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.