the big quiet

i've been listening to big thief almost incessantly ;

dragon new warm mountain i believe in you, 2021

 

it has everything - the aching wail of loneliness, mundanity, silliness so characteristic of their lyrics; the sheer breadth of musical styles traversed effortlessly; the sense of looking out over vast beauty combined with the intimate quiet known only to your bedroom. 

the big quiet.

the big ponder, rumination, gander, wonder at the big question - what is this life?

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

the turning wheel turns

i am staying sober, for good this time! i will admit that i have renewed interest in committing to this new state of being because someone i admire seems to be doing very very well newly sober and is ecstatic about it, but the fact still stands.

to abstain from drinking altogether isn't extraordinarily easy or extraordinarily difficult, but it feels like the absolute right thing for me to do. the feeling i used to find so pleasurable is actually quite sickening - i can hardly even think about being in that place, two drinks or so in and already feeling the pull downward into a need for more, without a dizzying nausea.

nope nope nope.

and it may be more difficult this way. in order to fully face reality's absolute fullness, to embrace all of the confusing and painful and absolutely maddening parts, one must carefully create space to accept and a willingness to experience. the creating and the willingness are the key elements of the practice, they are where the central focus must go in order to become truly independent of desire/perpetual unfullfilment. to be open you must accept your own power to change your experience.

i think the less you hide from discomfort the more your body and soul will respond with a stronger resilience.

resilience is the mechanism by which perseverance thrives. if you are mentally and physically prepared to persevere, you are more able to do so without any thought of giving up. there is something in me, and perhaps in you too, which desires laziness. the monkey is quite apathetic and bratty about life in general, and would like nothing more but to lay in bed eternally doing nothing and hiding from its responsibility, generally hating existence and projecting nothing but negativity into the world. the more one faces this unfortunate and self-destructive aspect of their humanity with a trained mind and soul one is far less likely to succumb to it.

exercising virtue is how one gains virtue. it is in the practice, moment by moment, that we grow stronger, more resilient.

prosperity. compassion. purification. peace. knowledge.

yamamoto kanae - garden, 1918

☸️

my partner and i put up tibetan prayer flags yesterday at the front of our house with a shared intention, together. he said something about imagining that the flags, five-colored fabric squares blowing in the wind, are like the sails of a ship pointed towards our intention. on each of the flags is printed a symbol, some text, and one of the five words shown above ( ^ ).

the physical ritual can be incredibly important when done with full intention - a symbol is useful or effective only if properly understood, respected. to physically demonstrate that i am on this path, to be unafraid to share that with the world and especially myself, a new page is turned. a new awareness is cultivated, a new plane attained.

there's something very right about a ship set firmly on its course, i think.

if you have yet to arrive at your destination... perhaps it is best to keep going.

☸️

erykah badu - "sometimes," baduizm (1997)

^ can. not. stop. listening. ^

鳥

the tree must not be painted, but manifested.

true tree-ness comes through the painting as itself -
no process of creating the tree required.

as the wheel turns, 
realities merge
and that which was and will be now is.

there is no more distinction.

there is no more separation.

there is only the one unfolding.

the one, unfolding.

do you still resist?

yamamoto masao: tori 

                                                                                                                                                                    
lately i've been in that place of defeat. it really sucks. somehow i have accumulated so much negative energy either from others or from my own thoughts that a cyclical loop of these thoughts will often play in my mind without end, a constant dialogue of negativity that hounds me morning til night. i think i have just become used to it. on some days i find distractions through work, a hobby, or obligations and the voice gets drowned out. sometimes, though, these distractions don't really work, and the negative internal dialogue feels almost amplified out over the field of my life and it's hard to ignore.

when you have a bully constantly shouting at you, attempting to take away any power you might muster, it is very easy to completely collapse. to hide inside the shelter of your dark cave, to mistrust anyone and anything, to despise even yourself. in this place i do not come out for anything. it is too hard to imagine things going well for me if i do, so i project into the future that there will only always be failure and pain.

i know, it's not good, but it's real. it's really what i've been dealing with. and i have come to breakthroughs regarding this particular thought pattern many times only to lose track of my progress, bringing me back to a place of not being able to imagine a way out.

thankfully i have recently discovered something seemingly obvious but that had been hidden from me in regards to digging out the poison root once and for all. a way to actually be happy all the time, in any situation, at any point or place. and it is mine.

hashimoto okie

awareness is all. once my consciousness can be trained to expand outward so that i am looking at the looker, watching the feeler, seeing the seeker, holding the thinker - once i am beyond my immediate self - then i am tapping into primordial consciousness, the very fabric of the One that includes me but also includes everyone and everything else. and from this place i can start to see that i am not merely a victim of a constant mental barrage, i am a powerful creative being;

something i have begun incorporating into my daily and even momentarily experience is the diagnosis and calling to awareness of wasteful, repetitive thought. thought can be a great servant to the mind, and the mind can be a great servant to us as individuals, but without proper awareness of its power we are likely to succumb to wasteful and repetitive thought patterns. the great hamster wheel of the mind will turn itself ragged, endlessly, and take you along with it. there are no laws which prohibit the mind from turning and spinning, projecting and analyzing, idling and plummeting downward, all at a clip seemingly beyond our control.

More than those who hate you, more than all your enemies, an untrained mind does greater harm. More than your mother, more than your father, more than all your family, a well-trained mind does greater good.

Dhammapada

i didn't quite know all this starting out. i also didn't know that most of my depression was because i was stuck on the hamster wheel, turning and turning, slaving away in a repetitive cycle of wasted energy. i would almost constantly be wasting my waking energy thinking about the future, trying to imagine what was going on in other people's heads and hearts, trying to micro-manage my emotions and my life, all to the point of not being able to function, or at least with any degree of fluidity. it became a trap all too easy to fall into.

since making this realization (perhaps not for the first time in this lifetime, or even others), it all has become very simple, once you get the hang of it. it's very much like walking on a tightrope, this meditative state of consciousness - too much slack or too little can cause extreme imbalance, and the more times one cannot strike this balance the practice gets forgotten, and one feels defeated. it's incredibly hard to walk on a tightrope in real life, and i'm not good at it at all, but the metaphor still works well for how i have found taming the mind to be.

georgia o'keefe - light coming on the plains, no. 1

so what does this look like?

well, i can tell you that today was one of the best days i have had in a while. every moment has felt full, full of itself and full of my awareness of it, and my unconscious mind hasn't been secretly draining itself away in the background.

"but if it's an unconscious process, the mind wasting energy on worrying, how can one consciously attend to it?"

the practice requires that you are always looking at yourself, indelibly connected to what thoughts and projections are flashing across the broadcast of your mind. when we look out at the world we see what we want to see, we are concerned with exactly that which is related to our karmic destiny. if we are depressed, we look out into the world and see misery, poverty, suffering, emptiness. we are projecting that out onto the world, and of course it feels like it's confirming some truth we have created. but it's important to note how our thoughts affect our entire momentary existence.

Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is theirchief; they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering fol-lows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.

Dhammapada

i'm having to live this life in a state of relative solitude in order to heal the rift in my very existential fabric. i'm taking each moment as more important than my whole life put together, because in a way it is. when i feel myself start to ruminate over that which i cannot see or touch i gently guide myself away from that abyss, back to the present, and that includes the presence of my body. i listen to what my body wants and needs in this moment, and i obey, no questions asked. if i am tired, if i am hungry, if i am bored, if i am inspired, i am aware.

i am.

and that is all i ever need to be.

max ernst - paysage de choix

rain run

you ever get so high you need to climb back down the rope to earth and find your feet again, find your own little patch of earth?

that's kind of what i've been dealing with for the past few hours, but it's fine - i am already seeing myself step back into the /usual/ normal, whatever that is.

it's been the same rainy day for a few weeks now. every day we get that it is not raining has been a gift, and i've tried to use them wisely by being out in them. rainy days are also beautiful, and i can hardly remember when they weren't part of my every day.

frank wilbert stokes  - the phantom ship

one of the things i like about the rain is that in it i have started running again. running in the rain is almost more fun than running in the sun. you are constantly getting cooled off by the drops and the surroundings are alive and moving in ways often overlooked under the sun's glare. running with my dog is an even more interesting phenomenon. with her leashed to me, i feel almost as though i am driving a sled, and she is pulling me. i have to stop when she stops to explore whatever smells she must because it's about mutual respect, in the end. and then we are off, together, back into the mist and the green.

where we run it is as if we are at the bottom of a giant bowl with a mountainside wall of trees spreading above us in a giant semi-circle. looking far up the sides of that darkly green and lush wall the white mist claims the tops of the trees and the sky seems both far and not far. me then green then white then beyond. to stop amidst the onward push of your body's pumping machine and find yourself right in the middle of that giant crater of beauty, surrounded by birds and the rushing of the river water and the wetness of the dripping leaves, is to be placed right in the center of an all-encompassing experience of nowness.

heart racing and breath acutely aware of itself. that's why i run, in the end... to feel the most alive i possibly can, to be as close as i can stand to the physicality of what my body was made to do.

hello. when you hear that "god is on your side" what does it make you feel?

these days i have been primarily concerned with what the self is, and what its importance should be, if any. the self, the atman, is our own individual spark of the divine contained within us.

"The final stage of moksha (liberation) is the understanding that one's atman is, in fact, Brahman" (source).

i've been thinking a lot about what it means to be on "god's side," because isn't that the same thing as accepting that "god is on your side"?

"god" is just one of the infinitude of words we have created for the One, for Brahman - the great and all-encompassing primeval love which contains/consists of the very fabric of existence.

if it's on our side, then we should try to be on its side too, no?

(oh so typical of a human to think in such dualistic terms)

mc escher - fluorescent sea

雨

so it's been raining a lot.

i always like rain but there have lately been fewer raging thunderstorms than i would like - the kind where the air is positively electric, and the sky is both dark and light, and one hides in a warm, well-lit place to watch tiny rushing rivers form in the grass and puddles well into pots of dirt.

no, these rains have been light and unceasing. gentle mists with varying pulses of intensity scattered across fields. my favorite part of rain in this season is what it does to the colors. already brilliant, flashes of new greens, yellows, pinks take on their fullest hue as they reach adulthood by feasting on sunlight. and the rain melts together these petals and leaves, budding shoots and tattered bark strips - a palette for the eyes to paint with.

i'm not the first to notice this phenomenon - it is well known that rainy days make for wonderful photographs, swirling inspiration for paintings. being a central shadowy figure both in and outside of this saturated landscape is quite a beloved experience for me. walking among the mossy, sodden ground, a light spring in each step - the great roaring stillness of the vast earthy surface is overlaid with a curtain of raindrops, faintly drumming. even the sonic landscape mixes the sounds differently - variables no longer dry and lain next to each other with their sharp edges, the air is a-hum with our shared experience of water and the nesting inside of wetness.

i encountered these beings whilst walking through the wet painting and as ever when i encounter wild life we sort of sized each other up from a distance with what felt like gentleness, an urgent curiosity. we passed by each other without much of a fuss but these moments always stretch the boundaries of time for me.

i think i'm always subconsciously looking for these moments, as they feel more close to whatever alive is supposed to mean  than does my normal state. of course, i am always alive - and it is wonderful to be breathing, to have a mind, etc... but then there is being alive, where you are even more aware than usual of this quality of having a consciousness, and it's an electric feeling. like the node in which you reside on the infinite fabric of reality shows itself to you, makes itself known, and you get a glimpse at a little bit more of what this experience really might be...

a shared experience of the elements with each other, with the other, with yourself.

'tis pretty neat.

雨

with the global pandemic going on i encounter many less people when i go out. trudging through what feel like ruins i am always awash with thoughts on the beingness of the structure which surrounds me, and i think i've had enough. the enjoyment of conjecture has its limits and i must say i have long since reached them.

this much is absolutely true - that i will be miserable if i try to measure myself by anyone else's parameters. 

it is said that the concept of self (and concept of concepts, too, really) is a source of suffering, but i have yet to figure out how to transcend an experience of self and reach pure experience. it is said that having a mind hurts a little bit, and that meditation is a way to sort of neutralize the pain of consciousness by sitting with it and accepting it. these are things that i have yet to sort through fully but i want to keep meditating on them until i come to my own understanding.

ciao~

 雨

cat power - "say" (moon pix, 1998)

joanna brouk - "going through the veil - becoming a swan" (hearing music, 2016)



caroline polachek - "ocean of tears" (pang, 2019)



modest mouse - "gravity rides everything" (the moon & antarctica, 2000)



HTRK - venus in leo, 2019

spring is here!

(sort of...)

the mountain winter keeps stopping and starting up again, but somehow a smattering of tiny purple crocuses have still sprouted up all around the garden. i never planted them, and didn't see them there last year... but they are incredibly gorgeous. little fans of purple petals with yellow centers and pale green shoots, and when the flowers are not yet spread open they look like sleeping babies.

 

☾

my external world has been relatively silent lately. speaking, singing, or expressing myself out loud has been minimal, but my internal world is just as vibrant as ever, for better or for worse.

so, what's been having the most immediate and wonderful effect on my mood so far?

it'll sound cheesy, maybe, but it's yoga.

"the purpose of Yoga is to connect the individual energy with the universal energy, or put another way, to connect the individual being to its source – the Supreme Being."

in the naming, appreciating, and strengthening of every muscle in my body i have been releasing so much that was kept stored and hidden in the recesses of my body. this discovery was not immediate - at first i was just following directions and copying the way the poses looked on other people, and am still known to do that on occasion. the more i stopped looking around myself, however, the more i found my focus shift inward and i am now able to tap into vast reserves of strength and intelligence and that i didn't even know i had.

it goes something like this:

you come to the mat completely clogged with thought and emotion debris. sleeping through the night has helped filter your subconscious to some degree but with every waking moment you are still collecting and absorbing new information, whether or not you realize it. you are thinking about a million other things all at once and it sometimes feels like you might drown at any moment. you center yourself on the mat, fully equipped with the intention to give your best to this time.

whether i'm doing it alone or in a class it usually starts the same - there is the awakening each part of the body, checking in with the spaces we hold inside ourselves, and then the flow begins, through yang-centric poses first and then yin, with plenty of room to rest in between. at the end it feels like you've gone on a journey within your body and you emerge completely filled with gratitude for your body.

☾

i've been noticing a profound difference in myself over the past few years. aging does happen slowly, imperceptibly, but it always happens suddenly, the shift into a new awareness of life and myself. an awareness that includes looking back at what i was.

i just got back from spain, visiting a friend there. i keep telling people, believing myself to be oh so clever, that traveling hasn't quite set me free from answer-seeking just yet; nothing achingly grandiose and hidden from me has been revealed

the wet morning after a full moon
    as she grows slimmer
    on the other side of the waters

the sun shines brightly
    peeking through so many trees
    seeking me out
finding the skin of my eyelids
    and shoulder blades

the phenomenon of a warm unanticipated
    touch from the sky

.

and now searching becomes the focal point

journeying, always
    are we

is there a moment of rest
    ,truly?

if forward is all there is

where is now?

.

i like to battle the elements
    with tiny movements
whenever i can

pushing up against gravity,
    resisting its pull

talking back to pain

reflecting on death,
     even as i breathe
    ;

the little things which prove our power,
    though we are small
   
aren't these our strange miracles?

picking up that which has fallen,
    setting it back to rights

the beauty of a car swerving around you so it doesn't hit you as you walk home~ that's gotta mean something, right? your life meant enough to something else in the world that they made a conscious effort to make sure you stayed alive.

words from the floating world

hello, blank journal entry - where have you been all my life? i'm up later than usual and i urge my consciousness to vomit forth data from its depths else i will surely perish. i challenge the concept of meaning to show me its exact size and vastness. the small and sensual sounds of mouths licking lips and articulating words, the language of sounds in between words the crackling hiss and pop of vinyl, a time capsule containing the full spectrum of human emotion lost to the sands of time

arabesque

i have been drinking. a lot. i guess it's okay to admit that here, to myself, even though i'd rather it not be the case.

v.v

it calls to me - the substance, the feeling, the rapture of it - and i feel its pull. at first i was chuffed that i could detect its peculiar voice and somehow resist, like the good moralistic being i am or wish to be... but after some time has passed it seems as though the strength to resist is falling prey to natural order.

many of us are, after all, divided beings. we recognize the realms within us that war among themselves, sometimes benevolently and at others quite viciously. the desire to be good vs. the desire to ... fall into abyss. each of our inner wars, our exact shades of light and dark, are different. i know my own demons almost by name, and though we are working on being friends i still dislike them greatly when it comes right down to it.

the truth is, i want to be good. i want to reap the benefits of living honorably. to me, living honorably means acknowledging that we are not alone here. our lives are interwoven with an untold number of beings who depend on us like the fifth ripple from the center of the dropped stone in a still pond depends on the fourth for it to exist at all. i for so long did not realize this basic fact. i grew up surrounded by humans, yes, but did my all to forget that they were there. for whatever reason i built a cocoon around myself where nothing else existed - believing, actually believing, that my actions did not have consequences for anyone but myself.

life does this thing where it teaches you lessons. often, they are painful. i'm not sure how else hard-won lessons could be adopted with complete faith unless a former mode of existence is ruptured, making way for a new and better state. i am a raw and new being with each passing moment, each passing battle which is waged then won or lost but ends; they always end. i am always simultaneously victorious and wounded - having discovered a new height of being a new low opens up before me. these paradoxes begin to feel completely natural, the completeness of a complementary life.

lately my practice has been increasing in rewards, and i am pleased, though i acknowledge that work is never completed in regards to the maintenance of the soul - there is always more work to be done. i say "work," but i see it more as maintenance than work. necessary repairs and upkeep - the pleasures of having something so precious as this life that it becomes a sacred duty just to devote the time and energy to keep it running smoothly.

here i am again. at the altar of self, the window before which countless past selves have laid their burdens, rested their weary limbs, and bowed their heads in reverence to the sky. it is an honor to be back here, at this place of having and wanting nothing, desiring all and nothing. i wish to speak of this storm within, as well as all those beautiful blooms and losses.

time goes on. the struggle is still present, but nature herself continues expanding, always outward, without the same assurance that i keep expecting of the universe.

this is a perpetual no-man's land.

being released from the chains of modern thought, of convention and even civilization, in a regular and moderate fashion is essential for sanity.

sometimes when my head hurts from all of the nonsense of our daily routine i am reminded of the times when the chains were broken and my spirit flew, unrestrained, in an ethereal void where thought and concept swam beside me, but not as part of me.

everyone arrives at their destination, or in some cases the destination (if such a thing even exists), from a different path. we all walk completely paths, because we are not wired the same, not designed, and through our design and our origination point is how she shape ourselves. it is kind of like a video game, if you really think about it - you are born as a particular character, in a particular place, none of which is your decision. where you live has its own levels of difficulty related to survival and development as a "functional human being" - or at least "functional member of a society." additionally, with every moment that passes our personalities are shaped by what we react with and how we react to it. thus we become individuals, and as individuals we have our strengths and our burdens which we either must face or avoid for the rest of our lives.

and so i think of meditation, that mode of existence that is most often wilful, but can sometimes be thrust upon us by an unexpected spiritual experience. many people today seem to be arriving at the door of meditation from very different paths. for some, the practice was taught at an early age as part of a long historical tradition - for others, it is a safe place at which they have arrived from a long and arduous journey.

what meditation does for me is provide an instantaneous doorway to the framework of my consciousness.

wandering star

summer has begun, and the air contains the same fragrant cool greenness i remember from last year, and the year before. birds both familiar and not join together in their choral cacophony, a near-constant accompaniment to the sun's dance across the sky. shadows are cast on mountainfaces and bedsheets by shaking leaves, drifting clouds. the swirling of ephemeral lost souls caught out of the eye's corner a second too late. in the dampness of twilight an eerie orchestra of chirping frogs illuminate the forested soundscape. these sounds more than any other contribute to that peculiar feeling of a cocoon being constructed all around me, whether starry night-colored or blisteringly iridescent with the violent impulse of new. life.

each season of each year seems to contain the same incarnations of self, like four continuous trajectories which differ only in where they stand amidst the elements. my sun self, the summer self, is when my age technically advances in number. the spring self rests in its annual hibernation. memories flood back triggered by the exact impact of the sun at high noon, as heat is only this intense when it hugs me from its current position; by the exact cool warmth, or warm coolness, of water now fit for swimming when i plunge myself into its depths against my skin's first desires. the moon shows her face to me when i need her embrace, and mysteriously is kept from me when my strength is to be found within.

my capacity to wield wisdom grows and shrinks inward and shoots up after rains and is killed off with disease at irregular intervals, and that is all part of the cycle. i accept the fact that i will keep feeling lost, even after i thought i've been found. i accept that being lost is not the end, and that to remain found i will need to work harder to retain my memories of success with greater accuracy, rather than those of failure.

i sit on the porch of my mind and watch the passing wind, like a mountain. i thank those who have graced my life and are no longer here. i learn the lessons that i need to learn. i acknowledge that my mind sometimes implants memories, sometimes misremembers... and embrace impermanence.

tanaka ryohei, gingko tree

lately i have been listening to portishead almost without end. i'm surprised that this group has hardly (if ever) been given a mention here, but i think it's because i have had them simmering on the back burner of my musical awareness for years and wasn't quite giving them their due.

my favorite thing about portishead is their incredible propensity to create completely unique soundscapes. "but isn't that what every good band does?" yeah, but no. not quite like this. the quality of production of their songs renders each as an entire self-contained world with its own rules, patterns, eccentricities. my favorite music does exactly this, where the first few seconds set the stage with a set of parameters, and then the listener is walked through the world of the song in an exploratory unraveling. the feeling of "this world is somewhere i never want to leave" is what causes me to put a song on repeat, and portishead has so many songs like this, songs which create mini utopias for my mind to bathe in infinity.

too dramatic? hear for yourself~

"strangers," dummy (1994)

perfectly-placed samples which weave together distantly-connected worlds
 the places each of those worlds evoke, all at once
images flashing, painted by sound
 hazy vocals which hearken back to times long past
disjointed lyrics that provide emotional texture rather than a chronological narrative
 time that exists outside of our time

"roads," dummy (1994)

skeleton of harmony presented before being fleshed out
 bluesy loneliness translated into sound
a road stretched out for miles in the dark
 as yet unwalked

"the rip," third (2008)

this song randomly came up in my listening experience and i basically couldn't stop listening to it. from the first section, so innocent yet sad, to the sweeping majesty of the synths, i love the journey from the ground into the sky.

arthur wesley dow, the derelict

 
i claw at what has been lost too often, rather than embrace what is already in my hands. thinking too much has been my downfall. my feet know where they are to go.

the mind creates the abyss,

the heart crosses it