Oak, Water, Moon
As soon as I drive up to the house in Texas I run over to the neighbor's backyard, strip my sweaty kilt and tee shirt off, slip into their pool and swim to the bottom, holding my breath as long as I can, then float to the surface, floating on my back, looking up at the big oak tree that shelters the pool and the slice of moon in the dark blue sky above. The water is cool and refreshing and washes off 1800 miles of road and 1500 miles of desert. I am home now. Time to begin a new life.
Welcome to Texas
After nearly 1500 miles, with only 100 miles to go, I had a melt down. The lack of food, the endless hours behind the wheel at 80 mph, the excessive heat and lack of water, suddenly brought me to my knees. I took the first exit at hand and cruised into a tiny Texas town, past the sheriff hiding behind a tree in his cruiser, waiting for someone like me to come by, and pulled into the town's only restaurant--Dairy Queen. (No, those of you from San Francisco, this was not a transvestite milk bar, this is a Texas thing.) There were seven pickups and one Suburban parked outside and one of the pickups had a spoiler and "Daytona" painted on it. I staggered into the Dairy Queen, beaten senseless by the relentless sun and heat.
Inside, everyone was very fat. Even the children. This is just an objective observation I am reporting disinterestedly. The woman at the counter spoke to me but I couldn't understand a word she said in her heavy, mumbling country Texas accent. I spoke to her and she couldn't understand a word I said in my fast, blurred California dialect. When I spoke she said "Huh?" and when she spoke to me I said "What?".
I said "Good God it's hot" and she said, "We're havin' a cold spell. Temperature dropped ten degrees." (It was 96.)
I ordered a root beer float and staggered into a booth to drink it and drink in the AC. It wasn't until I was sitting down that I noticed everyone staring at me in a dumb animal kind of way and realized I was wearing my mountain kilt and my Tibetan handbag, which in Texas, without doubt, must look exactly like I was wearing a skirt and carrying a purse. Ah, so. No one hit me though and the counter woman offered to refill my root beer float three times on the house., god bless her. I felt much better when I left.
A few miles down the road the sky turned black and started storming. like mad and the temperature dropped 20 degrees. A few minutes later it stopped and got hot as hell again. That’s Texas.
My first day at grad school, the first thing I saw on campus was an agro campus policeman at an intersection in the parking lot directing traffic like a panda bear on meth. It was amazing. I made a mental note who I could score meth from if I needed it for studying before exams. I parked my car next to a truck that someone had hand painted on the windows the words "Jesus died 4 you!" and "all things in god...." I couldn't make out the rest except for Romans, verse and chapter. At the same time I made a mental note of this a pickup truck drove by playing a country song that went, "I want to be the quarterback..." I was in immediately in culture shock. It could have been the set of a David Lynch film from my point of view.
Inside the school I realized these people are very very loud. I have never been in a school that was so loud. I mean loud. I stepped outside, into the relentless heat, and discovered there was a huge outdoor barbecue about to happen to welcome everyone to a new school year. I got in line next to a man who sidled up to me and said in a hungry sort of way, "Dude, look at all the babes!" I looked around very carefully, I even looked up overhead just in case I was missing something, and then followed his gaze, but I could not see any babes. I saw a lot of overweight young people. But now it occurs to me that maybe I was like Shallow Hal in the movie before Tony Robbins hypnotizes him and the man next to me who saw all the babes was Shallow Hal after Tony Robbins hypnotized him. So he saw the inner beauty and I saw the superficial reality. But guessing from the tone of his voice and look in his eyes maybe we just have different ideas about what babes are.
Inside, everyone was very fat. Even the children. This is just an objective observation I am reporting disinterestedly. The woman at the counter spoke to me but I couldn't understand a word she said in her heavy, mumbling country Texas accent. I spoke to her and she couldn't understand a word I said in my fast, blurred California dialect. When I spoke she said "Huh?" and when she spoke to me I said "What?".
I said "Good God it's hot" and she said, "We're havin' a cold spell. Temperature dropped ten degrees." (It was 96.)
I ordered a root beer float and staggered into a booth to drink it and drink in the AC. It wasn't until I was sitting down that I noticed everyone staring at me in a dumb animal kind of way and realized I was wearing my mountain kilt and my Tibetan handbag, which in Texas, without doubt, must look exactly like I was wearing a skirt and carrying a purse. Ah, so. No one hit me though and the counter woman offered to refill my root beer float three times on the house., god bless her. I felt much better when I left.
A few miles down the road the sky turned black and started storming. like mad and the temperature dropped 20 degrees. A few minutes later it stopped and got hot as hell again. That’s Texas.
My first day at grad school, the first thing I saw on campus was an agro campus policeman at an intersection in the parking lot directing traffic like a panda bear on meth. It was amazing. I made a mental note who I could score meth from if I needed it for studying before exams. I parked my car next to a truck that someone had hand painted on the windows the words "Jesus died 4 you!" and "all things in god...." I couldn't make out the rest except for Romans, verse and chapter. At the same time I made a mental note of this a pickup truck drove by playing a country song that went, "I want to be the quarterback..." I was in immediately in culture shock. It could have been the set of a David Lynch film from my point of view.
Inside the school I realized these people are very very loud. I have never been in a school that was so loud. I mean loud. I stepped outside, into the relentless heat, and discovered there was a huge outdoor barbecue about to happen to welcome everyone to a new school year. I got in line next to a man who sidled up to me and said in a hungry sort of way, "Dude, look at all the babes!" I looked around very carefully, I even looked up overhead just in case I was missing something, and then followed his gaze, but I could not see any babes. I saw a lot of overweight young people. But now it occurs to me that maybe I was like Shallow Hal in the movie before Tony Robbins hypnotizes him and the man next to me who saw all the babes was Shallow Hal after Tony Robbins hypnotized him. So he saw the inner beauty and I saw the superficial reality. But guessing from the tone of his voice and look in his eyes maybe we just have different ideas about what babes are.
The food manager came and yelled at the servers in a mean, condescending, bitchy way to start serving and at that moment I no longer wanted to put that food in my body or be within a thousand miles of that place. But I was next and the line was pushing me on and so I got served beans, coleslaw, potato salad, some kind of meat, bread rolls, jalapenos and sat down at a table under a shade tarp. Soon all the tables were filled with hundreds of people with plates piled up and overflowing with barbecue. There was a stage set up about 10 feet in front of where we were all eating and a metal band started playing so loud that not only could you not possibly hear anyone or converse but eating itself became kind of a nauseating experience. Maybe no one considered that the concept behind a welcome to UTSA barbecue might be a chance for students to converse and get to know each other. Maybe in Texas having a metal band play at the 'first day of school, get to know your fellow students barbecue' ten feet away so loud you want to puke up your brisket is perfectly normal, natural and acceptable, encouraged even. I left after the girl who sat down next to me asked me to guard her seat while she went for more barbecue and said apologetically, "I know I'm fat; I can't help it." I tried to comfort her but she couldn't hear me over the screaming “vocalist” of the metal band. I offered my food to someone who looked as though I were trying to slip them a date rape drug and then left for my first class.
My classroom was number HSS 2.01.02. It took some time to locate. More than some time in fact. It was nearly impossible to find. What made it more confusing was that the men's room was HSS 2.01.2 and I thought maybe somehow, considering the barbecue, that maybe it was normal that my class was in the men's room or it was just a mean computer joke. But I eventually realized the '.0' in front of the 2 meant the difference between taking notes while sitting on a stall in the men’s room and sitting in a tiny elementary school desk in a tiny janitorial closet of a room with no windows and plates full of old, leftover food laying around. This really was my classroom. Maybe it was a joke after all. How charming. I walked in a little late and asked, just to be sure, "Is this BBL something something?" None of the students responded or made eye contact. They ignored me. Noticing there was an empty desk in front of the class and being in that spontaneous mode I am so often in. I walked up to the desk and said, "Actually I'm your professor, let's get started." Everyone seemed to find this perfectly reasonable and we were having a good time when the actual professor walked in and I said, "Just kidding." and sat down. Everyone seemed confused now. Including the professor himself who was sweating profusely and couldn't find the room either. (I think he'd actually started lecturing in the men's room.)
He told us about himself and asked us to return the favor. I volunteered to go first. I asked what he wanted to know and he said, "Just tell us about yourself." Taking him at his word I told them about surfing and yoga and dancing and music and Santa Cruz. He ignored me. The next person that introduced herself told him how much she wanted to study bicultural studies and about her deep caring for the oppressed bicultural masses. He beamed at her and told her how happy he was that she was there and that he had a great idea for her class project. Then I got it--he didn't really mean, 'tell us about yourself', he meant, 'tell me what I want to hear.' Everyone else followed the smart girl's lead and was greeted and welcomed warmly and told he had a great idea for their class project. The class demographic was 98% Mexican American, 1% African American/Muslim, and me. Oh, and a cute feminist named Brittany who I’d sat down next to.
My classroom was number HSS 2.01.02. It took some time to locate. More than some time in fact. It was nearly impossible to find. What made it more confusing was that the men's room was HSS 2.01.2 and I thought maybe somehow, considering the barbecue, that maybe it was normal that my class was in the men's room or it was just a mean computer joke. But I eventually realized the '.0' in front of the 2 meant the difference between taking notes while sitting on a stall in the men’s room and sitting in a tiny elementary school desk in a tiny janitorial closet of a room with no windows and plates full of old, leftover food laying around. This really was my classroom. Maybe it was a joke after all. How charming. I walked in a little late and asked, just to be sure, "Is this BBL something something?" None of the students responded or made eye contact. They ignored me. Noticing there was an empty desk in front of the class and being in that spontaneous mode I am so often in. I walked up to the desk and said, "Actually I'm your professor, let's get started." Everyone seemed to find this perfectly reasonable and we were having a good time when the actual professor walked in and I said, "Just kidding." and sat down. Everyone seemed confused now. Including the professor himself who was sweating profusely and couldn't find the room either. (I think he'd actually started lecturing in the men's room.)
He told us about himself and asked us to return the favor. I volunteered to go first. I asked what he wanted to know and he said, "Just tell us about yourself." Taking him at his word I told them about surfing and yoga and dancing and music and Santa Cruz. He ignored me. The next person that introduced herself told him how much she wanted to study bicultural studies and about her deep caring for the oppressed bicultural masses. He beamed at her and told her how happy he was that she was there and that he had a great idea for her class project. Then I got it--he didn't really mean, 'tell us about yourself', he meant, 'tell me what I want to hear.' Everyone else followed the smart girl's lead and was greeted and welcomed warmly and told he had a great idea for their class project. The class demographic was 98% Mexican American, 1% African American/Muslim, and me. Oh, and a cute feminist named Brittany who I’d sat down next to.
I was feeling very white and not nearly oppressed enough for everybody's liking. Except for Brittany, and I wasn’t feeling lesbian enough for her liking. Although I would have been happy to give it a go. Everyone seemed very proud to be oppressed and that they had all survived an outrageous injustice. And somehow they gave me the feeling that I was that injustice. The professor explained that as each new group comes to America they are oppressed until they assimilate, at which time they oppress the next new group to arrive. This was food for thought and gave me a great idea. I said, "For my class project could I write about the psychology of oppression?"
The professor stopped everything and looked at me with such a warm, soulful gaze that I thought tears were going to roll out of his eyes. He said, "Yes, oh yes, that would be perfect." After class I shook his hand and he told me to email him because he had so many great things to share with me about my awesome class project. As I was walking out he put an imaginary phone to his ear with his thumb and little finger and mouthed "Call me about the project." He was happy about my project idea. I was happy for him.
As I was walking to my car I saw a huge crowd of people going into the convocation center and curious, stepped up to the girl at the doors and asked her what was going on. She said, "It's an event for students." I told her I was one and so she said, Dana Myers from Saturday Night Live was giving a comedy show inside and that I had to come in and watch it. I said no thanks. She insisted that I had to come in and I told her I was going shopping to buy food for breakfast instead. She said, "Are you making me breakfast?" and I said, in that spontaneous mode where I don't really think before I speak, "Tell you what, when I wake up in the morning, if you're lying beside me I'll make you breakfast." And Ashley replied, "What are we having?" and that's when I knew Texas wasn't going to be so bad. I told her to come to my yoga class instead and I'd bring her a granola bar. Ah, Phoenix, Welcome to Texas.
Toto we're not in Santa Cruz anymore, not even Kansas. Good luck and good night.
As I was walking to my car I saw a huge crowd of people going into the convocation center and curious, stepped up to the girl at the doors and asked her what was going on. She said, "It's an event for students." I told her I was one and so she said, Dana Myers from Saturday Night Live was giving a comedy show inside and that I had to come in and watch it. I said no thanks. She insisted that I had to come in and I told her I was going shopping to buy food for breakfast instead. She said, "Are you making me breakfast?" and I said, in that spontaneous mode where I don't really think before I speak, "Tell you what, when I wake up in the morning, if you're lying beside me I'll make you breakfast." And Ashley replied, "What are we having?" and that's when I knew Texas wasn't going to be so bad. I told her to come to my yoga class instead and I'd bring her a granola bar. Ah, Phoenix, Welcome to Texas.
Toto we're not in Santa Cruz anymore, not even Kansas. Good luck and good night.
Bike Ball
Last night I met Lane' at her house in the oldest part of San Antonio, the historical King William district, for a 'bike ball'. After chilling on the second story outdoor balcony of her 'hippy-cool' but dilapidated old Vic house drinking ice tea in the heat and humidity, we hopped on our bikes and pedaled to the Alamo to meet the rest of the bikeophiles at 10PM. But we were late and they were gone. Tagging along with a few other late-comers, we made a circuitous route through the West side of town where we were chased by dogs (Lane' said they have packs of dogs to protect their homes in this part of town) and eventually headed off the rest of the posse, about 100 or so cyclists, where they were rendezvousing in a local park, standing around in little sub-groups, chugging Lonestar beer, blaring boom-boxes and chilling in the steam-bath weather. Then, like an amoeba reacting to an unseen stimulus we were all off again, in a pack, cruising the streets of the West side, 100 of us, being barked at by dogs, honked and cursed at by Texans in pickups, stared at by most everybody and cheered by a few. After a few fast miles in the rat pack we made another stop at TJ's Road House, where girls brought beer out to us in the sweaty night and someone got on a bull horn and began ranting happily about us. Around midnight I decided I had had enough and Lane' led me away through downtown, along the river walk, through the courthouse square, past the arsenal, and Old San Antonio through streets lined with Victorian mansions full of ghosts. It was lovely with a fuzzy moon smeared in the sky over our heads.
It should have been fun. I'm not sure if it was the heat and humidity, or the fact that some of my fellow cyclists were tossing their empty beer cans, as they finished them while peddling, down on the street, as though this were a perfectly acceptable thing to do, or the way they blocked both lanes of traffic so that no cars could pass, or maybe the cursing and shouting. It was like being in one of those 1950 films where the bike gang roars into a little town and terrorizes it for a while before leaving. Only these were bicycles, not old Harley Hogs.
I think me and ol' Texas just don't get each other. Maybe in November when the temperature drops below a hundred (until March) I will be more sympathetic.
But challenge breeds growth. So, time to grow!
It should have been fun. I'm not sure if it was the heat and humidity, or the fact that some of my fellow cyclists were tossing their empty beer cans, as they finished them while peddling, down on the street, as though this were a perfectly acceptable thing to do, or the way they blocked both lanes of traffic so that no cars could pass, or maybe the cursing and shouting. It was like being in one of those 1950 films where the bike gang roars into a little town and terrorizes it for a while before leaving. Only these were bicycles, not old Harley Hogs.
I think me and ol' Texas just don't get each other. Maybe in November when the temperature drops below a hundred (until March) I will be more sympathetic.
But challenge breeds growth. So, time to grow!
Full Moon Over San Antonio/Happiness is Back
I step out of class at 8:30 to a yellow moon hanging above oak trees in a dark blue-black sky. Somehow at 90 degrees, the air felt cool, refreshing in a warm desert way. Behind me was the karst topography of limestone with cactus and oaks dotting it. The air had a smell that is absolutely unique to the Texas hill country; it smelled like...joy. And in that moment I felt that everything was somehow going to be OK.
This morning, after my yoga session and before I start studying, I sit on the patio listening to my music and drinking a power smoothie. At 76 degrees the air is cool and moist, birds call beyond the sound of the music and I can hear the leaves rustling. I feel happy. That Phoenix happiness that wells up from deep inside and can't be denied.
The same professor who ignored me the first class session as a laissez-faire white surfer yoga Californian shook my hand on the second class session after I riveted him to the wall during our class discussion of our first reading while the rest of the class watched us fencing. It felt good to be in an intellectual milieu. Maybe not the students, but at least the professors are going to be stimulating. On our first class session I had mentioned that I thought it was exploitative that the text was so expensive and that I couldn't afford it. On the second class meeting during the break, a girl in the class called from the back of the room "Hey Santa Cruz!" and I looked up. She called me back and handed me a brand new text book for the class and said, "This is for you. Welcome to Texas." I couldn't believe it. I was delighted. (somebody is getting homemade Greek cookies as a thank you soon. ;-)
Earlier that day, on the way in from the parking lot, waiting in line to pay for the hourly parking, the girl in front of me couldn't get the machine to accept her bills so I used my card to pay for her and we began talking. She was a beautiful Chinese exchange student named Serena and was excited when she found out I taught yoga. When we were walking and talking I caught her looking at me out of the corner of her eye giving me a look that took me by surprise. Whatever look it was it felt good when I caught it. That night I had an email from her with her number that said 'Call me anytime.' I did, and invited her to dinner on Friday. She said yes. I hung up and felt like a teenager. ;-)
Grad school is going to be very hard; I can tell that, and I am not in Santa Cruz or Esalen with all my friends and waves and the things I love, but still somehow, I think just maybe, this might work here. Maybe. Texas is on.
Avanti.
This morning, after my yoga session and before I start studying, I sit on the patio listening to my music and drinking a power smoothie. At 76 degrees the air is cool and moist, birds call beyond the sound of the music and I can hear the leaves rustling. I feel happy. That Phoenix happiness that wells up from deep inside and can't be denied.
The same professor who ignored me the first class session as a laissez-faire white surfer yoga Californian shook my hand on the second class session after I riveted him to the wall during our class discussion of our first reading while the rest of the class watched us fencing. It felt good to be in an intellectual milieu. Maybe not the students, but at least the professors are going to be stimulating. On our first class session I had mentioned that I thought it was exploitative that the text was so expensive and that I couldn't afford it. On the second class meeting during the break, a girl in the class called from the back of the room "Hey Santa Cruz!" and I looked up. She called me back and handed me a brand new text book for the class and said, "This is for you. Welcome to Texas." I couldn't believe it. I was delighted. (somebody is getting homemade Greek cookies as a thank you soon. ;-)
Earlier that day, on the way in from the parking lot, waiting in line to pay for the hourly parking, the girl in front of me couldn't get the machine to accept her bills so I used my card to pay for her and we began talking. She was a beautiful Chinese exchange student named Serena and was excited when she found out I taught yoga. When we were walking and talking I caught her looking at me out of the corner of her eye giving me a look that took me by surprise. Whatever look it was it felt good when I caught it. That night I had an email from her with her number that said 'Call me anytime.' I did, and invited her to dinner on Friday. She said yes. I hung up and felt like a teenager. ;-)
Grad school is going to be very hard; I can tell that, and I am not in Santa Cruz or Esalen with all my friends and waves and the things I love, but still somehow, I think just maybe, this might work here. Maybe. Texas is on.
Avanti.
The Real America; In the Beginning
Knowledge, or education, without practical application, for the benefit of others, is useless. Let me share some of what I have learned here at grad school and let's apply it to have a more accurate historical perspective of "this great nation of ours" and steer toward our future with greater compassion, clarity and understanding.
In the late 16th century, shortly before the English migrations to America, Queen Elizabeth encouraged some of her subjects, including Sir Walter Raleigh, to take up private colonization projects in Ireland. Raleigh, a protestant, believe the Irish Catholics to be wild savages. They were viewed as living outside of "civilization". The Irish were described as lazy, "naturally" given to "idleness" and unwilling to work "for their own bread". Dominated by "innate sloth," "loose, barbarous and most wicked," and living 'like beasts', they were also thought to be criminals inclined to steal from the English. (Hmm, where have I heard those same slurs applied before in more modern times here in America?)
The English colonizers established a two-tiered social structure: "Every Irishman shall be forbidden to wear English apparel or weapon on pain of death. That no Irishman shall purchase land, bear office, or admitted witness in any real or personal action." British laws prevented marriages between the Irish and the colonizers. The Irish became targets of English violence. "Nothing but fear and force can teach duty and obedience" to this "rebellious people." (Remember this is in Ireland, the *home* of the Irish, the English are invaders.) The English burned the villages and crops of the inhabitants and relocated them on reservations. They slaughtered families, "man, woman and child," justifying their atrocities by arguing families provided support for the rebels. (Is this not the same tactics the US Army used to destroy the Navajo when America wanted to move west?)
Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh participated in both the invasion of Ireland and the colonization of the New World. They brought their tactics with them. Initially, "savagery" was defined in relationship to the Irish and the Indians were incorporated into the definition to help familiarize the New World for the colonizers. The irony is that the English projected onto the Indians all the things that they themselves actually were, "barbarous", and they used religion and God to justify their brutal genocide of the original inhabitants of this country.
The first English settlement in the New World was in Virginia in 1610. 120 colonizers arrived and one year later only 38 survived. The natives came and fed them to keep them from starving. One year later several hundred more came colonizers came. Again they met with starvation and were eating dead bodies, rats, mice, one man even killed his wife and ate her. (These are the people accusing the natives of being savages, and the agents of the Devil) They attacked the Indians for food.
In another year the governor forces the Indians to labor and pay taxes. As more colonizers come and need more land they begin to exterminate the Indians calling them savages, claiming that it's God's will that the English have the land for themselves. When the natives are decimated by diseases brought by the English they claim this a sign of God's will to make way for his chosen people. (Does any of this sound familiar to the modern ear?)
By 1679 Indians became the Devil. The Puritans projected everything they were *not* onto the Indians, the 'other', and created a cultural construct to justify their genocide, in the name of God.
Thomas Jefferson, to the Cherokees: "I shall rejoice to see the day when the red man, our neighbors, become truly one people with us, enjoying all the rights and privileges we do, and living in plenty and peace as we do...." "We take from no nation what belongs to it, " he told them. He elaborated, "Your lands are your own; your right to them shall never be violated by us; they are yours to keep or sell as you please."
Jefferson in an 1803 "Confidential Message" to Congress told how to make the Indians "willing to sell" by encouraging them to abandon hunting, selling them manufactured goods by multiplying the trading houses and bring them into the market. Jefferson, in February 27, 1803, in an "unofficial and private" letter to the Indiana governor: "To promote this disposition to exchange lands, which we want, we shall push our trading houses, and be glad to see the good and influential among them run in debt, because we observe that when these debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop them off by a cession of lands."
Get them into debt and we will have them. America, in the beginning.
In the late 16th century, shortly before the English migrations to America, Queen Elizabeth encouraged some of her subjects, including Sir Walter Raleigh, to take up private colonization projects in Ireland. Raleigh, a protestant, believe the Irish Catholics to be wild savages. They were viewed as living outside of "civilization". The Irish were described as lazy, "naturally" given to "idleness" and unwilling to work "for their own bread". Dominated by "innate sloth," "loose, barbarous and most wicked," and living 'like beasts', they were also thought to be criminals inclined to steal from the English. (Hmm, where have I heard those same slurs applied before in more modern times here in America?)
The English colonizers established a two-tiered social structure: "Every Irishman shall be forbidden to wear English apparel or weapon on pain of death. That no Irishman shall purchase land, bear office, or admitted witness in any real or personal action." British laws prevented marriages between the Irish and the colonizers. The Irish became targets of English violence. "Nothing but fear and force can teach duty and obedience" to this "rebellious people." (Remember this is in Ireland, the *home* of the Irish, the English are invaders.) The English burned the villages and crops of the inhabitants and relocated them on reservations. They slaughtered families, "man, woman and child," justifying their atrocities by arguing families provided support for the rebels. (Is this not the same tactics the US Army used to destroy the Navajo when America wanted to move west?)
Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh participated in both the invasion of Ireland and the colonization of the New World. They brought their tactics with them. Initially, "savagery" was defined in relationship to the Irish and the Indians were incorporated into the definition to help familiarize the New World for the colonizers. The irony is that the English projected onto the Indians all the things that they themselves actually were, "barbarous", and they used religion and God to justify their brutal genocide of the original inhabitants of this country.
The first English settlement in the New World was in Virginia in 1610. 120 colonizers arrived and one year later only 38 survived. The natives came and fed them to keep them from starving. One year later several hundred more came colonizers came. Again they met with starvation and were eating dead bodies, rats, mice, one man even killed his wife and ate her. (These are the people accusing the natives of being savages, and the agents of the Devil) They attacked the Indians for food.
In another year the governor forces the Indians to labor and pay taxes. As more colonizers come and need more land they begin to exterminate the Indians calling them savages, claiming that it's God's will that the English have the land for themselves. When the natives are decimated by diseases brought by the English they claim this a sign of God's will to make way for his chosen people. (Does any of this sound familiar to the modern ear?)
By 1679 Indians became the Devil. The Puritans projected everything they were *not* onto the Indians, the 'other', and created a cultural construct to justify their genocide, in the name of God.
Thomas Jefferson, to the Cherokees: "I shall rejoice to see the day when the red man, our neighbors, become truly one people with us, enjoying all the rights and privileges we do, and living in plenty and peace as we do...." "We take from no nation what belongs to it, " he told them. He elaborated, "Your lands are your own; your right to them shall never be violated by us; they are yours to keep or sell as you please."
Jefferson in an 1803 "Confidential Message" to Congress told how to make the Indians "willing to sell" by encouraging them to abandon hunting, selling them manufactured goods by multiplying the trading houses and bring them into the market. Jefferson, in February 27, 1803, in an "unofficial and private" letter to the Indiana governor: "To promote this disposition to exchange lands, which we want, we shall push our trading houses, and be glad to see the good and influential among them run in debt, because we observe that when these debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop them off by a cession of lands."
Get them into debt and we will have them. America, in the beginning.
Leisure
There was a time, when I was young, when it was said that the goal of technology was to free up time so that we could all lead lives of leisure. This morning it dawned on me that that will never happen. Because having leisure time really has nothing to do with technology; it's a way of being, a certain relationship one has to one's self and to life. And Westerners do not have that mind set. They will always find reasons to be busy; that's the Western mind. Technology will only complicate our lives, not free up time for leisure. Not through any fault of technology, but by our own nature. because really our technology is just a reflection of who we are.
Many islanders lead lives of leisure; they have their needs met and plenty of spare time to just be, and they have no technology in the modern sense. But their mind-set, their way of being, their relationship with life, is such that they value leisure time. We suffer from that very Puritan work ethic that is like a cancerous disease--It's not OK to be happy, to relax, to enjoy the pleasures of the body, to do nothing; we must DO SOMETHING or we're wrong, bad, lazy. The sixties cultural/sexual revolution was a miracle when you put in perspective against 500 years of Puritan repression.
When I lived and worked with the Bribri tribe in Alta Talamanca, Costa Rica I learned about their fascinating cosmology. Their god, Cebu, planted seeds of different colored corn and from them different peoples were born. The Bribri were his children, he was their caretaker. But they said another people would come one day who would be like the ditsu, the leaf cutter ants, they would be white people who ceaselessly work and move, and they would destroy everything in their paths, including the Bribri. They knew this long before the coming of the whites. Similarly, many Native American peoples had prophesied the coming of the Whites, from over the ocean. How could they know this?
Leisure, relaxation, enjoying the body, enjoying life, doing nothing, all equate to health. A constant need to 'do' leads to stress and stress equates to not health. Getting a historical perspective on where we come from and how our culture has been shaped might help us consciously let go of some of our repressed and buried social mores about what's right and wrong. It's OK to be happy and to revel in the pleasure of the human body. It's OK to just be and relax. The irony of Puritan repression is that the things they name as sin are the things that are most natural and healthy to the functioning of a human being---relaxation, touch, enjoyment, the very things that make us human. And in their small, sad, twisted psyches these were the things they feared most. This is the legacy that is embedded in our own collective cultural subconscious that we must consciously strive to overcome. So go relax, go touch someone and enjoy it.
Avanti!
Many islanders lead lives of leisure; they have their needs met and plenty of spare time to just be, and they have no technology in the modern sense. But their mind-set, their way of being, their relationship with life, is such that they value leisure time. We suffer from that very Puritan work ethic that is like a cancerous disease--It's not OK to be happy, to relax, to enjoy the pleasures of the body, to do nothing; we must DO SOMETHING or we're wrong, bad, lazy. The sixties cultural/sexual revolution was a miracle when you put in perspective against 500 years of Puritan repression.
When I lived and worked with the Bribri tribe in Alta Talamanca, Costa Rica I learned about their fascinating cosmology. Their god, Cebu, planted seeds of different colored corn and from them different peoples were born. The Bribri were his children, he was their caretaker. But they said another people would come one day who would be like the ditsu, the leaf cutter ants, they would be white people who ceaselessly work and move, and they would destroy everything in their paths, including the Bribri. They knew this long before the coming of the whites. Similarly, many Native American peoples had prophesied the coming of the Whites, from over the ocean. How could they know this?
Leisure, relaxation, enjoying the body, enjoying life, doing nothing, all equate to health. A constant need to 'do' leads to stress and stress equates to not health. Getting a historical perspective on where we come from and how our culture has been shaped might help us consciously let go of some of our repressed and buried social mores about what's right and wrong. It's OK to be happy and to revel in the pleasure of the human body. It's OK to just be and relax. The irony of Puritan repression is that the things they name as sin are the things that are most natural and healthy to the functioning of a human being---relaxation, touch, enjoyment, the very things that make us human. And in their small, sad, twisted psyches these were the things they feared most. This is the legacy that is embedded in our own collective cultural subconscious that we must consciously strive to overcome. So go relax, go touch someone and enjoy it.
Avanti!
Pristine Beauty
I can't believe there is anyplace in the world more beautiful than this place and this moment. The moon is nearly full, the air is sweet and cool, and I am walking through the rolling limestone Texas hill country under the oak trees, the junipers and through the cacti, sparsely covering the limestone and I feel so alive sleep is out of the question. The beauty is riveting, magical, breath-holding, like another planet. The moonlight is bright but there are no colors, only monochromatic shades of glowing pearl and glittering black diamond.
I drove 70 miles from San Antonio here to my friend's ranch on 1200 acres of rolling hill country to this 70 year old Texas ranch house. Ripping lightning storms and heavy rains boomed and pelted the Mothership and made me feel like I was back in New Zealand. When they passed there was a rainbow, the air was fragrant and fresh, and I saw two roadrunner, a flock of wild turkey, a wild fox and some deer, all in a ten minute span of time. Later we barbecued chicken outdoors and made homemade beans from scratch, cornbread, corn on the cob, homemade dark chocolate cookies and listened to fantastic Texas singer songwriter music around a campfire and talked into the night until the moon rose dark orange through the clouds over the hills. I played the guitar and sang until the fire died down and the moon rose high in the sky and shone a pale but illuminating light on the world.
And after giving a massage, when the rest of the world had gone to sleep, I slipped away into the wilderness, walking and vibrating and feeling so absolutely alive and happy, alone in pure, sweet nature, in the middle of the night with the moonlight and the oak trees. The way to live in a hot place like this is to become nocturnal. During the day stay indoors and study. When darkness comes and the moon rises, go forth into the night and rejoice in the beauty and feel so alive, watch the sun rise and start again. Pristine beauty. Texas.
Guadalupe River
Driving through the Texas hill country in the Mothership I feel like I am back in New Zealand in the Miniship. I cross the Guadalupe River, the master consequent stream of the Texas hill country, and can't resist its pull. I circle back and find a way down to the river and park the Mothership. I walk to the bank and slip out of my hot clothes and slip into the water and swim out to the middle of the wide river and float under the clouds. The banks are lined with tall cypress trees and the water is cool in the heat. Serendipity strikes again.
Avanti!
Avanti!
Buddhist Retreat in the Texas Hill country
Anam Thubten is a Tibetan rinpoche who cuts through dogma with the razor sharp sword of common sense. He eschews guru worship and all the complex cultural trappings that I always questioned in Tibetan Buddhism. He strips it down to a universal simplicity free of any dogma or culture.
I met him in an 8 million dollar mansion perched over a canyon above the Perdanales River on a limestone cliff in the Texas hill country. I had arrived late with my friend Nova for the first night of the weekend retreat and most people had already left. By chance the rinpoche came out of his room when we were standing nearby and I approached him to introduce myself. Like the Dalai Lama, he was childlike and sweet and I immediately liked him. We laughed and placed our foreheads together and he chatted with Nova and I for a few minutes and was excited to hear I was from Santa Cruz. I felt at home for the first time since coming to Texas.
The next day we received teachings and meditated. His teaching is simple: Let go of attachments, lose the self. Pure consciousness is the ground of all being. It is not something you have to 'get', or go find; it is here all the time.
Nova and I camped out on the land of some new friends who have a house on the Perdanales River. On Saturday night after the teaching we made a big fire, drank wine and played guitar and sang under the moonlight in the Texas hill country. After everyone else fell asleep Nova and I finished the wine and sang duets together by the dying fire. I felt like I was back in my world; the world I was born to live in. Campfires and nature, trees and stars and the moon, friends and wine and singing outside and sleeping under the stars.
Sunday at a break in the teaching I ran into the rinpoche as he was coming out of his room and asked him a question that had been 'troubling' me. We sat down in chairs facing each other close together and I said, "Don't laugh but here's my question--I 'get' that your teaching is simple, let go of attachment. That's clear although not easy to actually do. Lose the self; that's not as clear, but I get it. But the question is, how? What is the method or the key to actually make that happen?"
He looked at me and we started laughing. He said, "It's so simple, no one believes me. It's right here, all the time. You don't have to go look for it. This is all you have to do; the Buddha called it the three abidings--sit in a comfortable position, come to natural breath, and then leave the mind alone, as it is. That's all. And by doing that you will dissolve the self, and the pure consciousness that is already there will be clear. It's so simple no one believes me because they want something grand and spiritual and complicated, something magic. But it's not; it's the simplest thing in the world; that's the big secret. And you should also go do a long retreat somewhere; it would be good for you. Remember, sit like a rabbit, and think like a child. That means, sit straight and still, but relaxed and focused, just being, and keep your mind free and open like a child, not analyzing."
We looked into each other’s eyes and started laughing again and held hands and I thanked him.
When we returned to the next session my meditation was 'alive'. I 'got' it. I understood. It *was* the simplest thing; just do it.
When the retreat ended and everyone was lining up to get blessings from the rinpoche I slipped out. My blessing was our talk and the understanding he gave me about how to actually 'do' the practice. I slipped down the limestone cliff to a clear warm pool with a waterfall and stripped off my clothes. I slipped into the pool and swam through the tight, narrow walls of the limestone canyon and stood under the waterfall, letting it massage my back and neck. Then I swam under water with my eyes open, holding my breath and scraping the limestone bottom. Finally I surfaced and rested on the side of the pool in the sunshine, looking across the canyon to huge old trees swaying in the wind. I felt reborn, alive, pure, childlike, innocent, naked, fresh. I felt the joy of being in nature, alone and present. I meditated while floating in the water, just letting go and being present with myself. I felt so good, so present, I could have died then and there and been in heaven. Suddenly I wanted to share it with someone, to not be alone anymore, but to be with another human being, and went to find Nova to bring her down to my secret garden.
That night, driving home late, in the dark through the hill country Nova and I pulled over on a tiny winding country road and parked the Mothership and got out and did some stretching and then just left the Mothership and walked up the road into the night talking about life as though it were the most natural thing in the world to do. We walked and walked in the beautiful, perfectly cool, perfect night down the long and winding road. I felt alive and as though I were free and traveling, maybe hiking across Spain, or in the Sierra, or walking down an endless beach in Costa Rica. It was beautiful. We raced each other back along the road, we held hands and spun in circles in the middle of the road and danced. It was prefect.
We got back to San Antonio after midnight and then looked at each other as we drove through the asphalt jungle of suburbs and shook our heads. We said we felt like we'd just come from heaven back into another world, the world of concrete and emptiness. But at least I had a taste of happiness and freedom for the first time since I've come to Texas. Life moves ahead.
I met him in an 8 million dollar mansion perched over a canyon above the Perdanales River on a limestone cliff in the Texas hill country. I had arrived late with my friend Nova for the first night of the weekend retreat and most people had already left. By chance the rinpoche came out of his room when we were standing nearby and I approached him to introduce myself. Like the Dalai Lama, he was childlike and sweet and I immediately liked him. We laughed and placed our foreheads together and he chatted with Nova and I for a few minutes and was excited to hear I was from Santa Cruz. I felt at home for the first time since coming to Texas.
The next day we received teachings and meditated. His teaching is simple: Let go of attachments, lose the self. Pure consciousness is the ground of all being. It is not something you have to 'get', or go find; it is here all the time.
Nova and I camped out on the land of some new friends who have a house on the Perdanales River. On Saturday night after the teaching we made a big fire, drank wine and played guitar and sang under the moonlight in the Texas hill country. After everyone else fell asleep Nova and I finished the wine and sang duets together by the dying fire. I felt like I was back in my world; the world I was born to live in. Campfires and nature, trees and stars and the moon, friends and wine and singing outside and sleeping under the stars.
Sunday at a break in the teaching I ran into the rinpoche as he was coming out of his room and asked him a question that had been 'troubling' me. We sat down in chairs facing each other close together and I said, "Don't laugh but here's my question--I 'get' that your teaching is simple, let go of attachment. That's clear although not easy to actually do. Lose the self; that's not as clear, but I get it. But the question is, how? What is the method or the key to actually make that happen?"
He looked at me and we started laughing. He said, "It's so simple, no one believes me. It's right here, all the time. You don't have to go look for it. This is all you have to do; the Buddha called it the three abidings--sit in a comfortable position, come to natural breath, and then leave the mind alone, as it is. That's all. And by doing that you will dissolve the self, and the pure consciousness that is already there will be clear. It's so simple no one believes me because they want something grand and spiritual and complicated, something magic. But it's not; it's the simplest thing in the world; that's the big secret. And you should also go do a long retreat somewhere; it would be good for you. Remember, sit like a rabbit, and think like a child. That means, sit straight and still, but relaxed and focused, just being, and keep your mind free and open like a child, not analyzing."
We looked into each other’s eyes and started laughing again and held hands and I thanked him.
When we returned to the next session my meditation was 'alive'. I 'got' it. I understood. It *was* the simplest thing; just do it.
When the retreat ended and everyone was lining up to get blessings from the rinpoche I slipped out. My blessing was our talk and the understanding he gave me about how to actually 'do' the practice. I slipped down the limestone cliff to a clear warm pool with a waterfall and stripped off my clothes. I slipped into the pool and swam through the tight, narrow walls of the limestone canyon and stood under the waterfall, letting it massage my back and neck. Then I swam under water with my eyes open, holding my breath and scraping the limestone bottom. Finally I surfaced and rested on the side of the pool in the sunshine, looking across the canyon to huge old trees swaying in the wind. I felt reborn, alive, pure, childlike, innocent, naked, fresh. I felt the joy of being in nature, alone and present. I meditated while floating in the water, just letting go and being present with myself. I felt so good, so present, I could have died then and there and been in heaven. Suddenly I wanted to share it with someone, to not be alone anymore, but to be with another human being, and went to find Nova to bring her down to my secret garden.
That night, driving home late, in the dark through the hill country Nova and I pulled over on a tiny winding country road and parked the Mothership and got out and did some stretching and then just left the Mothership and walked up the road into the night talking about life as though it were the most natural thing in the world to do. We walked and walked in the beautiful, perfectly cool, perfect night down the long and winding road. I felt alive and as though I were free and traveling, maybe hiking across Spain, or in the Sierra, or walking down an endless beach in Costa Rica. It was beautiful. We raced each other back along the road, we held hands and spun in circles in the middle of the road and danced. It was prefect.
We got back to San Antonio after midnight and then looked at each other as we drove through the asphalt jungle of suburbs and shook our heads. We said we felt like we'd just come from heaven back into another world, the world of concrete and emptiness. But at least I had a taste of happiness and freedom for the first time since I've come to Texas. Life moves ahead.
10/9/09
Elemental Joy
Rumi says
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
At 4.30 AM I got up to follow my Texas grad school daily routine--an hour of yoga, then meditation, and breakfast followed by studying all day. But just as I was getting out of bed I remembered the advice my professor gave me last night after class when I shared my concern with him that despite studying all day every day I just couldn't 'get' the myriad theoretical concepts of sociolinguistics. He said, "Try and open your mind; visualize it, ask yourself how you would apply it." Basically he was telling me to break my mental routine, mindset, pattern, get out of my rut and begin again with a fresh mind. And if there's one thing I know about life it's that it's never too late to begin again, right now.
Taking his advice to heart, instead of "opening the door to the study and begin reading" and stepping into the habit of my self-enforced daily regime, I decided to "take down a musical instrument" and live today the way I lived my life before I came here for grad school, my way, which is the spontaneity of following my intuitive feeling and joy in each moment as it unfolds, in freedom. As soon as I decided to let go of my routine, suddenly, with joy, I felt myself spontaneously called to make my favorite imperial green tea, the first time I have given myself permission to take the time to make tea in the morning since I've started school. As I began to heat the water I heard raindrops through the stove vent and excitedly opened the curtains and sliding door to our open air patio in the backyard. Immediately a storm began descending and growing. Wild wind, along with driving rain.
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
At 4.30 AM I got up to follow my Texas grad school daily routine--an hour of yoga, then meditation, and breakfast followed by studying all day. But just as I was getting out of bed I remembered the advice my professor gave me last night after class when I shared my concern with him that despite studying all day every day I just couldn't 'get' the myriad theoretical concepts of sociolinguistics. He said, "Try and open your mind; visualize it, ask yourself how you would apply it." Basically he was telling me to break my mental routine, mindset, pattern, get out of my rut and begin again with a fresh mind. And if there's one thing I know about life it's that it's never too late to begin again, right now.
Taking his advice to heart, instead of "opening the door to the study and begin reading" and stepping into the habit of my self-enforced daily regime, I decided to "take down a musical instrument" and live today the way I lived my life before I came here for grad school, my way, which is the spontaneity of following my intuitive feeling and joy in each moment as it unfolds, in freedom. As soon as I decided to let go of my routine, suddenly, with joy, I felt myself spontaneously called to make my favorite imperial green tea, the first time I have given myself permission to take the time to make tea in the morning since I've started school. As I began to heat the water I heard raindrops through the stove vent and excitedly opened the curtains and sliding door to our open air patio in the backyard. Immediately a storm began descending and growing. Wild wind, along with driving rain.
Instantly I was delighted and happy. I let go of all my boxed-in ideas about study and routine and dove into my own spirit, head-first into the sense of excitement and joy that I normally feel in my "real life" of freedom, as though I had woken up on the beach in New Zealand or Baja, free and alone with my surfboards, to the sound of waves and the sweet smiling face of some soulful companion.
I made my beloved tea, temperature and time just so, in my yixing clay pot, then still riding waves of intuition, got my meditation cushion and shawl and lit a candle and sat on my cushion on the floor of the patio in the cool darkness, and lovingly sipped four cups of delicate green tea out of my delicate, chipped, Japanese porcelain tea cup, then wrapping my Indian shawl around me, I meditated. Focusing my awareness on my breath, then melting into simply observing my body and mind. As I grew still and empty the storm grew wild, wind chimes going off like fire alarms and tree tops waving so wildly, like bull kelp undulating under a pounding surf, that they created a roar like surging ocean swells crashing against a rocky coast. I felt a joy. The joy of elemental nature indulging herself in her power and glory while I was engulfed in all this immensity like a chip in a stormy sea and yet also part of the immensity. I was as much a part of the storm as the rain and wind; without me, it would not exist.
I made my beloved tea, temperature and time just so, in my yixing clay pot, then still riding waves of intuition, got my meditation cushion and shawl and lit a candle and sat on my cushion on the floor of the patio in the cool darkness, and lovingly sipped four cups of delicate green tea out of my delicate, chipped, Japanese porcelain tea cup, then wrapping my Indian shawl around me, I meditated. Focusing my awareness on my breath, then melting into simply observing my body and mind. As I grew still and empty the storm grew wild, wind chimes going off like fire alarms and tree tops waving so wildly, like bull kelp undulating under a pounding surf, that they created a roar like surging ocean swells crashing against a rocky coast. I felt a joy. The joy of elemental nature indulging herself in her power and glory while I was engulfed in all this immensity like a chip in a stormy sea and yet also part of the immensity. I was as much a part of the storm as the rain and wind; without me, it would not exist.
As I meditated in this wild release of wind and rain I felt relaxation that melts into emptiness that touches the naked pristine thing for which I have no words but only joy. I felt gratitude for the fundamental meditation technique Anam Thubten Rinpoche had shared with me, this simple, effective technique, so much more my style than the elaborate, intricate, one hundred thousand of these, one hundred thousand of those, visualizing this, visualizing that, chanting this, chanting that, doing this, doing that that comes with Tibetan Buddhism. *Simplicity* is the key. I laughed to myself imagining doing a practice because someone else told me to do it, not because it feels right for me, or is what I naturally gravitate toward. I remembered him telling me, laughing, "The key is so simple no one will believe me; they all want elaborate spiritual practices. The key is sit comfortably, focus on the breath, allow the mind to just be. Doing this your ego will melt and pure consciousness is already there. You don't have to go somewhere to get it."
Now, I watch the trees moving and the grey clouds scuttling as a heavy light grudgingly spreads across the sky; I hear the wind, the wind chimes, the rain dripping off the eaves and steady drumming of the rain on the ground. With a fresh eye I return to my deep yoga practice now, melting into each posture with deep slow breathing, and then to my breakfast, ravenous, and with fresh excitement, to a new way to look at sociolinguistics, the way I would look at it if I discovered it on my own and dove into it for fun, not because I have exams to pass, but the way I dive into physics, or neuro nets in the brain, out of immense curiosity and relentless excitement to understand the deeper levels behind the superficial reality that we take for granted, running on automatic pilot.
Perhaps the study of sociolinguistics, like the understanding of peptide release, receptor sites and neuro nets, helps us to actually have awareness of the superficial patterns and habits that run our lives and the deeper levels of the processes that create who we 'are', and through this awareness offers us the power and mastery to create our lives, our reality, with conscious intention.
We constantly create our reality anyway, but usually unconsciously, through the habit patterns of the mind and emotions. Realizing this we can choose to consciously create our reality by what we think and feel and become masters of our personal reality and our destiny. To effect that change a marriage or synthesis of quantum mechanics and Tibetan Buddhism becomes an effective and fascinating ally and tool.
Perhaps the study of sociolinguistics, like the understanding of peptide release, receptor sites and neuro nets, helps us to actually have awareness of the superficial patterns and habits that run our lives and the deeper levels of the processes that create who we 'are', and through this awareness offers us the power and mastery to create our lives, our reality, with conscious intention.
We constantly create our reality anyway, but usually unconsciously, through the habit patterns of the mind and emotions. Realizing this we can choose to consciously create our reality by what we think and feel and become masters of our personal reality and our destiny. To effect that change a marriage or synthesis of quantum mechanics and Tibetan Buddhism becomes an effective and fascinating ally and tool.
Quantum mechanics and Buddhism both agree the true nature of existence is emptiness, that in fact, there's really nothing here at all....except pure consciousness. If you look for a self you don't find one, if you expect matter to be solid, you find it's empty; there is nothing there, particles come in and out of existence, and the universe itself is mostly empty space expanding into emptiness. Patterns of vibration, pure consciousness.
Studying neuro patterns of the mind, peptide release, neuro nets, it becomes clear that we create patterns in our lives to feed our addictions, we create situations to get the brain to release certain peptides that we have become addicted to into receptor sites so we can feel the emotional responses we crave. By understanding this process, the formation of neuro nets, and the underlying chemistry behind emotions and addictions we can release addictive patterns and consciously create new neuro nets now.
The science of the brain says that whatever we focus on we will create and Tibetan Buddhism says whatever we focus on, we create. Quantum mechanics and Buddhism agree everything is empty. Quantum mechanics explains the mystery of reality by saying that all possibilities exist always and that the observer, (you and I), brings one of these infinite possibilities into existence by the focus of our awareness. Hence, we create any reality we choose (consciously or not) among infinite possibilities. *This* is the true nature of reality, and the 'good news', that not only is anything possible, but we can create any future we choose, right now, by what we think. It's as simple and as profound as that. With a basic conceptual understanding of quantum mechanics and Buddhism and a simple practice of Buddhist meditation we become theantropic, both man and god.
The science of the brain says that whatever we focus on we will create and Tibetan Buddhism says whatever we focus on, we create. Quantum mechanics and Buddhism agree everything is empty. Quantum mechanics explains the mystery of reality by saying that all possibilities exist always and that the observer, (you and I), brings one of these infinite possibilities into existence by the focus of our awareness. Hence, we create any reality we choose (consciously or not) among infinite possibilities. *This* is the true nature of reality, and the 'good news', that not only is anything possible, but we can create any future we choose, right now, by what we think. It's as simple and as profound as that. With a basic conceptual understanding of quantum mechanics and Buddhism and a simple practice of Buddhist meditation we become theantropic, both man and god.
So take down a musical instrument and let the beauty we love be what we do. Avanti!
10/10/09
53 Degrees of Separation
I woke up this morning with the temperature holding at 53 degrees, almost 50 degrees colder than when I moved here at the end of August. And 40 degrees colder than it was two days ago. Excited and invigorated by the cool air, instead of slipping into my morning routine of yoga, meditation, and study, I made a cup of homemade chai and drove three miles to the nearest piece of 'nature' to go 'hiking'.
(Those of you in Santa Cruz might laugh when you read that I *drove* three miles instead of riding my bike. But let me excuse myself. In Santa Cruz any reason to ride my bike is welcomed because the setting, the backdrop, the foreground, are all relaxed and lovely to both the spirit and the eye. Here on the other hand, the three miles between me and the nearest piece of 'nature' are along major thoroughfares, heavy with bicycle-oblivious traffic and lined with strip malls and asphalt. Trust me; you wouldn't want to do it either.)
The nearest piece of 'nature' is Comanche Hill, at 1340 feet in elevation, the fourth highest point in Bexar county, (pronounced like Bayer aspirin) a place the local Comanche used for raiding the missionaries and settlers. It's a little hill rising out of a flat green sea dotted with ubiquitous development. In the cold air I felt alive and happy, walking briskly up the hill, smiling and greeting everyone I met, out for their Saturday morning constitutionals. The journey to the top took all of five minutes and then I hiked down a wash along the back side and hiked back up cross country through the scrub juniper and brush trying to work up a sweat and get my heart pounding (which I did).
At 53 degrees under gray skies it's another world here than it has been for the last seven weeks of hot hot heat. Cool. pleasant, fresh, alive. The perfect weather for being outside, hiking, drinking chai, and in my case, now and for the rest of the weekend, studying.
I can just taste the freedom in the air. I can just taste the mountains, the ocean, New Zealand, the Camino de Santiago. I can just taste the future, and it tastes like...success.
Avanti.
(Those of you in Santa Cruz might laugh when you read that I *drove* three miles instead of riding my bike. But let me excuse myself. In Santa Cruz any reason to ride my bike is welcomed because the setting, the backdrop, the foreground, are all relaxed and lovely to both the spirit and the eye. Here on the other hand, the three miles between me and the nearest piece of 'nature' are along major thoroughfares, heavy with bicycle-oblivious traffic and lined with strip malls and asphalt. Trust me; you wouldn't want to do it either.)
The nearest piece of 'nature' is Comanche Hill, at 1340 feet in elevation, the fourth highest point in Bexar county, (pronounced like Bayer aspirin) a place the local Comanche used for raiding the missionaries and settlers. It's a little hill rising out of a flat green sea dotted with ubiquitous development. In the cold air I felt alive and happy, walking briskly up the hill, smiling and greeting everyone I met, out for their Saturday morning constitutionals. The journey to the top took all of five minutes and then I hiked down a wash along the back side and hiked back up cross country through the scrub juniper and brush trying to work up a sweat and get my heart pounding (which I did).
At 53 degrees under gray skies it's another world here than it has been for the last seven weeks of hot hot heat. Cool. pleasant, fresh, alive. The perfect weather for being outside, hiking, drinking chai, and in my case, now and for the rest of the weekend, studying.
I can just taste the freedom in the air. I can just taste the mountains, the ocean, New Zealand, the Camino de Santiago. I can just taste the future, and it tastes like...success.
Avanti.
Before the Rain
I am enjoying sitting in the cold rain, wearing a hoody, long pants and socks, drinking a cup of homemade chai. At the same time the damp cold seeps into my body from the outside, the heat from the chai warms me from the inside. This is my ten minute study break and I am squeezing the juice out of it.
This morning, the moment I woke up, I rolled out of bed, splashed cold water on my eyes and drove straight to Comanche Hill and climbed to the top in the light misting drizzle, the vanguard of the rain that has descended upon us now. I felt joy hiking up the hill through the junipers and brush, feeling as though I were hiking across Spain, expecting a distant medieval, hill-top village to appear out of the trees under the grey sky at the same time knowing native Americans had stood on the same ground I stood upon, had walked these same footpaths to the top of the hill. I left just before the rain began to plummet down.
Grad school is my task master now and I am under the academic lash, and enjoying it in my own way. There is nothing so rich in life as learning new things that have a practical application, in some way, to making life a better journey.
Avanti.
This morning, the moment I woke up, I rolled out of bed, splashed cold water on my eyes and drove straight to Comanche Hill and climbed to the top in the light misting drizzle, the vanguard of the rain that has descended upon us now. I felt joy hiking up the hill through the junipers and brush, feeling as though I were hiking across Spain, expecting a distant medieval, hill-top village to appear out of the trees under the grey sky at the same time knowing native Americans had stood on the same ground I stood upon, had walked these same footpaths to the top of the hill. I left just before the rain began to plummet down.
Grad school is my task master now and I am under the academic lash, and enjoying it in my own way. There is nothing so rich in life as learning new things that have a practical application, in some way, to making life a better journey.
Avanti.
10/12/09
And the Spirit Smiles
Post yoga, post meditation, sitting on the patio brewing and drinking green summit tea out of my yixing pot and porcelain cup, listening to birds sing in the wet, grey cold morning air. It is a joy to drink this tea in this quietude. Just as I took the first sip I got a text message from a friend in California that read: 'having tea, listening 2 birds, just being. thinking of you.' I smiled. How connected we all are. Each sip of warmth down my throat, into my core, sends shivers up my spine in contrast to the cold air against my skin. How perfect this moment is, how perfect this tea is, these birds singing, this grey sky. For now, illusions of a past that only existed in my mind have melted into the light of radiant and radical reality. All there is is the mind and I have the option to be master of my mind. And of course, ultimately there is no mind, there is emptiness. Spacious, naked, emptiness that vibrates.
Into the unknown.
Into the unknown.
10/18/09
Just So Damn Good
At 1 AM, lying on my back, on the earth, under my down comforter, under the tree, under the sky, looking up at a planet slowly arc across the sky and shooting stars. The air is cold and alive. On the hour I hear the church bells chime and trains come rumbling down the track getting louder and louder as they get closer in the silence of the night. Life is wonderful. Life is just so *damn* good! I await the morning and all the wonders that life brings.
Avanti!
Avanti!
10.19.09
Morning Has Broken
I wake up in the cold air, under my warm down comforter, feeling happy inside. Birds sing in all directions. Outside, the cold surrounds my duvet, but inside, I am in a cocoon of warmth. Life is wonderful. The train sounds far in the distance. A bird sits in a branch over my head and calls to me. The sky has a kind of pellucid lucidity like looking into clear water. It is like awakening in the forest at dawn. Whatever I believe and feel, so I become, so my live becomes. Whatever I dream, so my reality becomes.
Avanti! Into the unknown with mastery.
Avanti! Into the unknown with mastery.
10.19.09
Re-enchantment with Life
Late last night I threw my bag down on the grass under the big tree and crawled in. I could feel the earth breathing under me and the sky pulsing above me. The breeze caressed my hair and kissed my ears as I drifted away to that delicious dimension of dreams. At 4 AM I woke up, got up and dressed to do yoga and then just said, 'no'. I went back to sleep until 7 AM and those three blessed hours of sleep were a wonderful thing. Then I woke up singing and smiling inside and got on my yoga mat for a deep holding and releasing session of asana. Halfway through my session I put on water and brewed some green tea gifted to me by Serena, the Chinese exchange student I've befriended. The tea came from her uncle's tea company in China and was exquisite, yet extremely potent. After brewing a wonderful cup in my yixing clay pot in the cold morning air I got back on my mat and went back into deep postures. Finally, sitting outside on my cushion with my Indian shawl wrapped around me in the cold morning air, I meditated and let my mind go.
Now, refreshed and excited, I am ready to begin my day of non-stop study and never-ending assignment deadlines. I am beginning to enjoy the life of a grad student and beginning to feel a re-enchantment with life. Life is a bottomless well of joy, pristine and crystal clear, waiting, with infinite patience, to be sipped and appreciated by each being. This morning I get down on my knees and drink deeply from the intoxicating nectar of spring of life.
Each moment is a fresh choice and a fresh chance to start over, to begin again, to be reborn. In this moment I choose life, I choose joy, I choose success.
Avanti!
Now, refreshed and excited, I am ready to begin my day of non-stop study and never-ending assignment deadlines. I am beginning to enjoy the life of a grad student and beginning to feel a re-enchantment with life. Life is a bottomless well of joy, pristine and crystal clear, waiting, with infinite patience, to be sipped and appreciated by each being. This morning I get down on my knees and drink deeply from the intoxicating nectar of spring of life.
Each moment is a fresh choice and a fresh chance to start over, to begin again, to be reborn. In this moment I choose life, I choose joy, I choose success.
Avanti!
10.24.09
Lulls Me to Sleep
The beauty that surrounds me is delicious and delirious and makes me dizzy. The rustling leaves, the wind in the chimes, a dog barking in the distance, the rumbling of the train on the tracks and its lonely whistle in the night, like a mellow claret. Luminous pearl moon glittering, a pale shooting star, cold air on my skin.
In bliss, I sink into my down comforter as the soothing symphony of night sounds lulls me to sleep.
In bliss, I sink into my down comforter as the soothing symphony of night sounds lulls me to sleep.
10.26.09
Close to New Zealand
The closest I have come to living in my camper van in New Zealand in the rain is sitting on my back patio in a rainstorm. It's the same feeling of bliss. The beauty of the van is that it's like a cocoon. Even though I'm buffeted by the elements, the van rocking in the wind, the rain pelting off the roof, the cold creeping in, it still creates a dry safe nest, a cave, a shelter from the elements, while still being *in* the elements.
The back patio is similar, the screen walls allow the wind and cold to pass freely, but the roof keeps the rain out. I can sit and meditate and feel and hear and smell the storm all around me, and yet stay dry. I can sleep out here at night in the rain and have the same experience, be surrounded by the elements, yet be protected. It's wonderful.
And the rest of the house becomes a welcome extension to the patio and even better than a van, because I can step through the sliding glass door into a kitchen, a bathroom and bathtub and shower, a bedroom, electricity--all the things I *don't* have in a van in the rain in New Zealand.
This morning I woke up smiling and happy and drank my wonderful Chinese tea and meditated in the darkness in this wild, cold rain storm at one with peace and joy.
Avanti!
The back patio is similar, the screen walls allow the wind and cold to pass freely, but the roof keeps the rain out. I can sit and meditate and feel and hear and smell the storm all around me, and yet stay dry. I can sleep out here at night in the rain and have the same experience, be surrounded by the elements, yet be protected. It's wonderful.
And the rest of the house becomes a welcome extension to the patio and even better than a van, because I can step through the sliding glass door into a kitchen, a bathroom and bathtub and shower, a bedroom, electricity--all the things I *don't* have in a van in the rain in New Zealand.
This morning I woke up smiling and happy and drank my wonderful Chinese tea and meditated in the darkness in this wild, cold rain storm at one with peace and joy.
Avanti!
11.6.09
Questions
The only difference between man and every other animal on this planet is that he is the only one plagued by asking himself the questions "Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of all this?" And "What comes next?"
Imagine yourself being a dolphin swimming free your entire life and unaware of the curse of being able to conceptualize any of those questions. What would it be like to never know the suffering and mental torment caused by these most fundamental human questions?
Ignorant bliss?
Ignorant bliss?
11.14.09
Xocolatl Smoothie “ice Cream” for the Deserving
To celebrate this wonderful morning I have made a new recipe that I want to share with the lucky world. In your favorite blender drop three frozen organic, fair trade bananas, frozen blueberries, frozen strawbs and blackberries. Two tablespoons of Dagoba organic chocolate Xocolatl (hot chocolate with chilies and cinnamon), a sweet kiss of maple syrup and add Rice Dream (the fresh kind) blend until thick and rich like ice cream, only better! Oh Yum! You deserve it.
I woke up under the tree and sky this morning, in the cool air, listening to the birds and wind blow, under a cloudy sky. Bleary-eyed from a late-night practice with Ghost Dance I wrote for two hours until I was starving and Jonesing to get on my bike and ride around old town San Antonio to find real cheese enchiladas with mole sauce. at some south side Mexy place. But old town San Antonio is far from me. So instead, I made this yummy concoction and will open the door to the study and begin a day of study, driven by the gnawing pressure of grad school assignment deadlines that never cease to breathe down my neck, disturbing my sleep, waking me up sweating--the deadline, the deadline, always the next deadline. The world itself is scary--dead line. What the hell is a dead line and why do I always have another one waiting? ;-)
But I am happy. Happy with my beloved yoga, both teaching it and my own personal practice. Happy with my band, the joy of playing, performing, and creating something. The joy of working out in the gym at school at sculpting my own body and getting healthier and healthier each day. The job of graduate school, of the never-ending deadlines and pressure, of the challenging work, of raising myself to a higher level, of learning new things and the joy of knowing I can succeed, that it's hard as hell, but I can succeed, I can get a masters degree and then have some exciting career waiting for me in some far land because of this degree. Oh hell yeah. And the wind blows cool and fresh and lovely and this sweet life is all there is.
Avanti! By all means, Avanti!
I woke up under the tree and sky this morning, in the cool air, listening to the birds and wind blow, under a cloudy sky. Bleary-eyed from a late-night practice with Ghost Dance I wrote for two hours until I was starving and Jonesing to get on my bike and ride around old town San Antonio to find real cheese enchiladas with mole sauce. at some south side Mexy place. But old town San Antonio is far from me. So instead, I made this yummy concoction and will open the door to the study and begin a day of study, driven by the gnawing pressure of grad school assignment deadlines that never cease to breathe down my neck, disturbing my sleep, waking me up sweating--the deadline, the deadline, always the next deadline. The world itself is scary--dead line. What the hell is a dead line and why do I always have another one waiting? ;-)
But I am happy. Happy with my beloved yoga, both teaching it and my own personal practice. Happy with my band, the joy of playing, performing, and creating something. The joy of working out in the gym at school at sculpting my own body and getting healthier and healthier each day. The job of graduate school, of the never-ending deadlines and pressure, of the challenging work, of raising myself to a higher level, of learning new things and the joy of knowing I can succeed, that it's hard as hell, but I can succeed, I can get a masters degree and then have some exciting career waiting for me in some far land because of this degree. Oh hell yeah. And the wind blows cool and fresh and lovely and this sweet life is all there is.
Avanti! By all means, Avanti!
11.15.09
Inside
Sleeping inside tonight because it's too hot to sleep out. In a bed, an odd feeling. Listening to exquisite classical music, exquisite. The fan whirs overhead. The pressure of an unfinished assignment gnaws at me and the deadline clock ticks relentlessly.
Am I unhappy here? Oddly, no. Despite the lack of nature, of mountains, waves, friends. But there is something else here, a kind of purpose that has not existed for a long time. And a chance, during this brief sojourn into stability, to have the things that stability can bring. Like a daily practice of yoga, a band, teaching yoga, shopping for food and cooking. I am more poor than I have been in ten years or longer. Do I have money? None at all. But it's OK. There is really nothing I need. Not really.
Exhausted. A lack of sleep. Brought on by the gnawing stress of falling behind on my assignment.
Alone but not lonely. Oddly content and at peace. Finally let go of what I had held onto for so long. Free now of that illusion. And there is peace in this new freedom. And relief. Now I can remember the past with a smile.
Too tired to sleep. Out beyond the edge of this exquisite music there is a wild world isn't there? And I have lived it, haven't I? Fully, and more than fully. I have, yes I have.
What adventures lie ahead? What is left? I have lived. Yes, I have lived.
Am I unhappy here? Oddly, no. Despite the lack of nature, of mountains, waves, friends. But there is something else here, a kind of purpose that has not existed for a long time. And a chance, during this brief sojourn into stability, to have the things that stability can bring. Like a daily practice of yoga, a band, teaching yoga, shopping for food and cooking. I am more poor than I have been in ten years or longer. Do I have money? None at all. But it's OK. There is really nothing I need. Not really.
Exhausted. A lack of sleep. Brought on by the gnawing stress of falling behind on my assignment.
Alone but not lonely. Oddly content and at peace. Finally let go of what I had held onto for so long. Free now of that illusion. And there is peace in this new freedom. And relief. Now I can remember the past with a smile.
Too tired to sleep. Out beyond the edge of this exquisite music there is a wild world isn't there? And I have lived it, haven't I? Fully, and more than fully. I have, yes I have.
What adventures lie ahead? What is left? I have lived. Yes, I have lived.
The music is a journey, an infinite journey, spiraling into beauty. A passage into infinity and bliss, this rising and falling music. Each note falls, like rose petals spiraling delicately through the air. There *is* no other side there is only forever.
The Same Sky
The wind whispers to me. The sky is clear and cold, stars glitter like frozen diamonds, hotter than white heat. The soothing rustling of tree leaves in the wind gives me a thrill of happiness. Can this be the same Texas sky I stood marveling at as a child and in wonder of as an adolescent? It is. And nothing has changed since then. Except technology. I had no cell phone to write about it on as a child.
Climbing the tree in my front yard I'd step across the void of empty space onto my roof. There, lying on my back on the shingles, smoking cigarettes and getting high, staring at the stars on a cold winter night, talking about life with Robin Lively or singing Led Zeppelin songs with Tommy Hammaker, I felt the bliss of the world being fresh and new. I didn’t know it then, but it was I that was fresh and new.
My routine was to dive off the roof and grab one of the big branches that jutted off the backyard tree and swing down to the ground already running. We’d hop fences like deer and run through neighbors’ backyards so fast and quiet we’d be across the yard and over the other fence before the dogs even started barking. Hopping Stephen Hawk's fence we’d liberate tangerines from his tree, stuffing our pockets, and then stealth our way back through the neighborhood like shadows, jumping fences, outrunning more dogs, and climb up to someone's roof to eat our treasure of stolen tangerines that were bursts of pure flavor and pure pleasure. There is no tangerine so delicious as one earned through danger and adventure and eaten on a rooftop on a Texas winter night at age thirteen. And no view of the stars and moon and streets below like one commanded from atop some unsuspecting neighbor's roof.
And there is still no pleasure like lying on my back on a cold, starry Texas night, looking at the sky and feeling alive and thirteen again.
And there is still no pleasure like lying on my back on a cold, starry Texas night, looking at the sky and feeling alive and thirteen again.
And there is still no pleasure like lying on my back on a cold, starry Texas night, looking at the sky and feeling alive and fourteen again.
11.20.09
Surreal San Antonio
The Tower of the America's, hanging above the glowing lavender-gold clouds, adorned with colored lights, rises like a surreal monolith out of a dark film noir landscape.
The night's adventure began on the second story balcony of Lane's old Victorian house in Old Town San Antonio, sitting comfortably watching the heavy rain pouring out of the dark gray sky, etched against the street lights. After a massage and some guitar we made a late-night trip to Lane's favorite south-side Mexican joint where we crossed an invisible border back into Mexico and I felt at home and happy speaking Spanish with the waitresses, everyone smiling, laughing and happy as the plates of enchiladas, tacos, fajitas, caldo de camarones and tortillas piled up on our little table.
Next, into the night, on bikes. Along the river, across bridges, into a world of old abandoned buildings that loomed out of the darkness in such a surreal and fascinating way that I stared in awe. The night was unreal. Lane' called it her Disneyland, and it was like a film set for Blade Runner; the Sequel.
Somewhere during this timeless journey an ancient Spanish Mission rose out of the night. More surreal yet. The rain began pouring down again and we found refuge under the mission's arcade. Sitting out of the pouring rain I lost all sense of place and thought I was in the heart of Europe, spell-bound by the beauty of this ancient mission, by the rain and the night. I could no longer make myself believe I was in Texas, or even America; I had been transported to another world and time.
The night was a maze of wonder that ended in the King William district of Old Town San Antonio, as one movie set melted into the next. I was transported to old New Orleans. Huge, southern mansions, each one uniquely and intricately beautiful, situated in their huge yards amongst giant oaks and gardens. And these beautiful houses made all the more poignant by the fact that downtown San Antonio rose just beyond them, tall skyscrapers rising into the rain-cloud smeared sky.
The evening ended in the early morning hours back at Lane's old Vic house, itself the quintessential artist's studio, a museum of art and wonder. We sat on the couch listening to vinyl. *Vinyl*! I could not have been happier.
This morning, sitting, writing, staring at the gray rain, I know there is a secret world here that calls to my marrow and waits for me. I will slip back out into this secret world soon and get lost in the other side of San Antonio, a timeless dimension of surreal art and beauty, a secret world.
The night's adventure began on the second story balcony of Lane's old Victorian house in Old Town San Antonio, sitting comfortably watching the heavy rain pouring out of the dark gray sky, etched against the street lights. After a massage and some guitar we made a late-night trip to Lane's favorite south-side Mexican joint where we crossed an invisible border back into Mexico and I felt at home and happy speaking Spanish with the waitresses, everyone smiling, laughing and happy as the plates of enchiladas, tacos, fajitas, caldo de camarones and tortillas piled up on our little table.
Next, into the night, on bikes. Along the river, across bridges, into a world of old abandoned buildings that loomed out of the darkness in such a surreal and fascinating way that I stared in awe. The night was unreal. Lane' called it her Disneyland, and it was like a film set for Blade Runner; the Sequel.
Somewhere during this timeless journey an ancient Spanish Mission rose out of the night. More surreal yet. The rain began pouring down again and we found refuge under the mission's arcade. Sitting out of the pouring rain I lost all sense of place and thought I was in the heart of Europe, spell-bound by the beauty of this ancient mission, by the rain and the night. I could no longer make myself believe I was in Texas, or even America; I had been transported to another world and time.
The night was a maze of wonder that ended in the King William district of Old Town San Antonio, as one movie set melted into the next. I was transported to old New Orleans. Huge, southern mansions, each one uniquely and intricately beautiful, situated in their huge yards amongst giant oaks and gardens. And these beautiful houses made all the more poignant by the fact that downtown San Antonio rose just beyond them, tall skyscrapers rising into the rain-cloud smeared sky.
The evening ended in the early morning hours back at Lane's old Vic house, itself the quintessential artist's studio, a museum of art and wonder. We sat on the couch listening to vinyl. *Vinyl*! I could not have been happier.
This morning, sitting, writing, staring at the gray rain, I know there is a secret world here that calls to my marrow and waits for me. I will slip back out into this secret world soon and get lost in the other side of San Antonio, a timeless dimension of surreal art and beauty, a secret world.
11.24.09
Italy, almost
Sitting on a wooden chair with my legs propped up on another one, in the little, tucked away piazza at my university, with the fountain singing its water song, brick ground covered in leaves, little trees blowing in a cold, cold morning wind. Alone with my latte, I can almost imagine I am back in Italy at one of my favorite spots in Florence, drinking my morning cappuccino, getting ready to explore the serendipitous wonders of Italy. Instead I am about to explore the depths of my next research paper. I am under stress but happy. On a beautiful, cold, Fall morning like this, there would be no other way to be.
11.24.09
Under the moon
Under the moon. In the cold. Looking up through the tree branches. One star. One half moon. Cold air on my face. The sounds of the night.
Texas. No regrets. No looking back. One eye on the future, both feet in the present. A struggle with a goal at the end.
Someday, again, ocean lullabies, cold mountains for my pillow, granite trails under my boots, fresh mountain streams to drink from, coyotes to sing me to sleep and bears to keep me on my toes. Waves to rear up over my head and send tremors through my blood and bones, the thrill of whitewater thunder and fins hissing down waves. Someday...my life back. For now, I suit up, step up and get back in the ring. With a smile on my face. What else is there? Texas.
Texas. No regrets. No looking back. One eye on the future, both feet in the present. A struggle with a goal at the end.
Someday, again, ocean lullabies, cold mountains for my pillow, granite trails under my boots, fresh mountain streams to drink from, coyotes to sing me to sleep and bears to keep me on my toes. Waves to rear up over my head and send tremors through my blood and bones, the thrill of whitewater thunder and fins hissing down waves. Someday...my life back. For now, I suit up, step up and get back in the ring. With a smile on my face. What else is there? Texas.
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11.26.09
In the City/Thanksgiving
Back home, in Santa Cruz, my heart is naturally open like a rose, flowing love for my friends. Here, in Texas, I make the very best of what I have, I am content, but there are no loving friends to remind me every day of all the love I have to be grateful for. I get by and the heart protects itself, becomes a little bud.
I find that I cannot make myself feel something I'm not feeling, I can only create a setting for my life that nurtures the feelings I want to cultivate, so they can flow spontaneously when the heart feels safe to open.
This morning I woke up in the heart of the city with my family and the first thing I saw was a mountain of text messages on my phone from friends sending love.
Suddenly my heart opened again, like a rose, and the love came pouring out, for my friends and family. And while that feeling is alive I want to send out my heart-felt love to everyone who makes my life so dear and precious by the love and friendship that you have showered on me and that we share.
I stand on a street corner in downtown Houston, a place where my earliest childhood memories were shaped, typing with one frozen finger on my iphone in the early morning cold because when my muse visits I stop, listen, and write.
The heart can never be forced to feel what it's not feeling. But we can wisely create the environment that nurtures and nourishes the heart so that it is in fertile ground to blossom from a tight bud into an open blossom drinking in the warm sunlight of love.
Let us set a table for the banquet of love so that our beloved and lovely muse will come to dine, bringing her divine sisters, Love, Gratitude, Joy, and Contentment.
Give thanks and rejoice.
Be here now, but keep your eyes on the prize. Beloved Santa Cruz, beloved friends, Sierra Nevada, Joshua Tree, California coast, I will come home.
Sent from my iPhone
I find that I cannot make myself feel something I'm not feeling, I can only create a setting for my life that nurtures the feelings I want to cultivate, so they can flow spontaneously when the heart feels safe to open.
This morning I woke up in the heart of the city with my family and the first thing I saw was a mountain of text messages on my phone from friends sending love.
Suddenly my heart opened again, like a rose, and the love came pouring out, for my friends and family. And while that feeling is alive I want to send out my heart-felt love to everyone who makes my life so dear and precious by the love and friendship that you have showered on me and that we share.
I stand on a street corner in downtown Houston, a place where my earliest childhood memories were shaped, typing with one frozen finger on my iphone in the early morning cold because when my muse visits I stop, listen, and write.
The heart can never be forced to feel what it's not feeling. But we can wisely create the environment that nurtures and nourishes the heart so that it is in fertile ground to blossom from a tight bud into an open blossom drinking in the warm sunlight of love.
Let us set a table for the banquet of love so that our beloved and lovely muse will come to dine, bringing her divine sisters, Love, Gratitude, Joy, and Contentment.
Give thanks and rejoice.
Be here now, but keep your eyes on the prize. Beloved Santa Cruz, beloved friends, Sierra Nevada, Joshua Tree, California coast, I will come home.
Sent from my iPhone
10.29.09
Morning Joy
Sunday morning. Drifting tendrils of nag champa incense waft across the air space in front of my nose in the darkness of my sacred temple as I lie on the floor doing my morning yoga practice. The thought that I brought this incense all the way from India somehow ignites a deeper sense of magic about this moment. Peaceful Indian sitar ragas shower down gently on my senses. Through my open window there is a grey sky and large Aroid filling the view with its giant leaves. I feel a skin-tingling, hair-raising bliss at the absolute perfection and joy of this perfect moment. To have the gift of doing my daily practice of yoga, in my own sanctuary, a place that is mine, a place that I belong, brings inner peace and happiness. I give thanks. ;-)
Back to yoga.
Back to yoga.
12.6.09
The real story behind Jesus’ birth date
December 25th was chosen as the date of Jesus' birth by pope Julius I in the 4th century. He was pressured into choosing this date by his mistress, Francesca De La Robbia, to commemorate her actual birthday. Merry Christmas baby Jesus and Francesca.
12.11/09
Stolen moments
It's not the big events that make up a life, but the tiny, stolen moments. Stolen from the jaws of the mundane by their very simplicity and the magic inherent in the spontaneous appreciation of them. I stand now, leaning into a cold, gray world, drizzling rain falling around me, dripping off my umbrella, and sip hot latte from a little cup. I see, I *feel*, the gray sky, the leaves falling from the single oak tree, people pass by in waves like invisible ghosts; they pass through me, leaving me untouched. And I stand, leaning into the cold, feeling the warmth moving down my throat, into my gut and spreading through my body, pushing out against the cold and I sink deep into myself so that there is no one else here, just me, and the poignant moment of gray, cold winter rain, the latte', the tree and the falling leaves. The ghosts. blurs of pale color, pass through me and I am very, very OK with right now, this moment, here.
12.14.09
Watercolor morning
My flu is nearly gone, the last final is eight hours away and the temperature has climbed from 30 to 50.
This morning the world is a misty watercolor of russets, oranges, and browns that jump out of the shroud of mist, and leaves swirl to the ground, the mist is so thick that it runs off the roof and trees in drops that spatter on the dry leaves and blades of grass, making them shiver and tremble. There is something so beautiful, poetic, poignant in this moment that it should be a setting in a novel, it must the be the fertile ground for a poem. The moment itself is art. I feel as though I am sitting in a small cottage in the French countryside.
I treat myself to green summit tea as a kind of quiet acknowledgment of 18 weeks of endless labour and study. Ah, a bird chirps, a leaf falls, and another, spiraling down to the earth. I can actually see, by some odd angle of the diffuse light, the drops form, clear beads of translucence, on the brown leaves high above me and then fall to the earth. Everywhere there is the incessant pitter patter of drops falling, falling, falling. This is the moment we live for. This is a golden moment that defines what it is to be alive; quiet perfection, deep satisfaction, for no reason other than the beauty of the moment itself.
The steam rises off the tea in my porcelain cup, I am chilled by the damp cold and warmed inside by the nectar of the tea. I feel its magic begin to open my eyes, to push away the lack of sleep, the fatigue and stress of study, of a long, dry season here in this foreign place. The perfect soundtrack for this moment would be Philip Glass, Solo Piano. Even as I think this the sound of a train rumbling down the tracks and its whistle blowing disrupts my reverie and I almost smile.
I have put myself someplace I don't belong for too long and I have grown numb, I forget, I lose the spark of joy that burns inside. 18 weeks in Texas under the incessant strain of tests and papers and deadlines, of being without friends and nature, without waves and surfing, without all the things I love, along with a week of flu during finals, has taken its toll on me. I feel simply empty and emotionless. I wonder if the goal is worth the path.
Knowing how upset my family is that I want to go home to Cali and surf for my three week break instead of stay here for Christmas just adds guilt and doubt to stress and emptiness. Do I stay and make my family happy, or do I go feed my soul at the price of the guilt I'll feel? Beware letting anything get its hooks in you, because once it does...you're hooked. And now, for the last eight hours, I turn to the books. And as of 6 PM tonight I will have to face the line and decide which side of it I will stand on.
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This morning the world is a misty watercolor of russets, oranges, and browns that jump out of the shroud of mist, and leaves swirl to the ground, the mist is so thick that it runs off the roof and trees in drops that spatter on the dry leaves and blades of grass, making them shiver and tremble. There is something so beautiful, poetic, poignant in this moment that it should be a setting in a novel, it must the be the fertile ground for a poem. The moment itself is art. I feel as though I am sitting in a small cottage in the French countryside.
I treat myself to green summit tea as a kind of quiet acknowledgment of 18 weeks of endless labour and study. Ah, a bird chirps, a leaf falls, and another, spiraling down to the earth. I can actually see, by some odd angle of the diffuse light, the drops form, clear beads of translucence, on the brown leaves high above me and then fall to the earth. Everywhere there is the incessant pitter patter of drops falling, falling, falling. This is the moment we live for. This is a golden moment that defines what it is to be alive; quiet perfection, deep satisfaction, for no reason other than the beauty of the moment itself.
The steam rises off the tea in my porcelain cup, I am chilled by the damp cold and warmed inside by the nectar of the tea. I feel its magic begin to open my eyes, to push away the lack of sleep, the fatigue and stress of study, of a long, dry season here in this foreign place. The perfect soundtrack for this moment would be Philip Glass, Solo Piano. Even as I think this the sound of a train rumbling down the tracks and its whistle blowing disrupts my reverie and I almost smile.
I have put myself someplace I don't belong for too long and I have grown numb, I forget, I lose the spark of joy that burns inside. 18 weeks in Texas under the incessant strain of tests and papers and deadlines, of being without friends and nature, without waves and surfing, without all the things I love, along with a week of flu during finals, has taken its toll on me. I feel simply empty and emotionless. I wonder if the goal is worth the path.
Knowing how upset my family is that I want to go home to Cali and surf for my three week break instead of stay here for Christmas just adds guilt and doubt to stress and emptiness. Do I stay and make my family happy, or do I go feed my soul at the price of the guilt I'll feel? Beware letting anything get its hooks in you, because once it does...you're hooked. And now, for the last eight hours, I turn to the books. And as of 6 PM tonight I will have to face the line and decide which side of it I will stand on.
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