ineffable observatory

participation remix

2012-02-19T13:25:00.001-05:00

Everything on the screen is derivative. Watch this series and see what I mean. The cycles and scenarios repeat with just enough changes or nuance to make them appear as new.

Went to see "Les Miserables" last night, a favorite musical of mine. A very emotional show. When the Occupy movement got started last Fall, thoughts of revolution roiled in my head and "Les Mis" came to mind. Synchronicity kicked in with a PBS concert of the music and a tour of the show coming to Raleigh in February. Tickets were purchased. I wonder still whether the fate of this rebellion will mirror the 1832 June Rebellion in France, where the "people" did not rise up with the students and take down the tyrants. The people so far, though many may be supportive, have not joined the Occupy barricade.

As for me, I have participated in a limited way, that has tailed off in recent weeks. I seem to be drifting back to that "old soul" persona of "been there done that". Just being part of the scenery, the background feels the most comfortable. Nothing here to see, move along.

no net

2012-02-17T18:30:00.000-05:00

eyes wide open...

jump

2012-02-15T17:48:00.001-05:00

Experience Freedom from Betty Wants In on Vimeo.

out of the cave

2012-02-10T09:33:00.000-05:00

stuff clings

2012-02-07T14:30:00.001-05:00

It clings, that red reptile brain, survivalist, base level stuff latches on to what is left and will not let go. Especially if the right scenario comes along, a trigger, a cause...like maybe how can we avoid the apocalypse and take down the "bad guys" or at least survive the fall of civilization as we know it.

That sends the clinging message up the ladder to the "nothing but the facts" brain. Study, research, pontification expands and explodes and over-loads. Noise and confusion happens. Limits are reached. Exhaustion.

The skin does not shed on it's own. Each scale has to be pulled off separately, super glued it is, but it will come off. Light begins to shine thru. Everything opens up. Less is left underneath.

The smiling idiot.

sometimes

2012-02-04T07:36:00.001-05:00

Sometimes there is nothing to say.

Sometimes there is nothing done.

Sometimes the noise is deafening.

Sometimes the man-suit just doesn't fit.

Sometimes you hurt feelings.

Sometimes the delusion is suffocating.

Sometimes it's no thank you to the kool-aid.

And...

Sometimes it is pure madness.

lament

2012-01-22T08:19:00.000-05:00

No people are uninteresting

Their fate is like the chronicle of planets.

Nothing in them is not particular,

and planet is dissimilar from planet.

In any man who dies there dies with him

his first snow and kiss and fight.

It goes with him.

Not people die but worlds die in them.

They perish. They cannot be brought back.

The secret worlds are not regenerated.

And every time again and again

I make my lament against destruction.

-Yevgeny Yevtushenko

roshi leonard

2012-01-18T09:06:00.000-05:00

(part of the black-out or just appropriate to the song, whatever)

I love to speak with Leonard
He’s a sportsman and a shepherd
He’s a lazy bastard
Living in a suit

But he does say what I tell him
Even though it isn’t welcome
He will never have the freedom
To refuse

He will speak these words of wisdom
Like a sage, a man of vision
Though he knows he’s really nothing
But the brief elaboration of a tube

Going home
Without my sorrow
Going home
Sometime tomorrow
To where it’s better
Than before

Going home
Without my burden
Going home
Behind the curtain
Going home
Without the costume
That I wore

He wants to write a love song
An anthem of forgiving
A manual for living with defeat

A cry above the suffering
A sacrifice recovering
But that isn’t what I want him to complete

I want to make him certain
That he doesn’t have a burden
That he doesn’t need a vision

That he only has permission
To do my instant bidding
That is to SAY what I have told him
To repeat

Going home
Without my sorrow
Going home
Sometime tomorrow
Going home
To where it’s better
Than before

Going home
Without my burden
Going home
Behind the curtain
Going home
Without the costume
That I wore

I love to speak with Leonard
He’s a sportsman and a shepherd
He’s a lazy bastard
Living in a suit

-Leonard Cohen

wonder

2012-01-16T17:15:00.000-05:00

senses

2012-01-15T15:01:00.001-05:00

"Photography is truth" Jean-Luc Godard.

What I see on the screen and see through my camera lens/screen, are the reflections of my brain processing the sense of sight for me and me alone. I can't see what anyone else sees. What I hear in music or smell from the fragrance of a rose is mine alone. There is no objective standard. The colors I see are more vibrant than my camera captures, I always have to intensify them to match what my brain has processed as "real". My wife Kitty senses the fragrance of a rose much more intensely than I. The world is created in our brains.

Is the first photograph more real, more graphic than the the one below? Maybe, maybe not.

Delight, wonder and astonishment.

bricks in the wall

2012-01-14T14:17:00.000-05:00

presence & astonishment

2012-01-12T14:30:00.001-05:00

And then there it was, presence...the only thing...popping the mind bubble thoughts effortlessly. No one doing it, just popping. I wrote that yesterday.

Woke up yesterday morning with work thoughts buzzing around in my brain and then they vanished and all that was left was a feeling of presence...presence was all there was and the realization that this time the eyes stayed open, absorbing the presence of it all. That has been with me ever since.

I am a casual and sometimes not so casual drinker, but I have noticed a change. Ever since the karma cleanse? I have noticed a significant decrease in my craving for alcohol of any kind. I still like the taste, but don't seem to need the buzz. Maybe I don't need the buffer so much anymore.

I love it when the sync fairy puts words in front of me that capture what has been roiling around on my screen. Especially when these words appeared within the body of the piece this morning:

"...we ARE the abyss, and that there is no abyss. The mystery is solved with the recognition of the absence of the presence of absence. Or are we rather the presence of the absence of presence?"

Yep, that's why the words never fit what is really going on. Probably why I feel mostly done with words from elsewhere...the written word, the spoken word all in the attempt at knowledge. Reminds me of a trip back from Chapel Hill this week. A car pulled out in front of me from a side street, which caused me to have slow down pretty fast. On the bumper were two stickers: "my karma ran over my dogma" and "not all who wander are lost". Thanks again sync fairy.

Then this morning someone on twitter posted the youtube of the re-occupation of Zuccati Park the other night. The joy in the celebration was fun to watch. The people's library was re-stocked and a girl sitting cross-legged on the ground with a book held it high and shouted "knowledge is power" and the first thing that came to me was knowledge is prison, and we willingly build that prison of limitation and delusion brick by brick with every new tome we consume.

The Reality Sandwich post spoke of the yoga of astonishment. Now that's a path.

interloper

2012-01-09T16:51:00.000-05:00

karma cleanse?

2012-01-08T18:02:00.000-05:00

Wrote five letters, ex-wives, lover, kids...found addresses, stuffed envelopes...mail tomorrow, I think. Put me in a really dark place, which means it really needed to be done. Soul feels toxic from the poisons being released. Need to keep flushing with whatever it takes to move out...fiber of acceptance.

Damn...didn't expect this response...amazing.

sloughing

2012-01-07T15:27:00.000-05:00

This feels scattered and disjointed, just like my mind these days. There is necrosis, both in and out that needs elimination.

The outer part feels easy. I became a consistent reader of books over the past few years. That doesn't seem to happen anymore. I have a number of partially read books that I just got to a random point in the text and just quit, done. Doesn't feel like I will return to any of them. I also have a number of ebooks that I bought that I have not even started, but they are there if that ever changes. At least they are not taking up physical space. Reading blog posts and random articles and sections of books seems to work right now.

All I want to do is take photos. I would do it all day long if I could get away with it. I was fascinated by an upgrade of my existing camera that is coming out later this year, until an article popped on my screen indicating that most people would be better off learning how to use the camera they have, than seeking out the next best thing coming out. Guilty. So I found an accessory for my existing camera that will fix the issue I have with it. To help pay for it, I will sell a bunch of my books that I have not finished or will never re-read. I will also not buy anymore books. Sloughing.

The interior part is more tricky. It involves a karma cleanse, for lack of a better term. Everyone has history and history always involves people. There have been divorces and alienations in my past. I have memories of those occurrences that I have used to fashion the stories I have told about them. Those memories and stories only involve my perspective, of course. I am going to reach out to those people and communicate my taking responsibility for a period of pain in their lives, own up. Seems to be the next thing to do.

Lighten your load.

nature

2012-01-02T20:15:00.000-05:00

..has no issues, grievances, problems...truth is all it has...

ufo

2011-12-31T12:01:00.000-05:00

conflict resolution

2011-12-31T09:32:00.000-05:00

The art and practice of mediation of conflicts and differences has been a recurring storyline for me. One of my first memories of what I wanted to be when I grew up, was to be a diplomat. I became a lawyer instead, a tough choice for someone who disliked conflict in any form.

Then mediation became popular within the judicial systems, more as way to clear backlog than a philosophical choice. I immediately gravitated to it, the resonance with me was profound. I became trained and certified and tried to create a practice dominated by that area. It went nowhere. I even gave it another shot about five years ago. Created a web presence under the name of Integral Dispute Resolution. Nothing. I moved on, continued to shuffle paper, help people buy homes, refinance homes. It's what I did, do.

Mediation popped up again in the last few days. The mind wanted to run with it again, create scenarios to act on potential opportunities. But there was a real hollowness to it this time, half-heartedness.

Realization hit this morning. There is no conflict to resolve. Everything on the screen is in perfect harmony. The actors are exactly who they are supposed to be, doing what the programming dictates, me included.

Conflict resolved.

go to the light

2011-12-29T18:02:00.000-05:00

sync

2011-12-27T20:07:00.001-05:00

Synchronicity has been really up front with me lately. Reading a really cool book about it right now. Then it smacked me right in the face. I connected on twitter with someone from Occupy Raleigh who happens to be the step-mother of my step-son's deceased best friend. We both got involved with the walkupy marchers as they passed through our area. Both Kitty and I posted about Ian's death, her more sympathetically than me. I was in a bit of a stark period?

We loved Ian. Some of his ashes are traveling with the walkupiers. I am awed by consciousness slapping me around for my disregard for the interconnectedness. I embrace it all, appropriately humbled. Thanks Ian.

seeds

2011-12-25T08:55:00.000-05:00

what do ya get

2011-12-24T11:13:00.000-05:00

I was born and raised near the coal fields in southern West Virginia and the Tennessee Ernie Ford version of this song is a vivid memory from my childhood. He was my grandmother's favorite singer. She would forgive me for using Johnny's version I think.

As the song reflects, the miners were totally at the mercy of the coal company. They were paid with "script" that was only good at the company store. If there was a bank, the coal company controlled it.

Seems to me that the only change is that there are more companies and more stores. They print the script, we work to earn it and use it to buy their stuff, or when we don't have enough for the stuff, they loan us more script so we can.

Insanity comes to mind.

lives

2011-12-21T08:21:00.002-05:00

walking

2011-12-20T12:18:00.000-05:00

I went for a walk with a few new friends on Saturday in Raleigh. About twelve of them were out-of-towners on a more lengthy walk and were just passing thru town for the weekend. We started on the sidewalk, about 70 of us, but soon we were in the street, shouting "whose streets, our streets", never blocking or impeding traffic. The destination was the Occupy Raleigh encampment. Gradually there became a police presence. We were warned that arrests would happen if we did not get back on the sidewalk. Most complied, but some of the "Walkupy" folks did not. Sarah was the first to stand her ground. She wanted to be arrested, it's part of PR for the movement.

We were a block from the encampment when the arrests happened. The police knew where we were going. I will always have the iconic picture in my head of Sarah standing there surrounded by police officers with the american flag, her "Arjuna's sword", hoisted above her head, striking the blow for a different way.

This stuff has really been dominating my head recently. It still surprises me at times, that at this point on this path, it's so in my face.

wasteland

2011-12-17T07:57:00.001-05:00

I am destroyed, overwhelmed by the power of the will of survival of these people, the pickers at the landfill in Rio in Brazil. Watched the documentary movie, "Wasteland", last night. An artist comes to the worlds largest landfill and creates art from the waste and recycled stuff, posing some of these people as within the "art as trash" or "trash as art" and allowing them to be seen as more than just a part of the swarm of scavengers. It brought tears.

It also brought sleeplessness. We buy stuff that gets thrown away. We are encouraged to buy stuff, especially this time of year, because it is good for the economy. We are conditioned to worship the economy and it's growth, taught to believe that it is some kind of science in the world like physics. It's a contrivance, an invention of philosophers out of thin air, with no basis. We don't have to be this way.

I finally got back to sleep about 4:30 and proceeded to have a dream. I was sitting in a waiting room with about thirty other people listening for my name to be called for my appointment to be put to death. Some of the people were there for other reasons. There was no indication that my death was to be punishment for anything I had done, nor was there any explanation for how I had gotten there. What was very clear, was that I was free to leave, come and go as I wished, rather than just sit and wait...waste my time.

A year ago today, a young fruit vender in Tunisia set himself on fire in protest over being continually harassed by police while simply trying to sell enough fruit to survive in the world. That incident started the "Arab Spring".

Feel free to get up and walk around.

"i" con

2011-12-14T16:43:00.000-05:00

illusion

2011-12-13T08:52:00.000-05:00

view behind..

2011-12-12T09:32:00.000-05:00

..is the same as in front..

stillness

2011-12-11T15:24:00.000-05:00

om my gratitude

2011-12-11T08:29:00.000-05:00

skin breathing

2011-12-09T18:00:00.000-05:00

Sometimes that's what it feels like...the energy just gets sucked in through the pores...the body still gets oxigenated from breathing, but there is turbocharging happening from all directions. Anyone reading this will think I'm freaking nuts, but it's not like I have any control over it...it just happens and this is my lame-ass attempt at putting words to it.

Putting words to anything lately has been weird. The words won't wrap around this shit, so i gravitate to shooting pictures, but they never capture what i see, which makes me want to keep taking more and finding a lens that will capture the big reveal in some fashion...i keep trying...it's what i do..

And people sometimes come here and read...beats the shit out of me...

mooney blue

2011-12-09T13:07:00.002-05:00

depth

2011-12-06T11:47:00.000-05:00

flowarchy mic check

2011-12-04T10:06:00.000-05:00

Sometimes stuff just needs to get thrown on the wall and just looked at instead of letting it roil in the brain..flushing needs to happen.

Sometimes the screen looks like this photo I took last weekend, the "clarity" blurred, flowarchy gets mic checked?

"Mic checked" is the phrase used by the occupiers to indicate a direct action intervention, designed to have a group speak out in a setting pretty much in an ambush/flash mob kind of scenario. Last week occupiers showed up in Raleigh at a speech by the Wells Fargo CEO and a mic check happened in the middle of his talk. It forced Mr. Wells Fargo to deviate from his script and improvise in order to respond to the "checkers".

I am still fascinated by this occupy energy that seems to be spreading. A part of me felt something like this coming on a few months ago. It draws me in, yet I am satisfied to be more at arms length, to share stuff, support? in some way.

Recently read a book about the exploration of how our memories, our history can be distorted and quite selective. Pretty obvious that it happens, but more educational in the words of someone else's story.

Does anyone think it’s easy
To be a creature in this world?
To ask for reasons
When all reasons serve only
To make the darkness darker,
And to break the heart?
—Not only of man,
But of all breathing things?
Perhaps, friends, it is time
To take a stand
Against all this senseless hurt.
- Kenneth Patchen

Yes it is a mess. We navigate as best we can with the tools our hands are able to latch on to.

holes

2011-11-29T10:52:00.000-05:00

gratitude

2011-11-24T07:42:00.000-05:00

Thankfulness comes in all flavors. It can be specific, like for the individual's in your life or for the places you've been and experiences along your path. Being thankful for it all is harder. Enveloping yourself in that constant feeling of gratitude takes attention and awareness. One of my father's favorite responses when someone would ask him how he was doing was, "well, I'm able to sit up and take nourishment". The phrase always made me laugh, but what a simple expression of gratitude. It's all nourishment.

sail on

2011-11-22T08:34:00.000-05:00

certainty

2011-11-15T09:35:00.002-05:00

"Humans may crave absolute certainty; they may aspire to it; they may pretend, as partisans of certain religions do, to have attained it. But the history of science — by far the most successful claim to knowledge accessible to humans — teaches that the most we can hope for is successive improvement in our understanding, learning from our mistakes, an asymptotic approach to the Universe, but with the proviso that absolute certainty will always elude us."

- Carl Sagan

stoned

2011-11-07T11:49:00.001-05:00

Going to the woods recharges my energy. Yesterday I went to one of my favorite places, Stone Mountain State Park, close to Elkin, NC. I have hiked over that mountain many times, but this was the first time I had gone completely alone.

The trail goes up one side, crosses the top, and then comes down the other side. It's a little over 5 miles total. The trail up was very quiet, as there were few people out and I was not up for much conversation. That would come later.

All the memories of prior trips with my kids and past family and friends came rushing back onto the screen and it was like they were all happening in joyous review right in front of my eyes.

The energy of the place injected itself into me, enlivened me in an uncustomary way and I started chatting up anyone I came in contact with...like I was a tour director of some kind. It cracked me up.

Perspectives and perceptions...clever subterfuge for the unlimited.

Then I found a spot to stop, cook some lunch, brew a cup of tea and...

just soak it all in, envelope me...

psi & extended mind

2011-10-28T09:29:00.000-04:00

indignant consensus

2011-10-19T15:28:00.001-04:00

If you are not sensing the shift, then I dare You to scroll through these and not feel the welling up of emotion that they generate. The irony of the image to the left is, that when the "I" disappears or is at least sublimated, boy that is when the fun and games really start. Right now the screen of this life is filled with the fun and games of the Occupy movement, whatever it is.

These kids and their allies from other generations are in the process of re-creating society and everything that goes with it. And as the pictures from the link above show, it aint just in the US. They continue to confound the people in power and the media that props them up, with their emphasis on process, but it is the process that is the game changer. People aren't getting that.

May you live in interesting times? Hell yes. Are the occupiers here in time to save the collapse? Who knows. They'll sure as hell know how to rebuild it in a new image.

occupied

2011-10-09T17:02:00.001-04:00

I am surprised. I have been at first, fascinated and then touched by the whole occupy movement. Nothing in the story has resonated with me like this in a very long time. I have not voted in the last two elections. What was the point. These people get that, at least on the superficial level.

Kitty and I attended the first meeting of occupychapelhill today in front of the post office building on Franklin Street. I was moved to tears at least once during the meeting...not from anything said...from the energy that enveloped me...an empathetic energy that washed over the whole scene.

I am part of the legal working group. We meet again next Saturday at 10:30 AM at the same location.

Again, I am surprised.

remembering

2011-10-06T06:59:00.001-04:00

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

Steve Jobs

mentally ill?

2011-09-30T07:26:00.001-04:00

Okay, this all started when my wife Kitty posted on her Live Journal about this online personality test and her results. I took it too and below are my results.

Personality Disorder Test Results
Paranoid || 10%
Schizoid |||||||||||||||||||| 82%
Schizotypal |||||||||||||||| 62%
Antisocial |||||| 22%
Borderline |||||||||| 38%
Histrionic |||||| 22%
Narcissistic |||||||||| 34%
Avoidant |||||||||||| 50%
Dependent |||||| 22%
Obsessive-Compulsive |||||||||||| 42%

Then last night she alerted me to this Mayo Clinic link which describes a "medical condition" called Depersonalization Disorder. Not that she thinks I'm nuts, but the symptoms are:

Continuous or recurring feelings that you're an outside observer of your thoughts, your body or parts of your body.

Numbing of your senses or responses to the world around you.

Feeling like a robot or feeling like you're living in a dream or in a movie.

The sensation that you aren't in control of your actions, including speaking.

Awareness that your sense of detachment is only a feeling, and not reality.

Other symptoms can include:

The sense that your body, legs or arms appear distorted, enlarged or shrunken.

Feeling like you are observing yourself from above, as if you were floating in the air.

Feeling emotionally disconnected from people you care about.

There is also a test for that one as well. Here is what the site said about my results:

Your score of 52 falls in the range of Severe Depersonalization (25-75).We recommend that you be evaluated by a professional who is trained in the administration of the full SCID-D interview. If your depersonalization has interfered with your relationships with friends, family or coworkers, or has affected your ability to work or has caused you distress, it is particularly important that you obtain a professional consultation.

Yep, mentally ill. How about you?

new age

2011-09-29T10:58:00.000-04:00

at home

2011-09-22T22:09:00.001-04:00

I am not at home in the world. This is not a recent phenomenon or something that is a side effect of all the disappearance stuff that has made itself known over the last couple of years. I can look back on this life and see that it has always been so. And it is mostly that I am not at home with people. Discourse with others has always been hard and weird and mostly an act. The really weird thing is that I enjoy being where people are, hell, I lived in an apartment in downtown Winston-Salem, NC for three years, I just don't care to have interaction, especially conversation. I like to watch, not much on participation.

I don't relate to what most people talk about or think is important, mostly never have. This makes relationships kinda difficult and they have been. I am most fortunate to have found a partner that gets my weirdness, mostly. I am quite lucky.

me in you

2011-09-20T07:29:00.001-04:00

Kings of Convenience - Me in You from eirik bøe on Vimeo.

one

2011-09-17T08:19:00.001-04:00

"We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are shining parts, is the soul."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

a-changin'

2011-09-14T18:09:00.000-04:00

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

-Bob Dylan

Ronnie Belcher, Pat Carrick and I got called into the principal's office in 1966, for singing this song at the 9th grade talent show. It really looked like a certain flow of change was happening...it did for a while, then it didn't. Of course change happened, it always does.

The lyrics seem kinda back in vogue?

take your place

2011-09-10T23:54:00.000-04:00

So I told him that he'd better shut his mouth
And do his job like a man.
And he answered "Listen, Father,
I will never kill another."
He thinks he's better
than his brother that died
What the hell does he think he's doing
To his father who brought him up right?

Take your place on The Great Mandala
As it moves through your brief moment of time.
Win or lose now you must choose now
And if you lose you're only losing your life.

Tell the jailer not to bother
With his meal of bread and water today.
He is fasting 'til the killing's over
He's a martyr, he thinks he's a prophet.
But he's a coward, he's just playing a game
He can't do it, he can't change it
It's been going on for ten thousand years

Take your place on The Great Mandala
As it moves through your brief moment of time.
Win or lose now you must choose now
And if you lose you're only losing your life.

Tell the people they are safe now
Hunger stopped him, he lies still in his cell.
Death has gagged his accusations

We are free now, we can kill now,
We can hate now, now we can end the world
We're not guilty, he was crazy
And it's been going on for ten thousand years!

Take your place on The Great Mandala
As it moves through your brief moment of time.
Win or lose now you must choose now
And if you lose you've only wasted your life.

golf yoga

2011-09-05T16:09:00.000-04:00

I started playing golf when I was about 12 years old. I was hooked immediately. I played regularly into my mid to late 20's. Then, a different life took over and I didn't play as much. In my mid 40's, golf became my obsession again for about ten years and again life intervened and golf was gone again. I even sold all my equipment and referred to it as retirement.

I had not played in over five years until yesterday. I have scavenged together a minimal set of clubs, mostly used and cheap. I am drawn to seek a whole new relationship with the game and it's lessons. I even started re-reading Golf In The Kingdom.

Yesterday I went over to a little golf course less than 15 minutes from my house and was able to walk 9 holes for only $4.00. They were doing some renovations and had temporary greens in use. It made me laugh. Feels right.

mourning has broken

2011-09-01T14:49:00.000-04:00

Disappearance, realization, the falling away of the filters sometimes generates feelings of sadness and loss. Sometimes it just feels barren of all passion for the things in the story that were always there as the driving force for getting out of bed in the morning. But those driving forces, whatever they were, had to be seen through and reduced to the nothingness that they really are, flayed.

The ego mourns those losses, it's incremental death. It brings down the life force, generating a pall, a starkness. And that passes, and then it is seen that the former "driving forces", though now bereft of any real significance, are harmless enough, can be re-engaged, played with...even enjoyed.

It doesn't matter.

the flood

2011-08-25T20:50:00.001-04:00

"You will be alone. There are reasons for that, but they don't make much of a difference anymore. Your flaws, your indecisiveness, the sad upbringing you never quite got over: none of that matters now. You are alone and the flood is coming. You should make sure you're dressed comfortably; you don't want to be wearing any constricting clothes. Climb to the highest point you have access to, which is probably your building's roof. Stand up straight, facing away from the oncoming surge. Take a deep breath. Consider the totality of your life. Forgive everyone you feel hard done by. Forgive yourself for everything you've done wrong. Remind yourself that every embarrassment, every humiliation, every hurt you've caused or have been victim of is an empty event that carries considerably less meaning than your perception because of the burden of consciousness and all its false feelings of significance. Remember whatever brief moment of happiness you consider to be the high point of your life. Pretend that it was the rule rather than the exception. Turn toward the wall of water. Stick your arms out straight at your sides. Extend your palms. Close your eyes. Let it come. Alternately, maybe take a train to somewhere out of town before the real rain starts to come down. I'm not saying there aren't options."

- Alex Balk, The Awl

filters

2011-08-24T18:48:00.001-04:00

Sometimes the filters fall away. Sometimes the magnetic force that pulls us to our perceived filters of choice is neutralized. Sometimes pure unfiltered experience is all there is. The grace responsible for that unfiltered experience is the gift that keeps on giving.

Realization is.

wtf

2011-08-17T17:28:00.001-04:00

Sometimes the eureka moment sneaks up on you...well let's face it, they all pretty much do that. My working mind has not been very busy lately and that's when the bullshit thoughts come flooding to the fore, and when functioning is on the back burner, they can start fucking with you if you let them.

Holy shit has that been going on the last two to three weeks. Today it hit a crescendo like the ending of the hallelujah chorus and it was, okay, you lesser angels need to shut the fuck up. Things are just as smooth and copacetic as they always are and will always be, and this latest mental chin music, though the tune may seem catchy, is the same top 40 repetitive melodies that I have heard over and over. Ear worms get out of this head. Can't it at least come up with something original?

I admire the persistence, but it's just noise...fingers in ears....blah, blah, blah, blah...I can't hear you!

Okay, time for a drink.

flowarchy

2011-08-15T09:25:00.002-04:00

Life governed by moving with a continual change of place in relation to fixed objects or positions. The art of dodging labels either imposed by society or self-imposed. Being who or what is indicated for the situation presented, a mental shape-shifter.

Riding the ride with arms up...voice in tune...eyes wide open.

it's the rides

2011-08-14T09:46:00.001-04:00

"And so it is that we, as men, do not exist until we do; and then it is that we play with our world of existent things, and order and disorder them, and so it shall be that Non-existence shall take us back from Existence, and that nameless Spirituality shall return to Void, like a tired child home from a very wild circus."

-Greg Hill, Principia Discordia

the dude speaks

2011-08-14T09:15:00.001-04:00

"I'm pretty critical of myself as far as reaching some sort of perfect bull's-eye or target that I'm aiming for. Sometimes you can get so obsessed with that bull's-eye that you miss the whole deal, because you're just so focused on what you think is perfection that you miss what really is perfection — which is just being alive.

"Life is having its way with me now, and I'm really pleased."

-Jeff Bridges on NPR

roshi emma

2011-08-09T09:55:00.003-04:00

"Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being free access to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life, according to individual desires, tastes, and inclinations."

- Emma Goldman

...sounds pretty awake/enlightened to me

?

2011-08-08T16:36:00.000-04:00

muddled

2011-08-03T10:48:00.000-04:00

The title pretty much covers it. No apparent direction is revealing itself. No motivation welling up from inside. No signs on the winds as to where life is heading. Flow seems damned up. Starkness...funk...beats the shit out of me.

Guess I will just sit with this until the next thing.

roshi dexter?

2011-08-02T12:53:00.002-04:00

This is not generic, this is personal...but really...it's all personal if you are going to really kick the ever arising bullshit to the curb forever.

I am tired of playing this character that wounds, fails to trust, keeps secrets, tells half-truths, plays with honesty and clarity like it is some toy to be brought out of the chest when he's in the mood for that activity, but then puts it away on some whim that it is inconvenient or is bored with it. Tired of creating hurt with selfishness...tired.

Tired of that character continuing to show up in re-runs and syndication, when it looked like that show had been canceled...but it's never, ever really canceled, is it?

Maybe the proclamation to the ether that I am tired of being type-cast in that recurring role, will get attention, sow seeds...but that can't happen until the root cause is acknowledged...and it's always the root cause...all together now let's say it...fear. Not just regular fear, but with a topping of cowardice...the fear of admitting fear, especially with layers of bullshit to disguise the cowardice.

It becomes easier to deceive, be less honest...whoa...way better than letting that coward thing out of the bag. We don't want anyone to know we are scared, especially the closest person who loves and admires...have that "image" tarnished...be found to be a pussy. But if that is who you are and who you have always been, embrace it.

I am a big "Dexter" fan. Dexter has known from the time he was a boy that he was a killer, a serial killer. His adoptive father knew it as well and taught Dexter how to "blend in", but did not try to help him change who he was. It would have been a waste of time. Any time he has ventured into the realm of trying to change or "self-improvement", it has always created more problems than it could solve.

Another show on Showtime, "Nurse Jackie", is about a nurse addicted to prescription meds of various flavors. She is unapologetic, and even after she was busted by friends and family and an intervention ensued, she made no real attempt to change. Ironically, contrary to Dexter, my wife I decided to quit watching Jackie when we saw a preview of her chugging some of her daughter's anti-anxiety pills. We decided, okay, Jackie is not growing or evolving as a character, she just continues to be the addicted person she is. And Dexter keeps being the same old serial killer. No difference.

And I keep playing that "scaredy cat" character, and that's okay. It's better than okay, it's what is. Run with it and stop deceiving others and especially yourself. It's not real, even the "good" character traits...sometimes ya got to hate those too.

peak experience

2011-07-24T10:04:00.001-04:00

you don't want to know

2011-07-24T07:41:00.001-04:00

wide open

2011-07-21T17:44:00.000-04:00

stop..

2011-07-21T07:45:00.000-04:00

sit..

listen...see...

tetons

2011-07-18T17:49:00.001-04:00

60

2011-07-18T09:55:00.001-04:00

I celebrate sixty years of this story today. It is weird. It is really only the body that is counting, aging. Nothing else is different than it always was or has ever been. One still seems to want to take inventory when these milestone numbers are reached I guess. And I have a daughter who sometimes checks in here, so writing about story stuff is way to let her know stuff.

At this writing my wife Kitty and I are on vacation in Wyoming with her parents. We are at the foot of the Tetons and it is beautiful. This chapter finds me in a very happy place. The physical health has remained good. The body is holding up pretty well. I have had a little "c" to take care of on the end of my nose. That happens a week from today when I have a Mohs procedure. Just hoping I don't look like Mike Doonesbury when the dermatologist gets finished. Doesn't feel like a big deal, just the next thing.

It's pretty simple when it gets right down to it. My parents died in their late 40's. I celebrate every day that rolls around. That's all there is to it.

2011-07-17T11:59:00.001-04:00

average...

2011-07-17T11:20:00.001-04:00

morning run...i wish...

2011-07-15T09:29:00.001-04:00

addiction

2011-07-11T18:18:00.000-04:00

"For most of my life I have believed that words are the ruins left by those compelled to record their thoughts as a result of their addiction to this world, and just as ancient pottery must break into shards and ancient buildings are reduced to their foundations and dinosaurs have left behind their skeletons, all of our scribblings and notations, even our books, must eventually lose their meaning. I say this to you, and yet I will attempt to describe, at least this once, my own experience, though I promise you that nothing, in the end, will seem conclusive. Stories are like dreams in this way. They happen. They do not happen. They are right there. They exist in some other place entirely."

-Day For Night

destiny

2011-07-11T18:08:00.000-04:00

"A man certainly does become confused, gradually, with the form of his own destiny. Often this is because the form it takes is less extraordinary than what he has hoped for. In my life I intended to be larger, more heroic. But a man must take the part that he is given, and when it's done he must do his best to speak of it with dignity."

-again "Day For Night"

magicians

2011-07-10T16:36:00.000-04:00

"I recognize that we are all magicians in some way. We are complicit in all we see, and comprehend that what we see will never coincide with absolute reality.

As a result, the human brain must make a narrative. This I can say with certainty, and yet each narrative we choose will reach a point at which it no longer suffices. One narrative must inevitably be abandoned for another. In this way, any narrative sequence defers meaning, even beyond the point at which it appears to end."

-Frederick Reiken from "Day For Night: A Novel"

the fan-less fan

2011-07-08T20:31:00.002-04:00

blows over

2011-07-08T07:35:00.001-04:00

mauled

2011-07-07T17:24:00.000-04:00

Getting mauled by a grizzly bear is a scary proposition. The recent death in Yellowstone reminded me of that fear. My wife and I are headed to Wyoming next week and were looking forward to getting up to Yellowstone. The potential danger makes your mind want to take a step back.

I remember being in northern California a few years ago at a retreat center where there had been mountain lion attacks in the area. A runner on a trail in the area had been killed. The retreat was a silent, individual one and the cabins were pretty isolated at the top of this hill. The bathrooms were in another building about thirty yards away. Since my body was still on eastern time, it needed to get up in the still dark early morning. I remember being quite frightened making my way back and forth in the dark with my flashlight.

The same primal fear arises at the beach when we hear of shark attacks. There was one of those last week at a North Carolina beach, the state where I live.

Self preservation is a very strong animal instinct. Fear of death, however, is a different thing. The fear of death or suffering is a mind game. It causes timidity. It challenges your motivation. It questions your intent. It looks for the easy way out. It looks outside for reasons and excuses, when it's the inside that's the problem. Sitting with that fear and then letting it go is a liberating experience.

this sucks

2011-07-06T07:01:00.001-04:00

voice-over

2011-07-04T07:20:00.000-04:00

It's usually just the thoughts circling the wagons around whatever action is going on in front of you. Sometimes the action has no basis in reality and the voice-over is truth making itself known just in case you had forgotten about it...saying, oh, by the way, don't get sucked into this, you know it's just bullshit, right? And then at other times its the voice of some sort of justification for the actions. The action has to happen the way it is happening, the game plays out, truth rolls it's eyes, but the noise is still there explaining it.

But it's always your voice-over. The thoughts come up and explaining and meaning are put forth, but always from the single perspective of you...that's what we assume. Yet we try to do it for others as well. We try to do their voice-over...script their thoughts. He must have been trying to get to here from there by doing this. But we don't have a fucking clue. Doesn't stop us though. Hell, it works for us, it must work to explain their frame of existence as well.

Saw "The Tree of Life" last weekend. I liked it very much. It is filled with voice-overs, a favorite technique of Terrence Malik. What's interesting about the movie is that it's unclear as to whose perspective is really responsible for the voice-overs, are they the thoughts of the characters as you hear the words in their individual voices, or are all the voice-overs coming from the same perspective, from Jack, the Sean Penn character. Is he creating the narrative for his father and mother in order to project onto them his interpretation for their actions.

It's all noise generated by the search for meaning and there is none. It's just life happening.

clarity again

2011-07-02T20:32:00.001-04:00

"A few times in my life I've had moments of absolute clarity, when for a few brief seconds the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think, and things seem so sharp and the world seems so fresh. I can never make these moments last. I cling to them, but like everything, they fade. I have lived my life on these moments. They pull me back to the present, and I realize that everything is exactly the way it was meant to be."

- "A Single Man" (the movie)

would you like that torched or frozen

2011-06-30T07:18:00.001-04:00

There was a guy I went to high school with who spent a couple of years stationed in Alaska as an army dentist. Dean said he never grew tired, when the temp dropped well below zero, of taking a glass of water, flinging open the front door and tossing the water into the air and watching it instantly change to ice crystals as it fell to the ground. It was still water, just a different form...and entertaining.

The forms arise and fall away. Get the fire hot enough and this body would be converted to ash. The basic chemical and organic components would still be there for the most part, ready to be made into another form. Perhaps not as entertaining as the glass of water trick, but still just form change arising and falling away.

There's not much else to it. The rest of nature within the story gets it. Mostly we don't.

impending

2011-06-29T17:51:00.002-04:00

I was sitting on my front stoop the other night watching the black clouds swirl in the sky, feeling the cooling wind blow the tree leaves upside down, the impending rain storm ready to erupt at any time. But you know, sometimes it fakes you out and blows over or around where you are. I love nature's weather drama, especially thunderstorms, the unpredictability.

I have started a couple of books recently that looked pretty interesting. Both are about impending kind of stuff. One is by Ray Kurzweil, "The Singularity Is Near"', which is mostly about his predictions about the melding of humans and machines, real kinda sci fi stuff. The other book by Paul Gilding, "The Great Disruption", is about economic and environmental collapse and how he foresees we will get ourselves out of that impending mess and create a new and happier non-consuming economy. I ended up not finishing either one of them. Besides getting totally tired of them telling me what to believe about all that stuff, how the fuck do they know. It's like this video I read about yesterday from this economist, whose name I forget, also predicting the coming economic armagedden advising people to buy guns, gold and silver, grow their own food, whatever.

You know, sometimes impending just doesn't happen. Sometimes you get drenched, but sometimes it just blows by and drenches somewhere else. It's more fun and entertaining to just wait and see what actually happens, then deal with it or not. Doesn't matter which.

scale

2011-06-28T10:31:00.000-04:00

obx

2011-06-23T10:33:00.002-04:00

after life

2011-06-22T22:42:00.001-04:00

The stories we insist on sharing and telling ourselves about what happens after this body dies are what keeps us in the game, the story. We have to create a scenario of some kind to trick our minds into believing that we really don't vanish entirely at physical death. The people left behind do it too. They don't want to believe that poof, that loved one is gone forever, physically, mentally and spiritually, without a trace.

We use coincidental happenings as signs that the spirit of a dead relative is signaling us from beyond. I did it for a time after my father died. I used to run in the very early morning before it got light and there was a section of road where my father had run his car into a ditch one time. There was a streetlight at that location that would often switch off as I ran under it. I created a story in my mind that it was some sort of signal from my dad. These were dusk to dawn lights that could have been tripped for any number of reasons, but I chose to go with the signal thing. It kept him alive in some way, but more importantly, it kept my own perceived immortality alive as well.

Today I attended the memorial service for my stepson's friend who died last week. There were several references to Ian looking down on them from some nebulous nonexistent place, pick the belief system that suits. Sure, they wanted to believe that this kid was still around in some way, but they really were reenforcing their needs to not really die when they die.

People pay lip service to living in the moment, few actually walk the walk. This life is all we know for sure. We do not know if it will be syndicated on some other network or if we will get cast in another roll. Making up convenient stories about it when it gets canceled seems to be a waste of your character's time.

what if it is

2011-06-16T20:32:00.002-04:00

We have been re-watching one of my favorite shows on netflix, "Six Feet Under". Last night we watched the last episode of season 4 which ends with one of my favorite scenes. David comes downstairs to find the ghost of his father hanging out watching it rain. David was car jacked and came close to death and has been extremely traumatized by it. That day he had confronted his attacker in jail by visiting him.

Last night a sweet 18 year old kid named Ian, one of my stepson's best friends, died from a random aneurysm. The night before, he had spent the night in our home.

It does make it so simple.

i don't know

2011-06-15T11:17:00.000-04:00

belief

2011-06-13T11:43:00.001-04:00

clinging

2011-06-12T10:26:00.001-04:00

perspectives2

2011-06-06T10:08:00.005-04:00

the dream

2011-06-05T21:23:00.000-04:00

NYC - Mindrelic Timelapse from Mindrelic on Vimeo.

on steroids

everywhere...

2011-06-04T08:20:00.004-04:00

you look...

perfection...

everywhere..

earnestness

2011-06-03T20:23:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I just crack up, mostly to myself, when I pretend the earnestness that has to be exhibited to solicit business/clients. I still wonder why people want to invest in buying a house, yet that is what I help people do. I hope they keep doing it or refinancing the house they have or get equity lines. Money in my pocket, food in my mouth. I'm really good at what I do, but it seems bizarre that people believe that they really own anything, especially a house, land.

It is all so transient, so ephemeral, life it's ownself, even the earnestness.

I try not to crack up during the earnestness, only after.

clear seeing

2011-06-02T10:54:00.002-04:00

transition

2011-05-31T10:04:00.002-04:00

on this end

2011-05-29T11:24:00.002-04:00

David Scoma's takes on waking up resonated with me at a time when they were what was needed. His justperception site was filled with pointers and direction and whatever, always coming back to the Scoma mantra of "motive and intent". He put up a post recently that looks like the conclusion of his writing and talking about this stuff. He had already taken down most of what was on the site. The last part hit the resonation button again.

"Motive and intent can be utilized in many, many aspects of life and are the keys to so many riches in the life you find yourself in. And where you find yourself right now is all there is anyhow, so there you go. I find this here character right now in a completely different frame of mind and life from the years when I wrote and talked to people about all of this. Find yourself wherever you are at this point in your life, and live every moment of it to the fullest. Whether it’s seeking, or living your life, or putting spirituality behind you, or enjoying a sunset, or raising a child – dying a little bit one day at a time and loving every minute of it. Live it to the hilt – whatever that life is that is right in front of you – for every single second until they put you in the ground. In other words, as a great sage once summarized so wisely - Git 'er done!"

pipe down

2011-05-25T13:37:00.001-04:00

roshi paul

2011-05-24T13:28:00.001-04:00

I’m going to make a chicken gumbo
Toss some sausage in the pot
I’m going to flavor it with okra
Cayenne pepper to make it hot
You know life is what we make of it
So beautiful or so what

I’m going to tell my kids a bedtime story
A play without a plot
Will it have a happy ending?
Maybe yeah, maybe not
I tell them life is what you make of it
So beautiful or so what

So beautiful
So beautiful
So what

I’m just a raindrop in a bucket
A coin dropped in a slot
I am an empty house on Weed Street
Across the road from the vacant lot
You know life is what you make of it
So beautiful or so what

Ain’t it strange the way we’re ignorant
How we seek out bad advice
How we jigger it and figure it
Mistaking value for the price
And play a game with time and love
Like pair of rolling dice
So beautiful
So beautiful
So what

Four men on the balcony
Overlooking the parking lot
Pointing at a figure in the distance
Dr. King has just been shot
And the sirens long melody
Singing Savior Pass Me Not

Ain’t it strange the way we’re ignorant
How we seek out bad advice
How we jigger it and figure it
Mistaking value for the price
And play a game with time and love
Like a pair of rolling dice
So beautiful
So beautiful
So beautiful

be bop a lu la & ooh poppa do

2011-05-24T11:44:00.001-04:00

After I died, and the make up had dried, I went back to my place.
No moon that night, but a heavenly light shone on my face.
Still I thought it was odd, there was no sign of God just to usher me in.
Then a voice from above, sugar coated with Love, said, "Let us begin".

You got to fill out a form first, and then you wait in the line.
You got to fill out a form first, and then you wait in the line.

OK, a new kid in school, got to follow the rule, you got to learn the routine.
Woah, there's a girl over there, with the sunshiny hair, like a homecomin' queen.
I said, "Hey, what you say? It's a glorious day, by the way how long you been dead?"
Maybe you, maybe me, maybe baby makes three, but she just shook her head...

You got to fill out a form first, and then you wait in the line.
You got to fill out a form first, and then you wait in the line.

Buddha and Moses and all the noses from narrow to flat,
Had to stand in the line, just to glimpse the divine, what you think about that?
Well it seems like our fate to suffer and wait for the knowledge we seek.
It's all his design, no one cuts in the line, no one here likes a sneak

You got to fill out a form first, and then you wait in the line.
You got to fill out a form first, and then you wait in the line.

After you climb, up the ladder of time, the Lord God is here.
Face to face, in the vastness of space, your words disappear.
And you feel like swimming in an ocean of love, and the current is strong.
But all that remains when you try to explain is a fragment of song...

Lord is it, Be Bop A Lu La or Ooh Poppa Do
Lord, Be Bop A Lu La or Ooh Poppa Do
Be Bop A Lu La

stretch

2011-05-23T08:52:00.002-04:00