garg

Well then, that was quite a treacherous and tumultuous span of time. I'm grateful for it, of course. I like that I'm developing a big capacity for forgiveness, mostly of myself. It's such an important thing, mainly because to dwell in anything other than love is to drown in currents of hate.  And there are way too many dances to be danced and way too much music to be played for that to happen. Swim in the river of love and let it send you adrift wherever it may.

People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Be good anyway.

Honesty and frankness will make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People need help, but may attack you if you try to help them.
Help them anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.

There's a Reason

There’s a reason,

For this song,

Why every time I find an answer nothing’s ever solved,

Going to confession are my sins really absolved? 

There’s a reason

For this song

Why I love playing on the swingset in the park

Why I love to look up at the heavens after dark

Find the music of my soul and let it sing

Find the beat that makes me dance and let it ring

If I listen closely there’s a song in everything.

Let the music of my soul dance through me

Let the dance within my heart beat out a mel-o-ody,

If you listen closely there’s beauty in everything.

There’s a reason,

For this song,

Come up with some reductive formula for living,

A reason for my troubles, a reason for forgiving 

There’s a reason,

For this song,

Why golden spirals hide themselves in flowers

Why I feel happy I feel sad at all the wrong hours

Find the music of my soul and let it sing

Find the beat that makes me dance and let it ring

If I listen closely there’s a song in everything.

Let the music of my soul dance through me

Let the dance within my heart beat out a mel-o-ody,

If I listen closely there’s beauty in everything.

There’s a reason,

For this song,

Why I love my cat under the bleachers

Whose advice to listen to if everyone’s a preacher

There’s a reason,

For this song,

Why my heart feels warmer in November

I think I know the reason, but I can’t remember 

Find the music of my soul and let it sing

Find the beat that makes me dance and let it ring

If I listen closely there’s a song in everything.

Let the music of my soul dance through me

Let the dance within my heart beat out a melody

If you listen closely there’s beauty in everything.


      

Hallelujah

There are certain questions that drive my incessant thirst for living, that drive me to be passionate and to become familiar with anything. “What must the world be like so that man may know it?” is a big one. Navigating the space between fear and anguish is why language was created. It’s why politics exists, why art exists, why linguistics exist, why music exists, why dancing exists, why things like gestures and sex categories and ideas about family and religion and holidays and any category exists. There is always something indefinite about the world; it is laden with contingencies and surprises; it is a vital context which is never mastered once and for all; for this reason, it is a source of permanent insecurity. But there are things that bring us peace, that bring us home. 

 Miles Davis said that when he improvises its not about the notes, but the space between them. Picasso said that same thing about painting. It’s not just about what you are painting, it’s also about what you’re not painting. One great dance choreographer asks his students to, when improvising, ask “why not” instead of why. In Bikram you come back to standing or corpse pose after every posture. And I started to notice the same thing when I was beating out whole notes on each cymbal to a metronome set at 60. The space between those really slow beats started to come alive and it was filled with inertia, it was so much more than just silence. the space between...

 “I went into the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what I had to teach, and not, when I came time to die, discover that I had not lived.”
i realize how important the silence is...

Sounds a lot like life huh? If I fill my life up with a million thoughts, people, things, then I won’t have the mental space to listen to the silence and see what it has to say, how it wants to speak. I’ll be too busy heaving under a thousand contemplations to realize that Eden is all around me. and in order to be a great drummer, a great dancer, a great girlfriend, sister, mother, daughter, friend, lover, musician, student I need to hear the silence. I need to let it speak. Just be. Everything is everything the same principles that apply to drumming apply to dancing and driving and relationships and speaking and taking drugs and fucking and playing with your cats. Two lovers sat on a park bench, with their bodies touching each other, holding hands in the moonlight. There was silence between them. So profound was their love for each other, they needed no words to express it. And so they sat in silence, on a park bench, with their bodies touching, holding hands in the moonlight. Is there anything more perfect?

 Once you figure life out it becomes fun to play with and you realize that the system is not controlling your life, that everything bad is good for you, that you are the decisive element.  The hieroglyphics of humanity are very decipherable. Once you learn the rules you can break them.

 Find your beat, beat the shit out of it, and then every breath you take is Hallelujah!   

You have to learn to die, If you want to be alive, Okay?

This is for the children of Eden and Eden’s all around,

The wanton children beating, their song into the ground, 

We’re all there, heaving under a thousand contemplations,

We’re all there, saturated by someone else’s libations,   

Tap into childhood emotionality.

Take away all rational fallacy.

I’ve been born once then born again a thousand times.

Take away all rational fallacy. Bring me back my emotionality.

Something make me numb.

Something get me high.

Something make me numb.

Something make me cry.

I’ve died not once, but I’ve died a thousand times.

Each rebirth at the end of sanity,   

Hieroglyphics of humanity  
Nothing to be taught, everything to learn.  

Baptized into paradises perpetually burned.

This is for the children of Eden and Eden’s all around.   

A magnus opus is born post mortem,

so keep your feet on solid ground. 

I’ve been born once then born again a thousand times.

Take away all rational fallacy. Bring me back my emotionality.

Something make me numb.

Something get me high.

Something make me numb.

Something make me cry.

I’ve died not once, but I’ve died a thousand times.

The Beat

I would have chosen a different instrument if I thought that drums had to be played like a metronome

-       
                                                      - Danny Carey, Tool

All art aspires to the condition of music. But you can only play music if you dance.  And you can only dance if you are uninhibited, if you can let go, lose your mind. So really all “how to play the drums” websites should begin with “First, lose your mind.” Then, dance.  Then translate the feeling, the rhythms inside of you into your instrument. Learn how your instrument and your body function together and how this fusion can externalize your internal feelings and rhythms, your own beats. The question ‘how can I say what I’m feeling with my instrument?’ requires you to feel.  

            I’ve been dancing a lot (but not enough) – in any empty, open space I can find, on subway platforms, in my room. Basically, I turn on music and don’t stop moving. And if there is no music, then I dance to the beat of my own internal drum. Gabrielle Roth’s 5 rhythms is my biggest influence. And I’ve discovered that nothing about me is truly authentic or genuine until I’ve reached the point in my dance where I am completely out of my mind and into my body. Sometimes it’s instantaneous. Other times it takes hours to get to this point. I imagine that if I keep up this practice long enough it will be more than instantaneous – it will have permeated the entire way I live my life and communicate with others. This state of  disinhibition is so dramatically different than any other state of being that I have to ask myself why I even leave the house, talk to people, try to play music, do ANYTHING without first dancing my way into this euphoric place.

            True, I can take drugs, drink alcohol, or do other things of this sort to get there. But dancing is free, keeps my body limber, and helps me internalize rhythm. If I’ve got some H2O and a few carrots then, barring physical trauma, I can dance forever and ever without needing to replenish extravagantly.  

When I was coaching gymnastics last week I said to my girls “I can teach you how doing a pelvic tilt and how keeping your butt tucked under your body, your ribs in, and your arms behind your ears will make flipping, twisting, and turning seem magically effortless, but I can’t teach you desire.” After practice I wondered if I was right. Can desire be taught? Maybe not through words- maybe through smiles and hugs and laughter. The way I feel about what my girls are doing motivates them to want be disciplined. When I scream “YESSSSS! THAT’S ITTTTTT!” when A. hits her cast handstand or “WOWWWWWWW YOU ARE AMAZINGGGGGGG!” when H points her toes I have the capacity (and the duty) to instill the desire for discipline in my kids (not to mention that I actually do think these physical feats [feets] are amazing).

The desire for discipline doesn’t seem like an innate desire. Children desire a lot of things – food, water, warmth – mostly the same things adults desire. What is magical about children though is that they haven’t yet learned about lines. For more info, read Alex Grey’s Let Love Draw the Line. http://www.alexgrey.com/psalms/line2.html This is the quality about children that makes them uninhibited and thus easily reachable and teachable. This is what is meant when people say that it’s easier for children to learn second languages than it is for adults. There are so many lines being drawn in our heads during our 16+ waking hours that we have no mental orifices left over for anything other than incessant penciling in. This is also why adults tend to be less physically flexible as they get older – because their bodies are so full of all the drugs (and by drugs I mean anything that is put into your body that makes you less empty and more full) that they’ve put into them over the years that their bodies become more rigid. 

But it doesn’t have to be like this. It’s not about teaching children discipline so that they can become subservient, obedient, less emotional, “contributing” members of a society, a world, a culture, that desires to suppress their uniqueness. It’s about teaching them exactly the opposite – how discipline can help them retain their childlike wonder at the world because the ability to sustain anything for a good length of time requires the ability to sustain anything for a good length of time.

 Life is so very beautiful. Sometimes there is so much beauty that I can’t take it! And other times I look around and see so much beauty and wonder how I can sit there and look at it without feeling anything from it.
I’ve got a lot of musical friends. Maybe they can enlighten me about some of these things. What I know for sure is that when I dance I’m making music and when I make music I’m dancing and when I make love I’m doing both.What else is there to do? 

Sappy stuff, love

See, the thing is, that there are a lot of people to fall in love with, but not a lot of people who want to just breath together, just not talk together, just stare at stars together - not be in a rush together! And I don't want to mold myself into someone who is compatible with someone who is in a rush just for the sake of having someone who is there during those really lonely moments.

just..

I want to run into your arms laughing in girlish excitement - all the time.. and not suppress it! And wrap my legs around you in crazy hugs, lock you in tight, and laugh when you laugh because you can't breath! hehehe

I don't want to suppress the love i feel for you, that giddiness, that "I just want to jump into your arms and smother you in kisses" thang.  

I want to wake up to you. and you'd tell me "shhhh! we can't talk yet, we haven't danced!" Or we haven't played. Or we haven't listened to music. I want to wake up in the morning and just listen to each other breath - for hours if that's what the day calls for. And be happy doing nothing. And dance. And make music. And love. And love and love and love and love.

fantasmata

There’s a nineteenth century dance concept called “fantasmata.” Basically, it’s the ability of stillness to imitate flight or, on the flip side, when abrupt movement is quickly stilled. This Michael Whelan painting sort of illustrates what I mean:

I think that this concept embodies all that my aerial silks have the capacity to do… or I guess, what I have the capacity to do with my aerial silks. But only if I can embody that feeling. I can only emote if I can feel, just like the best gymnasts can actually emote in gymnastics because they have mastered disciplined movements – but virtually none of them ever do because in the act of disciplining the body, they lose the capacity to feel, to express emotion through it in their craft. So my silks can either be another way of saying “hey look how strong I am” or “hey look! I can memorize choreography!” But they can also be a beautiful articulation of feelings, emotions, sentiments, memories…

ATTN: you

Since people actually seem to be reading this and since there appears to be a legitimate concern for the state of my mental well-being, I feel compelled to remind everyone that this blog is, above all else, a work of creative writing. Although it may seem like my paradigms are shifting daily, what I’m actually trying to do is rid myself of blinding narrow-mindedness. If you don’t understand, read the Emperor’s New Clothes.

            This is especially important right now because I’m in the midst of crafting my thesis, of producing new knowledge by means of highlighting the way seemingly contradictory things are in actuality very much linked. So if you read my writing blog by blog, yes, I’ll seem out of my mind. But if you read it in it’s entirety and try to identify the element that links all of it together, you’ll see that I’m actually very sane and have a deep and inexorable admiration and adoration for everyone and everything around me. But I don't think anyone actually cares that much about me to read all of it. 

             So don’t worry, I’ve still got mad love for mankind and truly believe that people are all inherently good. Life is beautiful, you are beautiful, I am beautiful.  

            

Dance, Technology, Divinity etc.

The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we’re gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, ’cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed. And if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn’t share our prejudice toward plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, “Why are we here?” 

Plastic…asshole." 

— George Carlin

Mobius Strips and Shepards Tones. Basically, these are visual and auditory examples of the question ‘which came first the chicken or the egg?’ When you arrive at the answer to this question through logic or philosophy or whatever route you choose to take, you always find yourself back at the beginning, having given yourself the illusion that you have been moving towards a linear destination, when in reality you have been traversing a circle (of thought in this case) that has taken you under and over the loop around which you have been circling, but that ultimately leads you back to where you began. 

In Buddhism there is a concept called ‘non-abiding nirvana.’ In a nut-shell, when you’ve reached nirvana – that ultimate place of joy, you’re not supposed to dwell in your own ecstasy. You’re purpose becomes to enlighten others, to expose them to their own suffering and illuminate the path towards ecstasy. Basically this is Buddhism’s way of accounting for the fact that nirvana = death. Why? Because when you reach nirvana the world presumably becomes completely knowable and the true nature of things reveals itself unto you, oh enlightened one! So what else is there to do? You already know everything!

I know a transsexual guy whose only ambition is to eat, drink, and be Mary.

 -George Carlin

I remember one of my undergrad profz revealing to us why she chose to become a media studies prof – because growing up her mother used to warn her about the dangers of media, about how bad it was. This prompted her to question this perspective and ultimately to see that it was just one amongst many. Her upbringing profoundly influenced her teaching (many of our writing assignments involved looking/listening to/watching something that disgusted us and writing about how beneficial it was). So really she is a media studies professor, but also a Mobius Strippian (would that word count in scrabble?)

Healthy does not mean "healthful." Healthy is a condition, healthful is a property. Vegetables aren’t healthy, they’re dead. No food is healthy. Unless you have an eggplant that’s doing push-ups. Push-ups are healthful.

 - George Carlin

Anyway, I’ve been doing a lot of meditating, simplifying, and not thinking. My purpose is not to reach nirvana, although it might seem like it, and it actually might have been in the beginning. My purpose is simply to be present more efficiently. To let go of the thoughts and stuff that is holding me down and keeping me from more fruitfully and presently traversing Rainbow Road.  To feel, think, speak, act with integrity. My purpose is to be. So the most relevant thing in my life right now is pranayama. Yummmmmmmm! 

Actually, the catalyst for all shifts in perspective are those ‘What the Fuck?’ experiences that don’t make sense. My parents divorce; what the fuck? If marriage is for better or for worse than this doesn’t make sense.  I wasn’t a college gymnast; what the fuck? My body is amazingly equipped to excel in athletics and I’ve trained my mind to focus with the acute singularity that I imagine you might find in many elite athletes  – me not being an athlete doesn’t make sense. Stephen loved me and I loved him back and then he was gone with the wind; what the fuck? I thought I could trust him - it didn’t make sense. People who practice Orthodoxy still hurt each other; what the fuck? I thought religion was all about love – this doesn’t make sense.  Etc. etc. etc. etc.  etc.

That para was actually really hard for me to write. 

What must the world look like so that we might know it? To familiarize our inherently unknowable world; this is why we quest, why I am where I am and why I'm doing what I'm doing, why I'm meditating, why I write, why I dance, why I live, why being as receptive as we can to moments and experiences is essential. 

"I'm a Modern Man"

George Carlin

I'm a modern man.
I'm a modern man.
I'm a modern man.
I'm a modern man.

I'm a modern man,
A man for the millennium,
Digital and smoke free.

A diversified multicultural postmodern deconstructionist,
Politically anatomically and ecologically incorrect.

I've been uplinked and downloaded.
I've been inputted and outsourced.
I know the upside of downsizing.
I know the downside of upgrading.

I'm a high tech lowlife.
A cutting edge state-of-the-art bicoastal multitasker,
And I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond.

I'm new wave but I'm old school,
And my inner child is outward bound.

I'm a hot wired heat seeking warm hearted cool customer,
Voice activated and biodegradable.

I interface from a database,
And my database is in cyberspace,
So I'm interactive,
I'm hyperactive,
And from time-to-time,
I'm radioactive.

Behind the eight ball,
Ahead of the curve,
Riding the wave,
Dodging a bullet,
Pushing the envelope.

I'm on point,
On task,
On message,
And off drugs.
I got no need for coke and speed,
I got no urge to binge and purge.

I'm in the moment,
On the edge,
Over the top,
But under the radar.

A high concept,
Low profile,
Medium range ballistic missionary.
A street-wise smart bomb.
A top gun bottom feeder.

I wear power ties,
I tell power lies,
I take power naps,
I run victory laps.

I'm a totally ongoing bigfoot slam dunk rainmaker with a proactive outreach.
A raging workaholic.
A working ragaholic.
Out of rehab,
And in denial.

I got a personal trainer,
A personal shopper,
A personal assistant,
And a personal agenda.

You can't shut me up,
You can't dumb me down.
'Cause I'm tireless,
And I'm wireless.
I'm an alpha male on beta blockers.

I'm a non-believer and an over-achiever.
Laid back but fashion forward.

Up front,
Down home,
Low rent,
High maintenance.

Super size,
Long lasting,
High definition,
Fast acting,
Oven ready,
And built to last.

I'm a hands on,
Foot loose,
Knee jerk,
Head case.

Prematurely post traumatic,
And I have a love child who sends me hate mail.

But I'm feeling,
I'm caring,
I'm healing,
I'm sharing.
A supportive bonding nurturing primary care giver.

My output is down,
But my income is up.
I take a short position on the long bond,
And my revenue stream has its own cash flow.

I read junk mail,
I eat junk food,
I buy junk bonds,
I watch trash sports.

I'm gender specific,
Capital intensive,
User friendly,
And lactose intolerant.

I like rough sex.
I like rough sex.
I like tough love.
I use the f word in my email,
And the software on my hard drive is hard core, no soft porn.

I bought a microwave at a mini mall.
I bought a mini van in a mega store.
I eat fast food in the slow lane.

I'm toll free,
Bite sized,
Ready to wear,
And I come in all sizes.

A fully equipped,
Factory authorized,
Hospital tested,
Clinically proven,
Scientifically formulated medical miracle.

I've been pre-washed,
Pre-cooked,
Pre-heated,
Pre-screened,
Pre-approved,
Pre-packaged,
Post-dated,
Freeze-dried,
Double-wrapped,
Vacuum-packed,
And I have an unlimited broadband capacity.

I'm a rude dude,
But I'm the real deal.
Lean and mean.
Cocked, locked and ready to rock.
Rough tough and hard to bluff.

I take it slow.
I go with the flow.
I ride with the tide.
I got glide in my stride.

Drivin' and movin',
Sailin' and spinnin',
Jivin' and groovin',
Wailin' and winnin'.

I don't snooze,
So I don't lose.
I keep the pedal to the metal,
And the rubber on the road.

I party hearty,
And lunch time is crunch time.

I'm hanging in,
There ain't no doubt.
And I'm hanging tough,
Over and out.

show me the way

Beseechingly, I urge; body, mind, soul, but one of you, show me the way.

Ephemeral quests for It – mastery of movement, mastery of knowledge, mastery of love.

Lucidity; a nobler quest.

To speak, to act, to think, to feel with equanimity, uninhibited, really there; questless.

But it is my roving body who has boarded these holy crusades.

Jaded, the cause of so much joy.

But it is my ruminating mind who has heralded these hallowed thoughts.

Jaded, the cause of so much joy.

But it is my sentimental soul who has inspirited these tender passions.

Jaded, the cause of so much joy.

Integrate and show me the way. But never lead me to It.

Show me the way. I’ll never get to It?

And that’s ok.

That’s ok?

pleasure vs happiness

Pleasure vs happiness. There is a definite difference, but for some reason the two are often confused, the latter being undistinguishable from the former. In reality, the constant pursuit of pleasure is a barrier to sustainable happiness for the simple fact that pleasure is needy and very much not sustainable. Examples of things that give me pleasure: dancing, the feeling i get in my chest from running long and fast (runner's high?), working out at the gym, doing handstands, eating good food, having good laughs with good friends/family, listening to good music, watching/listening/reading something that really resonates with me, spending time with people who share my perspective on whatever it is we are communing over, learning something new, lattes from starbucks, experiencing the sudden chill of fall.

But none of these things are sustainable.  I can't run, do handstands, eat chocolate, laugh, listen to music, watch good videos, spend time with likeminded people, read, learn, drink lattes, and experience fall constantly and infinitely because all of these things come and go. Everything in life comes and goes; good people, good music, the seasons, good food, good media. Eventually we become immune to the pleasure we get from these external things (anything external) because ultimately pleasure is a chemical thing that has something to do with the dopamine in our brians.  I can't even dance forever and feel happy because even my body is finite and limited in terms of how long, how deep, and how much it can move!!!

Happiness, on the other hand, is something that is cultivated internally, by training the mind through meditation and stillness. And it's potentially infinitely sustainable if we just take the time to train our minds to perceive the ultimate futility of pleasure and discipline ourselves through meditation to see that pleasure is only a distraction!!! 

But life is NOT empty! it is not meaningless! it's FULLLLL! if only we take the time to meditate, get rid of our stuff, and realize how very real our capacity to see beauty is.

More and more I've been experiencing moments of bliss. And they happen so spontaneously! And they never involve attachment or pleasure-seeking! They never involve the attraction I feel towards anything external or an internal feeing of ecstasy. They are the residual effects of my efforts to meditate more deeply, to shut off my mind and just breath and JUST BE THERE. This enables me to identify patterns, to trace my lines of thought back to their source. .

One of my favorite fortune cookie lines ever reads "Keep Up." I never understood it until I started meditating. It's about BEING THERE! Keep up with the present moment - it's always happening. But we go so many other places - we go forward into the future, we go backward into the past, or we numb ourselves and become ignorant to the present and although we are there, we really aren't. If we're constantly there, then we cannot help but be happy because life becomes SO FULL! And to think that we shouldn't experience a moment, a place, a person, because we've experienced it before, to think that we shouldn't hike to the top of a hill or stand at the shore and watch the ocean because someone has already been there done that becomes the most childish sentiment in the world!

simplify. 

simplify your physical stuff

simplify your mental stuff

simplify your emotional stuff

being empty is being full

being empty is being full

living simply is living fully

Move, Feel, Question, Share

An experimental dance group. Dance as the medium of expression, as the object. Dance as a way to ask questions and derive answers, or not. Dance is the only way I see as communicating such things. The body, movement. Expression. Creativity. Dance as a mirror. Dance as a response. Dance as an experiment. I KNOW that everyone wants to dance, too, because dancing IS being alive – moving is being alive, not moving is dying. Moving, stretching, breathing is being alive. The only reason we sleep at night is so that we can be alive and move during the day. The only reason why we eat is so that we can fuel our bodies to move. And wondering is being mentally alive. Wonder, question, be curious. And music is about feeling so dancing to music is about being alive and awake and in tune with our feelings.

Here’s an example of a job in which I felt like I was dying – mentally, physically, and spiritually. I was working as a gymnastics coach in NYC, except it wasn’t really about gymnastics, it was a business that expected me to adhere to a script (I literally had to learn the lyrics to songs and move children around the room using the same words every time) and train children to all look and move a certain way despite the fact that they were all wonderfully different and unique. So I was dying mentally because I was using my brain to memorize a script not to actually think and I was dying physically in that because the children were expected to move a certain way, so was I, their coach. And I was dying spiritually because I couldn’t love each child for their uniqueness and their beautiful childishness like I wanted to.

 I was asked to answer the following question in my thesis class the other day:

What do you wonder about? 

I wonder what the process of teaching myself how to be left-handed would be like and feel like? I wonder what it would be like to be bald and how people would respond to me? I wonder what goes on inside of my body and how everything connects and how different foods effect ME? I wonder about street musicians. What are they thinking and feeling? I wonder about my Uncle Tom. What is he thinking and feeling? I wonder what you wonder about? I wonder what long distance runners feel like when they run for hours and hours and hours. I wonder about babies. I wonder how different animals communicate with each other.

I don’t want to die, I want to live. And I don’t see any other alternative than to create an experimental dance group with people who also want to live and ask the question “what do you wonder about?” by moving to music and then maybe eventually giving it form and boundaries so that we can share it with other people  who can respond to it because sharing what we love and do with other people is what it means to be human.

Move, Feel, Question, Share.  I want to do this. And I want to do this with other people who are interested in really being alive. And I want to dance to and through our wonder. And I want to share our findings, our dance with other people who also have the potential to be liberated, to be free. The only prerequisite is desire.

Dance as a place of wonder, of curiosity, and of engagement. Dance as a thing that anyone can do because everyone who is alive  has the capacity and the desire to be free , to feel, to be liberated, and to move. Why? Because everyone wants to be happy. It’s what drives us to act, to decide one thing over the other, to keep going, to question. And everyone suffers in some way, shape, or form. We can’t help it; it’s what it means to be a bio-physical human-being who is effected by other bio-physical human beings. But the great thing is that we can dance through our suffering.

So dancing is a way to ask and answer these questions. And it’s the only way. Words are not about feeling, they are about theorizing about feelings and talking about feelings is not about feeling. Like when I play a Cmajor chord on the piano it is an expression of happiness that is enabled by the kinetic relationship between my hands and the piano and the Cmajor chord is simply the audible expression of a feeling that is already inside of me that is manifested when my fingers dance with the keys.  The feeling is inside of me, but the movement, the dance gives it life.

The nature of therapy in our country is so weird! You’re sad, you go to a trained therapist, you sit in a chair and talk about your feelings and I guess get feedback. And this all occurs under the presumption that these feelings you are experiencing are “bad” and that talking about them will make them go away.  

I’ll take dancing through them for $500 please. No feeling is bad. What we do or do not do with them is bad. Moving is being alive. Remaining inert is dying. By moving your body you are LITERALLY CHANGING IT and if you are feeling bad then you want to CHANGE those bad feelings into good feelings. So move, bitch, get out tha' way!

Personally, DOING is definitely what has been missing in my life. I got really GOOD  at observing and thinking and philosophizing about doing and really BAD at actually doing and feeling and sensing. Really GOOD at thinking and really BAD at feeling.

Now academia doesn’t seem so bad when I think of it as a place of wonder, of curiosity. Not as a bastion of pretentious jargon about things that don’t really matter-  that are only accessible to academics who have reached a certain level at which they can think about and discuss them. If we only felt and never thought then we would be barbaric animals who didn’t give a fuck about each other and who experienced happiness, or I guess neutrality, out of ignorance. I imagine that fish are happy or neutral or whatever they are because they don’t think, but we’ve been endowed with parts, a brain, a mind that enables us to do that very thing and that enables us to wonder and that enables us to weigh our options and make decisions that will enhance our happiness. And this is why we can *potentially* be way happier than fish; because we can use our thinking minds to help us make choices that will lead us to ecstasy. We can create our own maps to ecstasy that lower-level animals can’t.

 So thinking isn’t bad….

Until we start thinking ourselves out of feeling. Until we start thinking about the doing so much that we are actually not doing anymore and just thinking, thinking, thinking. And then we are so removed from the actual doing and feeling that we lose track of the importance of the very vessel that keeps us alive; our bodies.

 I want to Move, Feel, Question, and  Share. Dance is the only thing I know and the only way I can communicate truthfully. And I'm not talking about some premeditated, choreographed dance that has to be done on a hardwood floor in some studio with the assistance of a trained teacher. I'm talkin' bout tha' real shit! I'm talking about dancing to the very personal question "What do you wonder about?" in all its manifold variations and derivatives.

And I want to do it with other people. If you’re out there other people who are interested in really living, give me a shout out, yo. I want and need to create with you!

purpose, happiness

I'm starting to realize how similar nihilism and unconditional love are and how destructive it has been that i've been pursuing the latter as an end and a means to achieve happiness and derive meaning out of life. In the process of doing that I've lost touch with myself, with my feelings, with my passions, with my life.  If nothing matters then nothing is special. And if everything matters then nothing is special, too. And that really sucks.

But it's not so bad because it means that I'm well aware of how unfulfilling people and things ultimately are; it's just the way that I chose to address this ultimate realization that is the problem. And this is maybe what Cameron says when he says I'm an inch away from being free. It also means that I want my heart to be in a good place and my actions to be motivated by love rather by bitterness.

having a purpose. What I want to write right here is:

 "i see so many people living purpose-less lives, distracting themselves with not really living, with filling their time up by living vicariously through others or watching life happen to them on TV, in movies, etc. etc. etc.  instead of really grounding themselves in themselves. I see so many people who are so far removed from themselves that they have no idea why they do the things they do, how they make decisions, what forces are acting upon them when they choose this or that or how food, the air, nature, music is effecting them because they aren't really living on purpose. They are letting life happen to them. I see so many people seeking instant gratification because they long so desperately to be happy, to feel love, to feel good things. I see so many people seeking happiness in either things or people; both fleeting."

...... but who cares? They are not me. And ME is who is experiencing this world, who is living this life and having these thoughts and writing this blog. ME!


...so purpose and life and sacrificing and happiness and what I really want and I think it might not be to stay in academia and overthink things and teach people how to overthink things. I think it might be to teach people how to be in their bodies and how to love their bodies and how how to move their bodies and how to dance their way through life. Because that's what makes me feel good and happy and I truly believe that if you can learn to love your body and learn to love the way it moves, what it can do, how it works, then you can love your life and if I believe that then it's a message that I can not only spread, but also live.

I also think that happiness and unconditional love are not mutually exclusive. If I'm truly happy then it means that I'm not happy because of someone else or because of some thing or some event. I'm happy internally, externally, all ternallys and so how could I not help but love everyone if I were living, breathing, and coming from a place of love? I guess what I mean to say is that the pursuit maybe shouldn't be one of unconditional love. It should maybe be one of staying in tune with your rhythms, with yourself so that you can give yourself what you need to be happy and then love will just happen.

I want to be in love always. In love with myself, with wherever I am, with whoever I'm with. Because that is happiness.

mantramantramantra

 ....fear and love are opposite sides of the same coin and I have been excessively afraid lately. But this is not really who I am, it is just something temporary. Anything that comes out of my mouth (or anyone's for that matter) that is written or spoken or acted out that is not all-encompassing, unconditional love is fear - fear of transitioning, of relinquishing the past, of newness, of being on your own, things of this sort. Any words, thoughts, actions or creations that I manifest and bring into the world or thrust upon you/anyone that are not aligned with this ultimate goal of seeing the beauty in all things, the Godliness in all things, in me, in you, of truly saying Fuck You to everything that is not unadulterated, unconditional love are not really me- they are just some ulterior me, some ego-bound me speaking or acting or thinking on some worldly whim. 

And this, I think, (what do I know?) is where the logical fallacy of life and love occurs - in the space between the real and the false - in assuming that one is the other, that my very essence is validated by what I say, do, act out, or create.... even though these manifestations of "me" might be motivated by fear - a transitory state of being. And this is why we tire of love, why we move on from a person or get anxious about the circumstances that we are in. But, ironically, it is these material manifestations that draw people to each other... so how now brown cow? hahaha... I just felt like saying that..... but really, people come to love each other for their idiosyncrasies so... I guess how now brown cow is a good way to end that thought.... hahahaha.

free your body, free your mind, free your self.

stretch your body, stretch your mind, stretch yourself.

the body is the only enduring reality. 

our one true home.

so much to unlearn, so much more to feel.

being empty is being full. 

empty your body, empty your mind, empty yourself.

just rambling

I'm interested in experiencing myself as completely as possible. All that I am, all that I can be, all that I am made up of. I'm interested in developing a systematic way of enhancing spontaneity while maintaining the equilibrium that makes life lovable, livable, breathable, and approachable. I'm interested in settling down in order to remain unsettled. To be at rest in order to continue to be restless. To routinize my life in order to eliminate the scripts and routines that make it unbearable.  I'm interested in freedom, liberation, and creativity. Art is love. Expression is love. Why? Because when we create, when we express ourselves through our art, whatever it may be, it is an act of love. Laced with intentionality and saturated with deliberation. Driven by meditation and enhanced with a deep-seeded need to experience the other in ourselves. When I feel love I need to create - a dance, a game, a painting, a poem, a song, a meal, something, something, something. To allow that which I am inspired by to permeate my being, to become a part of me, to motivate me, to teach me. This is the ultimate act of love.

5rhythms

What's my favorite rhythm?
The one that's dancing me
The one that back flips into flowing off a six inch ego
and wades in the deep end of the floor
The one that ressurects old ghosts for cross examinations
and gives them a proper burial between beats
the one that scalps sins and crucifies lies
and exhumes poems for a positive ID
The one that seizes sinews
and throws the first stone at every glass house
The one that doesn't have a door
a key or combination but stays wide open
The one that
the one that
the one that dances me.

The different energies that define us... keeping all of them well fed, nurtured, unsuppressed.

Here's an experiment I've got brewing in the back of my mind...

First off, Gabrielle Roth developed a philosophy of dance called 5 rhythms. The rhythms are, in order... flow, staccato, chaos, lyrical, stillness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5Rhythms

 If you think about the progression of things like putting together a performance, or having sex, or falling in love, or having a baby, working out, playing music, raising a family, storms, wars, nature- things of this sort - it becomes pretty clear why this order makes sense. it's almost intuitive. 

What if we strove to live every day according to the 5 rhythms? If these are the different energies that comprise our being, then what if we sought to live each day according to this progression, to make sure that every day we experienced at least one of these rhythms? This sounds deliciously fulfilling.

I've noticed that once I've been doing yoga for a long while, I start to crave sports, hardcore workouts, and other things that are not of the peaceful sort. InSaNnNNiTy.

Or when I've been living life anxiously - when I've been ancy, restless, unpeaceful in general, I crave exactly the opposite. peace.

If we know that these are the energies, the stuff of which we are made, then making sure that each day we allow ourselves to experience each of them - to go with the flow, to move, live, breath rigidly, to go a little CraZzZzZYyY, to meditate, to be silent - then would we not be feeding a side of ourselves that goes unnourished all too often? If health and wellness and fitness are all about maintaining a state of equilibrium, then shouldn't we feed our spirit as well?

Now why are the 5rhythms important to know and respect? Maybe because they shed such effervescent light on the natural progression of so many of the uncontrollable forces, relationships, things, stuff we come into contact with... and because so many people give up, give in, or opt out once the chaos sets in. We think that our lives shouldn't be filled with chaos, that that is not something that we need, desire, should have, should want. But if you can't experience or appreciate chaos then you may never be able to get to the stillness, that glorious, beautiful, peaceful, heavenly nirvana that you feel after you've been through the fire with someone, something, or some experience....

Maybe I am reading too deeply into something that is simply of the "you have to go through the storm to get to the sun" sort? But maybe it's also important to read deeply into things that we take for granted to know why we take them for granted, why we love them, why they make sense. After all, we've got a whole life to fill up, why not start by making our own sense, by paying attention to the way that life progresses and the commonalities that mundane expressions of life and living share with each other....

Everbody has a different metaphor for life. I've got friends who claim that music is their metaphor, that technology is their metaphor, nature, science, writing, gaming....  And they all work. Why?
I like doing handstands - finding different surfaces, positions, doing them for different lengths of time, engaging/disengaging different muscles, switching from one hand to another, wearing different clothes, hairstyles, doing them after i consume various foods or drinks, after i've stretched, after i've worked out- you know, switchin' it up a bit.. - because they are rad, but also because they remind me how important it is stay in tune with your body, with your own internal equilibrium, with the world's equilibrium, with humanity's equilibrium, that there is an equilibrium to be conscious of. So handstands, movement, dancing - this is my metaphor for life simply because I've spent a good amount of time consciously engaging my body in such things.

not to wax poetic, but to the dancer life is a dance. and to the musician life is a song. and to the computer expert life is a computer. and to the botanist life is a flower garden. and it's all so true.

It's wonderful hearing about how other people talk about the things that they love because you can sense similarities. And it's respectable when someone has invested so much time, energy, consciousness, and love into something whether it be music, technology, sports, etc.etc.etc. that they become aware and attune to its own innate dynamic, that it becomes capable of being metaphorized.

mmm. I want to become an expert in you. I want to experience you on new surfaces, in new positions, for different lengths of time, (lololol) where you're comfortable, where you're uncomfortable. I want to discover what makes you agitated, excited, blissful, grieve, joyful, what makes your soul dance, what makes your heart sing. I want you to do the things that you love and I want to discover why you love them and I want to love them too because I have loved as deeply as you. I want you to become a metaphor for me. I want to be able to rock out to your rhythm in unsuppressed jubilation. I want to create sacred space in which this all becomes conceivable, a space a of love, empathy, and infinite joy.

The 5 rhythms are a map to everywhere we want to go, on all planes of consciousness - inner and outer, forward and back, physical, emotional, intellectual. They are the marker on the way back to a real self, a vulnerable, wild passionate, instinctive self.

Hope and the 4th dimension

Hopefulness. Is it such a good thing? The best of things? Yoga, silence, meditation (things that are conducive to facilitating intense consciousness) and my preferred lifestyle in general has made me hypersensitive to retrospection and my general progression and stasis as a human being. And what I've noticed recently, or I guess been thinking about recently, is that a lot of the time I live my life in a perpetual state of hopefulness, of dreaming, of optimism - future orientated. Even the way I conceive of the people around me - as being made up of layers, as a multidimensional thing housed in this energetic body equipped with an ego and subject to the tides of externality, as being more than what they say, do, think, or feel... (but also only what they say, think, do, or feel) - is hopeful - pointing to something beyond, something inconceivable, like death I suppose. And this is what I mean when I say I love everyone (or strive to)... the rich man, the poor man, the talented man, the homeless man, the athlete, intellectual,  schizophrenic, guru... what you are is 60% a product of your upbringing/environment and 40% a product of your own doing/undoing.... maybe even 70/30 or 80/20.... and so if you fall into any of the categories that society admires like rich, talented, fabulous, athletic, intellectual, charismatic that's fantastic but also lucky. And if you fall into any of the other ones like poor, talentless, out of shape, dumb, boring that's also fantastic, just unlucky. And hearing your story, how you got to where you are no matter who you are, is fascinating.

This outlook has enabled me to not hold grudges and to not become bitter or adopt debilitating emotions like hatred or cynicism, but has it also inhibited my capacity to love? to connect? to create lasting relationships or things of duration? are these even things that I desire? Lately, in the past few months or so, I've stopped being so hopeful. Now, when I have to give a sermon at church or write a speech for this organization or that or give advice to someone or engage in conversation or listen to a really passionate and inspired something or other, I find that I am less inclined to use/less motivated by words like "someday" or "dream" or things of that sort. Just breath seems to be more sound advice and a better way to approach life. If you are always hopeful then you are never fully present right? But if you are never hopeful then the here and now is all there ever is and that is debilitating and even depressing sometimes.

This is not to say that I am hopeless, that I've given up on positivity or surrendered to the ebb and flow of mundane life - although I guess I've sort of made it sound like that. In actuality, being less hopeful has made me feel more alive, more positive, more present.

During an intense conversation last night, the topic turned to the 4th dimension and how we have tools like math and physics to point to it or angles and equations to try and depict it visually, but how we can never really comprehend it because it is something abstract. It is something that takes what we know to be true, reality as we know it, namely the 3rd dimension, and pushes it a step further, to another realm that we can only philosophize about. One of my friends brought up the analogy of a dog tied to a post circling round and round and how he could only understand his reality according to the radius to which he was bound. Like the Shaman in What the Bleep do We know? or the shadows in Plato's Allegory of the Cave... both the same sort of thing. So why does such a thing exist? Why have mathematicians and physicists conceived of the 4th dimension? Why are we hopeful? Why can't that dog imagine a world beyond the post to which he is tied? 

So how about this episode in Bikram the other day. Now Bikram is unlike any other form of yoga because there is a very, very specific 90 minute dialogue, a very, very specific way to enter in and out of each pose, and a very, very, specific way that you are supposed to approach the practice in general. It is not nurturing and it is completely unapologetic. In fact, I often refer to it as military yoga. One teacher starts her class by saying "all you have to do is listen to me for the next 90 minutes, let your mind go, and just do what I tell you to do." This is exactly how Bikram should be done. Now, there is a teacher at my studio who talks a lot, probably more than he should during the course of the class And there is a pose, in the middle of the practice in a room heated to 105 called Triangle pose that is pretty hard to perform at this point in the practice. The other day, while we were all in this pose, the teacher started chatting about the weather or something arbitrary like that. He went on and on and we stayed in the pose way longer than we had to. And this is one instance of many others that I can think of in many other studios. You come into the practice with the expectation that you are going to come out feeling peaceful, reenergized, mindful, not agitated, that the teacher is going to be soothing, caring, conscious of your needs or limitations. And then during some point in the class they start going off on a tangent, talking about something completely unrelated to yoga, often during a hard pose or a taxing moment when you just want to get on with the practice. And there will always, without fail be students who come out complaining "why was he talking about that? why couldn't he just get on with the practice? why did we have to stay in Triangle for an extra 10 seconds? I don't like this or that etc. etc. etc."

But this is exactly what yoga is supposed to teach you - how to stay present, peaceful, and unreactive in these exact situations. If yoga is the union of mind, body, and breath (definition) then it shouldn't matter what the teacher it talking about - it's just another moment, just another direction, just another recitation for us to absorb and respond to without judging it or reacting unfavorably to it. So a bad teacher is actually a blessing in disguise...   sort of like..everything... 

So then when does yoga stop being yoga? If I'm in a class like Bikram where I know that there are 26 poses done a very specific way and the teacher starts going off on a tangent or sacrifices the integrity of the practice in some way, shape, or form then what do I do? When does Bikram stop being Bikram? When do I start getting reactive? Or rather do I ever start getting reactive? Maybe we should place our faith in the law of natural selection as a means by which to weed out the good from the bad, the progressive from the lackluster?

Is yoga just a way to brainwash me into believing that life is nothing more than a sequence of disconnected moments? Is it? Why were we having that intense conversation about the 4th dimension last night and what is the point in discussing the state of the world, the future, galaxies, things that we cannot possibly fathom, things beyond our comprehension, comprehension itself, - what is the point of hope? And on the other hand, what is the point of discussing that chair over there, my nailpolish, the food we are eating, your haircolor, my present emotional wellbeing? 

Because this is what we do. This is how we stay alive. We talk about mundane things, we talk about abstract things, we talk and do and live and feel and maybe it's all just the same - different deviations of the same energy. All distractions. All ways to ward off death, to keep us alive, breathing, living, loving.

And so the 4th dimension is a really groovy intersection of the real and the abstract. It is stuff of this sort - worlds beyond, virtual reality, different articulations of timespace, the limitations of language... the esoteric, that I turn to whenever I am feeling frightened, egotistical, lonely, ancy, or any other unsettling emotion. Which makes me wonder if such concepts, such abstractions were only invented as ways to keep us balanced, in check, as reminders that this is not all there is because we were feeling anxious and nervous that this really might be all there is. And if so, is there any point in determining whether or not there is any Truth in such things? Maybe just thinking about the possibility of their existence is good enough.  If Life is a Great Big Balancing Act then it is about using the stuff/ideas/conceptions/abstractions that comprise our lives to keep us in balance, to help us stay sane.

the 4th dimension - an abstraction of the real that makes us think about the infinite possibilities that keep us living, breathing, loving. And it is abstractions of the real that keep the circle of life in motion, that keep us hungry and foolish - two very important things that I hope we stay. 

Rooms

I'm going to base this moment on who I'm stuck in a room with. That's what life is. It's a series of rooms, and who we get stuck in those rooms with, adds up to what our lives are.


I've never been more convinced of the veracity in this dictum. Traveling and experiencing new cultures comprised of a plethora of diverse personalities all united under some common understanding, under some unique vibe that echoes throughout their words, actions, thoughts, and understandings reveals this ... and discovering what that vibe is, what makes seemingly inimical individuals jive may be the ultimate puzzle.. and figuring out how you want to carve your own edges to make your own self fit into the puzzle is where life begins.. and all of the different ways we carve our edges in order to fit into the puzzles that comprise our lives is ultimately who we are.. and the coalescence of all of the different vibes reverberating off of each other creates the abstract mortal energy that structures our world.


So then when we enter into new situations, new "rooms," is it really about being yourself, or is it about finding the vibe, reinventing yourself in light of the vibe, and acting accordingly? Maybe all of the different situations, experiences, adventures we get ourselves into are not just different ways to experience ourselves, but rather things that merely serve a didactic function, namely to expose us to the ultimate truth that there is no one vibe, and thats the fun in life; trying to fit in in light of the different vibes that comprise our lives. 


When I went to my brother's graduation this weekend we had a picnic at his fraternity. The way the frat brothers talked about each other to parents or introduced each other was totally predictable. "Oh so-and-so, he's a spectacular guy. Probably the best such-and-such I've ever seen. He's going on to (insert accomplishment here) and he's going to be incredibly successful."  Totally positive and complimentary all the way. That was just the vibe. And to outsiders it looks as if these are the nicest guys on the planet. And don't get me wrong, they were great guys, but they were also wise to the vibe, respectful of it, and totally subservient to it. And this is just one instance of many... Everything has a vibe, an energy, a raison d'etre driving it forward. Everything is puzzling, alive, essentially predictable once you figure out why. 


Ironically, predictability seems to have inherited a bad reputation. The minute we discover that something, some person, some way of being is predictable, the minute that we discover how we can manipulate, excite, entertain, or make a person or group feel a certain way we become disenchanted, disillusioned, bored, or even repulsed. So we look elsewhere for excitement, newness, unpredictability. But at other times we crave predictability, something reliable, something constant......


So what I'm wondering is if the way we talk about each other, the things we say, the way we are, the things we do when we are in these environments, when we become wise to the vibe, are completely empty, just different ways for us to fit in. From the inside.. unifying, instructive, disingenuine, ways to different between us and them. From the outside.. spectacular, genuine, and fresh. So in terms of these different subcultures, are there such things as better or worse? I mean positive energy does breed positive results right? But negative energy can also be unifying. And if it is closeness, understanding, empathy, connection that we seek, then does the type of energy really matter? Or is it all just energy...