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.