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.