another new draft open, another attempt at-

...


who knew it would become so hard to mumble the words out. who knew i would do everything and anything in my power to not look at what was staring me right in the face; to not  engage with the very depth of this life i've been given and instead busy myself with the fraying threads at the edges of its fabric, the insignificant details.

these outer reaches are no doubt important, too, but they do little to absolve one of wonder, of yearning.

there is a yearning in all of us - in me it is insatiable.

and for what?

samantha muljat - towards mt. shasta

one must at some point in one's life distinguish the finitude among the infinitude; differentiate the chaff from the eternal and thus pay homage to that which is impermanent and that which is not. depending on one's outlook the two can become very interwoven and interchangeable indeed.

taking a closer look-

i. the insignificant, the falling away, the just-passing-through:

- our bodies
- our thoughts
    - worries
    - perceptions
    - models of the universe
    - beliefs about "who we are"
    - emotions/beliefs
- our relationships
- our accomplishments
    - careers
    - goals
    - failures

ii. the eternal and unchanging:
    
- our souls
- God
    - Nature
    - Creator
    - One
    - Order
    - Chaos
    - whatever you wish to call it
- our karmic predicaments
    - with us during each life
- work that is to be done
- love, in the end
    - regenerative
    - not possessive i.e. caught up in the aforementioned thought forms
    - unconditional i.e. not requiring anything in return
 

samantha muljat - rainbow

i seem to be constantly sifting through my current state of affairs to find what is important, what lasts, what demands my attention. letting fall away what does not serve me, which more often than not are totally fabricated preconceived beliefs about what life is supposed to look like or be or offer to the one living it, i.e. me. i'm so done with these repetitive thought patterns that chip away at me until there is nothing left.

one question i do have - where does time go, out of these two categories? is it a belief of ours, is it an unchanging constant of the universe, does it exist outside of us? similarly, is suffering an unchanging constant, is it indivisible from life? i believe that suffering exists because time exists - as beings caught in time we inevitably experience suffering because our bodies fall away, we experience loss of everything we ever knew or loved, and conversely we experience the preciousness of love because time takes everything away. a world in which there is no suffering would also be a world in which there is no love, gratitude, appreciation, forgiveness. so i suppose suffering and time therefore are unchanging constants, just as love is... they do not go away no matter how high you get + how much you meditate + how much money/power you accumulate.

so, then.

failure as an emotional state is a result of incorrect, ineffective thinking.

we are taught as children to reach up and high and as far as we could ever want, and if that wasn't the prevailing story during your childhood it was for someone else.

maybe this line of teaching is not as helpful in the achieving of goals as our elders may have desired.

they say that failure is absolutely necessary for success, but what if success is absolutely necessary for failure, and one could perhaps do away with both at once?

having a dream for one's life is indeed valuable, and in some cases that only thing one lives for, but i'm not sure if i've had the most enriching experience being eternally unsatisfied with my accomplishments for the sake of success. 

oftentimes the goal for one's life was planted in them before they could really think for themselves.

a part of me has stopped yearning too high, too far, and maybe this is seen as unfortunate. 

i don't think it is.

there are things one is meant for and things one is not; for example, i am never going to be a high diver. i have a terrible fear of heights and i can imagine the only way i'd ever get to any degree of far in that sport is if i had a taskmaster drilling me day in and out for years-

... not likely.

without someone driving you in a particular direction from a very early age it's easy as an adult to land in space among the stars but with no particular constellation to join.

i had piano lessons growing up and was told i'd go far with it, so i kept with the practice and the repetition and my soul actually enjoyed it very much. i did it for me, and grew to spurn the competitive and hierarchical nature of some parts of the piano world. in a sense, then, the reason i didn't actively seek out the most difficult and most demanding music school or program or teachers was because my soul knew it would take all of the spirit out of my practice. i was sure i didn't want that, as i didn't understand what people were even reaching towards with that sort of training. aesthetic perfection? worldly success?

it didn't catch my eye.

and as the years have marched by, stoically across plains and deserts and great thick forests, i've been thrust ever further into the furthest reaches of space as so many tenets from childhood and youth fall away one by one.

after so much of fitting all of your self into the mold, adjusting, adapting, slogging, performing, there must be a moment of collapse.

now is the moment where i become as still and silent as i can be, and listen out for a voice or song or prayer or plea that is my own but has been buried deep in the strata of time.

masao yamamoto

 

i want to be like the reed, not the rod - flexible and able to attain a sense of peace and groundedness in any moment, situation, location, etc. 

that, to me, is attainable enlightenment in this life.
 

harald sohlberg - summer night

clinging to conditions leads to suffering.

conditions in order to be happy,

conditions in order to go to heaven,

conditions in order to make money,

conditions in order to love -

this leads to a false world.

l'espoir du printemps

i am so damn excited for spring!

the snow still blankets my surroundings and as beautiful and nostalgic as i find it i miss the call of birds and the lush plumage of the earth's warm seasonal clothing.

sometimes i'll wander meadows and fields and beside streams and remote mountain trails. in a certain state of mind i see the flowers as competitors, or perhaps allies, in reaching high towards the sun in a stance of worship and gratitude, swaying in the breeze and for lack of a better word, singing. dancing.

it's so fascinating to see how with each week that passes during the growing season a new family of wild plants will sprout out, like clockwork. once i start noticing a flower family, like bee balm or mayapple or turk's cap, then i'll start seeing those flowers or buds everywhere, all over. they're  conspiring or programmed together to appear at the same time for miles and miles around and it's one of my most favorite activities to see and identify wild beings deep in the forest. 

she will be here soon enough, and i am awaiting the day i can put some seeds into the ground, or at least into buckets or a raised bed.

my dream for working and homesteading on a small plot of land is not fully materialized yet but is still alive and well, and keeps me thriving even when the winter snow threatens to bury me under its sluggish weight.

there is always the question of who the land belongs to - of course it was stolen, originally, and the eastern states of the US seem to have much less public land than the west, much less "wild" and untended land.

i believe that with the privilege i have to buy or even think about buying land for myself i can do some good, at least for the ecosystem, by planting natives and a food forest, maybe even learn from locals or native elders how to do controlled burning to keep some species from going extinct.

so much to learn, so much responsibility to receive and perpetuate knowledge only from those who truly have the earth's interest at heart.

❂

william eggleston, 1939-

 
☼

i prefer warm weather, but even learning to cope with the challenges of living on top of a mountain during the winter can be yoga (union), a practice.

it's important to be able to watch and catch yourself as you move through all those temporary states (as mentioned in previous post). 

distancing one's self from the emotion is the first step in not succumbing to it completely.

let's say, for example, that you notice yourself get caught up in a negative thought loop or lash out at someone out of annoyance or frustration.

being able to recognize that that's what happened can help alleviate the after-effects and maybe even reduce the chance of that impulse arising next time.

one thing i'm not sure of is whether one seeking enlightenment (or just to live this life as peacefully and compassionately as possible) is aiming to never be upset or to channel the anger in a positive way or what. it's not possible to be perfect, and avoidance of everything negative can be just as damaging as the alternative.

still awaiting the answer to that one...

maybe it'll come to me in 50 years. 

☾

you'd think i would have known this already, but life is supposed to contain suffering.

it's a part of life for all of us.

you are not special for your suffering, though it is a valid response to life's hardship.

valid but not unique.

✧

do not store in your heart like treasures all of what and who has wronged you.

like a dragon guarding your gold you will never be free from that which plagues you, though you may be tempted by the illusion of power.

takahashi shōtei, 1871-1945

❉

my sister has such good taste in music, i'm always so amazed at how much is out there i never knew about. like...

ichiko aoba - "porcelain" (windswept adan, 2020)

i'm reminded of nikaido kazumi and various japanese folk singers i used to listen to so many years ago. there's a bit of an off-centeredness to its ambience and harmony that renders it so very dreamlike, as if one cannot be so sure while listening if one is awake or not. the world she creates with her ethereal voice and repetitive musical textures are pretty addicting, trance-like - a lovely soundtrack for the mind and its changes.

srsq - "only one" (unreality, 2018)

i'm a huge fan of this album. it has everything - soaring vocals à la elizabeth fraser and cold synths. an industrial and noisy atmosphere juxtaposed with lush harmonic texture. i am obsessed with this song in particular but this is one of those fairly rare album on which every track is stand-out.

emma ruth rundle - "control" (on dark horses, 2018)

so this wonderful musician apparently did an album with black metal band thou, which is super neat.

somehow she combines that bleak black metal sound with raw folk in her own music and the result satisfies a craving for something i didn't know i wanted.

passage

sometimes i listen to ram dass in the morning when i'm waking up and getting my head into a better place.

i keep finding that so much is forgotten so much of the time...

how to be happy and how to not give in to the sway of temporary states, temporary obsessions and attachments.

i thought i'd include a portion of a talk that spoke to me this morning... enjoy~

charles rennie mackintosh - petunia, 1914

.

Ram Dass: A Deeper Source

"There is a need for a certain humor about your own predicament.

If you take the room you're in (meaning the psychological room) too seriously, it makes it more difficult to escape.

But its walls are made of your thoughts. And a person whose heart is closed a moment later could have their heart opened by seeing a little bird fly by. Or somebody whose heart is wide open could suddenly have it turn icy cold by seeing an expression on somebody else's face.

You must realize by now how momentary all of your states are, and how little reason there is to cling to them, and to hold on.

The problem is, your attachment to your highs makes you afraid of your lows. Your attachment to your ecstasy makes you horrified by your negative states and your fear and your deadness and your turned-off-ness.

When you don't cling to one, you won't have to reject the other. And you will see them all as just passing show, passing states. And here we are.

We're each going through. It's like so many television screens, everyone has a different drama on it, including me.

When you're quiet enough, you see everybody's drama going down. If you watch somebody walk by you can see their whole drama, who they think they are and what's happening. Everybody keeps projecting in a thousand different ways their whole trip.

But that trip will be gone in a moment, and there'll be another trip.

Some of you have been very good at holding on to your trips for years. The same trip. And you've gotten to think it's real.

Some people can spend 40 years dying.

We all are.

Or 40 years 'finding what I'll do when I grow up.'

I decided I'd never grow up, so it's irrelevant.

Each day I start all over again."

.

 

tsuchiya koitsu - views of mount fuji, 1940s

 

i am here to become aware. 

i strive to not be a slave to my emotions, feelings, and temporary states.

while navigating daily rituals and routines there are pitfalls and traps littered about for my ego (i'm not sure what else to call it...?) which in turn cries out that it's not getting everything it wants - and it must be everyone else's fault.

truly the words the ego chooses to say do not always have my best interest at heart, and sometimes may drive me to my absolute worst just for its benefit.

i have to create space to be better than what the animal self may want for me. 

i sometimes find myself so overwhelmed with negative states and feelings and emotions that i literally cannot move or breathe, especially in arguments with my partner, which are becoming more and more frequent.

i'm at the threshold of having to come to a decision of some sort, lest i continue down this path of pseudo-normalcy while in the background certain elements of my soul are not actually improving or doing the work of improving. in this state i am unaware that i'm still so far behind and very prone to the recurring theme of defeat by anger and sadness.

the work can only be done at the fire, the point of transformation.

if one avoids this place change won't actually ever happen - how could it?

what changes am i prepared to make so that i can start seeing results - longlasting results that improve my overall quality of life, rather than distract me or balm the pain while not addressing what's really wrong?

audrey niffenegger - with no thought, 1983-85

.

 

so maybe i'll also include some of the music that's been carrying me around (and i've been carrying it around, too) lately. 

a constant soundtrack to my thoughts, as ever.

adrianne lenker - "anything" (songs, 2020)




this is the kit - "shinbone soap" (off off on, 2020)



haitus kaiyote - "nakamarra" (tawk tomahawk, 2012)



joomanji - "chasin' rhymes" (manj, 2013)



john coltrane - "naima" (giant steps, 1959)

 

 

pinback - "prog" (blue screen life, 2001)

 

lianna la havas - "paper thin" (lianna la havas, 2020)

 

 

 .

 

 

you've got god on your side, 

he's listening