in clarification

Someone very special asked me recently what difference there is between Aaron before coming to Peru and Aaron as he is today.

One way of looking at it would be to say that I have seen (with startling clarity and baffling simplicity) the emptiness of my own mind, and that from this experience I have discovered a freedom that I have never known before. Freedom from the obsessive tendency to perfect my own self, to complusively seek states of quietism or bliss as band-aids for my own raging sorrow and inadequacy. Perhaps those words are too shocking, but what else do you think lies in the darkest depths of our wounded child-self? I spent years creating thick layers of ego-insulation to protect myself from this very confrontation. How many ways do we invent to shield or distract ourselves?

I am not saying that these past four years have been a waste, or that all this ardent spiritual practice has been meaningless. Quite the contrary, it´s been a careful process of self-transformation. The most essential and brilliant aspect of the bodhisattva vow is that it grounds the aspiration of personal awakening in the selfless intention of helping others to achieve their own liberation. When true selflessness arises, personal liberation is meaningless. Buddha said it´s like a bridge or a boat. You don´t take it with you once you cross.

Putting aside the Buddhist philosophy, it´s as if I have stepped off the ground I know and into thin air. I no longer feel the pressing need to pursue deeper and more powerful kinds of mystic knowledge. It´s a 180 degree turn from pulling apart the subtle elements of my mind and experience to embracing life and offering my presence for whatever small measure it´s worth. I have reached a moment where practice no longer satisfies me, because I am not lacking in satisfaction. What comes next, and really has been quietly developing for some time, is a shift in perspective that connects all the wisdom and experiential clarity of meditation into a form of daily presence. From the insulated world of my own ego, I move out into a meditation within the interconnected energy space that I share with all people and all things. That´s what I´ve been practicing for all along, that´s my new edge and calling.

The quiet whisper I heard came when I realized that I was ready to be healed, be whole, just be. I am balanced, healthy, and bright. I am young and eager. I have great passion that can be used for healing or creative growth. I have strong faith in the goodness of life. I can see the deep goodness in all people, and help them see and connect with it in themselves. I do not particularly care for cosmic bliss. It´s just another sensation, they come and go like oceans waves. I no longer obsess about transcendant realization. Being human is enough for me.

I have never felt this clear, this peaceful or content. This is not the kind of awakening that adds to my experience, this is non-attainment in action. So all my fellow travellers, those of you who know me in this life and read this blog, be quite sure and happy that you are alive! It sounds a bit stupid but oh! how simple and miraculous! I am happy that we know each other, you have all in some way contributed to this moment for me. I thank you most joyfully.

leaving Krishnopolis

Passionately seeking the divine, wanting experiences of light and emptiness, courting a transformative alliance with the kundalini energy, I have been driven for several years now by a strange compulsion to embody something greater than my own sorry self.

I have embraced a ferocious discipline and spiritual asceticism, have gone through periods of almost militant practice routines, have pushed myself through resistance, through injury, through despair and isolation.

I have slowly learned to allow gentleness and love to creep into my practice. I have been shown the true healing potential of yoga and meditation, but for some bizarre reason have stubbornly refused to allow myself to enjoy the grace and acceptance of unconditional divine love. I have been ashamed of my all too human nature.

I have sought to pull back the curtain that veils my eye, to tap forcefully the currents of transcendant energy from which we all originate, to justify my fear of mortality through escape of the confines of my individual self. I wagered that as long as I could, in fact, make it out, then my fear would finally be irrelevant.

I have desperately craved a return to moments of blissful meditation, rapture, and pure mental absorption, equal to or beyond the experiences I have already been given. I have prioritized only one goal - to curate a trove of spiritual materialism.

And now, I have given up.

I have let go of this notion that attainment will lead to perfection. I have seen that transcendence is essentially empty to a spiritual being who has chosen a human experience. I looked into that abyss, and saw eagerly and with some bafflement that I was ready to be healed, be whole, just be.

Even though the wound is unfamiliar, the compulsion to escape into practice is one I know well. What exactly am I practicing for?

It´s like this: the Sanskrit word for illusion, maya, literally means ¨not that.¨ It´s a realization born out of confrontation with the nature of one´s own mind, a realization that all elements of human experience (mind, thoughts, sensations, ego identity, etc etc) cannot be identified as abolute truth. I have seen the blade cut itself, have pierced the veil most unexpectedly.

All that´s left now is to live the fullest, most compassionte life of service, love, surrender, and joy.

It came to me like a whisper. I see it now as an awakening.

I flow from here into the complete unknown.

my heart

it's not me, but certainly one of the most
intimate and
essential parts of myself.
the one i cannot convince by force
of persuasion logic or necessity.

if my heart is the ocean,
then i'm in the boat without paddles or compass.
i wager my time by augury, for in the waves
i see the changes
as the ocean's temper turns.

and with every new turn,
the impossible door opens. looking upon miracles,
immovable witness, my humble bark surges forward.

"...and best of all is surrender, which soon brings peace."

Prayer is the essential aspect that I have been missing in my practice. After all, what exactly am I practicing for? Without prayer, this practice is devoid of, outside, and separate from the divine; it's an ego echo chamber, a dark telescope, the devil's own chain. Again and again the shadow whispers poison, the ego self-aggrandizes, and the broken soul desperately longs for the next spiritual fix.

Prayer, as I have been learning, is more then just a place of communion with the divine, but instead the earnest quality of seeking that out. It's a place where surrender and love truly emerge, a cup overflowing with gratitude and grace. I've recently been discovering new qualities about grace, how grace is like a womb of love in which we are submerged. Being loved exactly as we are, regardless of mistakes, flaws, achievements, qualities, or skill. Completely unconditional. Completely constant.

So I'm playing this new edge where every practice becomes a prayer, a way to open up and recognize how grace surrounds me, guides me, and holds me. A way to step outside of my own mind and orient with something higher, brighter, and kinder than my own ego-projections. Maybe with practice I can remain mindful enough to dedicate all of my actions to the holy spirit, the immanent life-force, the compassionate, the terrible. What a blessing to behold!

Meditate on the Guide,
the Giver of all, the Primordial
Poet, smaller than an atom,
unthinkable, brilliant as the sun.
~Bhagavad Gita, 8.9

I was stunned

[In the late 1970s, Rachel, a young girl of eleven, was kidnapped, raped, beaten and murdered. Ram Dass wrote the following letter to her parents...]

Dear Steve and Anita,

Rachel finished her work on earth, and left the stage in a manner that leaves those of us left behind with a cry of agony in our hearts, as the fragile thread of our faith is dealt with so violently. Is anyone strong enough to stay conscious through such teaching as you are receiving? Probably very few. And even they would only have a whisper of equanimity and peace amidst the screaming trumpets of their rage, grief, horror and desolation.

I can't assuage your pain with any words, nor should I. For your pain is Rachel's legacy to you. Not that she or I would inflict such pain by choice, but there it is. And it must burn its purifying way to completion. For something in you dies when you bear the unbearable, and it is only in that dark night of the soul that you are prepared to see as God sees, and to love as God loves.

Now is the time to let your grief find expression. No false strength. Now is the time to sit quietly and speak to Rachel, and thank her for being with you these few years, and encourage her to go on with whatever her work is, knowing that you will grow in compassion and wisdom from this experience. In my heart, I know that you and she will meet again and again, and recognize the many ways in which you have known each other. And when you meet you will know, in a flash, what now it is not given to you to know: Why this had to be the way it was.

Our rational minds can never understand what has happened, but our hearts – if we can keep them open to God – will find their own intuitive way. Rachel came through you to do her work on earth, which includes her manner of death. Now her soul is free, and the love that you can share with her is invulnerable to the winds of changing time and space. In that deep love, include me.

In love,
Ram Dass

witches dancing, spiraling around

This was my first time playing with the police state, witnessing its true form. Hardly a surprise, but I don't see anything of what we accomplished in the news media. There are no pictures of the thousands that lined up to march against the war and this wretched administration. Only a few photos of anarchist kids being roughed by riot cops.

The picture the media paints is so distorted and biased that it might as well have been fabricated two weeks before we even got here. Meanwhile I see full-page spreads with photos of McCain in a rain of confetti. We must tell the story of what happened here ourselves, just as we organize ourselves to care for each other and stand together in court solidarity. In the world we are creating, we organize to provide for all our own needs. By the people for the people, right?

Lisa was telling me last night about how direct action depends a lot on opening up space. We take an intersection or make a press conference to hold a space - physical, emotional, or intellectual - which we can claim as our own, as an assembly of people marking their dissent from the forces of governance. It might not seem like much given the extent of damage done by the state, but I still believe our action is potent magic. Whether we are merely witnessing that violence or exhausting its dark rage in our resolute commitment to peace and justice, whether we are struggling to keep the fire alight or fanning the flames of evolutionary consciousness, I know without a doubt that our energy and our efforts were not in vain.

2 minutes of violence and a lot of buraucratic boredom

my arrest story is a lot less interesting than many others i have heard - but not so insignificant that it didn't hold a few curious revelations for me.

out of the entire cluster, i was the only one who expressed an actual desire to get arrested. not because i thought it was glamorous or anything stupid like that, but because the police have that much less power to intimidate me once i've gone through their bullshit. i don't pretend that this action really exposed me to the same kind of threat which might normally be experienced by someone from marginalized or third world communities. for them the brutality of the police state can have a much deadlier or devastating kind of impact, even rob them of their entire lives. still, in a critical way i've begun my own move away from the safety of my privilege, which brings me closer, step by step, into solidarity with those who experience the brunt of state violence.

my arrest - 2 minutes of violence and a lot of bureaucratic boredom. i was tackled roughly by some riot cops, my pants torn and my knees slammed on the pavement. my hand was cut on the gears of their bicycle, which they somehow used to pin me down. it was over quickly, and then i tried to stand tall and find my grounding again. the pagan cluster was screaming and cheering for me, and the intense blast of supporting energy they sent me nearly overwhelmed me in tears.

in fact, i was having trouble keeping my emotions in check, because i felt like weeping but i didn't want to break down in the streets. it didn't feel like a safe place, not in front of the cops and not the cameras, but i also felt like the biggest tool in existence for crying at such a staged fiasco. still, my body doesn't always agree with my mind, and i could feel my eyes starting to leak.

my friend paul followed me back across the police line. i could see him on the sidewalk from the state trooper car. he stayed with me and stood watch, and even when they moved me several blocks down the street he followed in his vigil. it was extremely comforting to have him there with me. i felt very blessed to have such support.

and then slowly i realized something very useful. i have worked hard to open my heart chakra in the past four years, and i typically run full-charged and open in that area. i've also developed a lot more sensitivity than i previously used to have, which is why small things in life (or even another person's sorrow) can cause me to start crying.

but in that situation, such a wide open heart was making it difficult to focus, so i did something i've never deliberately done before, i closed my heart and throat chakra. if i let off for a moment it would spring back open, but with a bit of focus and persistence i managed to dial down those centers to a bare whisper. sure enough, i couldn't feel the tears in the same way, i could rest composed (and closed) so that i could focus my energy in other ways.

what is the utility of apathy? i don't know, and heaven help me if one day i ever have to find out. there is a reason why a smile is a weakness in prison.

the rest of my story is less than interesting. it's a lot like the most boring parts of going to the doctor's office. tell the receptionist your name and information. make a copy of your driver's license. go sit here. now sit here. (at which point i found myself sitting next to a furious amy goodman, but that's another story) i was out in less than four hours, didn't even spend the night in a jail cell.

thankfully now i've been cured of my unhealthy desire for arrest. but it also had an unintended effect - now i'm even more inspired for healthy dissent and direct action.

faces in the streets

Lines of riot cops, squads of cops on bicycles and horses. Protesters in black bloc, hippies, and pagans. Queers and queens and commies and students. Delegates in suits and the curious apathy of bystanders.

In every face, in every person, both friendly or hostile, I am noticing a continuous thread. It's something which I cannot name but recognize intimately. Something spacious. Something with the quiet pull of boundless compassion. Something like trust, or faith, or the acknowledgment of the goodness of life.

Behind that mask of ego, behind the web of contingency out of which you spin your identity, what I see and recognize is the pulsing groovy energy which drives this entire cosmological clock. And no matter what differences I notice in our appearances, our likes and dislikes, our political opinions or sexual preferences, that underlying life-stuff remains whole and undifferentiated.

It's a trippy place to be. Running in the streets I carry these two frames of reference (along with others) as I try to resolve what is happening. As I try to figure out who I am and what actions I should take. Try to understand struggle and dissent, creativity and resistance, acceptance, love, and (r)evolution. I feel passionately that this perspective is essential to approaching the situation with the right view. Yet I also feel passionately that justice and peace are things worth standing up for, and that the masters of war and the barons of greed are enemies of peace that must be confronted.

Mystic radical yogis for direct action, to the streets!

the elephants called - they want their image back

I've arrived in St Paul, and have immediately fallen in step with the pagan cluster. I'm currently staying with two enormous dogs, a big drooley St Benard and another English Setter-St Bernard mix. They shed like woolly mammoths in the paleolithic spring-time, they seem to be abandoning the fur-strategy without any obvious signs of diminished coat capacity.

Two days I've done magical activist street training at Coldwater Springs, a local sacred site that's been a focus of activist energy for many years. It's always such a playful learning edge at these trainings, ritual magic as the Reclaiming tradition practices it is still new to me and my edges of energetic awareness are always being pushed. The new exciting skill I've discovered is wide-awareness, a way of seeing and sensing that takes a much broader and intimate approach to the surroundings. It's apparently based in wilderness awareness methods, but it reminds me a lot of the wide focus that my sensei was always describing in regards to sparring. I never quite got it, but maybe now I have a new understanding to work with.

As for the conventions, the convergence space is a buzzing hive of organizing activity. It's inspiring to see, not only because people are taking such an active stance against the steam-rolling war-and-profits government machine (and the RNC is a great time to shout it out), but because through this process we are trying to find new ways to organize ourselves without reasserting the same oppressive dynamics that we seek to oppose. Process-oriented decision making is such a challenge of personal and relational growth, which is why for me personal confrontation and inner transformation is such a vital component of political action. And pedantry should get mashed up into fish food, joy should be a revolutionary tool, and we should all be a whole lot more tolerant and interested in the well-being of all humans.

I'm on so many edges, magical-political-spiritual-radical, I'm having a ball. It's fun simply to notice which moments I am articulate and well-informed and which moments I feel strongly but trip over my own words. In many areas I'm still silent and observing, absorbing new views like a Mississippi Sea Sponge, gathering threads, listening, listening. But sometimes I let my voice out, and sometimes I'm pleased with how it feels to be heard.

walking thru karma

It finally makes sense, that struggle in me between two disparate threads.

And partly it has to do with the study of karma that appeared in my life today. It came up in two conversations with my wonderful Boston friends (the joy and relish of my life here truth be told) and in particular I found myself thinking about the balance between the immediate and the long-term in regards to self-transformation. Karma describes the prison of causality, yes, but it also indicates the possibility of liberation, or awakening. All action takes place here, at the intersection of our garrulous past and the peace of tomorrow. We are sponges for the aggressions of our parents, but we are still resilient in spirit.

In my life, I see a split between going grad school in science and another, unknown walk. Maybe to a place where I am less defined by career and more by action. Where a job is only a means and the work an act of community and creative resistance.

Practicing a life anchored in and floating on the breath and body of yoga, rooted in the stillness of mediation, and moving with the smooth circular cadence of Tai Chi. Let's try for six years to grow in that practice. Six years to root in.

And I see myself looking into that split in my future. I'm transfixed by the play of my imagination on the unlit black canvass of my life.

This new knowledge of what I want has illuminated (to an astounding degree) who I am.

Resonance and Entrainment

"Human brains turn out to be extremely permeable (they naturally mimic the neural firings of people around them)" - David Brooks

you't can't force people to follow directions they deem arbitrary

clouds and water

unsui : Japanese, an appellation given to Soto Zen novices, literally “clouds and water,” signifying the renunciation of material and egotistical pursuits and highlighting their lack of permanent abode in the world

When moving along with the transience of truly empty physical reality, the solidity of our everyday world reveals itself as inherently insubstantial. This endless flowing gives rise to strangely coherent patterns, suspended fractals in motion, islands of order in a sea of chaos. We make sense of our world through language, breaking the wholeness down into parts by naming and classifying. What we call a tree is only a momentary integration of the requisite components (atoms, lipids, proteins, etc) merging into a functional wholeness. For greater clarity we further dissect a tree into its parts: leaves, bark, branches, trunk, roots, etc. This process of naming governs our understanding and interaction with everything around us, including our own body.

On the cellular level the human body is constantly in a state of repair and replacement. The lifetime of a cell can vary - most cells last months or years, others are replaced every two or three days. Physically, this means that this body is under a continual process of transformation. Every new body we inhabit is constructed from the physical nourishment that we consume. We are, quite literally, what we eat.

Stability and permanence are illusions that arise from ignorance. The practice of meditation reveals that the nature of everything is impermanent, drifting and flowing along without cease, moving and changing. Clouds and water is a way of being in the world and moving in accordance with emptiness, free from antipathy and clinging. It's a willingness to surrender the illusion of permanence and embrace the chaotic flow of life.

the dark moon intentions

At witch camp I was given a new idea for integrating cyclical intention work into my life, a new framework for clearly formulating desires and voicing them to that chaotic sea of contingency in which we swim.

The recipe: make intentions on the dark moon, charge them any way that pleases and then release. For the next two weeks think about them casually or not at all. When the full moon comes, celebrate! for everything you desire has already been delivered. (All credit goes to Wildflower, beautiful matron of magic that she is.)

What do I want in the next month?

~ to reduce my necessary belongings to one pack
~ to find a backpack that matches my minimalist multi-functional ergonomic
~ to connect with the flow of the Living River
~ to gracefully close my affairs here in Boston

And on Paul's suggestion, I will also muse upon some six month intentions:

~ to flow along the edge of uncertainty and improvisation
~ to always preserve the highest emotional integrity in my relationships, along with a loving open heart
~ to share my practice with others, beginning first as a yoga teacher
~ to begin learning spanish
~ to engage myself actively in local struggles against empire, ignorance, and overconsumption
~ to immerse myself in a community of spiritual kindred
~ to have a wildly good time with my life

May it always come to pass for the highest good of everyone involved. Word.

the body - posture & energy

A few nights ago I had an intensely painful headache, which I'm fairly certain was due to wearing contacts for the first time. I never usually wear my glasses all day long, so having contacts in the entire day was way more work than my eyes are used to. I took them out in the evening and took some ibuprofen, but once the pain ramped up it became so bad that all I could do was lie motionless with my eyes closed. The pain was considerable, probably the worst I've experienced in awhile. Quite nearly unbearable.

I have noticed generally that activating contractions and visualizing energy flow in painful areas of my body can help alleviate what I'm feeling. With indigestion, I can use the stomach lock (uddiyana bandha) and intentional abdominal breathing to reduce any pain and assist with the process of digestion. A lot happens in the 3rd chakra, but also in the 2nd. [In fact, I often notice a connection between indigestion and poor posture - sitting upright always makes it easier.]

And sometimes when I am ungrounded, it feels as if my breath is high in my chest and encroaching on my throat. I feel skittish, airy, and I yawn a lot. I can counter that with keeping my breath down (in the hara or tan tien) and a strong focus on mula bandha and the 1st chakra.

And sometimes I also feel pressure or pain in my head, which of course can happen for lots of different reasons. If drinking more water doesn't help, I have tried circulating energy along the microcosmic orbit, up from the shoulders, over the head, and down into the torso. It reminds me a lot of the stories about bad kundalini awakenings. The energy shoots up the spine but can't get out; the crown chakra is blocked. It's like having a knot in a fire hose, and drawing that much energy can damage the circuits, so to speak.

The pain from my headache was intense enough, I felt like I had to do something. So I drag my sorry butt over to the cushion and painfully sit upright. I start to circulate the orbit in 2-3 second steps. As I go through my head and down I feel slight releases in the pressure. As I come back up, right around my shoulders, I feel the pain surge intensely. I am getting nauseous from the pain, I feel like retching. I start to remember the massive knots in the muscles of my back, the cumulation of unspent emotion lodged and calcified in my tissues like smoldering clumps of rage. All the tension, fear, anger, and frustration I felt over the course of this year bottled up and carried like a badge.

So I try something that's been on my mind. It's not that I'm not aware of these emotions as they arise, even though sorting them out is sometimes very tricky. However by pushing them down I am denying them space to play out through my body. It's a simple formula. If I am sad, then weep. If I am frustrated, then rage or hit the bag. If I am scared, cry out. Not as some insipid call for drama, but in order to channel appropriately what I feel. To let my body work through what I have to work through, instead of locking it down and letting it accumulate.

I sit on my cushion, lamely circulating chi along the orbit, and I start to weep and cry. I call out for help, I ask for comfort, I ask for guidance. The tears are falling fast and heavy, hot halcyons of peace. I feel shuddering waves pass through my body. I manage no more than a few minutes of this before I crumple and head back for the bed. I wait there, eyes closed, until the waves subside.

The violin is a ruthlessly honest seismograph of the heart

a few gems of interest I found in the book Free Play by Stephen Nachmanovitch

"Jesus was all virtue, and acted from impulse, not from rules." -William Blake

//Anthropologists have found "galumphing" to be one of the prime talents that characterize higher life forms. Galumphing is the immaculately rambunctious and seemingly inexhaustible play-energy apparent in puppies, kittens, children, baby baboons--and also in young communities and civilizations. Galumphing is the seemingly useless elaboration and ornamentation of activity. We galumph when we hop instead of walk, when we take the scenic route instead of the efficient one, when we play a game whose rules demand a limitations of our powers, when we are interested in means rather than in ends.

//A girl child, age eight, complained of the day her third-grade teacher pretended that negative numbers don't exist. While the class was doing subtraction tables, a boy asked, "What's 3 take-away 5?" and the teacher insisted that there is no such thing. The girl objected, "But everyone knows it's minus 2!" The schoolteacher said, "This is the third grade and you're not supposed to know about those things!"

I later asked this girl, "What does a minus number mean to you?" She said without hesitating, "It's like looking at your reflection in a pool of water. It goes as far down as you go up."

eyes dilated, waiting for the doctor

It's a promise to myself. An invitation to live a life inspired by the unfolding Now, the eternal Tao, the revelation of spontaneous flowing creativity.

A life guided by play and improvisation, the temperance of poetic anarchism and social lila, a risky naked voyage into the playground which is beyond time, where my unobstructed nature brilliantly gushes out to meet life with sparkly eyes and puppy dog meander.

Here's the juice: to forget this drive to know who I am, to ceaselessly plan my life, my career, and my impact on the world. To abandon that mentality whenever it arises, releasing myself unknowing and uncertain into that dark edge of unborn creation, where nothing is taken for granted or planned or known until the instant the beat drops. My heart's impulses are there, I can feel them and know them, and by this declaration I intend to clear space to allow them freedom to emerge.

Whether social justice or writing, whether yoga or meditation, whether this or that, here or there, I promise to be attentive to that inner voice, to mute out the blaring expectations of this bankrupt and derelict society.

If they ask me, what are you going to do? I shall say: I am living a life without the shadow of my projections.

father son & wholly ghost

My parents died when I was a teenager, but that death was not permanent. My mother returned as the inner manifestation of my desire for purity and truth. Quietly, deep inside my heart, I recognized that her death had impelled me down the path of transformation and spiritual surrender. I saw that my search for virtue was actually a dedication and offering made in her memory. I wanted to repay her loving kindness. I wanted to make her proud.

My father, overcome with grief at the loss of his wife, was left alone with a burning and unresolved anger. He suffered through alienation, isolation, and pain. A well of bitterness trickled up inside of him, and after several vain attempts to reconnect and heal our relationship I gave up on him in anger and grief.

Eventually I realized that the image I carried of my mother was blurring into a generic concept of the divine mother. Terrified, realizing that I was losing my connection to her humanity, I set out on a journey of memory and recollection (a powerfully intriguing and curious topic in itself) to reconstruct a sense of who exactly she was, this woman Catarina Vieira. I spent the summer with her sister, Diana, panning for stories hidden amonng dusty neural pathways. Diana, whose presence also triggered strong memories of my own, her mannerisms and behavior so reminiscent of my mother, was a powerfully loving and grounding force for me.

At the end of that summer, I paid a visit to some of my mother's oldest friends in San Jose. It was there, unexpectedly, that I collected a final piece which illuminated the bare soul of my father, and I saw my parents' lives intersecting like rivers of change and causality, matched to each other hopelessly like magnetized tuning forks. At their core, I saw the vividness of the tragedy that pushed them, the forces that shaped them, and the brilliant hearts that struggled to unravel the gordian knot of their own pasts. I am, without fail, a product of their passions, their lives continue in my own.

My mother's image has been restored, complete with the tarnish of her personal flaws and failings. I honor her humanness, her transformation, her fierce capacity to love. Even more surprisingly, my father has emerged from his bitter mourning to become for me a source of joy and wisdom. Once I had feared that time and pain could irrevocably change a human heart, choking it off from compassion and happiness, like sun-baked clay, too hardened to be reshaped. He demonstrated something very powerful to me, something just as powerful as what my mother showed me in her dying - the courage to heal, to renew, to open again after the terrible storm has passed. No matter what age, it is never too late.

It's remarkable how well those two go together, twin lessons of death and renewal. But by now I'm certain, there's something remarkable about my parents as well.

tantric space

A few more pieces fallen into my hands concerning tantra, enough to provide a new and developing paradigm of sexual energy, although the resolution is still rather vague at this point.

At witchcamp I posted a desire to have a tantric breath orgasm with a female companion, and I was shocked at how easily it came to pass. I had four experiences in total, most of which were restrained in some way - an obvious demonstration of how boundaries and trust function on an energetic level. The first was by far the most intense, but the rest allowed me to explore the gateway into that space cautiously and without expectation.

I began to recognize a peculiar quality to the energy as I connected with another person, which for lack of any better understanding felt like sharing or entering each other's mindspace. I have a suspicion that this connection depends on both partners having a familiarity with their own energy, which was confirmed back at home when I reached out for someone and felt no "push" in return. There must be some kind of energy feedback monitor, each partner opening and moving until the confluence has been finely tuned and we rest "on the same wavelength" so to speak. What that is exactly still remains vague, but all four of these experiences were noticeably similar to my previous random and strange tantric encounters.

It was also clear that there is a delicate foundation of emotional, physical, and spiritual context that must align for a person to feel safe, empowered, and attracted enough to open that energy. Again this was all very similar to the boundaries, fears, and desires work which underlies quote unquote normal sexual encounters. It leads me to think that physical sexual acts work like symbols to unlock and access underlying currents of energy, the same way that movement, gestures, costuming, and speech all help the subconscious mind to access energies for spellwork.

There are still a number of things I don't understand about tantra, but someday soon I will return there for more exploration. One crucial question remains - what exactly can this be used for? Blissful, mind blowing sex still seems rather enticing, but I think there is even more potential than that.

the crossroads

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
and sorry I could not travel both
~Robert Frost

Every moment we are confronted with a choice. At times, that choice presents itself in the most apparent fashion, maybe a job offer, an invitation or a challenge, and in those moments we are sometimes granted a brief awareness of how that choice functions, of consequence and death.

When something especially lucent or calamitous occurs in our life, we might dimly reflect on the chain of events that led to our attendance of that amazing moment. It defies the powers of our understanding to comprehend the factors that inspire a simple meeting between lovers, let alone the reasons why the economy crashes, or why the weather rains out one picnic and blesses another with sunshine. The intersection of causes remains a mystery because each cause has its own history, and each causal history was itself influenced by countless other factors.

All our best theories are approximate, and the calculations vast.

We are certainly aware, however, that whatever situation we inhabit today, no matter how delicate, bizarre, or banal, arrives with the marks of our previous travels and experiences. Even if the mode of calculation escapes us, the signs are all there - a dream that obsessed us as a child, the struggles we inherited from our parents, a vocation or calling, a traumatic injury that never fully healed, a fear of being alone, too many moments lost in thought.

Even though our memory might be littered with potholes and, quite honestly, fabrications, we can recognize a path through all our choices into the shape of our own present today. This is available within ourselves, if only we choose to search it.

The crossroads is neither past nor future. It is confrontation in the present moment where every choice, whether willing or not, opens new pathways for our future while casting a permanent darkness on others.

Choice, which is the ultimate test of freedom, is inextricably bound to death, loss, and change. This death occupies every moment, but like choice, our awareness of it remains vague except in moments of particular dramatic clarity, usually a physical death, a journey, or significant loss. We experience the little death in a part of our hearts that connects with the possibility, now closed forever, of what might have been.

It is here, at this crossroads of understanding, that we learn the most painful truth about life, and discover that the limit of individual consciousness is the gate to limitless possibility. For this one life that we have chosen leaves a frozen multitude by the side of the road, friendships never made, places never known, love never expressed, struggle never met.

Yet by some intricate design, the crossroads provides wisdom through its mystery. When we learn to embrace the little death, then the moment of choice loses its power to intimidate. This present moment, alive and real out of all our potential selves, suffused with lightness, shines with the brilliant fragility of a dream-like jewel.

We embrace this moment with the voracity of kamikaze pilots, bent not on the destruction of death, but the encounter of life without the coercion of fear.

ecoscience

i just realized that maybe i will have to go to grad school, but not for their science. for my science, and in my way, which means part-time, blended with social justice work, blended with meditation, yoga, and magic. what a life that would be, founded on the three cornerstones of body, breath, and mind. from that seat the charm of the bodhi heart serves as the egoless ground, out of which joyously rowdy and blissful life can resume.

i finally realize, fully and helplessly like a boy in love, why i must sit every morning. when i sit i ground deeply into my breath and body, and during the rest of my day i encounter people from that seat of stillness and balance. and i'm discovering that this point can bridge my magic and my everyday living, can bring my presence as a gift to ground others. when i do not sit, i feel short of breath and i breathe high into my chest. i spend most of the day trying to mentally center, draw it back down, and ground again. or sometimes i just forget completely.

what kind of science can i weave into this eco-tao thread? neuroscience or biochemistry? chemical engineering or green chemistry? maybe i can start this work by envisioning something very different from all of that.

what about the science of enlightenment, peace, ecology, and humanity? what about a science that was grounded, first and foremost, in the mutualism of human life and the biosome of this planet. rooted on the absolute inter-dependence, kinship, and responsibility we have towards the earth, toward both the land itself and the life that thrives on it.

one potential guideline for such a science could emphasize design with sustainable reverse-engineering of all products - nothing should be produced en masse that is not designed to fully re-integrate into the environment without lasting harm.

make no mistake, it's not merely the current toxicity of negligent manufacture that is threatening this planet, it's the collective effects of all our chemical creations that are slowly welling up in the metabolic pathways of life. (and also the atmosphere of course, but much is thankfully being made of the climate at last.)

it's called bioaccumulation, where lipophilic toxins (e.g. dioxins) collect in fatty tissues like dirt in a sponge. there are now detectable levels of pharmaceutical chemicals in the public water of many cities, and also in reservoirs, rivers, and lakes, much to the detriment of natural organisms.

now perhaps it's starting to make sense, why nature's pattern of decomposition remains so absolutely crucial. biology as a process must survive over long stretches of time (think geologic ages... remember, life was microscopic for three billion years on this earth) it is precisely through that incredibly gigantic course of time - by the stochastic shuffle of immensely complex systems and the drifting development of genetic libraries - that such a thing as human intelligence and consciousness have emerged. creation or evolution is irrelevant, they are simple stories of genesis or origin. we hold many, i have heard a few.

the remarkable and baffling and incredible part of all this, quite simply, is what will happen to us over another 100,000 years if we can manage to enter sustainable harmony with the earth, the oceans, and the atmosphere. but in order for that to happen we must, without hesitation, stand together against the bullshit of endless war, global pillage, environmental destruction, and all varieties of oppression. it's a big frekkin' mess, and we must mobilize. science, to the streets!

undifferentiated eco-tao

you are the ember of the mind's flame,
you are the torch in hand,
you are the burning cry for life
in the solemnly parched arid sands,

you are a bionaut, life's new machine,
a walking and traveling mind,
emissary of water (yet fleshed out and broader)
the first living cell from the brine.

towards eyesight and wings
towards flowering things,
the perception of color and smell,
towards the glance in a mirror,
the mind's eye now clearer,
the transcendence of heaven and hell.

you are the guide who leads the way,
you are a hobbled crone,
you are the beating heart of silence
that thunders under the dawn.

around each person a shroud of dark-
ness, a blistering hollow of cold,
but in our hands a torch and matches
to light up the darken'd crossroads

the merger of desire

freya on the left and buddha the right.
earth and spirit, morning and night,
the art in mind and silence in song,
desire transcending both right and wrong.

for when they merge, the flow and the center,
and bodies bliss and mindseye quivers,
then scintillating light erupts on the brow
and a window thrown opens dispells where and now.

buddhist desire vs pagan desire

so one of the first things i encountered at camp was deeply interesting in light of my previous training. the backdrop of camp was the story of freya, the goddess of sensuality, beauty, and grace. (also a warrior goddess, but we didn't get into that .) the intent of the opening ritual was "i open myself to the flow of desire."

i immediately got caught up on the word desire. desire, for me, was mostly informed by a monastic chastity that's practiced in buddhism, yoga, and various european traditions. there are a number of stodgy old men that had to confront sexual temptation on the way to their spiritual awakening. subconsciously i had started to embody a kind of listless disinterest. i had been consciously watching my relationship to desire in my life through drinking, partying, dating, practicing, etc. and i definitely saw a change in the intensity with which i wanted things. i could see my desires but they felt calmer and more manageable.

this was pretty cool for me, and i was enjoying the simplicity and rigor of my days. the truth is that a lot of desire leads me down paths that waste or drain my energy. i didn't feel that this was completely true, but the whole point of my discipline was to focus and gather that energy, to build a foundation and get prepared. however it also became clear to me that something wasn't being properly nourished. i was feeling exhausted and unfocused in my practice.

then at witchcamp, i encountered a totally different conception of desire. in our basic human nature, sexuality connects us to the fertile cycles of the earth, to the luxurious sensuality of nature, its fruits, flowers, and myriad creatures. as i began to open into that i realized that this desire, far from being an obstacle of concentration, was the delightful experience of a human body. we are wired for bliss, for openness, peace, and cooperation. desire then became synonymous with flow, because if i held myself focused in the present moment i could experience a continual flow of blessings and openings.

that flow however, was a tricky thing. i didn't really get it until after my affinity group ritual (blazingly successful) when i truly felt the release of the projections, on myself and others. i left that evening more vitalized and thriving than ever, and from that moment on magic followed me again and again throughout the week.

so desire is also a tricky thing, i guess. from a buddhist perspective i still see the use, at least in terms of understanding how craving generates mental addiction, basically karmic patterns. the two kind of operate in separate paradigms, but i still feel immense gratitude for having stumbled into this path of delights. i'll expand on this one later. for now the best way i can summarize the pagan desire is the awakening to my heart's desire. my final gift at camp came from this first essential lesson:

How beautiful and lascivious the black hearted innocence of children and animals.

the city and the wilderness

Except from a love letter 16 Aug 2001.

The city and the wilderness...Can I explain this? Maybe. Okay, it's a degree of the spiritual realm. The city is full of the beauty and glory and glamour of life, the clamor and distractions. Man-made things, ambition, opportunities. Many roads, impressions and appearances, buildings, houses, people living (and dying), dreams, conversation, clothing, everything.

The wilderness is its hard contrast. There is absolutely nothing, just you and the rose of sharon that grows there. It is beautiful in itself, but if you were to place it in the city, it would be looked over, taken for granted, and forgotten.

In the wilderness everything is open and exposed, you can go anywhere and end up nowhere, there are no clearly defined paths, just silence. It is the place to find yourself, even though there is nothing, but the city is the place to be yourself. The wilderness is where you are commissioned, and the city is where it takes place. Both are necessary, but you can only do one at a time. I don't know if this is a very good explanation, or if it's worth anything, but I tried.

Maybe you understand, maybe you never will, maybe it's not significant to you. Don't get me wrong, there's still excitement and adventure and new things in the desert, maybe even more so in the wilderness. The city is cut and dry, you know what you're getting, even if it's a surprise. I feel like I'm speaking in contradictions, but that should be your language, since you live your life on both ends of the spectrum and in the middle all at the same time.

blessed be :)

good evening folks, witch camp has just flown in. :)

tonight i got my calling, and it was totally clear and it pierced right into the center of my fog. i'll start early today... i road to work with a heavy heart and asked myself "why am i doing this?" and then it finally dawned on me that i could leave boston early, if that was what i wanted. to be kind to victoria i could wrap up the summer and then be on my way after the rnc.

all day there was a firestorm of mental cogitation in my mind. what would i do if i left? which of these plans should i enact? which desire gets priority? which path is true to myself? who the blizzard am i? and whir and whir and whir

then into the evening i was reminded of two things. plans are useless; when the moment comes you just go with it. that's how i know who i am, i am moving with all that i am. second even if i knew what i might find, there are so many blessings in life that come unseen. most of them really! so just be. heed the call or spin the map and point a finger, no matter where you go life will meet you there.

and if you think this is merely digression, then you have not yet caught the story. tonight i had an opening and a number of pieces fell into place. i came home and found a note from leila asking me to leave by the end of august. the timing clicked in, that's exactly when I can break from victoria. so no more wondering, i'm off!!

by the end of september i will give away what i can, box the rest, and carry what i need on my back. first to the rnc (which seems almost too perfect as a "quit your job and fuck the system party") where hopefully i can hang out afterwards to regroup. then when i'm finished i can go to ky, give a kiss to my family and head to the woods. stop. ah yes, there it was. the calling :) it's time to go back to the woods. the blessed wilderness. (i'll post that in a minute, it seems like a relevant companion piece.)

the past two years have largely been focused on preparation for this work. now finally i know that the time has come. what will i do in the woods? magic, if you must know, with every breath of my day. i'll rock the yoga and martial training my style, build up a lotus seat and breathe into the kundalini. the rest i'll figure out as it unfolds.

look! i got so excited that i started a list :)
a cave or tent
solar powered lights
a clothes line and stream
food (nom nom)
rope for makiwara
books:
iron shirt, funakoshi, iyengar, tibetan book of the dead (for bardos),
book of five rings, patanjali, the golden flower, taoist soul body, spanish language stuff
a journal and ink
a day planner for keeping time

Tuned and Triumph

With time off for good behavior, I left Boston for a spiritual oil change (due every 3,000 smiles).

I was snuggled underneath a crease in the fabric of space-time (a curious phrase when everyone knows he prefers to go naked). It's easy to get to but hard to find: off the radar, beyond the edges of the map, straight out of this world. I was communing with ravens, dancing with pagans, and trancing with the lovely witches of California amid the redwood forests of Mendocino.

Now I've returned to a world that's slightly too small to fit comfortably. It has a special worn-in quality but it never was my style. I've got new seeds of mask and glamor, given to me by a faerie entourage. I've got a black heart of innocence (literally, I'm wearing it around my neck) which was waiting there underneath the layers of guilt and shame. I've got a lead on the whereabouts of my "wild, unstoppable force." And I plan on bringing that magic to bear with a little more intentionality from here on out. It's a delightful breath into my stagnant sails.

More to follow. Blessed be.

i'll be back soon

adventure is the spice of my soul. ;)

suffering softens the heart

I often play back and forth between two fundamentally different frameworks for my spiritual practice. One is atheistic (in that it doesn't require any concept of god to appreciate the sacredness of life). This one draws largely on a scientific humanism or maybe a transcendentalism rooted in nature, and is perfectly compatible with Buddhism, Taoism, and even certain kinds of mysticism.

The other is rooted, although not entirely focused on, a more personal notion of divinity (God, if you will, but let's not get carried away. I don't need all those extra roles as Judge, or Messiah, or whatever, Rumi's Beloved will do nicely.) I have made very little study of Christian, Jewish, or Islamic theology, so I don't feel that I have that much understanding of the different roles or faces of a monotheistic deity. But I do believe that taking that deity (and more specifically our relationship with God) as a core basis of spiritual practice eventually leads to a very different perspective on religious life.

Tonight I had a moment where it felt like suffering softened my heart. Not any kind of suffering, I guess, not ego suffering, or drama, or suffering from vanity or pride. Just simple hard-work, exhaustion, physical or emotional pain, that kind of suffering. Important to note that the suffering alone is not the key, it requires a certain kind of generous and patient mind to experience that suffering, to witness it and offer it up without self-importance or pride.

I understand that there is still a large degree of self-benefit that comes from my work, which means that it's not pure charity and I don't pretend it is. But in some of my jobs (like doing menial jobs for Leila or cleaning the yoga studio) I'm discovering a wonderful sense of delight in hard work that helps or benefits another. Especially with menial work, it feels like I am getting closer to serving, to offering something from an egoless place.

So I had a tremendously painful bit of indigestion after yoga, really extremely painful and way beyond normal. For two hours I am cleaning toilets, scrubbing showers, emptying trash and plagued with an extremely gnarly tummy ache. Also I am really exhausted because I didn't get much sleep this weekend. I've been working since 9am and spent most of the day cleaning out a very dusty and dirty basement and kitchen.

After I finish, I slowly walk to the bus stop and sit down on a bench. And I feel that all the work and pain have softened me up a bit, that's the only way I know how to put it. I've written lately about aridity, or about slowly losing the vibrant awareness of the sacredness of life. If that happens through some kind of closing off, then softening is the reverse, when we let it come back in. Although I'm still exhausted and uncomfortable, I feel a deep sense of nourishment and peace as I look at the sky.

It feels, and maybe this is only a poetic conceit or maybe not, but it feels as if god is sitting quietly next to me on the bench, just holding my hand, not saying much because really nothing needs to be said. And it's incredibly comforting, and it nourishes my heart (something like the presence of a best friend or lover, but different from both). And I feel like I am not so alone.

And now I'm crying uncontrollably, and I don't know why.

whatever rouses you to love

Today I was lucky enough to rescue a very loved friend from reaching my voicemail. Maybe it was more than she bargained for, but it made me very happy to hear her voice. And it also comforted me to know that her own practice is deepening, opening, and sustaining her. She reminded me of the value of spiritual community, and how isolating it can be to practice alone.

She also gave me a wonderful pointing out, which I have heard before, heaven knows, and even tell myself occasionally, but which nevertheless I often need to hear. Be gentle with yourself, or maybe, don't struggle with struggle. I acquiesced to her wisdom with thanks (it does seem to be a theme lately) but also made a point of mentioning, perhaps for the benefit of my ego, that there are powerful transformations that can arise from individual effort.

Now, I recognize fully how deep the roots of my low self-esteem reach, by which I mean that in some ways all this yoga, all this meditation and martial arts training is nothing more than a way to become someone that I will think more highly of. I might even say that in some ways my striving to become "better" is my sole sense of personal value. And even then I suffer, because what good does my "better" do for my neighbors and friends? How do I contribute any good works to this social snafu? How can something selfless arise from so much self-interest?

I embrace these questions, and I trust that they will guide me into my next adventure after I finish working here. At the same time, I find that there is a place where accomplishment (or skillful action) can blend into egolessness without any contradiction. I see this primarily arising out of the recognition that there is nothing I can accomplish or perform that arises only from my own efforts. Take a master of yoga for instance. She did not invent the asanas but learned them from her own teacher. She did not design her body but uses it anyway. A writer is taught to use words but cannot take credit for the language. So creative acts cannot be owned fully, at least not without recognizing how much was given in order for that act to occur. If we begin with this humility then all "accomplishments" are ultimately rooted in selflessness. I also think of this as counting your blessings, which by itself can be a powerful act of opening.

Making use of our raw talent, becoming instruments of our art, acting skillfully and lovingly in the present moment, it all seems connected to that special Zen presence of spontaneity, naturalness, and ease. Simply step aside, it arises without effort or strain.

if only for a moment your holding-back would sit before your generosity...

Discipline is starting to fade into the softest and happiest resignation I've ever known. It's probably just a phase, not too much to worry about. Right now the edge of loneliness feels tempered, desire relaxed into focused application, stress and failure synonyms for urges I've long forgotten.

It's like I'm wandering slowly within the vast space between one meditation and the next. Slowly exploring the rooms of a huge mansion, I'm alone and quiet in the echo chamber of my mind. I've been reminded lately that I can't fully see or understand the changes that are happening in me as a result of this urban asceticism. At the crossroads, I marvel at the shapes which the flower may take. I sense the density of possible form in the blossoming petals.

I'm reading St Theresa right now, a gift from a kindred of faith. She (Theresa) talks about the favors of spiritual sweetness compared to periods of aridity. I like that term, aridity. It reminds me of being stuck in the desert and wringing moisture from the stones. The spiritual life can feel like that sometimes, and if you are bothered by the absence of sweetness then you are missing the whole point!!

Coming to terms with that in my practice directly parallels the loneliness which so often beats my heart into unrest. Go deep enough and the wellsprings of love (just as the company of loved ones) are simply manifestations of a deeper communion we are holding with Truth.

Stay focused on that, my dear one. Many miles to go and no end in sight.

Penelope's Ransom

My friend, B, came to visit me recently. Her appearances in my life, sharp and brief like a needle, have a strange capacity to stitch together large portions of my secret inner world. And because of the kinds of insights we spark in each other, there's a continuous thread that runs through each of our separate odyessys of self, bridging two worlds that lie, at best, tangential to one another.

It's the strangest kind of love I've known so far, because it's unassuming to the point of vanishing. It reminds me a little of that story about two gurus in India, doing the typical cage-match of divine realization. One boasted that his meditation techniques were so great that his body was as hard as iron and could not be cut, punctured, or injured. The other, mildly scoffing, countered that he had dissolved all karma, so that his body was insubstantial in its purity. When a sword was swung at him, it passed through him, whoosh! as if there was nothing there. Score one for emptiness.

It might sound unhinged, but there's a very real sense that being with you and not being with you are irrelevant, so why should I fear? It is not a particular outcome I desire.

notes on going back to the city

Coming back from the wilderness (degrees of spiritual practice, usually a retreat or period of intense spiritual growth), I am always starkly aware of the changes in my perception. Every familiar aspect of my life has intensely vibrant and emotional qualities, every sensation holds a wealth of shocking delight, and overall everything which once seemed so casual and normal reveals itself as precious, rare, blessed.

Inevitably that awareness begins to fade; below are a few qualities of that awareness that I carefully observed during my recent transition back to a more mundane self.

1. The effortless singing of praise - Upon returning from the wilderness I readily and frequently slip into spontaneous prayers of joy and gratitude. These moments are more than mere reflection, they seize my body with an evanescent sparkling as my heart swings wide open. I sense the raw beauty of being alive, the uniqueness of this moment, the sheer miracle of my attendance. It happens easily and without effort; when I first roll out of bed, when I sit down to a meal, when I walk outside and breath in the morning, again and again throughout my day.

As the tangle begins to thicken, I have difficulty settling down into these moments. They seem to happen less spontaneously, they take more concentration to enter, and the sensations are generally dulled, or notably less rapturous.

2. The luxurious pace of mindfulness - I begin to speed up. It affects my thoughts, my actions, and the sequence of events in my day. I start to move with haste from one task to another without properly breathing into the spaces, or appreciating the gentle course of time. Accordingly I commit myself to a task without a thorough sense of awareness, of body, breath, or mind. I finish before I begin, I eat without satisfaction, I sleep without rest.

3. The steady elephant's mind - As I speed up, I must wrestle with my busy mind to focus my awareness. The thought of mindfulness will arise, but it takes a greater effort ("how tiresome is so-called concentration") to open that thought into the actual presence, the simple being and appreciation of this moment. I abhor wrestling with the mind, but without effort I merely drift along in a sea of numbness. I search for a balance; I make efforts without a sense of control; I accept the drift; I know very little and strive for less.

4. Sensations of earthly delight - I am still aware of my sensations, but they have a new kind of distance or flatness. No longer does a simple shower spontaneously become a rapturous ritual of cleansing and thanks. I may think of it briefly, my mind may tentatively reach out and try to open to the host of sensations, but the sparkle is gone. Clear mind, clear mind, clear mind, only don't know. Somewhere a thought echoes that I have lost, am lost, or losing my grip on mindfulness. Clear mind, clear mind, embrace the practice which is mindful of a lack of mindfulness.

Inside and Outside

Today, in the middle of conversation with some very dear friends, I was struck with an odd perspective. It was as if I stepped back from the verbal volleyball in which I had previously been engrossed and saw, fleetingly, exactly what they looked like, exactly how strange and special it was that I should know them at all.

It was almost as if I flipped from being inside the experience, wholly engaged in a seamless consciousness of participation, to being outside, looking in with newness and wonder. And from the outside, my friends, I saw something extremely inspiring, yet heartrending and beautiful, which struck me as exceedingly obvious, so obvious that we do not normally notice.

In your faces I saw a fragile composition of elements, a collection of quirks, stories, and laughter, layer upon layer of time and tedium, trustingly condensed into your mirage of self. And I was raptured because I cherish you, your faces bursting with youth, and I readily saw that the very notion of coherence was a chance designation, a momentary name given to a system in flux - a snowflake, a diamond, a seed, a star. What more can I say about my own self bearing witness to this? Stars align to form constellations, also transient, also empty.

Meditation and contemplation, by the virtue of silence, sharpen the ability to observe from outside, to see from another perspective, to engage with a beginner's mind. It feels to me, in these fleeting moments of altered perception, like I have reached a much more intimate appreciation of emptiness, of interdependent phenomenon, or suchness; what I simply praise as divinity, because its existence is mysterious and sacred. Maybe the lesson would go something like this:

Far out along the
edges, Mind beyond
mind, discover the center.

polyphasic sleeping?

As soon as I read about this, I felt like something deep inside my head started whirring and chirping like a Willy Wonka candy machine. Bells and whistles, starlings and butterflies, the full moon rising in my belly, that kind of thing.

The very basic run-down. Some people have successfully been able to change their sleeping patterns such that they sleep 2-3 hours a day. Instead of one long sleep cycle (monophasic), the day and night is broken down into smaller intervals punctuated by periodic naps (usually every 4 hours).

As nice as it might sound to gain 4-5 hours a day, there are naturally some complicated trade-offs. The blog link contains a thorough examination of some of the benefits and complications.

Sleep patterns, energy cycles, dreaming, circadian changes in awareness - all of these are intimately linked to my explorations of consciousness through meditation. I have a strong hunch that many people who attempt polyphasic sleep and fail are unaware of the degree to which one-pointedness and equanimity affect our wake/rest cycles. At any rate, I relish the chance for this adventure but must wait for the right opportunity.

Neural Buddhists

David Brooks dips his finger into the percolating god-or-not debate, but refuses to taste.

Actually I find his portrayal of neural buddhists rather satisfying, it even returns a touch of dignity (dare I say, purpose?) to the aimless bazaar of scientific secular materialism. No point arguing about the existence of God, experience something sacred and those middling questions lose all interest. That's how I know when I've met someone truly mystic, we're too absorbed in relishing the wonders of human life to bother with fumbling pedantry.

The article did leave me wondering one thing. If we are hardwired, biologically and psychologically, to have experiences of the sacred, transcendent experiences, experiences of love and wholeness, what exactly is the point?

After a giddy little god-trip I inevitably come down, unwind, and return to my normal mundane and limited daily perceptions. Why do I strive to experience oneness? What's the point?

declaration of intent

One year from now, if I have not somehow accidentally stumbled upon the kundalini, I will make haste to a secluded spot in the forest in order to realize this little dharma-vow of a shakti-infused, spirit-guided life of egoless power.

I envisage something up to 90 days, minimal impact & distractions - a small backpackers tent, a bit of food, a journal. I will find somewhere safe and secluded, establish a sharp mind, and then begin the operation. There are many routes of breath and energy that I can explore, but with singular intent I will eagerly pray for the full realization of my light-filled nature.

Not the complete awakening, because I hope there will be many more revelations to come, but a step in the right direction.

Gate gate, bodhi svaha.

prayer - tuning into divinity

"Everything which is not known remains dark. Mystery is our relation to what we cannot see."

Prayer came into my life as an extension of energetic attention. Through meditation I am learning to concentrate my mind upon a single point with great focus. Over time I began to realize that I could use that focus in concert with imagination, memory, and intuition to generate specific mental and emotional states. In my experience there are specific gestalts of sensory impression that are very effective at arousing precise varieties of mental energy, especially if those sensory impressions possess potent personal or emotional meaning. Visual images, sounds, shapes, smells, sensations of touch heat or pain along the skin, all can be used to shape and direct the energy of one's own mind for a specific purpose or intention.

An example: relaxation or cleansing can be achieved with sensations of water, the element associated with healing, purification, intuition, and dreaming. Imagine the coolness of water splashing on your head, slowly soaking your hair and scalp, traveling down shoulders and back, stomach, legs, thighs. This water can flow over your body or through it, like a river rushing through a sieve. Or you can imagine lying flat on a raft, moving gently with the rocking motions of the water. In either case, the essential aspect is to generate an internal experience through creative visualization and somatic memory. Key elements could be the sensation of rocking, the flowing motion of the water, coolness or wetness, gentle sounds of splashing, flashes of blue and turquoise, or anything that speaks to your own personal interpretation, memory, or experience. There are meditations specifically devoted to sensory experience that can increase our awareness and sensitivity to body sensation. These are very useful to bridge the gap between mind and body so that, with practice, we can recall (or imagine) any sensation at will.

In the case of prayer, the evocation of images is a bit more abstract. Instead of the stark cleanliness of physical sensations, words like compassion, forgiveness, or blessing, for example, do not have simple cognitive or physical experiences that can be recalled. However, when we find that space of openness, yearning, surrender, (combined with a smidgen of heartache) that I have come to know as prayer, it does have a certain signature of sensation that can be called upon, at will, when the need arises for spiritual renewal.

I accidentally stumbled upon that prayer space when I was reading and rereading the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. As I read I began to find a special resonance within every word. It was as if I could use the template of the prayer, that is, the succession of words and syllables, to weave together a series of emotional and mental states. I read it over and over again, very slowly, tasting the fullness of each word, feeling the yearning and intention behind each phrase, charging myself with the power of those words, offering that scintillating ball of energy back up as a promise, a gift, and a recognition.

It was part self-hypnosis, part psycho-conditioning, that much was clear to me. But the whole event was also an exercise in egolessness (transcending selfishness, planting seeds for compassion, love, and wisdom) and so I felt it brought me closer to some place of inner wisdom and grace, a place which might be a thread or life-line to the divinity in me. Since then I have have discovered other uses of prayer (uses for it and uses it has for me), but I have said enough for the moment.

May you all discover your own thread to divinity, be charged with the yearning and intention to dissolve all ego-motives, and awaken purest compassion in your life.

Rachel Naomi Remen - excerpts from Speaking of Faith

"My grandfather was a flaming mystic... What is mysticism? It can mean a scholarly thing, like the study of a school of mysticism, like Kaballah, but it is also a way of seeing the world. My grandfather felt that the world was in constant communication with him. That there was a spirit in the world, a God in the world, that could be spoken to and could respond, at all times. That there was a presence in the world that was holy and sacred, and that he was in constant dialog with this as he went through the events of his day."

"Over time, things evolve and change. At the very least people who have lost a great deal can recognize that they are not victims, they are survivors. They are people who have found the strength to move through something unimaginable to them, perhaps, in the past. And just asking people that question, you have suffered a really deep loss, what have you called upon for your strength? Most people haven't even noticed their strength, they are completely focused on their pain."

"The view from the edge of life is so much clearer than the view that most of us have. That what seems to be important is much more simple and accessible for everybody, which is, who you've touched on your way through life, who's touched you. What you're leaving behind you in the hearts and minds of other people is far more important than whatever wealth you may have accumulated."

"We get distracted by stories other people have told us about ourselves. That we are not enough, that we will be happy if we have material goods, that material goods will keep us safe. None of these stories are true. What is true is that what we have is each other."

love and courage from the Abyss

Last night I watched the Abyss for the first time all the way through. There was one scene in particular that touched me very deeply, right down to the core of my palpitating little heart. My breath stuck in my throat. I was powerfully still.

The scene comes right after the two main characters, Bud and his wife Lindsey, have gone chasing the psychotic Navy SEAL to stop him from releasing the nuclear weapon to the ocean floor. They managed to incapacitate his sub and push him down into the trench, but their own sub was damaged and began to leak water.

Bud is wearing a diving suit and had oxygen, but Lindsey has neither. The water is leaking too fast to wait for help and Lindsey starts freezing because the water is only a few degrees above zero. Quickly, without many options, they decide on a plan. He would keep the suit and the oxygen, being the stronger swimmer, and she would drown. In the cold water she would enter a deep hypothermia and he could carry her back to the station and revive her. He is reluctant to accept this, but the sub has almost filled with water and there is no more time. He puts on the oxygen and waits.

As the water reaches the top of the sub, Lindsey starts to panic and cries out in fear. She goes underwater and looks him in the eyes, holding him as she convulses briefly, and then drowns.

He swims back with her, radioing ahead for his crew mates to meet him with medical supplies. They immediately set to work with CPR, defibrillator, warming pads, everything. After a few minutes with no success, the crew, fearing she has already died, reach out and put a hand on Bud to stop him.

Bud sobs for an instant, and then with a powerful defiant scream starts trying to revive her again. He shouts at Lindsay, does more CPR, smacks her face and then, slowly, the color returns to her cheeks and lips. She takes a breath, and returns.

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Now I ask: Would you trust your love that much? To die in their arms and trust that he/she could bring you back to life? Could you face death, and make the decision to drown as the only possible chance to live?

Could you watch your love die in your arms? Would you have the strength to bear that burden? Could you shout at them from across the divide, and by your voice guide them home to you?

Most of us live our whole lives without confronting such a terrible decision. And really that's a blessing. But each of us has at our core an iron determination that can accomplish miraculous things. That core is Love, the power to save a life or take one. The power to give your own life for another.

Fear, if you will, is simply the reluctance to love. Unraveling the limitations (or karma) which bind our hearts and minds is a delicate process. It is, you might say, our destiny. Each and every one. And when you surrender all that you have, all that you are, when you know your true nature (which possesses Nothing and Is Everything) then you also will find the power to accomplish the miraculous.

May all of you unravel your limitations and discover your true nature. So be it.

the day I first realized my true nature

adapted from my travel journal, 13 Nov 2004

Tonight we lit 5000 candles at the Mahabodhi temple for 'world peace.' Immediately I thought of my radical friends back home in St Paul, who often deride such useless forms of symbolic protest. What safer way can there be to assuage our conscience without risking the ivory tower of privilege? Light some candles, sing a happy song, and then go back to wallow in affluence without really risking or changing anything. They are undeniably right in some ways, but as I walked through that little glass building I was scorched by the immense heat of those 5000 candles. (Who would believe that a tiny flame could produce such a furnace?! But there was an unmistakable power in such a vast number, and I felt that truth all along my skin.) Between my forced retreats outside for cooler air and my solemn pacing along the tables and tables of burning oil candles, I came to a realization that cut straight to the heart of frail gestures like candles and 'world peace.' First I thought like a scientist, but somewhere unexpected (yet passionately hoped for) I crossed the clear tremulous line of a believer.

The heat from those candles is a real, measurable force. As a chemist, I had studied the basic laws of thermodynamics that govern how that energy moves across systems. The basic pattern should be familiar to anyone -- just imagine a stone tossed into a calm pond. The ripples move outward in a beautiful visualization of energy in motion. In the same way I thought about the energy being generated inside of that tiny room, thought about it flowing out like a wave, being absorbed into the ground, heating currents of air, emanating outward into the world. That world, the world of complex interwoven systems, is beautifully described by chaos theory, the theory of order emerging from immense and vibrant dynamical systems. Those energy waves flowing out of the building were starting a causal chain, and there is no doubt that this unbroken link of causality will have real, tangible effects in the world, even if it would be impossible to point to discrete consequences. It doesn't matter how tiny the initial effect, the outcome can be enormous. The standard metaphor is the butterfly that flaps it wings in Tokyo and changes the weather in New York city. These are not my ideas. Western science calls it chaos theory, Buddhism calls it emptiness. But here is where I crossed the line to something intangible, something that made manifest sense to my deepest sense of self:

Buddhism teaches that there is an undeniable connection between action and intention; when we act, we imbue our motions with the quality of our current frame of mind. This means that food cooked in jealousy or anger will not nourish in the same way that food which has been cooked in love will. But this is much more than just a pretty idea. As our actions resonate in the world – exactly like the energy of the candles flowing outward in a domino chain of contingency– they will reach other people with every ounce of intention that produced them. What this means, essentially, is that lighting candles is just a show!

When one develops a mind of impartial love and compassion, when one abandons the selfish idea of fame or gratification, when one sits in a place of purity, calm, and honesty, then every step becomes an expression of peace, and every minute mundane action from brushing your teeth to handstands to climbing trees or crossing the street sends forth energies that make the world a more harmonious, loving place! With this kind of base, any and every thing we do becomes a vehicle for liberation! But until that time, we take certain actions because they help put our minds in a place where we can generate the kind of positive transformation that we want to see in the world.

The Anti-Beatitudes

Distraught are the rich, for theirs are the walls of fear and insufficiency.

Careless are those who know not death, for they cannot reach the fragility of love.

Restless are the gourmands, they will be driven mad by thirst and hunger without end.

Hapless are those who live without righteousness, for they sputter and cough without the breath of passion.

Empty are the powerful, who quarrel over kingdoms of dust.

Deplorable are the judgmental, for they seek in vain their own pardon.

Ignorant are the selfish, for they are blind to the rewards of service.

Abhorrent are the masters of war, for their petty violence will disappear into the fathoms of the earth.

Loneliness, part II

My solitude at this point is two-fold, both spiritual and personal. The disaster of my last relationship revealed how serious I am about loving seriously, how much I would enjoy the deeper commitment of true love, a partner both in life and soul-searching.

I've come to see myself much more clearly though, and I can be more honest about the kind of person that I am (and am not). My dedication to being myself (which I identify most strongly through my spiritual practice) has given me a new sense of personal power, purpose, and guidance.

I want to be unabashedly wholly myself and I require a partner who can accept, move with, and love all that this entails. Until I meet such a person, my heart is a silent drum and my life a compressed ball of vibrating stillness. I used to be afraid of that kind of aloneness, perhaps due to my mother's death and family's deterioration, perhaps because I didn't like myself enough. I needed validation of my self-worth.

In any case, I see two benefits arising from this new path of solitude. First, in the quietness I can focus a lot of energy on my internal work. I have space to really devote myself to my discipline - yoga, meditation, chi kung, purification, cleansing, harmonizing - in order to continue raising the subtlest vibrations of intensely loving, compassionate, joyful attention. In this realm of almost spiritual chastity, I can sublimate the powerful compulsions of gross sexual energy by redirecting that force up the spine. Once this kundalini awakening is complete, spirit and sex inseparably wed in wholeness, there will be "no edges to my loving," as Rumi says, and many conflicts of desire can be harmonized into direct and precise action.

Solitude also protects me from sexual vagary, for the moment. It prevents me from wasting time, energy, or tears getting trapped in unhealthy relationships. The woman that I love is quite unique, precious, radiant, extraordinary, rare. I have met many people who barely deviate from the mainstreams of culture. And though I sometimes meet kindred spirits, of some degree or another, the chances of personal compatibility, let alone love, are appropriately minuscule. So when we meet, there should be nothing which prevents me from recognizing, calmly, clearly, with an open heart and no agenda save being myself, who she truly is.

Loneliness, part I

I've begun to revert to a childish impression of love. As a young man I was told again and again that my ideal was unrealistic, that my expectations were unreasonable, and that I was afraid of intimacy. The last one was certainly true, but I've since discovered that it wasn't intimacy which could address that fear, which really is a matter of self acceptance, although I tried, Lord knows I tried.

That love was a challenge I accepted. I knew that we were all learning so much about ourselves, as much through our failures as our successes, which in either case were more like waypoints than destinations. And with each new relationship I looked forward to building on the work of the past, coming closer and closer to a place of stability, maturity, and selflessness that could really, and I mean like anchors to earth or roots in the sky, provide the stage for the kind of loving that I dreamed about.

And then I got burned much worse than ever before, although thankfully it wasn't the burn that comes from unrequited love. I had placed my heart into the hands of someone who didn't have the least clue what to do with it. Who wasn't, despite intentions to the contrary, really prepared to learn, and who, ultimately, didn't even want the same things I wanted.

A fine story really, and one that I wasted many bitter hours blaming on her ineptitude. But really, what I saw and didn't want to confront, the extent to which I had so efficiently deluded myself, brought home my capacity for self-deception in the name of romance. It's strange to know how thoroughly we can beguile our best intentions. The quiet implication is one of internal maneuvering between polities we never imagined, our hidden desires, our shadow.

I have become well acquainted with the dark side of being a Pisces.