counting clouds

when it's over...

2010-05-13T12:57:00.000-07:00

...that's the time I start to blog again.

But now, I'm working on a particular project, so flit on over here if you feel so inclined, as I will likely be counting clouds very infrequently for the rest of the summer, at least.

Cheers!

(this isn't me, just a childhood doppelganger in better clothes)

here at the end of all things

2010-04-21T16:31:00.000-07:00

Welp, now I am done.

Whelp, now I am done. Take my plate away and wash it with your salty, salty tears. Apparently I am feeling silly today, so I won't claim much space here. Good interweb manners call for reciprocity--though modesty might decree otherwise. Ergo, I must recommend that you flit over to Bought Books for excellent reviews of mostly modestly priced books (and, on occasion, students). Erroneous "fan" labelling of me aside, I highly recommend this blog for your RSS.

fugitive peaces

2010-02-10T00:58:00.001-08:00

i'm not entirely convinced
that names need remembering.
that
once lost
they render spirit irretrievable
mustardyellow, ochre, gilded, she peers through the fraying curtains
into nothing
and this is significant.
this
is where - how - when - holocaust begins
seeping, apartheid steeped in gastide

broken mirrors, immobile, fragmented, but whole
and irreducible
the skin, taut under her twentysomething sunkissed
eyelash, smooth as uninterrupted embryo
or unripe starfruit
untangled, unrepentant,
she watches the light refract in
the wayward running raindrop
clinging to existence through
liminal glass.

when she was killed, they said
amelia, bella, sinead, guinevere
was beautiful
and young
brilliant
(unwise)
fresh
(untouched)
was delicate
elegant
and light.
that susan,
jocelyn, anna, dale
will be missed
won't be forgotten
waits
in the tightest clutches of heaven
for those who remember her.

but she is watching still
watching, still,
exposition dense and unreadable
as the rain breaks loose and sinks into
pungent loam.

feudal

2010-02-03T15:07:00.000-08:00

because for some reason this is what came to mind. Why? Goodness. (Expletive or otherwise, take your pick.) If everything is perennially elusive -- including my ability to parse coherently and type appropriately -- then what exactly is there to be gained? Nothing, of course. Therein lies the eternal beauty of the world; it is meaningless, non-moral (as opposed to amoral); there's plenty of room to care as you will where you like of you choose. Your impact is effortless and infinite, unknowable and untraceable, and absolutely essential in its non-essence. You are breathing the souls of the universe, their bodies; you are never touching and never separate; you are absolutely individual and impossible to extricate. You not only can change the world, but are completely incapable of not doing so. Your complacence or combustion sparks, jives, sails. You have been everywhere, everywhen in the universe...and are there, then, now. You know everything you will ever need and absolutely nothing concrete. You are already complete in your profound emptiness. You can breathe out, now. You made it. Shall we?

spirit[ed] away (a way; aw, ay?)

2010-01-30T22:23:00.001-08:00

The resilience of the human spirit (alright, spirit at all) never ceases to amaze me. Despondence, mortification, pain, suffering -- everywhere, an omnipresence of Pandora's eternal guilt complex waiting to be affirmed, embraced, acknowledged. And there is always, perennially, choice. The pain, as she earnestly confided, is one thing...suffering, as much as I've connected the two, is optional. It is in counting the out-breaths that we can really feel the release of each individual moment. Perhaps this is how I conceive of a moment as a unit of time -- the passage between each glorious exhalation.

Conspiratiorial...conspiritorial? Spirit and halation are entwined, tangled, inextricably. The difference, when one is perceived, is in the perceiver; the locus remains eternally inaccessible, elusive and dynamic. It is least phenomenological in stasis, however, which is as compelling an argument as any I've ever encountered for flexibility of my self (myself, my's elf, etc ad nauseam). I'd like to perceive infinite possibility recirocally, or strive and seek, forgoing finding to never yield.

responses

2010-01-24T14:58:00.000-08:00

There were two (or two and a half) postcards I wanted to respond out loud to immediately this week (on Postsecret); I will proceed to do so in text instead.

As much as I get this (and I really, really do), it makes me sad. I'd like to think, still, based entirely on Campbellian faith, that you, whoever you are, will be proven erroneous. There's something potentially exquisite about any kind of intimacy. Don't rush it, though. Don't force it, or you will find that you repeatedly prove yourself right. I've done it. I'm done it. I send you, stranger, a digital hug that you will likely never receive...but just because you have not experienced it yet, does not mean that it is not there to be experienced. It's waiting for you, whenever you are ready.

Yes! Just, yes. This is fantastic. We seem to be drifting in such a sea of irony and sarcasm that no one is willing to take risks anymore, because they're too risky. Eventually, though, you have to take the plunge and try things you've never experienced. It's the only way we'll find solutions of any kind. So, balls deep, population of Earth. See you on the other side.

evolved?

2010-01-23T00:45:00.000-08:00

how does anything -- god, allah, evolution, eru -- account for tigers? snapdragons? pachelbel's canon in d? how can anyone explain, in any way that's even remotely meaningful, sentences parsed? the mona lisa? raspberry-banana gluten-free high-fibre muffins? juicy mullet cinnamon gum?

you?

trapeze swinging

2010-01-22T23:58:00.000-08:00

Copyright, what? Who even needs to contribute to society's creative output when you can simply steal the works of others?

Kidding, kidding. It's a dry, wry evening where it's much easier to perform bitter cynicism embroiled in fatality than dewy-eyed innocent bubbles. And here is reborn the question of balance; is it something discoverable, something to be exposed, or is it ready and waiting to be simply recognized? And is balance necessarily calmness and fortitude? Cannot the cliched rollercoaster be just as balanced as an unruffled pool? Why is questioning so taboo in our society? When did we grow beyond uncertainty? If every detail is irretrievable or -reconcilable from the weave, then why can't we focus without decision? Why do we need to know...anything?

Please, remember me
Happily
By the rosebush laughing
With bruises on my chin
The time when
We counted every black car passing
Your house beneath the hill
And up until
Someone caught us in the kitchen
With maps, a mountain range,
A piggy bank
A vision too removed to mention
But

Please, remember me
Fondly
I heard from someone you're still pretty
And then
They went on to say
That the pearly gates
Had some eloquent graffiti
Like 'We'll meet again'
And 'Fuck the man'
And 'Tell my mother not to worry'
And angels with their gray
Handshakes
Were always done in such a hurry
And

Please, remember me
At Hallowe'en
Making fools of all the neighbours
Our faces painted white
By midnight
We'd forgotten one another
And when the morning came
I was ashamed
Only now it seems so silly
That season left the world
And then returned
And now you're lit up by the city
So

Please, remember me
Mistakenly
In the window of the tallest tower call
Then pass us by
But much too high
To see the empty road at happy hour
Leave and resonate
Just like the gates
Around the holy kingdom
With words like 'Lost and Found' and 'Don't Look Down'
And 'Someone Save Temptation'
And

Please, remember me
As in the dream
We had as rug-burned babies
Among the fallen trees
And fast asleep
Beside the lions and the ladies
That called you what you like
And even might
Give a gift for your behaviour
A fleeting chance to see
A trapeze
Swing as high as any savior
But

Please, remember me
My misery
And how it lost me all I wanted
Those dogs that love the rain
And chasing trains
The coloured birds above there running
In circles round the well
And where it spells
On the wall behind St. Peter's
So bright with cinder gray
And spray paint
'Who the hell can see forever?'
And

Please, remember me
Seldomly
In the car behind the carnival
My hand between your knees
You turned from me
And said 'The trapeze act was wonderful
But never meant to last'
The clown that passed
Saw me just come up with anger
When it filled with circus dogs
The parking lot
Had an element of danger
So

Please, remember me
Finally
And all my uphill clawing
My dear
But if I make
The pearly gates
Do my best to make a drawing
Of God and Lucifer
A boy and girl
An angel kissing on a sinner
A monkey and a man
A marching band
All around the frightened trapeze swingers

this bodes well...

2010-01-19T00:45:00.000-08:00

...as saturdays resume, akira says the following:

THE IMAGE

Lakes resting one on the other:
The image of THE JOYOUS.
Thus the superior man joins with his friends
For discussion and practice.

A lake evaporates upward and thus gradually dries up; but when two lakes
are joined they do not dry up so readily, for one replenishes the other. It is
the same in the field of knowledge. Knowledge should be a refreshing and
vitalizing force. It becomes so only through stimulating intercourse with
congenial friends with whom one holds discussion and practices application
of the truths of life. In this way learning becomes many-sided and takes on a
cheerful lightness, whereas there is always something ponderous and one-
sided about the learning of the self-taught.

Perhaps we can tackle balance...

infj - "the protector"

2010-01-10T01:45:00.001-08:00

As an INFJ, your primary mode of living is focused internally, where you take things in primarily via intuition. Your secondary mode is external, where you deal with things according to how you feel about them, or how they fit with your personal value system.

INFJs are gentle, caring, complex and highly intuitive individuals. Artistic and creative, they live in a world of hidden meanings and possibilities. Only one percent of the population has an INFJ Personality Type, making it the most rare of all the types.

INFJs place great importance on havings things orderly and systematic in their outer world. They put a lot of energy into identifying the best system for getting things done, and constantly define and re-define the priorities in their lives. On the other hand, INFJs operate within themselves on an intuitive basis which is entirely spontaneous. They know things intuitively, without being able to pinpoint why, and without detailed knowledge of the subject at hand. They are usually right, and they usually know it. Consequently, INFJs put a tremendous amount of faith into their instincts and intuitions. This is something of a conflict between the inner and outer worlds, and may result in the INFJ not being as organized as other Judging types tend to be. Or we may see some signs of disarray in an otherwise orderly tendency, such as a consistently messy desk.

INFJs have uncanny insight into people and situations. They get "feelings" about things and intuitively understand them. As an extreme example, some INFJs report experiences of a psychic nature, such as getting strong feelings about there being a problem with a loved one, and discovering later that they were in a car accident. This is the sort of thing that other types may scorn and scoff at, and the INFJ themself does not really understand their intuition at a level which can be verbalized. Consequently, most INFJs are protective of their inner selves, sharing only what they choose to share when they choose to share it. They are deep, complex individuals, who are quite private and typically difficult to understand. INFJs hold back part of themselves, and can be secretive.

But the INFJ is as genuinely warm as they are complex. INFJs hold a special place in the heart of people who they are close to, who are able to see their special gifts and depth of caring. INFJs are concerned for people's feelings, and try to be gentle to avoid hurting anyone. They are very sensitive to conflict, and cannot tolerate it very well. Situations which are charged with conflict may drive the normally peaceful INFJ into a state of agitation or charged anger. They may tend to internalize conflict into their bodies, and experience health problems when under a lot of stress.

Because the INFJ has such strong intuitive capabilities, they trust their own instincts above all else. This may result in an INFJ stubborness and tendency to ignore other people's opinions. They believe that they're right. On the other hand, INFJ is a perfectionist who doubts that they are living up to their full potential. INFJs are rarely at complete peace with themselves - there's always something else they should be doing to improve themselves and the world around them. They believe in constant growth, and don't often take time to revel in their accomplishments. They have strong value systems, and need to live their lives in accordance with what they feel is right. In deference to the Feeling aspect of their personalities, INFJs are in some ways gentle and easy going. Conversely, they have very high expectations of themselves, and frequently of their families. They don't believe in compromising their ideals.

INFJ is a natural nurturer; patient, devoted and protective. They make loving parents and usually have strong bonds with their offspring. They have high expectations of their children, and push them to be the best that they can be. This can sometimes manifest itself in the INFJ being hard-nosed and stubborn. But generally, children of an INFJ get devoted and sincere parental guidance, combined with deep caring.

In the workplace, the INFJ usually shows up in areas where they can be creative and somewhat independent. They have a natural affinity for art, and many excel in the sciences, where they make use of their intuition. INFJs can also be found in service-oriented professions. They are not good at dealing with minutia or very detailed tasks. The INFJ will either avoid such things, or else go to the other extreme and become enveloped in the details to the extent that they can no longer see the big picture. An INFJ who has gone the route of becoming meticulous about details may be highly critical of other individuals who are not.

The INFJ individual is gifted in ways that other types are not. Life is not necessarily easy for the INFJ, but they are capable of great depth of feeling and personal achievement.

Jungian functional preference ordering:

Dominant: Introverted Intuition
Auxilliary: Extraverted Feeling
Tertiary: Introverted Thinking
Inferior: Extraverted Sensing

karma, courtesy of a septegenarian

2010-01-08T00:55:00.000-08:00

"Sometimes life leaves a hundred dollar bill on your dresser, and you don't realize until later that it's because it fucked you."

ti-i-i-ime is [not] on my side

2009-12-04T18:11:00.000-08:00

There's a heck of a lot to do in just 8 hours away per day. You think I jest, but at present I am nearly as productive as The Voyage of the Dawn Treader's sleepers. Really, though. Makes for some interesting dreamtimes, though...

in other news, I have just re-read the aforementioned greatest-Lewis-book-of-all-time and would like to bequeath you my favourite passage. If you haven't read it already since you became an adult (or a very old child), read it read it read it.

Seriously, read it.

"Aren't you a star any longer?" asked Lucy.
"I am a star at rest, my daughter," answered Ramandu. "When I set for the last time, decrepit and old beyond all that you can reckon, I was carried to this island. I am not so old now as I was then. Every morning a bird brings me a fire-berry from the valleys in the sun, and each fire-berry takes away a little of my age. And when I have become as young as the child that was born yesterday, then I shall take my rising again (for we are at earth's eastern rim) and once more tread the great dance."
"In our world," said Eustace, "a star is a huge ball of flaming gas."
"Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is, but only what it is made of."

You don't have to read all of them (though the beginning and end of The Magician's Nephew also comes highly recommended), but read this one. Do it.

Even if you object to the flagrant allegory. Even if children's lit is not your thing. Even if you're as pressed for time as my errant sleep schedule forces me to be, read it. And eat a chocolate orange.

let there be [and it was good]

2009-11-19T11:52:00.000-08:00

[the creation myth chapter opening]

Before sunrise, before shadow, before tyranny and war, before love, and peace, and truths, before deceit, and life, and death, before time itself, there was a Tone. It was low, static, empty; it crept through the fabric of sullen void, waiting. Mæto, silent, ponderous, still, crouched at the edge of the abyss, peering down into the shallows and depths of heavy solitude. The Tone, flat, lay as if weighted by bricks of lead, writhing against its clutching bonds.

For a moment, an hour, an eternity, Mæto stared blindly into the teeming masses of empty space, searching. A solitary tear welled, slowly, slowly, or in an instant, and fell into the abyss, fell endless leagues, and an echo began. The Tone, awakened, became a thin hum. Trapped in the limitless confines of potential, it grew, as yet unaware of endings, focused only on beginnings. It grew, building and building until it began to reverberate against itself. It climbed, swelling, until a second Tone emerged, higher and faster than the first. They continued together, for an instant and an eternity, until finally (or right away), they clashed and clashed and clashed with each other, and there was endings. Each echoed off of the other, warring for space in the infinitely dark abyss. Thus, there was Dissonance.

With Dissonance, came Shadow, welling and pooling, caressing the viscous borders of Dissonance; and with Shadow came Light, flighty, elusive, magnetic; and the Light waged war with the Shadow, an epic battle, the epic battle, pulsing, pushing, struggling, shattering it into millions of fragments. Light bled through the fragments, dripping slowly past the Dissonance, until it had soaked through, leaving Shadow tainted and murky. They fell from the shaking of sound, faster than the tear, and caught it, writhed in its splendour for a fraction of an eternity, then bounced back up through the tumult of sound. The Light, and Shadow, and Sound rushed outward, and collided against the walls of the abyss, becoming Notes and Colours.

As they collided from the walls and rushed back inward, they began to encounter each other, sometimes splintering, sometimes merging, and Mæto heard a swelling Melody that danced on the surface of the Tone. The elusive Melody continued to kiss, and wrestle, and play; the colours to merge, and throb, and dissipate; and each pushed and pulled on the other until they mounted a Crescendo.

Mæto clapped, once, as a gong ringing through an empty stadium, and shattered the cresting wave. It tumbled over itself, a riot of startled colours and sounds, and collapsed into stillness and dark.

The silence was heavy, rich, strained; it tasted, to Mæto, of the as yet unimagined scent of sodden leaves in the waning of winter, when the snows have corroded and eroded the earth and rot is ripe in the air. Then there was Loneliness, and Mæto shuddered pathetically, for the taste was of chill and solitude; the heaving gasps of one about to drown and leave behind gaping absence.

Struggling, reaching, Mæto croaked, then cried out, then moaned. The Melody shook, then lay still. Mæto, in despair, hurled curses down into the darkness, and thus was Evil created in the hollow depths; the Melody’s sharp outcry of pain mingled with the curses, curling in an embrace of terrible passion. Overcome by repentance, Mæto sat, still, quiet, absorbing the shock waves of the curses that left Evil slinking below and around the Melody. Finally, conquered by tragedy, and longing, Mæto sang a mournful haunting to the crumpled Melody, subduing the curses with weeping. At first it seemed that nothing happened, but then Mæto began to hear a faint, distant pulse. It gradually grew, until the Melody feebly began to stir again, alternately whimpering weakly and self-soothing. It rose, slowly, gradually, rebuilding itself from the inside; and while the higher, clashing Tone still pushed lightly against the first, making it tremble slightly, the Melody was now twined in the steady branches of Mæto’s song, and its sinews could no longer be shattered, scattered, and lost.

So began the Hive, which pulsed with flickering white light, heady red glows, and sinuous rills of blue and green. Stained with droplets of violet, it echoed the song of Mæto, weakly at first, obediently. But as it pulsed into strength, light airy thrills began to flicker on the edges of the Melody. These were soon followed by reedy whispers and a deep, alto pulse, lapping gently through the core. The flickerings began as idle improvisations, trilling and skipping across the entire range of sound, distracting from the Song. Then, each flicker found a pattern, to complement the sinewy heart of the Melody. These patterns became stronger, and louder, as more of the flickerings joined each other, expanding the sounds. Thus was Harmony recreated, rediscovered, reimagined, and thus was Cacophony resolved.

But the memory remained of the echoing Clap, and the simple freedom that had preceded it, and a dissonance arose from the heart of the Hive.

bad poetry? oh noetry! (re: toothpastefordinner)

2009-11-19T11:46:00.000-08:00

[fragment of a spontaneous teamwork dream-work in the making]

A petal shower
of mountain roses,
and the sound of the rapids. (Basho)

it is still, where it really matters,
and all around it whirl the
sirens and wailing and petals
that each drift and tangle among themselves

it is the dream of the bustle
the frenetic activity
that rests, pulsing, in complementary
opposition to
or with
the silence;

activity teems and beats
so that they, still, can be
their verb is meaningless
and is the secret.

—m.m. & n.s., 2009

"of property"
our church broadcast, the stranger repeats,
come and listen. he is breathless, but propelled somehow
by misplaced devotion; zealotry.
I nod, and lag.
[forgivemefather]

the sky is the almost-effable quality
of sodden evening gown
in the heady aftermath of November rains
when leaves, ground underfoot, still bear flashes of
virgin ceasars.
it, ineffably, is the kind of blue that I imagine
runs through the veins of angels;
not the lily-tongued Seraphim, but those dangling from the lowest rafters
of a quasi-Catholic heaven.
drunk on the pulsing, heavy-lidded dusk, I crawl
through the garish decorations.

the puzzle in my bedroom
on the displaced kitchen table
is a jumble of fragments
one in particular, pasted with illegibilities
-- the kind that a left-handed eccentric scrawls on
half-finished imaginings of circulation
and skeletal dreams -- clings together,
and I stare at it. It begs for completion,
but its lonely shivers
are somehow more beautiful in suspension.

spare some change, he mumbles, monotone, again and
again
and his glasses, so black,
scream.

Smedbol, 2008.

"pagangels C: 2006"
Terra firma – they came, they conquered. Their legacy? The mile.
Castration: Chester, Manchester, Doncaster…The Angles arrived
The angles arrived
The angels...Les anges…Angelus. Christ, our savior is born – the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.You, sinner.You, pagan [the devil incarnate. burn.]

Here, we cleanse you – purify you – here, your sins are repealed.
repented. repaired.
Here, you are cleansed, and we
are your salvation. You pagan. [In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.]

Amen. Pristine – cool, and clean. Dank, opaque shrouds- who, what, where, when am I?
Why?
Rex or ritus?
(Shh…secret.)
Primordial turf, crowned in blazing green glory.
Step, step, step, step.
Wearied pacing, then hoofbeats
Hoofbeats, then a long, slow grind

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us today with [insert tour company name here.] My name is [generic] and I will be your guide for today. This afternoon we’re going to transport ourselves back in time. We ask you to please respect the natural vegetation and stick to the confines of the trail. Also, refrain from littering. What’s that? No, I don’t have an accent – it’s ‘cause I’m from Manitoba. What’s that? Hmm? Well, I’ll do my best. No, I’m afraid you’ll have to stand further back. This isn’t 1978…

If these stones could speak, would they scream?
Antlers, branches - "deep delvéd earth."
Crimson for cerulean mounts Roll.
Scorched breezes caress stone monuments – the Pagan Testament.
Seraphic wingtips graze till she’s crumbled and worn
A weathered testament to the Devil. sick with sin. [customs elevated to the rank of morals]

Each shivering blade bows before the tyranny – behold Man.
Qu’est-ce que tu pense? Est-ce que c’est vraie? And round, and round. Wizard’s monument, long heavy footsteps of giants, memorial, memorial.Redemption. Barrow, and barrow, and barrow – They have shed their tears. They weep no more.

Misted hazy horizon, soaked in blood.
Here, there is honour.
Here, we lie in wait for the tomorrow of the redeemed sinners.
[In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.]

It is supposed that the original site was first constructed around 3,000 BC (before Christ, city-states, cars, commercials, cigarettes, computers, conditioner, Cutex, Cheerios, Communism, Capitalism. Before Christ, and Caesar, and Cujo.) There are many myths and legends surrounding the histories of the circle, and even now there is very little we can say for certain about the potentially highly colorful past of Stonehenge - Sir, please stand back – and the people who rolled the massive stones – Sir, I really must ask you not to continue – to their oft-construed “magical” formation. No, Ma’am, they can’t really say for certain.

The flood – God’s precursor
Struck by a star from the heavens (before this, too, is sin. It’s Heaven.)
Millenia to rebuild, and the scars remain – never fully heal, do we?
Midsummer sunrise – unparalleled? Eclipsed.
Mystery is magic.
it says so, right here. on the label. down. look down.

A starry night waits to shine through after the sunset – it is crisp and cool.
It waits to be repealed, repented, repaired.
Purified by the Second Coming.
Cleansed, exorcised, christened. The holy land – sacred. I am that holy land. I am yours, and I was theirs.

I stand, fragmentary remnants of what was, and is.
Defiled, defaced, destroyed, but never defeated. I am my holy land. I need none of your science. I earn none of your commissions. Tell me again – why?
You pagan.
You pagan. [In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.]
You pagan(gel.)
Amen.

also c: 2006 "epiphany"
Bliss.
Euphoric; and divinely aware
A melancholic drizzle as the sands shift
Wheeling shorebirds
Silent, and aware. They dream…
Deep breaths hushed
Shifting shorelines dip and swirl.
Step, step, soar.
Sorely intense: exquisite,
And rest.
Whispers, faint and pure
[Divine. Sublime. Illumine.]
Lovers and loss, high arched pillars disguised by painstaking fingerprints
Turrets; invincible
And gone. Washed deep in memory.
A glorious tearstained note.
The laughter of soles, faeries and souls
In, and out; hush.
Hush.
Her cathartic requiem:
His stooping agéd shoulders reach towards his limp
Straining to barter peace; breath
Cerulean calm –
She watches, silent, caressed by the rain
She waits, and breathes, and this is right.
This is good. [doubleplusgood]
Bliss.

A russet swatch of spirit stops
She whispers, and they walk.
His pads graze the earth, step, step, step, step.
Glowing; and she kneels
And waits.
Secrets, and oh, so soft.
Veritas: he too knows the truth.
A moment for the soul
And the two strangers tiptoe back home.

Warner Bros and MGM

2009-11-17T22:37:00.000-08:00

Today, I offer a blog-post-y sort of post. Strange, I know; medium-appropriate? Me? Never. It was just one of those remarkably non-event eventful days, so you get a taste of biographical history from a stubborn aesthete.

The aforementioned Brad Warner made his appearance at the Tuesday night open Zen meditation sit at the UVic Interfaith Chapel and was bequeathed Venerable Eshu's normal space for Dharma talk. It was a fascinating audience inversion; Ven. Eshu (as I learned in my Intro class) directs his speech traditionally to the butsudan (sp?), modelling a sort of practical dialogue with the universe -- or this is as close as I can come to approximating the experience as I understand it. Warner, though (Venerable Brad? I'm not sure, so I'll pretend this is an essay), faced the community practitioners and deferred as quickly as he could away from speech. His approach gave me food for thought (as much as that may have been what he was trying to avoid) in a way that is actually much less comparative than it may at first appear.

My impressions were reinforced when, in the tea circle afterward, he touched on a Zen interconnectedness in seeming opposition with the divisive manifestation of tangible reality. He spoke of them as more or less unfathomable intellectually, deferring instead (much deference, I see) to what I understand as an emotional, impulsive (in a more literal, denotative sense than it is usually applied) understand of insuperable interconnectivity of all things. Inter- and intra-personal relationships, human, nature, culture, biology, ecology, thought, action...all of these things are interconnected and indivisible in a sort of fundamental existential sense, and yet...and yet there are individuals, and they can be distinguished (and extinguished, for that matter), and the words "you" and "I" exist, so we must be able somehow to differentiate.

To me, it makes more sense to think (yes, THINK -- sacrilege!) about our place in the world as cells of an organism. Each functions as an individual, differentiated from the others, but is also intimately intertwined and inseperable from its role within the whole. Yeah.

On another, though related, note, I had a tarot reading on Sunday that was particularly inspiring. One thing that Lion said that stuck, though, was his description of me as guided by a polarized sort of life path, explicitly (in his analysis) at apparent odds with that of the Buddha. This was completely unprompted; he has no idea that I have taken up a personal practice, so his analogy (wrong word, but it's late and my brain is fuzzy) was unintentionally apt. What he said about it, though, was especially interesting to me: he explained that each individual's path, even if not "the middle way," was potentially harmonious within it. That the extremities or poles could potentially be incorporated, rather than merely cast aside or studiously avoided, was conceptually very appealing to me. Thoughts to chew, swallow, and digest, I suppose. Warner meets the Lion -- film conglomerate orgiastic success!

oshozentarot - mm

2009-11-17T01:18:00.000-08:00

"First meditate, be blissful, then much love will happen of its own accord." And you know what, Smedbol? Faith, not fear.

VII Awareness: The veil of illusion, or maya, that has been keeping you from perceiving reality as it is, is starting to burn away. The fire is not the heated fire of passion, but the cool flame of awareness. As it burns the veil, the face of a very delicate and childlike buddha becomes visible. | The awareness that is growing in you now is not the result of any conscious "doing," nor do you need to struggle to make something happen. Any sense you might have had that you've been groping in the dark is dissolving now, or will be dissolving soon. Let yourself settle, and remember that deep inside you are just a witness, eternally silent, aware and unchanged. A channel is now opening from the circumference of activity to that centre of witnessing. It will help you to become detached, and a new awareness will lift the veil from your eyes.

2 of Water, Friendship: The branches of these two flowering trees are intertwined, and their fallen petals blend together on the ground in their beautiful colours. It is as if heaven and earth are bridged by love. But they stand individually, each rooted in the soil in their own connection with the earth. In this way they represent the essence of true friends, mature, easy with each other, natural. There is no urgency about their connection, no neediness, no desire to change the other into something else. | This card indicates a readiness to enter this quality of friendliness. In this passage, you may notice that you are no longer interested in all kinds of dramas and romances that other people are engaged in. It is not a loss. It is the birth of a higher, more loving quality born of the fullness of experience. It is the birth of a love that is truly unconditional, without expectations or demands.

Knight of Water, Trust: Now is the moment to be a bungee jumper without the cord! And it is the quality of absolute trust, with no reservations or secret safety nets, that the Knight of Water demands from us. There is a tremendous sense of exhilaration is we can take the jump and move into the unknown, even if the idea scares us to death. An when we take trust to the level of the quantum leap, we don't make any elaborate plans or preparations. We don't say, "Okay, I trust that I know what to do now, and I'll settle my thing and pack my suitcase and take it with me." No, we must jump, with hardly a thought for what happens next. | The leap is the thing, and the thrill of it as we free-fall through the empty sky. The card gives a hint here, though, about what waits for us at the other end -- a soft, welcoming, yummy pink, rose petals, juicy...c'mon!

And hey...you always were Mem, anyway.

hardcore zen?

2009-11-16T22:54:00.001-08:00

Tuesday and Thursday Brad Warner brings hardcore Zen to the southwest of Canada. I'm drenched in Zen at present (preZent? fitting): just finished an intro to Zen meditation course, acquired Zen tarot cards, and am preparing to meet Venerable Warner this week.
And yet...
And yet...
I've never been so physically committed and so mentally and emotionally uncommitted to anything in my life. I can only commit in the immediate practicing present, and only with responsibility to others. The rest of the time, I'm a skeptic.
So it makes me wonder generally about the state of spirituality in my generation. It seems that elder generations expect apathy and noncommitment...k, I have to come back to this. I'm enmeshed in the "stealth hetereosexual[ity]" of F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

...but actually.

dollar dollar books, yo

2009-10-10T09:32:00.000-07:00

So booksales abounded (abound? abint? abinded?) this past week at UVic. First there was the United Way booskale -- some people might choose to invert the "s" and "k" in that, but I wouldn't want to bore you, Gentle Reader -- where I found the following at $2 apiece:

x The Holy Bible (this edition pudlished in 1930 -- bought it for a directed reading)
x Trapp's translation of the Tao Teh Ching
x Man Against Myth, Barrows Dunham
x The Daily Planet Book of Cool Ideas: Global Warming and What People Are Doing About It, Jay Ingram
x The Big Over Easy, Jasper Fforde

The "Hurt Penguins" sale at the UVic bookstore was also fruitful. For a combined total of $25.00, I walked away with such riveting titles as

x The Genome War: How Craig Venter Tried to Capture the Code of Life and Save the World, James Shreeve
x The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God, Carl Sagan ed. by Ann Druyan
x Breaking Trail: A Climbing Life, Arlene Blum
x The Survival Imperative: Using Space to Protect Earth, William Burrows
x Branding Only Works on Cattle: The New Way to Get Known (and Drive Your Competitors Crazy), Johnathan Salem Baskin
x Why the Dalai Lama Matters: His Act of Truth as the Solution for China, Tibet, and the World, Robert Thurman

Phew! Now, if the majority of these are read by next spring, I will be utterly (I'd say "udderly," but you can't see all of the covers so the caustic wit would be lost to the universe) shocked. Lots of dystopia, there, but also models for change; hopefully a leasta few of the posited solutions are workable ones! I'll let you know if anything especially remarkable comes to fruition.

Also, as a side, but possibly more exciting, note, I met Laurie Ricou yesterday evening, completely by chance of peer pressure and filled chairs. His Salal is one of my favourite works of criticism I've newly read in ages.

what's the rush?

2009-10-01T00:16:00.000-07:00

Perhaps a better question would be, "Where's the rush? Who's the rush? When? Why?" The title of this particular webcomic is particularly enlightening: "Orgasms are great, but why skip the sex?" Why are we so concerned with endings and beginnings? What about everything in between, the actual living, the life? What's the point of music you ignore? Just where are you trying to get? Let it be, kid. Let it be.

14. Muddy Road

2009-09-20T13:47:00.000-07:00

Tanzan and Ekido were once travelling together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was still falling.

Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross the intersection.

"Come on, girl," said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud.

Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he no longer could restrain himself. "We monks don't go near females," he told Tanzan, "especially not young and lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?"

"I left the girl there," said Tanzan. "Are you still carrying her?"

Zen Flesh, Zen Bones

this little light of mine

2009-09-06T14:37:00.000-07:00

61. Chung Fu / Inner Truth

above SUN THE GENTLE, WIND
below TUI THE JOYOUS, LAKE

The wind blows over the lake and stirs the surface of the water. Thus visible
effects of the invisible manifest themselves. The hexagram consists of firm
lines above and below, while it is open in the center. This indicates a heart
free of prejudices and therefore open to truth. On the other hand, each of the
two trigrams has a firm line in the middle; this indicates the force of inner
truth in the influences they present.
The attributes of the two trigrams are: above, gentleness, forbearance
toward inferiors; below, joyousness in obeying superiors. Such conditions
create the basis of a mutual confidence that makes achievements possible.
The character of fu ("truth") is actually the picture of a bird's foot over a
fledgling. It suggests the idea of brooding. An egg is hollow. The light-giving
power must work to quicken it from outside, but there must be a germ of life
within, if life is to be awakened. Far-reaching speculations can be linked with
these ideas.

THE JUDGMENT

INNER TRUTH. Pigs and fishes.
Good fortune.
It furthers one to cross the great water.
Perseverance furthers.

Pigs and fishes are the least intelligent of all animals and therefore the most
difficult to influence. The force of inner truth must grow great indeed before
its influence can extend to such creatures. In dealing with persons as
intractable and as difficult to influence as a pig or a fish, the whole secret of
success depends on finding the right way of approach. One must first rid
oneself of all prejudice and, so to speak, let the psyche of the other person act
on one without restraint. Then one will establish contact with him,
understand and gain power over him. When a door has thus been opened,
the force of one's personality will influence him. If in this way one finds no
obstacles insurmountable, one can undertake even the most dangerous
things, such as crossing the great water, and succeed.
But it is important to understand upon what the force inner truth depends.
This force is not identical with simple intimacy or a secret bond. Close ties
may exist also among thieves; it is true that such a bond acts as a force but,
since it is not invincible, it does not bring good fortune. All association on
the basis of common interests holds only up to a certain point. Where the
community of interest ceases, the holding together ceases also, and the closest
friendship often changes into hate. Only when the bond is based on what is
right, on steadfastness, will it remain so firm that it triumphs over
everything.

THE IMAGE

Wind over lake: the image of INNER TRUTH.
Thus the superior man discusses criminal cases
In order to delay executions.

Wind stirs water by penetrating it. Thus the superior man, when obliged to
judge the mistakes of men, tries to penetrate their minds with understanding,
in order to gain a sympathetic appreciation of the circumstances. In ancient
China, the entire administration of justice was guided by this principle. A
deep understanding that knows how to pardon was considered the highest
form of justice. This system was not without success, for its aim was to make
so strong a moral impression that there was no reason to fear abuse of such
mildness. For it sprang not from weakness but from a superior clarity.

THE LINES

Nine at the beginning means:
Being prepared brings good fortune.
If there are secret designs, it is disquieting.

The force of inner truth depends chiefly on inner stability and preparedness.
From this state of mind springs the correct attitude toward the outer world.
But if a man should try to cultivate secret relationships of a special sort, it
would deprive him of his inner independence. The more reliance he places
on the support of others, the more uneasy and anxious he will become as to
whether these secret ties are really tenable. In this way inner peace and the
force of inner truth are lost.

Nine in the second place means:
A crane calling in the shade.
Its young answers it.
I have a good goblet.
I will share it with you.

This refers to the involuntary influence of a man's inner being upon persons
of kindred spirit. The crane need not show itself on a high hill. It may be
quite hidden when it sounds its call; yet its young will hear its not, will
recognize it and give answer. Where there is a joyous mood, there a comrade
will appear to share a glass of wine.
This is the echo awakened in men through spiritual attraction. Whenever
a feeling is voiced with truth and frankness, whenever a deed is the clear
expression of sentiment, a mysterious and far-reaching influence is exerted.
At first it acts on those who are inwardly receptive. But the circle grows larger
and larger. The root of all influence lies in one's own inner being: given true
and vigorous expression in word and deed, its effect is great. The effect is but
the reflection of something that emanates from one's own heart. Any
deliberate intention of an effect would only destroy the possibility of
producing it. Confucius says about this line:

The superior man abides in his room. If his words are well spoken, he meets
with assent at a distance of more than a thousand miles. How much more
then from near by! If the superior man abides in his room and his words are
not well spoken, he meets with contradiction at a distance of more than a
thousand miles. How much more then from near by! Words go forth from
one's own person and exert their influence on men. Deeds are born close at
hand and become visible far away. Words and deeds are the hinge and
bowspring of the superior man. As hinge and bowspring move, they bring
honor or disgrace. Through words and deeds the superior man moves
heaven and earth . Must one not, then, be cautious?

Six in the third place means:
He finds a comrade.
Now he beats the drum, now he stops.
Now he sobs, now he sings.

Here the source of a man's strength lies not in himself but in his relation to
other people. No matter how close to them he may be, if his center of gravity
depends on them, he is inevitably tossed to and fro between joy and sorrow.
Rejoicing to high heaven, then sad unto death-this is the fate of those who
depend upon an inner accord with other persons whom they love. Here we
have only the statement of the law that this is so. Whether this condition is
felt to be an affliction of the supreme happiness of love, is left to the
subjective verdict of the person concerned.

Six in the fourth place means:
The moon nearly at the full.
The team horse goes astray.
No blame.

To intensify the power of inner truth, a man must always turn to his
superior, from whom he can receive enlightenment as the moon receives
light form the sun. However, this requires a certain humility, like that of the
moon when it is not yet quite full. At the moment when the moon becomes
full and stands directly opposite the sun, it begins to wane. Just as on the one
hand we must be humble and reverent when face to face with the source of
enlightenment, so likewise must we on the other renounce factionalism
among men. Only be pursuing one's course like a horse that goes straight
ahead without looking sidewise at its mate, can one retain the inner freedom
that helps one onward.

° Nine in the fifth place means:
He possesses truth, which links together.
No blame.

This describes the ruler who holds all elements together by the power of his
personality. Only when the strength of his character is so ample that he can
influence all who are subject to him, is he as he needs to be. The power of
suggestion must emanate from the ruler. It will firmly knit together and
unite all his adherents. Without this central force, all external unity is only
deception and breaks down at the decisive moment.

Nine at the top means:
Cockcrow penetrating to heaven.
Perseverance brings misfortune.

The cock is dependable. It crows at dawn. But it cannot itself fly to heaven. It
just crows. A man may count on mere words to awaken faith. This may
succeed now and then, but if persisted in, it will have bad consequences.
index

ifs, ands, and buts

2009-08-12T18:12:00.000-07:00

This could be my little
book about love
if I wrote it--

Yeah, I guess so. The writing seems to require a sort of living that I'm as yet unwilling to succumb to, though. Emotional availability, what? Unconvincing, my friend. Unconvincing. And then she says, "You don't want to," and I scoff, secretly lining my cilia in tangled knots to tie in the volcanic infection that pants for release. Maybe she's right, whatever that means. But what does that matter? Lots of dark and twisties do it anyway. They shatter repeatedly, silently, and it doesn't make much of a difference in the grand scheme, other than to up the contrast and saturation of beauty and joy...so fuck. Sliver away, m'dear. Sliver away.

I heard of a man
who says words so beautifully
that if he only speaks their name
women give themselves to him.

If I am dumb beside your body
while silence blossoms like tumors on our lips.
it is because I hear a man climb stairs and clear his throat outside the door.

we all scream for ice cream!

2009-08-04T22:51:00.000-07:00

Man, I was thinking about unrequited love. I figure it's best to just walk that shit off. Find someone else to be excited about. It's like if you love ice cream but your ice cream man friend won't give you any. Maybe he's got a good reason. It cuts into profits. Who knows? But he likes you as a friend and wants to hang out anyway. It just drives you crazy to hang out with that dude, even if he's being reasonable from his point of view. So don't hang out with him. What, you ONLY like ice cream? It's ice cream or nothing? Don't be an asshole. Learn to love donuts. [Joey Comeau]

Alright, fine. But what if I want a cookie, instead?

variations on a theme

2009-08-03T05:29:00.000-07:00

so, she wondered, what if the figure were complete? would this be the final link to eternity, the connection that turned the body's series of panarchical infinity symbols into a sort of code, an easter-egg key, to forever? should it be the same material? the same date?

how best to approach exposing the body as vessel?

and so it ends

2009-07-26T14:07:00.000-07:00

At last he came to a door, with these words in glowing emeralds: THE END OF THE WORLD. He did not hesitate. He opened the door and walked through.

Infinity is apparently context-sensitive. I always thought that maybe infinity escaped the laws of construction, that infinity was really infinite. Apparently, though, it depends what you are measuring. The distance from one to two is one kind of infinity, the number of whole numbers is another; each universe, even those the size of a goldfish, is infinitely finite, contained within something larger to define its borders. So, yeah, infinity could be the end of the world, or the end of a pencil. The question is, where do you go when you fall from its borders?

Everything is everything.

urban forager

2009-07-08T18:02:00.000-07:00

I really like this term, "urban forage." There's so much in it; if we can learn to forage in urbanity, we will start to make better use of the waste that oozes from the pores of the city. It's simple action, and with the crumbling economy, it makes sense to look again at what is already there, begging to be used. Begging to be appreciated.

ACT! went foraging on Thursday last, collecting foodstuffs and turning them into a delicious, if rather scattered and oddly timed, meal to share with each other and with another friend. There's so much possibility here for act!ve solutions addressing problems of social ecojustice. Tiny steps made by a tiny group to contribute to a staggering dilemma, adding up by influence and confluence. Fuck affluence; make love to it, get it to relax and share, to play. Make integration sexy.

What's next? A foraged mural of interconnected tiny scraps of Victoria. Ideas?

conditions of lease

2009-07-07T16:55:00.000-07:00

"We accept the love we think we deserve."

So what is it about love that we think can be deserved? Does this not imply that it must be conditional? What are the conditions? How does one person relating with another have anything to do with dessert? It's a desert, I suppose. The key word must be "think"; does thinking have any place in love? Does love have space in thinking?

24 - 7 (really)

2009-06-02T12:06:00.000-07:00

24. Fu / Return (The Turning Point)

above K'UN THE RECEPTIVE, EARTH
below CHêN THE AROUSING, THUNDER

The idea of a turning point arises from the fact that after the dark lines have
pushed all of the light lines upward and out of the hexagram, another light
line enters the hexagram from below. The time of darkness is past. The
winter solstice brings the victory of light. This hexagram is linked with the
eleventh month, the month of the solstice (December-January).

THE JUDGMENT

RETURN. Success.
Going out and coming in without error.
Friends come without blame.
To and fro goes the way.
On the seventh day comes return.
It furthers one to have somewhere to go.

After a time of decay comes the turning point. The powerful light that has
been banished returns. There is movement, but it is not brought about by
force. The upper trigram K'un is characterized by devotion; thus the
movement is natural, arising spontaneously. For this reason the
transformation of the old becomes easy. The old is discarded and the new is
introduced. Both measures accord with the time; therefore no harm results.
Societies of people sharing the same views are formed. But since these
groups come together in full public knowledge and are in harmony with the
time, all selfish separatist tendencies are excluded, and no mistake is made.
The idea of RETURN is based on the course of nature. The movement is
cyclic, and the course completes itself. Therefore it is not necessary to hasten
anything artificially. Everything comes of itself at the appointed time. This is
the meaning of heaven and earth.
All movements are accomplished in six stages, and the seventh brings
return. Thus the winter solstice, with which the decline of the year begins,
comes in the seventh month after the summer solstice; so too sunrise comes
in the seventh double hour after sunset. Therefore seven is the number of
the young light, and it arises when six, the number of the great darkness, is
increased by one. In this way the state of rest gives place to movement.

THE IMAGE

Thunder within the earth:
The image of THE TURNING POINT.
Thus the kings of antiquity closed the passes
At the time of solstice.
Merchants and strangers did not go about,
And the ruler
Did not travel through the provinces.

The winter solstice has always been celebrated in China as the resting time of
the year--a custom that survives in the time of rest observed at the new year.
In winter the life energy, symbolized by thunder, the Arousing, is still
underground. Movement is just at its beginning; therefore it must be
strengthened by rest so that it will not be dissipated by being used
prematurely. This principle, i.e., of allowing energy that is renewing itself to
be reinforced by rest, applies to all similar situations. The return of health
after illness, the return of understanding after an estrangement: everything
must be treated tenderly and with care at the beginning, so that the return
may lead to a flowering.

THE LINES

° Nine at the beginning means:
Return from a short distance.
No need for remorse.
Great good fortune.

Slight digressions from the good cannot be avoided, but one must turn back
in time, before going too far. This is especially important in the development
of character; every faintly evil thought must be put aside immediately, before
it goes too far and takes root in the mind. Then there is no cause for remorse,
and all goes well.

Six in the second place means:
Quiet return. Good fortune.

Return always calls for a decision and is an act of self-mastery. It is made
easier if a man is in good company. If he can bring himself to put aside pride
and follow the example of good men, good fortune results.

Six in the third place means:
Repeated return. Danger. No blame.

There are people of a certain inner instability who feel a constant urge to
reverse themselves. There is danger in continually deserting the good
because of uncontrolled desires, then turning back to it again because of a
better resolution. However, since this does not lead to habituation in evil, a
general inclination to overcome the defect is not wholly excluded.

Six in the fourth place means:
Walking in the midst of others,
One returns alone.

A man is in a society composed of inferior people, but is connected spiritually
with a strong and good friend, and this makes him turn back alone.
Although nothing is said of reward and punishment, this return is certainly
favorable, for such a resolve to choose the good brings its own reward.

Six in the fifth place means:
Noblehearted return. No remorse.

When the time for return has come, a man should not take shelter in trivial
excuses, but should look within and examine himself. And if he has done
something wrong he should make a noblehearted resolve to confess his fault.
No one will regret having taken this road.

Six at the top means:
Missing the return. Misfortune.
Misfortune from within and without.
If armies are set marching in this way,
One will in the end suffer a great defeat,
Disastrous for the ruler of the country.
For ten years
It will not be possible to attack again.

If a man misses the right time for return, he meets with misfortune. The
misfortune has its inner cause in a wrong attitude toward the world. The
misfortune coming upon him for without results from this wrong attitude.
What is pictured here is blind obstinacy and the judgment that is visited
upon it.
(from The Book of Changes)

2009-06-02T11:45:00.000-07:00

and now, a whole new world.
don't you dare close your eyes. or, you know, insist on it.
the oy of the beholder, or some suchness.

it's beautiful, that life.

the clamorous i

2009-04-30T04:44:00.000-07:00

i'm freaking out. new house, new job, new romance, new friends, new classes...even a new cellphone. it's all going fantastically, falling in to my lap piece after piece, begging me for attention, praising everything that i do. so, yeah, i'm freaking out.

"dark and twisty" it may be, but now i'm just waiting for the backlash, resisting every impulse to flee and embarking on malignant self-soothing that keeps me awake until 5 in the morning the day before i move, and i'm not even pretending to pack.

and so the id, the me, the clamorous i, refuses to be still, appeased. i sprint from reassurance to reassurance and can't stop thinking about the bubble of fiction on a balmy april afternoon in a haze of frangipani. i'm making it up. god knows which flower it really is.

i avoid deceptively, engaging and embracing, because it's the only thing i really know how to do. what can i say? whatever you need to hear. not want; need. second person is such a comfortable way to live one's life, didn't you know? vicarious is more fun, anyway.

so, yeah, i'm freaking out.

literary what?

2009-04-25T11:26:00.000-07:00

I've been hearing this term bandied about lately: "literary fiction." It rather mystifies me, but I find genres usually do. I suppose writing style or intended audience is just as arbitrary and therefore reasonably unreasonable as content and conventions to categorize something, since the categories are so restrictive and artificial anyway...but it certainly made me pause for thought.

Anyhow, I have been looking for this excerpt for a few days now, and finally found the version that I prefer (there is an oral, as well, and a "primary" source too, I would imagine), so I thought I might share it. Very egocentric, that sentence. Ah, well. From pages 179-80 of Mitch Albom's Tuesdays With Morrie: An Old, A Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson, lauded and degraded by O's book club and I suppose a prime example of "literary fiction":

"I heard a nice little story the other day," Morrie says. He closes his eyes for a moment and I wait.
"Okay. The story is about a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time. He's enjoying the wind and the fresh air—until he notices the other waves in front of him, crashing against the shore.
"'My God, this is terrible,' the wave says. 'Look what's going to happen to me!'
"Then along comes another wave. It sees the first wave, looking grim, and it says to him, 'Why do you look so sad?'
"The first wave says, 'You don't understand! We're all going to crash! All of us waves are going to be nothing! Isn't it terrible?'
"The second wave says, 'No, you don't understand. You're not a wave, you're part of the ocean.'"
I smile. Morrie closes his eyes again.
"Part of the ocean," he says, "part of the ocean." I watch him breathe, in and out, in and out.

TBL is on the air!

2009-04-21T14:51:00.000-07:00

The Buried Life, a crew of four guys who are looking to fulfill their dreams and the dreams of others, have touched the deeply buried heartstrings of even MTV, and are bringing their Matthew Arnold-inspired message of possibility to your television. The Buried Life is coming your way, wherever that might be. (And the pilot episode was awesome, by the way; ever walked the red carpet? Inspired an entire classroom of inner-city youth?)

These guys (Duncan, Jonnie, Dave, and Ben) are the energy that the post-failed revolution ironicized society needs to jumpstart itself, particularly in the wave of economic recession and with a thunderous ecological crisis. Based loosely in Victoria, B.C., they have done a variety of crazy, awesome things with their giant purple bus, Penelope. They brought kids with terminal cancer on a Toys-R-Us shopping spree. They opened the six-o'clock news. They lead a parade, destroyed a computer, planted a tree. They were in a protest. They got a song on the radio, sang the national anthem to a crowded stadium, and kissed the Stanley cup. There are a hundred different things on their list; what's on yours?

Here's their newsflash version:

When it’s TBL related, we always want you guys to be the first to know. Sometimes that’s tough.

If you’ve seen the front page of the New York Times today you’ve probably read some exciting news. After three years on the road, “#53: Make a Television Show” is about to be officially crossed off the list! Let us be the first to say: Yeeeeeehaawwwww!!!

We’ve turned down many TV offers in the past. Anything with a script, “mood music” or a lightning round has been - ever so politely - refused. We are exceptionally grateful to even get the offers, but packaging The Buried Life as a conventional “Reality show” would betray our principles. Besides, that shit is whack.

This one - as you can see from the article - has a different fit. The world is changing and we applaud MTV for being brave enough to change with it (for the record, we’re doing this the way we’ve always done it - on our own). We are stoked to be the flagship series of their turnaround and look forward to seeing more like-minded programs in the years to come.

Lastly and most importantly - to our friends, family, everyone out there following on the blog - take this as a sign that you can do anything, no matter how far-fetched or impossible it seems. Write it down, get your friends together and go after it.

It’s Sunday, TBL is in the New York Times, MTV is shifting course. TBL Season One airs (tentatively) July 20th worldwide and we’re going to go to the beach to celebrate!

What do you want to do before you die?

Jonnie, Dave, Ben and Duncan

Check out their website to learn more, and to become a part of the Buried Life network.

My list?
The top ten:
10.) Be involved in a Broadway production of either Cats, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, or Rent.
9.) Shake hands with Spider Robinson and Robert Hass.
8.) Play Mariokart in an IMAX theatre.
7.) Watch the extended Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy in an OMNIMAX, nonstop. Done it in the living room a few times; now it's time to supersize. After all, I am a cynical North American.
6.) Build another house for a homeless family (went to Tijuana once before, and have to do it again somewhere before I keel).
5.) Have a home that provides rent-free rooms in the form of scholarships for students.
4.) Adopt a child.
3.) Foster animals from the SPCA.
2.) Publish an anthology.
1.) Skydive.

Not an Arnold fan? Try some Tennyson, then, or Herrick. Try some Albom/Schwartz, or even Bedingfield. It's not too late. Dig up your life; the plot isn't sacred, and you will thank yourself later. There is no time like the present, and it's continually slipping away, but it's also continually reborn, an instantaneous shift from past to future, future to past. You're a time-traveler, and you can do the impossible. Prove it possible.

Now, the question again: what do you want to do before you die?

summertime, and the livin' is easy...

2009-04-21T14:34:00.001-07:00

Walked the labyrinth at school yesterday, only to discover that in reading the surpringly engaging The Time Traveler's Wife I sunburned my nose. Hallelujah, it's here!

night moves

2009-04-16T02:12:00.000-07:00

No, no Bob Segar, I'm afraid. Just gentle musings of what I am currently pleased to describe as a "backwoods cretin"; seems appropriate given my rather obliquely rural upbringing and insistence on escapist nonconformity with popular culture. That is, I know nothing of anything that everyone knows, and have a mental block that keeps it that way. It's pretty fantastic.

Off topic, massively. I was actually intending to talk about time, and night, and nighttime, and night-time, and how lovely it is to meld, suspended, with the grand arc of time when it's quiet, dark, and still...seems rather ironic to speak of stillness (invoking the Koan posted below), but at the same time it's a sort of overflow of effusive joy that makes its way into everything (since it comprises and is composed of everything, all of the time -- the point, in other words). Time's very meaninglessness becomes soothingly obvious when everything is still and tomorrow is forever away. Surrounded by cats, who I am convinced are anciently imbued with the knowledge of time's triviality, anbd from whose eyes and propensity for napping one can learn the most intimate secrets of the world, I speak in fragments and run-ons, deliriously happy in my quiet night oasis. Facebook flashes, and I ignore it (but not really, since I'm writing about it here, right now, and thinking about it continually as it blinks, blinks, blinks, trying to force me to correspond with a figment of my high school imagination, so rather than ignore perhaps the word I mean is avoid) to drift a moment longer. Its flashes, though, are carefully timed, and remind me over and over that chronology is a persistent little fable...
Now, some links, since I segue like a goddess (read that as you will): Hymns to the Night and Being Time, graciously directed by another N whose preoccupation with transcendence and universality came into my general understanding of life right when I needed it to, of course.

Anyway, general drift (heh): I like the night for its anonymity, its escapist magnitude of silence and slumber, its reminder that at all times there is a pulsing dreaming unconscious hive that hums and carries on the menial tasks of existence, but that is continually in the process of spinning liquid gold...it is the alchemist, in his or her most literal, reductive form, and yet begs reinterpretation as the transcendent.

"If you focus on the local, you can reach the universal" (pleasantly paraphrased by Matt Molloy).

life is beautiful

2009-04-12T02:04:00.000-07:00

a reponse to the following image, found @ PostSecret, and adapted from something else I was pondering:

"It is a profound personal reminder that every single breath is a decision to persist, to strive, to seek, to find, and at the same time a stagnant sort of fear that yields to the organism’s drive for immortality. It is a reminder of the universal unconscious, which cries uncomprehendingly for you to stop while the adrenaline reminds you of why you’d want to continue anything, ever, at all. It is living, in a tender confrontation with the alternative, and it makes you worthy of knowing, just for a second, that you have this same control over that decision every waking minute of your life" (something else).

aside from the fundamental question of good and bad, with a resignation to the distinction for the sake of argument (or, more, contemplation), what is it about submissive persistance that is so preferable? is it not perhaps the ultimate sign of surrender, to persist simply because it is asserted to be "good" to do so? what is the point of comparison? to be, or not to be? and in being, to actually be, or not to be? to accept breathing and eating, reproducing and defecating, working and playing, just for the sake of their asserted goodness? is this not a plebian surrender? is there any sentience at all involved in instinct? (I suspect that there is, but more importantly hadn't thought much about it before the "something else" rolled along.) why is it that we find numb, cheerful acceptance of persistence so appealing? is it to appease our heavily scare-quoted modern sensibilities that we solemnly assure one another that living is the thing? that our very existence is the evidence? what is the essential beauty of life? is it enough to let it become a cliche? should we not be at least occasionally striving to play devil's advocate, to see if perhaps there is something to the well-worn adages?

there probably is. it's probably impermanent, fluctuating, as subjective and constructed as anything else (and thereby no more or less true, except by the standards of the questioner). but just because cacophony was resolved with harmonoius melodies of lulling peace, it doesn't necessarily follow that the dissonance should die, should be permanently erased. why not wonder, once in awhile? why not challenge your instincts? make them stand up for what they have forgotten that they believe in. let them exercise their talents for debate once in awhile, so that when you really need them to be strong for you, the muscles haven't forgotten. instinct needn't be static; let it grow, evolve; shake it from empty resolution once in awhile so that there is something to sustain it. let it rest sometimes, yes; the demands of societal sanity require that you do so, in the self-soothing peaceful meditation that is routine and truths.

yeah, life is beautiful, and good. it is rife with potential and pleasant surprises. there are endless miracles sifting through our willing fingers, forever whispering of potential and breathless joy. there is the sound of children's laughter, the irregular freckles on your iris, the half-moon of a finally unchewed thumbnail. there are snapdragons whose vibrance melts from one to the next and who are laughing, even as you cup the sides of their jaws. there is the taste of fresh gelato and wild strawberries, and the sound of defiant graffiti redefining beauty. sometimes, the sunset is so soulwrenchingly ecstatic that sunrise is only a short blink away, and the diffusion of heavy eyelids cheekily redefines desirable focus. and the stars, oh, the stars, that drift and wheel and wait, occasionally humming secrets to each other in the vast silence. owls, and tigers, and dragonflies. bowls, and soup spoons, and trashy summer novels. it's beautiful.

but remember the option. you may need it one day; if you've got some practice, it will only break you in ways that are exquisitely mysterious.

green tea enlightenment

2009-04-11T04:23:00.001-07:00

"When you know that everything is light, then you are enlightened" (from a tea bag at UVic).

A KOAN:
Subhuti was Buddha's disciple. He was able to understand the potency of emptiness, the viewpoint that nothing exists except in its relationship of subjectivity and objectivity.

One day Subhuti, in a mood of sublime emptiness, was sitting under a tree. Flowers began to fall about him.

"We are praising you for your discourse on emptiness," the gods whispered to him.

"But I have not spoken of emptiness," said Subhuti.

"You have not spoken of emptiness, we have not heard emptiness," responded the gods. "This is the true emptiness." And blossoms showered upon Subhuti as rain. (http://deoxy.org/koan/36)

["Convinced myself, I seek not to convince" (Poe).]

2009-04-06T21:13:00.000-07:00

There's a certain serenity in the futile. If there is truth, and goodness, light, and right, then the dark can be distinguished and extinguished. If, however, truth is illusory, an arbitrary construct that is in contiual conversation with itself, then darkness and light, too, begin to fade. There is an omnipresence of possibility, a continual set of decisions being made that, it is true, arise from a set of predefined terms, but these terms are within themselves meaningless and subject to change. These decisions, then, also have the potential to be redefined, axioms shifted, morals adjusted; there is nothing inherently light about lightness, nothing inherently good about goodness, nothing that makes a tree a "tree..." and therefore, if truth is unattainable, it can be conveniently reshaped, fashioned to suit the teller; the hive can swarm with possibility and breathe.

fictional, what?

2009-04-04T22:40:00.000-07:00

so I fall in love with "fictional" characters...is there any other kind?

top twenty five, from literature:
25. Hamlet (Hamlet)
24. Estragon (Waiting for Godot)
23. Prospero (The Tempest)
22. Benedict (Much Ado About Nothing)
21. Beren (The Simarillion)
20. Henry DeTamble (The Time Traveler's Wife)
19. Ishmael (Ishmael)
18. Jubal Harshaw (The Cat Who Walks through Walls, Time Enough for Love, etc.)
17. Edmund Bertram (Mansfield Park)
16. Zebadiah Carter (The Number of the Beast)
15. Captain Frederick Wentworth (Persuasion)
14. Jake Stonebender (Callahan series)
13. Athos (Fugitive Pieces)
12. Morrie Schwartz (Tuesdays With Morrie)
11. James Qwilleran (The Cat Who...)
10. Albus Dumbledore (Harry Potter series)
9. Frodo Baggins (LOTR)
8. Richard Colin Ames Campbell (The Cat Who Walks Through Walls)
7. Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes -- yes, I know he's a stuffed tiger.)
6. Remus Lupin (Harry Potter series)
5. Atticus Finch (To Kill a Mockingbird)
4. Fitzwilliam Darcy (Pride and Prejudice)
3. George Knightley (Emma)
2. Faramir (LOTR)
and tied for 1. Aragorn & Gandalf (LOTR)

Breach and Orison: 1. Terror of Beginnings (Robert Hass)

2009-04-04T20:33:00.000-07:00

What are the habits of paradise?
It likes the light. It likes a few pines
on a mass of eroded rock in summer.

You can't tell up there if rock and air
are the beginning or the end.

What would you do if you were me? she said.

If I were you-you, or if I were you-me?

If you were me-me.

If I were you-you, he said, I'd do exactly what you're doing.

—All it is sunlight on granite.
Pines casting shadows in the early sun.

Wind in the pines like the faint rocking
of a crucifix dangling
from a rearview mirror at a stopsign.

"Mythopoeia" - J.R.R. Tolkien

2009-04-04T20:28:00.000-07:00

To one who said that myths were lies and therefore worthless,
even though "breathed through silver."
PHILOMYTHUS TO MISOMYTHUS

You look at trees and label them just so,
(for trees are `trees', and growing is `to grow');
you walk the earth and tread with solemn pace
one of the many minor globes of Space:
a star's a star, some matter in a ball
compelled to courses mathematical
amid the regimented, cold, Inane,
where destined atoms are each moment slain.

At bidding of a Will, to which we bend
(and must), but only dimly apprehend,
great processes march on, as Time unrolls
from dark beginnings to uncertain goals;
and as on page o'erwitten without clue,
with script and limning packed of various hue,
and endless multitude of forms appear,
some grim, some frail, some beautiful, some queer,
each alien, except as kin from one
remote Origo, gnat, man, stone, and sun.
God made the petreous rocks, the arboreal trees,
tellurian earth, and stellar stars, and these
homuncular men, who walk upon the ground
with nerves that tingle touched by light and sound.
The movements of the sea, the wind in boughs,
green grass, the large slow oddity of cows,
thunder and lightning, birds that wheel and cry,
slime crawling up from mud to live and die,
these each are duly registered and print
the brain's contortions with a separate dint.

Yet trees and not `trees', until so named and seen -
and never were so named, till those had been
who speech's involuted breath unfurled,
faint echo and dim picture of the world,
but neither record nor a photograph,
being divination, judgement, and a laugh,
response of those that felt astir within
by deep monition movements that were kin
to life and death of trees, of beasts, of stars:
free captives undermining shadowy bars,
digging the foreknown from experience
and panning the vein of spirit out of sense.
Great powers they slowly brought out of themselves,
and looking backward they beheld the Elves
that wrought on cunning forges in the mind,
and light and dark on secret looms entwined.

He sees no stars who does not see them first
of living silver made that sudden burst
to flame like flowers beneath the ancient song,
whose very echo after-music long
has since pursued. There is no firmament,
only a void, unless a jewelled tent
myth-woven and elf-patterned; and no earth,
unless the mother's womb whence all have birth.

The heart of man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,
man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Disgraced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship one he owned,
his world-dominion by creative act:
not his to worship the great Artefact,
man, sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with elves and goblins, though we dared to build
gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sow the seed of dragons, 'twas our right
(used or misused). The right has not decayed.
We make still by the law in which we're made.

Yes! `wish-fulfilment dreams' we spin to cheat
our timid hearts and ugly Fact defeat!
Whence came the wish, and whence the power to dream,
or some things fair and others ugly deem ?
All wishes are not idle, not in vain
fulfilment we devise - for pain is pain,
not for itself to be desired, but ill;
or else to strive or to subdue the will
alike were graceless; and of Evil this
alone is dreadly certain: Evil is.

Blessed are the timid hearts that evil hate,
that quail in its shadow, and yet shut the gate;
that seek no parley, and in guarded room,
through small and bare, upon a clumsy loom
weave rissues gilded by the far-off day
hoped and believed in under Shadow's sway.

Blessed are the men of Noah's race that build
their little arks, though frail and poorly filled,
and steer through winds contrary towards a wraith,
a rumour of a harbour guessed by faith.

Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme
of things nor found within record time.
It is not they that have forgot the Night,
or bid us flee to organised delight,
in lotus-isles of economic bliss
forswearing souls to gain a Circe-kiss
(and counterfeit at that, machine-produced,
bogus seduction of the twice-seduced).

Such isles they saw afar, and ones more fair,
and those that hear them yet may yet beware.
They have seen Death and ultimate defeat,
and yet they would not in despair retreat,
but oft to victory have turned the lyre
and kindled hearts with legendary fire,
illuminating Now and dark Hath-been
with light of suns as yet by no man seen.

I would that I might with the minstrels sing
and stir the unseen with a throbbing string.
I would be with the mariners of the deep
that cut their slender planks on mountains steep
and voyage upon a vague and wandering quest,
for some have passed beyond the fabled West.
I would with the beleaguered fools be told,
that keep an inner fastness where their gold,
impure and scanty, yet they loyally bring
to mint in image blurred of distant king,
or in fantastic banners weave the sheen
heraldic emblems of a lord unseen.

I will not walk with your progressive apes,
erect and sapient. Before them gapes
the dark abyss to which their progress tends -
if by God's mercy progress ever ends,
and does not ceaselessly revolve the same
unfruitful course with changing of a name.
I will not treat your dusty path and flat,
denoting this and that by this and that,
your world immutable wherein no part
the little maker has with maker's art.
I bow not yet before the Iron Crown,
nor cast my own small golden sceptre down.

In Paradise perchance the eye may stray
from gazing upon everlasting Day
to see the day-illumined, and renew
from mirrored truth the likeness of the True.
Then looking on the Blessed Land 'twill see
that all is as it is, and yet may free:
Salvation changes not, nor yet destroys,
garden not gardener, children not their toys.
Evil it will not see, for evil lies
not in God's picture but in crooked eyes,
not in the source but in the tuneless voice.
In Paradise they look no more awry;
and though they make anew, they make no lie.
Be sure they still will make, not been dead,
and poets shall have flames upon their head,
and harps whereon their faultless fingers fall:
there each shall choose for ever from the All.

concerning hobbits

2009-04-04T20:27:00.000-07:00

Frodo: I can't do this, Sam.

Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights, we shouldn't even be here, but we are.
It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened?
But in the end, it's only a passing thing, the shadow, and even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.
Those were the stories that stayed with you; that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now.
Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something.

Frodo: What are we fighting for, Sam?

Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for.

ye olde favourite quotes

2009-04-04T20:21:00.000-07:00

"Certainly the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet, you can't win."

"All men are created unequal."
"The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive."
"Never underestimate the power of denial."
"There's only one thing that will make them stop hating you. And that's being so good at what you do that they can't ignore you."
"Some moments are so huge you notice only the little things."

"Once in awhile, people will even take your breath away..."

"...And since you know how terrific you all are, you have no doubt in your mind that before long, either I will realize that, or I'm so much of a jerk you wouldn't want me around anyway. So we have no problem."

"In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him,
then in that very moment I also love him. I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves."

Naomi - baby brown (neck rolls my butt hole) says:

I like the wilted rose so much more than the erect one

Renita Fantastic says:

as do I, the "erect one" is obnoxious

Renita Fantastic says:

its like, IM A FLOWER HERE I AM

Renita Fantastic says:

and the wilted one is like.."Oh.."

Renita Fantastic says: show me a man who punches babies and stomps on kittens and i'll show you my husband

bright copper kettles (or, mine favourite words)

2009-04-04T20:20:00.000-07:00

Abuse

Acuity

Alabaster

Altar

Amaze

Antipathy

Antithesis

Apathy

Apostle

Aqueous

Aquiline

Arraign

Asexual

Askance

Aspire

Asymmetrical

Avail

Azure

Bard

Billow

Blame

Blather

Bliss

Blister

Blithely

Brash

Brethren

Buoyant

Bustle

Cajun

Callous

Camaraderie

Cataclysmic

Cease

Chagrin

Charisma

Chasm

Churlish

Cloister

Cluster

Compulsion

Concierge

Console

Consort

Contrast

Contusion

Crumple

Crystal

Cyanide

Cypress

Cyst

Dawn

Depth

Desire

Dichotomy

Disenfranchised

Dryad

Eccentric
Efface

Elate

Embalm

Engulf

Entertain

Epic

Epiphany

Epitome

Esoteric

Ethereal

Evince

Evoke

Excellent

Exorbitant

Exploitation

Expose

Expulsion

Exquisite

Fade

Fairy/Faery

Fate

Fester

Fissure

Flame

Foreign

Fragment

Froth

Frugal

Gleam
Glean

Hallowed

Haply

Happenstance

Harangue

Hubris

Horror

Hysterectomy

Illumine

Illusion

Impeach

Importuning

Incline

Inebriated

Innuendo

Irony

Jubilant

Kaleidoscope

Knave

Liable

Lilt

Limpid

Livid

Lucid

Lustre

Matador

Masquerade

Meander

Metaphysical

Myriad

Narcissist

Nonchalant

Nymph

Obscure

Obsolete

Omniscient

Pallid

Pallor

Pandaemonium

Parabolic

Penance

Pendulum

Pensive

Perdition

Persona

Pestilence

Phantom

Phaeton

Phosphorescent

Piecemeal

Pincer

Platinum

Poignant

Pristine

Prodigious

Prophetic

Prudence

Puerile

Pulse

Punitive

Quiver

Raiment

Rapture

Refine

Refrain

Render

Repentance

Repine

Repress

Reprimand

Restitution

Revise

Rigmarole

Romance

Rustles

Savour

Scintillating

Searing

Sensibilities

Sentient

Sibilant

Slovenly

Squalor

Squeamish

Star

Statuesque

Strategic

Strive

Sultry

Sumptuous

Sunder

Sybaritic

Sylph

Symbol

Symmetry

Synecdoche

System

Tempestuous

Torrid

Usurp

Verdant

Verdure

Virulent

Whimper

Willowy

Wily

Witticisms

talking 'bout my generation (circa september 2006)

2009-04-04T20:19:00.001-07:00

It feels like this should be a pivotal, epiphanic time in my life, but the more I learn, the more I feel myself freezing, shuddering in wary anticipation of a lifetime of drudgery and meaningless toil. We are the hollow men, it is said, devoid of spirituality and conviction, and I'm afraid I'm starting to believe it. It's an apathetic generational pandemic, as the world shrinks and wars become more and more abstract. Far from the shock value of Vietnam's novel projection in North America, we are so bombarded with imagery of horror and loss that they lose their meaning, blurring together in a concentrated effort at subduing the will for revolution. Knowledge is a handicap, and one's greatest asset. The more perfect it becomes, the further one is from understanding. It's like the curved line in graphing whose theoretical implications I always failed to grasp in 11th grade: it never reaches zero. We float in our indecision, caught up by the whitherto's and whyfores as we deplete resources and abandon faith in an alternate state. Without education, one cannot begin to fully understand their projected role in society and in life, but the more education they receive, the more futility is brought home.

This in a world that has conceived of butterflies and orgasms, waterfalls and chocolate mousse. This, in a world whose star is essential and whose creatures coexist in a Darwinian Utopia, surviving. There is oxygen, and water, and baby laughter. There are rainbows and bengal tigers and orchids. Fairytales peacefully nestle in purely scientific ink, paper and voice. The brain, electromagnetic and chemical processes firing, conceives of unicorns and Nirvana and quantum physics, while regulating the corporeal essentials - breath, cognisance, digestion, desire. Desire. Humanity dreams, together and one by one. We have kissed the moon ("One small step") and gone home to dance with the Sandman. Frogs marry ducklings and grow to be princes and swans. Kittens grow whiskers. The smell of freshly baked bread wafts, intermingling with a warm glow of sunset. On one side of the world, people rise to the same rhythmic pulses that tell those opposite them to lay down and close their eyes. Shakespeare, Keats, Beethoven, Einstein, Ghandi, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Chaucer, John Lennon, Mother Theresa, Dr. Suess, Tolkien, Atticus Finch, Callahan, Ender Wiggin, Kris Kringle, Nikola Tesla, Hobbes...

Despite spiritual stagnation and cutural assimilation, globalization is no excuse for apathy. We are willfully ignorant. (Not by nature, by decision.) May this millenial generation find their muse...

solipsist educational dilemma

2009-04-04T20:16:00.000-07:00

Did I Miss Anything (by Tom Wayman)

Question frequently asked by
students after missing a class

Nothing. When we realized you weren't here
we sat with our hands folded on our desks
in silence, for the full two hours

Everything. I gave an exam worth
40 per cent of the grade for this term
and assigned some reading due today
on which I'm about to hand out a quiz
worth 50 per cent

Nothing. None of the content of this course
has value or meaning
Take as many days off as you like:
any activities we undertake as a class
I assure you will not matter either to you or me
and are without purpose

Everything. A few minutes after we began last time
a shaft of light descended and an angel
or other heavenly being appeared
and revealed to us what each woman or man must do
to attain divine wisdom in this life and
the hereafter
This is the last time the class will meet
before we disperse to bring this good news to all people
on earth

Nothing. When you are not present
how could something significant occur?

Everything. Contained in this classroom
is a microcosm of human existence
assembled for you to query and examine and ponder
This is not the only place such an opportunity has been
gathered

but it was one place

And you weren't here

and so it begins...

2009-04-04T20:11:00.000-07:00

Before sunrise, before shadow, before tyranny and war, before love, and peace, and truths, before deceit, and life, and death, before time itself, there was a Tone. It was low, static, empty; it crept through the fabric of sullen void, waiting. Mæto, silent, ponderous, still, crouched at the edge of the abyss, peering down into the shallows and depths of heavy solitude. The Tone, flat, lay as if weighted by bricks of lead, writhing against its clutching bonds.

For a moment, an hour, an eternity, Mæto stared blindly into the teeming masses of empty space, searching. A solitary tear welled, slowly, slowly, or in an instant, and fell into the abyss, fell endless leagues, and an echo began. The Tone, awakened, became a thin hum. Trapped in the limitless confines of potential, it grew, as yet unaware of endings, focused only on beginnings. It grew, building and building until it began to reverberate against itself. It climbed, swelling, until a second Tone emerged, higher and faster than the first. They continued together, for an instant and an eternity, until finally (or right away), they clashed and clashed and clashed with each other, and there was endings. Each echoed off of the other, warring for space in the infinitely dark abyss. Thus, there was Dissonance.

With Dissonance, came Shadow, welling and pooling, caressing the viscous borders of Dissonance; and with Shadow came Light, flighty, elusive, magnetic; and the Light waged war with the Shadow, an epic battle, the epic battle, pulsing, pushing, struggling, shattering it into millions of fragments. Light bled through the fragments, dripping slowly past the Dissonance, until it had soaked through, leaving Shadow tainted and murky. They fell from the shaking of sound, faster than the tear, and caught it, writhed in its splendour for a fraction of an eternity, then bounced back up through the tumult of sound. The Light, and Shadow, and Sound rushed outward, and collided against the walls of the abyss, becoming Notes and Colours.

As they collided from the walls and rushed back inward, they began to encounter each other, sometimes splintering, sometimes merging, and Mæto heard a swelling Melody that danced on the surface of the Tone. The elusive Melody continued to kiss, and wrestle, and play; the colours to merge, and throb, and dissipate; and each pushed and pulled on the other until they mounted a Crescendo.

Mæto clapped, once, as a gong ringing through an empty stadium, and shattered the cresting wave. It tumbled over itself, a riot of startled colours and sounds, and collapsed into stillness and dark.

The silence was heavy, rich, strained; it tasted, to Mæto, of the as yet unimagined scent of sodden leaves in the waning of winter, when the snows have corroded and eroded the earth and rot is ripe in the air. Then there was Loneliness, and Mæto shuddered pathetically, for the taste was of chill and solitude; the heaving gasps of one about to drown and leave behind gaping absence.

Struggling, reaching, Mæto croaked, then cried out, then moaned. The Melody shook, then lay still. Mæto, in despair, hurled curses down into the darkness, and thus was Evil created in the hollow depths; the Melody’s sharp outcry of pain mingled with the curses, curling in an embrace of terrible passion. Overcome by repentance, Mæto sat, still, quiet, absorbing the shock waves of the curses that left Evil slinking below and around the Melody. Finally, conquered by tragedy, and longing, Mæto sang a mournful haunting to the crumpled Melody, subduing the curses with weeping. At first it seemed that nothing happened, but then Mæto began to hear a faint, distant pulse. It gradually grew, until the Melody feebly began to stir again, alternately whimpering weakly and self-soothing. It rose, slowly, gradually, rebuilding itself from the inside; and while the higher, clashing Tone still pushed lightly against the first, making it tremble slightly, the Melody was now twined in the steady branches of Mæto’s song, and its sinews could no longer be shattered, scattered, and lost.

So began the Hive, which pulsed with flickering white light, heady red glows, and sinuous rills of blue and green. Stained with droplets of violet, it echoed the song of Mæto, weakly at first, obediently. But as it pulsed into strength, light airy thrills began to flicker on the edges of the Melody. These were soon followed by reedy whispers and a deep, alto pulse, lapping gently through the core. The flickerings began as idle improvisations, trilling and skipping across the entire range of sound, distracting from the Song. Then, each flicker found a pattern, to complement the sinewy heart of the Melody. These patterns became stronger, and louder, as more of the flickerings joined each other, expanding the sounds. Thus was Harmony recreated, rediscovered, reimagined, and thus was Cacophony resolved.

But the memory remained of the echoing Clap, and the simple freedom that had preceded it, and a dissonance arose from the heart of the Hive.