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Oh, Death

Oh, Death, how you remind us that living beneath the veil does no more for us than drinking out of an empty cup.

When You're Looking For Spring, Look Only to Yourself

The human being should be an artist. There is an art to living and an art to loving. The greatest of arts. Then, there are lesser arts but arts, nonetheless, in need of no less than artists to guide as hands do. Less can assume more. Even the warrior is an artist. Even the smallest of seeds creates beauty likened to art. Even the comedian, with his crude speech and brash ways, tailors the art of our humanity into humor. His art creates joy.

There is an art to this thing. That's why when we lose focus and concentration, we fail to create works of art, as the artist fails to create without a steady hand and discipline, surely leaving his muse lonely and his love without expression. The human and the artist fail to be artists without commitment and discipline to their art. The artist is not worthy of such art if he only chooses to abandon his art, as he abandons himself.

Fromm wrote that we need to study life and love in theory AND in practice. We only become artists through that kind of discipline. If I am to know you, what better way than to pay the homage of witness through my steady devotion and discipline? How else am I to know what's behind those eyes and beneath each intent, impulse, or action? My love becomes art, even in the everyday ordinariness of you.

Like any artist, the warrior must know his craft: his opponent. The comedian must know people, especially her audience. She must pay special attention to human imperfection and each fall from grace, the obvious and subtle. The lover must not be afraid to love or to know the beloved. The lover also must not be afraid to know herself. To know the nature of each and the environment.

The true artist is neither afraid to know herself nor can she avoid doing so. She finds herself in her creations and at the end of her own sentences. Rilke wrote, "Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn't force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it only comes to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast."

The lover waits patiently for the beloved to reveal her secret. She waits patiently for her beloved to open like a cryptic poem written in a foreign language that had only become accessible through a timely dream in which the Rosetta stone had been given and she had accepted. And now sits patiently before the beloved's eternity and "unconcernedly silent and vast" ocean of unknowing she can't escape and may choose to meet.

You see, this patience is not without faith, an essential confidence and trust. All true artists create in this sphere. They are gathering dust.

However, eternity is not only the soul that can't be seen, it is the soul that can be seen. Simple truths and lesser arts. And you shall know them by their fruits. Give her time to ripen or that love to bloom or an end to finally wish you fare thee well. Look only to yourself.

Little Against

I could just let these tunes, melodies, empty my brain, but there's no getting around it...

You ask me to come here, tell you a story, write you some poetry, sing you a song, but I can't...

I know you're not listening. Who listens these days, anyway?

It's already tomorrow. I forgot to mail that love letter yesterday. And the milk's old, about two days ago.

I expect your call soon. I think it could bode well--there could be some kind of reconciliation, some kind of good news. But who knows--it might take some time to tell.

I don't know. I learned to read at an early age, but I'm stuck here, still trying to decipher your language...a mouthful of rage...

Aren't you tired of "but"s, because I am. "Pero no." Pero si.

But, yes...

I'm a frantic flier. Fly-by-er. I stretch my skin as far as it will go. And still, it ain't tight enough.

My heart beats "churn," like the butter under a rotor, goes 'round 'round, and thickens, like skin beaten beneath a wide frown and a bleeding heart worn on a sleeve.

Ah, do you even remember me? My scent? You carrying my keys?

There's no raspberry or cherry or secret slippin' from these lips. You might want to catch up, give me a kiss.

We all die sooner rather than later. I hate to be the bearer of such bad news.
What happens then? When worse comes to worst, what happens when?!

I smile at you because we both know that everything ends up alright. All the meaninglessness in the world can't break a striving fool's fight for time.

Can't you hear it?

It's that dream you had but tried to deny. It's that small hope that your love will bury you alive. It's that bigger-than-life symphony of singing seeds. The rapture.

It's you and me.

Don't be a pussy. I got your number.

You can see me inside, I suppose.
Come outside, already.

Your good Lord knows.

I hold so little against you. And the things I carry are light.
You're lucky I'm easy. I won't put up much of a fight...

Blogging is "So" Last Year

These days, I mixed up between the emotions of reverence and disgust. Disgust is a strong word, I know, but it has all of that chalked up life-force. It comes in beats per minute. It also washes over us. Today, I think of looking past the dichotomies we perceive in the world. I think about our perceptions, and how when we think we "win," we might be losing in another way. I also think of the "storm before the calm." I wonder where I am located in that equation. I've become numb to it from constant integration and desensitization. It's like the white noise we become accustomed to over time. Sometimes I can't stand the hum of my airconditioner. Then, my agitation disappears, as I somehow create a space.

The other day I dreamt about perfection in the world. There was this music, a melody, created by a little fairy--a feminine force. She sang so that the octaves would gravitate between 211 and 212, whatever that means. She was floating next to a tree. It had visible veins, and the life-blood within was moving upward, against gravity, as if growing toward the heavens. Then, this creature--a death-like being--tainted the veins, adding something "other" to it. Something of a disease. I watched as it inhibited the growth. When I woke, I thought, The storm before the calm. It's as if I understood that the chaos was necessary. The dream shrunk back into the darkness quickly. I couldn't hold on to it. But, before I woke, the last thing I recall of the dream was that I was on the phone with Christina. We were talking about how we "knew" things, kind of like intuition. She said that a certain male did not understand what faculty we used, though she said it in a different way. I made it a point to tell her that "it is logical, though." I woke up. It's logical in a way that can't be explained by logic. It's feminine in nature.

A few days later, I started reading a book called "Biomimicry" by Jane Benyus. It's about technology and innovation based on design we see in nature. Nature is smarter/wiser than we are, and has learned how to sustain itself. She makes it a point to say that we humans think we are the end all of creation, that we are above the food chain, and that nature is there for us to exploit and destroy. It's hard for us to accept that we too are food for something else. According to Benyus, we've gone against nature and are on the brink of disaster, that is, if we do not find a sustainable way to live.

I feel an underlying, constant sense of unease that I choose to avoid at times. We all do. We try to get rid of that unease with our addictions and compulsions. Absence of intimacy and genuine connection is creating a chasm that separates us and god, us and nature, us and reality. We're deluding ourselves. The Buddha was right about Maya and Mara.

I feel stuck in this reality and unable to change anything. The only thing I feel like I can change is my own inner reality. And I know that affects the whole. What gets to me is what I see outside myself. Maybe I need more patience...

I lost my focus. Maybe I never had it...

I, Candle

I, Candle, full of lum-escent flame, burn brightly.

There's not much that I can't handle, except maybe sharing the spotlight. Too many burning wicks produce too much heat and smoke and soon blend into every other.

And then my overshadowed flame, flickering slowly and seeking return to glory, finds an open space to once again burn brightly.

Remain Mystified

You can fly away electric bird.

I wonder where angry protesters live these days. I wonder where the angry protester is in all of us. It seems to me that we've rolled over and sold out; that we have no fight in us because we're too busy marketing ourselves to the world. Maybe we should come with a price-tag.

We whore around, and there's no denying it. So, as much as you don't want to hear my complaining, you probably need to. I'm an optimist, and I'd like to think that I'm a pacifist, but I have too quick of a temper. I also have a sense of inner calm within me, in the midst of my most uneasy or violent emotions. I always know that "this too shall pass," and that there is always the state from which everything arises and to which everything returns. I trust in the cycles of life, despite my desire for pleasure like the next person.

Negative emotions, violent emotions, are pure life-force. I'd rather that than wake up one day and realize I've lived my whole life trying to please or pacify others, when what pleases them makes me miserable and inauthentic. Fire burns us, but it is essential to all of our inner processes, including digestion. It carries within it the power to transform. So, we can rest assured that it is a part of us.

Fire, or anger, can also be destructive. Anger scares people, yet is healthy. It can be a light for us; it can show us where we need to pay special attention.

These days, I am well, despite the vicissitudes of life and the fact that I have been burned. I feel like I am returning to life, maybe reawakening, as though I am moving out of a cycle of darkness, like a long waking up, stretching, and yawning. I don't think we have to be angry to wake up. I don't think we have to move into the extremes to be alive. Instead, I feel like there should be a certain kind of movement within; and if not anger, then sensitivity and acute awareness to reality, life, truth, and the conditions of others and in which we live.

What I am moving against is the deadening of our ability to feel slighted, to feel outraged, to feel affected by injustice. Healthy acceptance isn't indifference or powerlessness. Healthy acceptance is dealing with the emotions that accompany our impermanence and the experience of multifarious injustices. It's letting those powerful emotions move through us, unimpeded. We merely watch them.

But, that takes awareness and sensitivity and the intention to do so. Often, I have failed to address a slight. I have forgiven an unlimited amount of times, not knowing how to erect and guard my own boundaries. And though I know people sometimes commit slights unintentionally, I am trying to learn to react in a balanced manner. As of late, I am more intolerant of slights and people's mistakes, even if done so unintentionally. I forgive, yet I do not afford them the opportunity to do it again. I am full of knee-jerk reactions, yet also have the mind to follow up.

Once is enough; twice is too much. The thing is, I'm guilty of letting others commit the same offenses multiple times before my bill is due and I come to collect. I suppose I've reached my quotient of asshole offenses and thoughtlessness; I suppose this is the nature of the parabola. Now, I'm trying to regain my equilibrium. I know I cannot hold people to the standards I would hold a significant other; however, I don't think that's the issue. In fact, I think the problem is that I trust too easily and give away my affection at will. I haven't learned to discern between those who are deserving and those who are not. I haven't learned to trust when it is a natural consequence of time and experience.

It feels petty to me to have to look at people with a discriminating eye and with suspicion. Aren't all people good? At heart? Maybe Western and Eastern ideas are clashing within me. The idea of "evil" is not quite gelling well. Is there such thing in the modern and Western sense? Or is evil truly just ignorance? Or is it both?

Maybe it's both. Maybe there is such thing as evil, and it begins as the seed of ignorance and exists because of the cloak of ignorance veiling the truth. Maybe under this cloak, we are able to commit horrific, and lesser, crimes against humanity. I know that most times I commit a slight, it is because I am not aware of the affect it has on the other person. On the other hand, there are those who commit great evils, knowingly. I understand, from a Buddhist perspective, that good and bad really are just reflections of the One, of pure awareness, but one side is limited.

What I've established is that we are limited in our rational awareness. We fail to see all sides. This makes me feel like our little consciousness is operating through the sight of a pinhole. This is not so comforting. A Buddhist would say that no one can really hurt us; it is only what we perceive, and our mind is the creator. That our experience is truly subjective. I get that. But, discovering certain ideas, or even truths, pushes one to assimilate these ideas into one's worldview for some kind of continuity. In that respect, we then seek some kind of operation manual, as if operating a fighter jet. If "A" happens, then "B." As creatures of habit, we desire a manual. Is there such thing? (Perhaps, this is where the concept of a "paradigm" comes in.)

"Ahhh. OK. She did this. Now, how should I react?" Some of our reactions are habitual, knee-jerk reactions, and some of them come from our decision to act one way or another. Our power lies in our choice, and our habits rob us of our ability to choose. So, this all seems truly subjective, which lends itself to relativism, and which is hard for me to swallow. Something can be and not be. Absolutes or no absolutes. It IS wrong to murder, but we decide when it is "right" or "convenient" to uphold that absolute. In a time of war, it is merely "killing," and killing is not "wrong." Or is it?

A change of pace. What we seek, or what I am seeking, is peace in relation to life, but that is not always possible. Some people just don't get along, and some circumstances just aren't suitable. So that leads us to what is most natural to us.

We seem to be hardwired in some ways and not in others. If it were possible with current technology, could we upload, as in software, certain traits or habits or beliefs? Could we upload false memories which, in turn, would create specific conditions and reactions within a person? How in control are we? Are we held prisoner by our impulses, beliefs, and tendencies? Are we held prisoner by our memories and inheritances? Or is this a natural adaptation or defense mechanism, thanks to our lower animal selves?

Maybe the concepts in "The Matrix" aren't so far out? I'm saying that all this "reality" seems to be make-believe or a child's plaything. That reality isn't as objective as we'd like to believe. That there is apparent chaos in the infinite and finite order of things.

Our inner processes and the processes that underlie all of life are ordered and organized; yet, this seems to produce a chaos. Or the issue is that we aren't able to perceive orders of that level, a level that supersedes all current mental faculties.

Or it could be nothing, and all could be random, if you so choose to believe. However, just because you believe something doesn't make it true, in reality--such things like delusions exist. This means to me that there is evidence of something objective in the world, such as "laws of the universe." Maybe the thing that creates all this complexity really boils down to one simplicity: energy and the fact that energy has an infinite attribute: It cannot be created or destroyed. It is infinite in scope and eternal and operates according to certain fixed laws. (And do these laws operate by habit, as we often do, and as Rupert Sheldrake asserts in his theory on "morphic resonance.")

So like fireworks, we start out from one point and burst forth on to the screen. Now just magnify that fireworks show across the universe, and we can see how great the potential is for everything. One of the most curious and interesting things is how something could be so simple, yet so complex because that is its nature.

Talk about stretching the mind.

Maybe whatever choices I make really only reflect slivers of the whole, and I'm necessarily trying to get all I can out of what carries an infinite amount of potential. I have felt "this" and "that" and have been most uncomfortable and comfortable, and I want to understand what it is like exactly as this being, in this body, to add to the pages and pages of other lives and their experiences. (And for what? That question is an end in itself because life is happening not for a particular end, as a means to an end, but is an end in itself.)

I've already lived and died in this flash, in this moment of time. So, I'm not sure what's to fear, except that it's human nature to fear, and that I am not above being ordinarily human.

I am a stranger in a strange land, and all this around me, including you, is also me. I am living in multiple worlds at once. And maybe I'm discovering that equilibrium and am fostering relationships that don't reflect incompatibility and false intimacy.

Now what? I'll take this and live as genuinely as I can and experience as much humanity as possible. I will do the thing I do best: remain mystified but always forward-moving.