Stretch. Move. Laugh.

Checkmate.

What does it mean to 'let go'? It's such a catch-phrase, but really what are we letting go of? Control? Desire? Pleasures? Belief? Our egos? Our violence or our joy? I sense that whatever that term is referring to is some sort of superstructure that we have placed over top of our selves. Some sense of who or what we should be, all the while forgetting what we are and what we want to be.

Rumi has a lovely story about two types of people in the world. The materialists or fire-stokers of the world are scrapping and scrounging to pile up heaps and heaps of dung. At the end of the day, they derive their worth from how much dung they have piled up. The dung is then collected together and ignited in order to fuel the hot baths of those in the spa above. The other type of person has released themself from the obligation to haul dung. These sit in the water and wash off the grime. And here's the shocker from Rumi:
------------------

The mystery is how the obsessions
of furnace stokers keep the bathwater
of the others simmering perfectly.

They seem opposed, but they're necessary
to each other's work: the proud piling up
of fire worship, the humble disrobing
and emptying out of purification.

As the sun dries wet dung to make it
ready to heat water, so dazzling
sparks fly from the burning filth.

-------------------

Not claiming to be anything more than a fire stoker, I ask, what is this world and this mystery? How does the annoying behavior of someone shed light on my own self? Can such a deep yearning be left unanswered?

-----------------------------------------

There's someone swaying by your side,
lips that say Mashallah, Mashallah.

Wonderful. God inside attraction.
A spring no one knew of wells up
on the valley floor.

Lights inside a tent lovers move toward.
The refuse of Damascus gets turned over
in the sun. Be like that yourself.

Say mercy, mercy to the one who guides
your soul, who keeps time.

Move, make a mistake, look
up. Checkmate.

-Rumi

flower sermon

Toward the end of his life, the Buddha took his disciples to a quiet pond for instruction. As they had done so many times before, the Buddha’s followers sat in a small circle around him, and waited for the teaching.

But this time the Buddha had no words. He reached into the muck and pulled up a lotus flower. And he held it silently before them, its roots dripping mud and water.

The disciples were greatly confused. Buddha quietly displayed the lotus to each of them. In turn, the disciples did their best to expound upon the meaning of the flower: what it symbolized, and how it fit into the body of Buddha’s teaching.

When at last the Buddha came to his follower Mahakasyapa, the disciple suddenly understood. He smiled and began to laugh. Buddha handed the lotus to Mahakasyapa and began to speak.

“What can be said I have said to you,” smiled the Buddha, “and what cannot be said, I have given to Mahakashyapa.”

Mahakashyapa became Buddha’s successor from that day forward.

perfection

I'm seeking perfection in my body. But one must define perfection. Posture is not static - it is the amalgamation of thousands of tiny movements. Even the muscles and bone structures are constantly changing. Lance Armstrong says that he became a new man after his battle with cancer - literally, the chemo atrophied his muscles, and when he built them back, they came back differently.

I will not say that I want to perfect each of the thousand movements and each of the muscles (though I do), because that is impossible. But if one believes, as I do, that the body is a manifestation of the mind, and that every ill-taken position and movement is actually a reflection of my deepest self, then I find that perfect posture will not be found through training (though this may be necessary), but rather it will be found in the deepest self-awareness and forgiveness.

Issues in my dance

Connection, as I've come to see it, is not something created. It's not some posture or some line of force that we create with someone. It's not affected. It arises from our manner of being. Our posture, the way we use our bodies, the position of our bodies, our intentions. All these things affect our connection to another.

As our issues, lusts, fears, desires, and aversions become present in our posture, we convey these to our partner. How does our partner respond? How should they respond? There are as many responses as we see in everyday human interaction. The perfect man, the perfect dancer approaches all with love, accepting and simultaneously appropriating everything. Only with this person do we feel supremely comfortable. But where is the dancer like this? Most of us step onto the floor and try to politely lumber through a dance that may make us feel very uncomfortable. Our emotional instabilities surge through our connection in the form of tension, dependence upon the balance of the other, pushes, pulls, headbutts, etc.

My head and shoulders droop forward. This is my escape from the world. It's a protection for my heart - the avoidance of connecting with another. My eyes are cast downwards, and they do not accept what arrives in front of me. I hide and run. As my shoulders hunker forward, I literally push into my partner. I try to decrease this reliance and hold my own, but without noticing it, I tend to revert back to this state. This is the most obvious example, but there are so many more. For instance, I stay locked up in my pelvic floor - not letting my glutes and lower back do their proper work. Most of the weight of my body is diverted to the outer muscles of my legs, near the IT bands. The inner legs don't do enough work, and the pressures of the day are directed at my knees. This has an emotional basis, and it plays out in my dance in countless ways.

I've become fascinated with an author named Louise Hay who worked for many years on emotional issues with people. She took copious notes, and began to see patterns - namely, that certain emotional issues appeared with certain physical issues. It's not a surprise to most of us when someone droops their head that this has a certain meaning in their life, but Louise Hay takes this concept surprisingly far, matching particular issues with particular body parts - down to individual vertebrae.

In a partnered dance, we approach each other with our entire being. There is nothing hidden, and when we try to hide (as in the case of my shoulders), there is always an outlet. What happens when two people, with their own particular issues, come together? Is it a wrestling match? Is one person sacrificing all their comfort and desires to another? Is it some match of issues, so that we actually feel comfortable with each other? Is it a diversion? Is it creation?

Occasionally I see a glimpse of the dance I want to dance - it's rarely more than one or two steps long. I don't know how to describe it. It is what you think - just what a healthy relationship is. But, really, what is that? Everything is conveyed without the intention of controlling or depending on the other. I stand. You stand. We merge. If I can give no better answer, Whitman can at least describe the sentiment:

-------------------------

"Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,
I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,
And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be shaken away."

-Song of Myself, 137-139

the seedling

There is a transformation taking form deep within my heart. I can see it clearly, because whenever something threatens me or my spiritual progress, I can feel it. And now I have the discipline to separate myself from it. When a plant is young, you have to tend it - make sure it doesn't get baked in the sun, or drenched in the rain. Is there enough fertilizer, is the soil rich enough? Does it get the shade it needs? I am that plant, and my heart needs tending.

I realize that I have been sloppy with my relationships, with my words, with my thoughts. They run around and do what they will. This means that sometimes I have great experiences, and sometimes I have terrible experiences. It feels like I'm at the whim of some brutal machine, but in fact I have been at the whim of my own unstated thoughts and desires.

Whenever I feel threatened, whenever the sea of my heart becomes too rough, and I'm not sure If I can keep afloat, I simply walk away. Sometimes I'm walking from my friends or my enemies, or my dancing, or whatever else may be causing the turmoil. It has made me feel stronger every moment. I finally feel that I have some semblance of control over my life, and I recognize that this is largely a negative control. I am not yet ready to alter the circumstances - I have to run from them. But all things come in due time.

Part of the reason that Portland is so great for me right now is the drizzly grey. It feels like a blanket was put over the world. It is a place of emotional smallness and protection for me. It's a place to tend the growth of my heart. I imagine that whenever it is time for me to step forth into my next role, people who haven't seen me in a long time will think, What happened to him? People who know me will think, How did he do that? And people who know me best will think, That's the guy I always knew.

prayer and Satchmo

I started to pray again. I ask for wisdom, courage, clarity of purpose, inspiration, compassion, guidance. I ask to burn like a torch. I ask to burn so wholly and fully that I can captivate the world. I ask to be taken by the river within; I ask for the courage to let that happen. I swear I will live my life as it should be.

My life feels like Louis Armstrong's Mack the Knife. When listening to that recording, the whole thing feels like a sweet and flowing build-up to that final, jubilant solo. Louis opens the song with a nice little solo, then sings on and on. The different instruments (muted trumpet, clarinet, trumpet, piano) take their turns mimicking his voice, conversing, playing with him. It all has a certain lightness to it, like you're walking through Central Park on a warm day. By about minute 2:00, knowing the solo is coming, I can't help thinking, On with it already... That piano just continues skittering around like a butterfly. When the solo finally arrives, Louis cues himself in with "take it, Satch..." The drums really kick in, the horns sing back and forth, and Satch's drive carries the whole thing in a hard swing. Ain't no more playing. The song starts to breath. I fucking love that solo. It is so consuming - it's like a horse that you can't hold back. And so short too.

Style

Style: What is style? There is a deeply conservative element to all style, and meanwhile also a subversive or pioneering element. There is no style with a disregard for the modern currents, and likewise there is no style with a complete subjugation to the modern currents. Style is a forward motion, and this requires belief. A trust or faith in one's self, combined with a willingness to be carried by the current.

Southern mindsets in the Civil War

When asked to a poor, white, non-slave holding Southerner, why are you fighting? He responded, "Because y'all are down here."

Lincoln on criticism of the Southern peoples: "Don't criticize them; they are just what we would be under similar circumstances."

body integration... a remembrance

After spending some time in the shower considering my last post, I remembered that the first time I saw Brenda teach, the class was on body integration. It was the summer, and I had left Santa Fe bound for New Haven. I spent some time at the parents', and then went to a little blues workshop in Philadelphia. That was my first exposure to teaching other than my original teachers in NM.

In the shower, I was thinking of Ted Shawn and the movement traveling from the shoulders to the fingers; that is exactly what Brenda was teaching in Philadelphia. Her class hit me like a blaze, and I knew - I have to do this. Similar with meditation. Similar with Aikido. Similar with lots of things, but that was a very powerful moment.

this was a lot of work.

My words are words of a questioning, and to indicate reality;
This printed and bound book.... but the printer and the printing-office boy?
The marriage estate and settlement.... but the body and mind of the bridegroom? also those of the bride?
The panorama of the sea.... but the sea itself?
The well-taken photographs... but your wife or friend close and solid in your arms?
The fleet of ships of the line and all the modern improvements.... but the craft and pluck of the admiral?
The sky up there.... yet here or next door or across the way?
The saints and sages of history.... but you yourself?
Sermons and creeds and theology.... but the human brain, and what is called reason, and what is called love, and what is called life?

Whitman, Song of Myself (1082-1091)

---------------------------

How is it that a child can flail and scream about something insignificant, and the parents can easily ignore the tantrum, but Mahatma Gandhi can silently refuse food and bring a nation to a halt? How does the placation, "Friends, Romans, Countrymen lend me your ears...." bring about a riot? How do the actions of a small band of soldiers in Thermopylae resound through history?

I saw a performance of So You Think You Can Dance live a few months ago. I was struck by one dancer - a club dancer named Russell. His movements burst forth so that he was all I could see. There were some technical aspects to this phenomenon. His body works well; the parts are integrated, making each movement look fuller. But I have been just as captivated by dancers whose bodies move around the stage like a sack of potatoes. The technical can't explain everything, however I will speak about the technical aspects of integration, trying to get to a deeper meaning.

When the integrated body reaches outwards, the limbs reach to the fullest extent that the body is capable of reaching. The non-integrated body tends to try to reach a little farther, and this is done at the expense of some other part. For instance, when the arm extends forward, an integrated movement would look exactly like you expect. The non-integrated movement would "collapse" or further extend the shoulder, so that it seems to protrude from the natural lie of the body.

Furthermore, in the integrated body, movement flows from the center outwards. I saw a beautiful example of this is Ted Shawn's Death of Adonis. I wish I had a youtube clip to share, but it was off a DVD. His arms were fully extended in 2nd position. He turned his arms and hands upwards to the sky, and you could watch the movement originate in the back and shoulder blades, ripple upwards through the arms, and finally, exultantly, reach the wrists and hands. It gives me chills.

In a still, integrated body, the lines of gravity flow efficiently through the center of gravity and downwards into the earth. This body can relax in a neutral position. The fully relaxed and centered person can move the quickest. Their muscles simply need to fire, and this will result in the desired motion. For most of us who cannot fully relax or hold ourselves well, we need to make all SORTS of compensations. I have seen a series of photos of O-sensei, where he is standing in the midst of four men holding bokken (wooden sword). All are relaxed in the first photo - bokken down. In the second, the bokken rise to strike. O-sensei remains still. In the third, they have reached their peak. Still he does not move. In the last photo, the bokken reach the end of their strike, and he is standing outside the circle - perfectly still.

I believe that to throw a punch, dance, pour a cup of tea is not defined by the action inherent. Some other multitude of factors, mostly unperceived, must lie behind every action. And at the base of this... necessarily the spirit. A great why. For what reason do we perform this action? This fundamental aspect necessarily dictates the end action. It seems to me, however, that we cannot simply purify our spirit. We do not have direct access (and for this reason, nor do we have the ability to rightly judge the actions around us). We have to work backwards through the realm of actions and senses until we come to the heart of ourselves. This is the purpose of training, and also the answer to how certain actions are inherently different from seemingly similar ones.

I am seeking spiritual integration. I don't pretend to know what this really means. I imagine that the zen master's actions are so mystifying, because he acts with an integrated spirit. Indeed how could I ever make sense of the Sermon on the Mount without this? I act like a sack of potatoes. Throwing myself this way and that, and letting one tiny part carry the rest of the body someplace I never intended.

Take that, Niccolo!

"...in the long run of history the end is pre-existing in the means. The means represent the ideal in the making and the end in process."

-1963 speech at Western Michigan University, Martin Luther King, Jr.

pregnant

I think I know what it feels like to go crazy. It's a pregnant frustration. I've seen people dance it; I've heard Kanye rap about it. You don't quite know what's wrong, but somehow the world is playing (or you're playing) the wrong key. This silent grating continues relentlessly. It's like listening to Wagner; there's always that dissonance. Even the resolution has dissonance. Only this version isn't beautiful. How is a man supposed to cope, when he can hardly state what the issue is? I have ferocious ambition. It's consuming.

I fear that this state will never resolve, because I can't find the model I'm looking for. I see no life I want. Everything is a little too much somebody else, not enough me. I look to Warren Buffett, Isadora Duncan, Steve Jobs, Morihei Ueshiba, Lao Tzu, Alcibiades, Rumi, Whitman, countless others. My body shakes, my thought blurs. I don't intend to be a "gentleman philosopher." I'm not reading because I like it. I'm laying groundwork. I'm defining possibility. And yes, I feel like I'm behind some measure of what my life should be. If I could be anything other than this, I would consider it. Maybe.

What is left when you feel a tiger inside? The world feels like a zoo. Only I know that's not what the world really is. The world is a wilderness, therefore I need a paradigm shift. Maybe I'm the zoo. "What immortal hand or eye dare frame thy fearful symmetry?"

The shaking continues.

a story of creation

The track ready, the control room clears out. Wayne leans back in his chair and closes his eyes. An array of cigars and Vitamin Waters is strewn across the mixing board in front of him. By now, it's 3:01. In the lobby, Liz brews up a pot of coffee. "This will go on for a while," she says.

A long while. For the next two hours, it's the same eight-bar loop, playing at full volume on nonstop repeat. It's like the hip-hop cell at Guantanamo.

For a long time, he just sits there, listening.

At 3:55, he comes out of the control room and goes over to one of his assistants, a cute Tulane grad named Devin. "Hey," he asks her, "Girl Scouts sell cookies, right?"

"Yep."

"And Boy Scouts don't?"

"Nope."

"Ain't that a bitch." He goes back into the booth.

At 4:09, he emerges again, pouring himself more coffee. (No cream, lots of sugar.) He's rapping now - no words yet, just syllables, a cadence. "Da-da da-da da-da da-da da-da da-da DA da."

By 4:32, the ashtray is filling up, Styrofoam cups multiplying in front of him. He calls Scoob in, spits a couple of bars, and asks him what he thinks. He's getting closer.

At 5:10, Devin, Marley and Scoob are all asleep, but Wayne is coming alive. He's laughing to himself, nodding like he might finally have something. Suddenly, at 5:16, it's go time. He yells to Mike, who races back to the booth, battle stations on a submarine.

"A-ight," Wayne says in the booth. "Lezgo."

It's thrilling to watch the thing take shape. A couple of times he flubs a line, tackles it again. The whole thing is finished in about four minutes. Wayne signals for the playback and sits, eyes closed, listening to himself...


-Feb, 2011 Rolling Stone (1123)

poetry

I am not a poetry buff. I haven't read very many poets. When considering poetry as an abstract whole, I feel vaguely unsettled. The memory of the very few poets I was made to read in school comes back, and I recall mostly unknown vocabulary and unknown sentiments. I have enjoyed Shakespeare and Donne. Rumi and Hafiz are more like spiritual friends than poets to me. I tend to read what falls into my lap, though my screening process is adept. The other day I was in the aisle looking for a book of some sort - now I couldn't tell you what it was. I saw a book of poetry by Melville... Really? He wrote poetry? If I'm forced to answer what my favorite book is, and the sun falls just right, I might tell you The Whale, but I didn't know he wrote poetry. Glancing through the book but not feeling that call, I looked further. My heart sunk inside somewhere: Walt Whitman. There's a poet with whom I am so little versed, yet always seemed discussed in school. The ubiquitous name Leaves of Grass comes to mind, along with a slight memory of lines and lines and lines. No rhyming. No sense. Oh god, my breath gets a little short. But naturally I have to listen to my little voice inside, and I had come across some of his lines recently elsewhere.

I check out the easiest looking book - a really big version of Song of Myself. Hell, the poem is only 44 pages, and I feel a little like I'm reading Jumanji as a kid, so it's ok. I remember my friend's advice to just read - forget all that analysis crap they taught in school. Just read. I can do that.

I just wrote out a line to tell how pleased I am with Mr. Whitman, but blasphemy and cursing probably show how little I've learned from the man. For a taste of the feeling, consider that the book was originally published with no authorship on the front, and only in the 24th page does he clue us in:

Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos,
Disorderly flesh and sensual.... eating drinking and breeding,
No sentimentalist.... no stander above men and women or apart from them.... no more modest than immodest.
- 499-502


Walt puts words, lots of them, to my sentiment that I am the biggest and the smallest of us. I have always felt it to be my due to be able to accomplish anything that anyone else has accomplished, and then more. And why not, I am a man just as they. Of course I've received laughs, cynicism, disbelief, and mostly just a quiet pressure (applied from the deep subconscious) to stop believing such things. So for whatever it's worth, Walt is beautifully filling my heart to the brim. Hey, maybe I can do this poetry stuff. I think the real issue - reading poetry - is having lived a certain extent, and then simply having the vocabulary and mental tenacity to sit down with a poem. When you can discipline yourself, I find that poetry is not some abstract, pedantic verbal expurgation. It is simply a man talking to another.

----------------------------
My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach,
With the twirl of my tongue I encompass worlds and volumes of worlds.

Speech is the twin of my vision.... it is unequal to measure itself.

It provokes me forever,
It says sarcastically, Walt, you understand enough.... why don't you let it out then?

Come now I will not be tantalized.... you conceive too much of articulation.
- 566-571

sitting

I stayed up all night last week. I sat and sat, getting bored in the darkness. Hoping not to get caught by park rangers wandering Mt. Tabor. I don't think they wander much in the middle of the night. There was no wind in the late hours. It was odd to experience a quiet moment on the hills. The trees stood still for hours on end. Just darkness and then the slowly creeping light. As the sun started to rise - it was a drizzly, grey morning - the light began to fill the dome. Because of the clouds, there was never a moment when the rays burst forth, but each moment became a little lighter. I found myself wondering how I would know the morning when it arrived. (!) At some point, however, it was light enough to see dogs and people walking past me, which I took as my cue.

Reflecting I find myself thinking about the nature of time. I remember those moments of sitting in a classroom watching the rotating minute hand of a clock. It's not that you could actually see the movement of the clock, but through some amalgamation of remembered moments you sensed the movement. Even though, sometimes I really thought I could see that hand move. That's how it felt to watch the sun rise. It occurs to me that maybe this perception of the passage of time contains the secrets I'm looking for. Why would people meditate? Bruce Blair told me about realizing he didn't know when the candles blew out while sitting. This taught him something about awareness.

Perhaps, the passage of time is necessarily a moving and a stillness. I think this is why I feel so disheveled in NYC - there is no stillness. I get wrapped up in all the excitement and energy, and I convince my unbelieving self that to live means motion. But sitting beneath tall trees on a windless night tells a different story. These trees know stillness. I wonder how a 4000 year old tree experiences time. I imagine it's something like I do - the combination of movement and stillness. Is the tree aware of its own growth (probably not). It can, however, certainly mark the passage of time as it grows bigger. What about the fly? Does the fly feel like he moves in fast-forward? Or do we just move in relatively different senses of time? And to the tree, does he feel that his life is so long, or does he experience life and death just as I do? I imagine that the passage of time is really just a subjective occurrence, and that to sit and understand the nature of this most perplexing of things is to know the world.

Inch by inch --
Little snail
Creep up and up Mt. Fuji

To change ourselves is to understand motion and stillness as two aspects of time. Every moment must stand alone, and therefore we must choose how we stand. However as the moments are strung together, our life turns into what we will it. But what a long and slow process it can seem! Maybe that is the deliciousness of it. Maybe we actually derive our power from the possibility of seeing time as a standalone moment. I don't believe St. Exupery when he talks about the lamplighter in Le Petit Prince. He says that the lamplighter lights and puts out his lamp every day and night, but through some twist of fate, his planet spins faster and faster. When the little Prince visits, he is lighting and putting out his lamp once per minute. Because of this, he cannot rest. I think that God has let our rope out much further, taking away such oppression and leaving us with the possibility of a quiet moment that stares into our face, compelling us to know what is.

Einstein said, relativity is the fact that one minute with a hand on a hot stove feels like one hour, and one hour sitting near a pretty girl feels like one minute. If I were really aware, wouldn't each of those moments feel like one minute? I seem to be bouncing about between extremes, and not just in reference to time, but in all my life. Too much salt, too little. Too much body motion, too little. Too much self-deprecation, too little critique. Much of life seems to be found in the swing of the pendulum, whereas I only feel the stopping points. It seems that everything well done follows the Buddha's (or Aristotle's) middle way. The perfect ratio of anything isn't marked by anything. To find this place of perfection then is to train one's self to be sensitive. We start to develop an intuitive sense of what is right - where to go, who to be. To live in time then seems to be a search for this middle way - finding harmony between the stillness and the ever changing.

Nanao, again.

the world of dew
is just the world of dew
and yet... and yet

Inch by inch --
Little snail
Creep up and up Mt. Fuji

Pissing pissing
Down there
an iris blooming

Don't give up the game
skinny frog!
Issa is here

-haiku by Issa, translated by Nanao Sadaki

----------------------------

When you hear dirty story
wash your ears.
When you see ugly stuff
wash your eyes.
When you get bad thoughts
wash your mind.
and
Keep your feet muddy.

-Nanao

Nanao Sakaki

Blow out your candle! -see the stars twinkling.
Blow out the stars! -There, lightning.
Pick off your eyeballs! --sweet-heart-ocean-waves sounding.
Pluck your ears! -I smell of honey, milk, and wine's river.
Cut off your nose! -Kiss me please.
Shut your mouth! -my skin breathing, touching, talking.
Take off your skin! Muscles, intestines, all your bones
Hanging upside down
Homo sapiens sapiens
In a meat market
In a megalopolis
In a great century.
How much money
Would you pay
To have your body back?

-Nanao


If you have time to chatter
Read books
If you have time to read
Walk into mountain, desert and ocean
If you have time to walk
Sing Songs and dance
If you have time to dance
Sit quietly, you Happy Lucky Idiot

-Nanao

-----------------------------

Rumi shatters something, and Nanao rushes in.

distillation

Life seems to be a process of distillation. As Thomas Keller would say, "we're always skimming, skimming, skimming." Reduction, clarification, intensification. I've heard that a great work of art puts you in the mindset of the artist. If so, mustn't the artist have clarified his intention to its essence? What do you think Michelangelo felt slaving over the great chapel ceiling?

The work of the alchemist takes years and years of labor - and all for what? A man can't eat gold.

on the road, the path, the way

I hope that my friend Josh will forgive me, but I am going to quote his recent correspondence with me. I was just sitting in a coffee shop, realizing that I forgot his letter in the car. I just received it and was really wanting to read it. I spent some time doing other things - I have some books and the computer, but the letter kept nagging me. Finally I went back to get it, and started thinking along the way that sometimes you just have to do what you WANT to do. I can read all the Rumi and Plato I want, but if what I really want to do is read a letter, I'll never be in the right mindset. This just clarified my whole experience of life since the summer. I have in that time decreased my outer responsibilities significantly. To the point where I might be considered a vagrant, but when one has nothing in particular to do, you find some interesting things. When all options are still options and therefore equal, I find that I desire one thing. It's almost always one thing. Today it was subsequently going to the bathhouse, changing address, drinking coffee, calling an old friend and acquaintance, walking Mt. Tabor, short meditation, picking up mail, and then meeting a friend. The funny thing about it all is that somehow my life gets ordered and taken care of exactly how I want it to. And here is the subtlety of it. It almost seems that there is one path for me to take. As I take each subsequent step, the next ones become easier. My mood relaxes - joy takes over. I eat when I want. Sleep when I want. Drink when I want, and most importantly dance when I want. It sounds obvious, but I don't think I've ever really lived my life like this. I always have these quiet mutterings telling me what I NEED to do. Blah blah blah. But everything becomes so much easier when I just do what I want.

And here's Josh:

[on travel] "I often do find what I'm looking for, but perhaps only because I usually am looking for something. many of us hit the road without any goal, or with what is the same thing, with a vague goal that is too large. Mine are always too large but never vague. I use travel. It is my tool, not me its. But of course, part of it is really getting lost. Even, for a time, losing sight of one's aim and letting the road control you. Otherwise it wouldn't work to travel, would it?"

It's funny that as I went walking to the car to find that letter I really needed to read, I found my own thoughts articulately echoed. Or maybe it's not funny (as I'm coming to suspect). The ironic element of all this is that as I free myself to my desires, I am actually constricting myself to something very demanding. The life I choose is set for a purpose. My goal is not "vague," so that each moment has a certain meaning. A friend commented recently that my dance is always getting better. I answered, of course it is - I work on it every moment. Whether this is in meditation, changing my posture, eating certain food, relaxing, reading Rumi, whatever - it's all for a very specific purpose. I never lose sight of this on a large scale. Everything starts to shed light on the philosophy of my life - something that will eventually characterize my dance. So to read poetry, yes I'm working on dance.

The other interesting thing about this thought of there being a true path for us to take is that we necessarily lose the trail. I must necessarily take wrong steps. In fact, much of my life could be considered a "wrong step," but it's really the wrong way of thinking about it. If in fact this path is determined by the eventual goal, every "wrong step" is actually helping to clarify that goal. Once that goal is set (will it ever be complete?) to then take a "wrong step" is simply to learn the error. Correction is the game. A life of corrections. Until finally the arrow will fly straight.

Wolf talking about the blues

"When you ain't got no money - you can't pay no house rent and can't buy you no food, you damn sure got the blues. That's where it's at... That's where it's at... If you ain't got no money, you got the blues. 'Cause you thinking evil. That's right. Anytime you thinking evil, you thinking 'bout the blues."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ654Lg6m8k

------------------------------------

I'm reading up on my man Chester Burnett. What I would give to have been able to see him play live. It was like a train, tearing everything up along its way. The only thing I've ever seen that had that feeling of life was Cedric Burnside and Lightnin' Malcolm. Damn, I want that spark.

the world is too loud for me

I can't seem to hear the things... which things? I'm not even sure which things. All I feel is the absence of something in the turmoil. Sometimes when I'm dancing I hear the music. Other times, I hear something regular, but it's most likely my racing mind. So why does a man step away? How can you explain such a decision that moves contrary to every implicit value of society? How about I quote Rumi? That seems fitting.

A close childhood friend once came to visit Joseph.
They had shared the secrets that children tell each other
when they're lying on their pillows at night
before they go to sleep. These two
were completely truthful
with each other.

The friend asked, "What was it like when you realized
your brothers were jealous and what they planned to do?"

"I felt like a lion with a chain around its neck.
Not degraded by the chain, and not complaining,
but just waiting for my power to be recognized."

"How about down in the well, and in prison?
How was it then?"

"Like the moon when it's getting
smaller, yet knowing the fullness to come.
Like a seed pearl ground in the mortar for medicine,
that knows it will now be the light in a human eye.

Like a wheat grain that breaks open in the ground,
then grows, then gets harvested, then crushed in the mill
for flour, then baked, then crushed again between teeth
to become a person's deepest understanding.
Lost in love, like the songs the planters sing
the night after they sow the seed."

--------------------------------

Am I singing my own praises? Not necessarily. Something inside feels a little self-conscious to speak in such terms, but I pass it off as the all-pervasive modern sense of irony (ironic sense of modernity?) that knows no sincerity, no humor, no love. Today is a day for other things. The sun was shining today like it was spring here in Portland - although without the rain. Things buzz in the sun; people wake up. We all look around and for just a moment the clouds get thinner.

So what if I want things that feel cliche? Le couer a ses raisons que la raison ne connait pas. Who am I to belittle my own desires? They were not created by me. If you watch a tree dance in the wind, you realize that the tree does not resist the movement. In fact, every little breeze that moves the branches reverberates throughout the trunk. If you look closer, you realize that the movement may be caused by an outside actor, but the quality is determined by its rootedness. Thus we find that the dance - the purest expression of whim and surrender - is caused by the deepest sense of purpose and intention. The ephemeral is merely another expression of that which endures.

So maybe you can understand my need for silence.

seduction (on Rumi)

A murmuring flow of words
as I sit on the bench.
They whisper,
I know you.

It is a drop of poison in the king's ear,
racking the house of the Danes, bringing all
labors to an end.

What air is this I breathe?
What stones do I walk on?
The world is left behind.
Layers are peeled away.

This is a madness, a Lethe I drink.
Falling from the wings of a sparrow
I am frozen on your page.
Close the book and I shall be crushed.

Certainty lies in promises and
judgment in a caress.

Muhammad and the Huge Eater

Husam demands that we begin Book V.
Ziyq-Haqq, the radiance of truth, Husamuddin,
master to the pure masters,
if my human throat were not so narrow,
I would praise you as you should be praised,
in some language other than this world-language,
but a domestic fowl is not a falcon.
We must mix the varnish we have
and brush it on.

I'm not talking to materialists. When I mention Husam,
I speak only to those who know spiritual secrets.
Praise is simply drawing back the curtains
to let his qualities in. The sun,
of course, remains apart
from what I say.

What the sayer of praise is really praising is
himself, by saying implicitly,
"My eyes are clear."

Likewise, someone who criticizes is criticizing
himself, saying implicitly, "I can't see very well
with my eyes so inflamed."

Don't ever feel sorry for someone
who wants to be the sun, that other sun,
the one that makes rotten things fresh.

And don't ever envy someone
who wants to be this world.

Husam is the sun I mean.
He can't be understood with the mind, or said,
but we'll stumble and stagger trying to.
Just because you can't drink all that falls
doesn't mean you give up taking sips
of rainwater. If the nut
of the mystery can't be held,
at least let me touch the shell.

Husam, refresh my words, your words.
My words are only a husk to your knowing,
an earth atmosphere to your enormous spaces.

What I say is meant only to point to that, to you,
so that whoever ever hears these words will not grieve
that they never had a chance to look.

your presence draws me out from vanity
and imagination and opinion.

Awe is the salve
that will heal our eyes.

And keen, constant listening.
Stay out in the open like a date palm
lifting its arms. Don't bore mouse holes
in the ground, arguing inside some
doctrinal labyrinth.

That intellectual warp and woof keeps you wrapped
in blindness. And four other characteristics
keep you from loving. The Qur'an calls them
four birds. Say Bismallah, "In the name of God,"
and chop the heads off those mischief-birds.

The rooster of lust, the peacock of wanting
to be famous, the crow of ownership, and the duck
of urgency, kill them and revive them
in another form, changed and harmless.

There is a duck inside you.
her bill is never still, searching through dry
and wet alike, like the robber in an empty house
cramming objects in his sack, pearls, chickpeas,
anything. Always thinking, "There's no time!
I won't get another chance!"

A True Person is more calm and deliberate.
He or she doesn't worry about interruptions.

But that duck is so afraid of missing out
that it's lost all generosity, and frighteningly expanded
its capacity to take in food.

A large group of unbelievers
once came to see Muhammad,
knowing he would feed them.

Muhammad told his friends,
"Divide these guests among you and tend to them.
Since you are all filled with me,
it will be as though I am the host."

Each friend of Muhammad chose a guest,
but there was one huge person left behind.
He sat in the entrance of the mosque
like thick dregs in a cup.

So Muhammad invited the man to his own household,
where the enormous son of a Ghuzz Turk ate everything,
the milk of seven goats and enough food
for eighteen people!

The others in the house were furious.
When the man went to bed, the maid slammed the door
behind him and chained it shut, out of meanness
and resentment. Around midnight, the man
felt several strong urges at once.

But the door! he works it,
puts a blade through the crack. Nothing.
The urgency increases. The room contracts.
He falls back into a confused sleep and dreams
of a desolate place, since he himself is
such a desolate place.

So, dreaming he's by himself,
he squeezes out a huge amount,
and another huge amount.

But he soon becomes conscious enough
to know that the covers he gathers around him
are full of shit. He shakes with spasms of the shame
that usually keeps men from doing such things.

He thinks, "My sleep is worse than my being awake.
the waking is just full of food.
My sleep is all this."

Now he's crying, bitterly embarrassed,
waiting for dawn and the noise of the door opening,
hoping that somehow he can get out
without anyone seeing him as he is.

I'll shorten it. The door opens. He's saved.
Muhammad comes at dawn. He opens the door
and becomes invisible so the man won't feel ashamed,
so he can escape and wash himself
and not have to face the door-opener.

Someone completely absorbed in Allah like Muhammad
can do this. Muhammad had seen all that went on
in the night, but he held back from letting the man out,
until all happened as it needed to happen.

Many actions which seem cruel
are from a deep friendship.
Many demolitions are actually renovations.

Later, a meddlesome servant
brought Muhammad the bedclothes.
"Look what your guest has done!"

Muhammad smiles, himself a mercy given to all beings,
"Bring me a bucket of water."

Everyone jumps up, "No! Let us do this.
We live to serve your, and this is the kind of hand-work
we can do. Yours is the inner heart-work."

"I know that, but this is an extraordinary occasion."

A voice inside him is saying, "There is great wisdom
in washing these bedclothes. Wash them."

Meanwhile, the man who soiled the covers and fled
is returning to Muhammad's house. He has left behind
an amulet that he always carried.

He enters and sees the hands of God
washing his incredibly dirty linen.

He forgets the amulet. A great love suddenly enters him.
He tears his shirt open. He strikes his head
against the wall and the door. Blood
pours from his nose.

People come from other parts of the house.
He's shrieking, "Stay away!"
He hits his head, "I have no understanding!"
He prostrates himself before Muhammad.

"You are the whole. I am a despicable, tiny,
meaningless piece. I can't look at you."
He's quiet and quivering with remorse.

Muhammad bends over and holds him and caresses him
and opens his inner knowing.

The cloud weeps, and then the garden sprouts.
The baby cries, and the mother's milk flows.
The nurse of creation has said, Let them cry a lot.

This rain-weeping and sun-burning twine together
to make us grow. Keep your intelligence white-hot
and your grief glistening, so your life will stay fresh.
Cry easily like a little child.

Let body needs dwindle and soul decisions increase.
Diminish what you give your physical self.
Your spiritual eye will begin to open.

When the body empties and stays empty,
God fills it with musk and mother-of-pearl.
that way a man gives his dung and gets purity.

listen to the prophets, not to some adolescent boy.
the foundation and the walls of the spiritual life
are made of self-denials and disciplines.

Stay with friends who support you in these.
Talk with them about sacred texts,
and how you're doing, and how they're doing,
and keep your practices together.


- Rumi
--------------------

This poem screams to me like a Van Gogh painting.


What is it to know something of god?
Burn inside that presence. Burn up.
- Rumi

And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures?
- Luke 24:32

a vision

I laid down the other night, and let my mind drift. I found myself following a dream I've been having lately. I've been lying in a boat, drifting down a lazy river. A friendly boatman who looks a little like myself is steering. We finally stop, and I step to shore in front of my house. I was using this dream to create the house and life I want. I mostly walk around the house in a little bit of awe, paying attention to all the details, trying to fill in blank spots. Often times I will meet a sort of guide, and we talk about life.

This time however I lay in the boat with apprehension. I glanced up and the boatman had no face - just a haze of grey. We were drifting down a river, but it was getting darker and darker; soon I realized we were entering a cave. The walls continued to close in upon me. I almost shook myself awake, but I reminded myself that true danger is within, and I must confront this. I laid back down, and the cave continued to close in on me. We barely squeezed through, but once we did we stopped at the dark shore and I disembarked. Waiting for me was a guide wearing a hood so you couldn't see his blackened face.

I decided to follow him, and we proceeded down a passageway. Suddenly I recognized my surroundings from a dream I had a few years back. I was at the opening of another cave, and out front was a coke machine. In my last dream, a man covered with hair except for his piercing eyes chased me out of the cave. I wasted time at the coke machine until he was about to catch me, but right when he did, I shook myself awake. This time he emerged. We made eye contact, and I followed him down the darkened pathway. When we were alone, he turned and grabbed me hugging me tight. He grip was suffocating, and he started to completely cover me. It felt like I was in his stomach, and I thought I was dying. After a while of not moving, I realized I was not dead and decided to stand. I emerged from the cave a different man - I had become the hairy man. As I continued to walk from the darkness, the hair began to fall off. What finally emerged was a new man. I stepped into a beautiful suit, and I found myself at the base of my house - where I would have been after getting off the boat in my normal dream.

-----------------------------------------


"Their mind being whole, their mind is as yet unconquered, and when we look in their faces, we are disconcerted." -Emerson, Self Reliance

⁹ David was afraid of the LORD that day; and he said, “How can the ark of the LORD come to me?” ¹⁰ So David would not move the ark of the LORD with him into the City of David; but David took it aside into the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite. ¹¹ The ark of the LORD remained in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite three months. And the LORD blessed Obed-Edom and all his household.
¹² Now it was told King David, saying, “The LORD has blessed the house of Obed-Edom and all that belongs to him, because of the ark of God.” So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David with gladness. ¹³ And so it was, when those bearing the ark of the LORD had gone six paces, that he sacrificed oxen and fatted sheep. ¹⁴ Then David danced before the LORD with all his might; and David was wearing a linen ephod. ¹⁵ So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet. -2 Samuel 6:9-15

i felt like dancing

I went to barefoot Blues, Portland's alternative blues venue. They play lots of new music - with genre titles like "dub-step" and god knows what else that I've never heard of. But the music was fun, and I was dancing exactly how I felt like. Purely selfishly. And sometimes that's not a bad thing.

Rogier van der Weyden