when it's over...

...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

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

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

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?)

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

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?

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

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...

...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"

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

"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

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]

[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)

[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

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

"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?

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

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?

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

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