just thinking

Old man #1:  See, I was just thinking....
Old man #2: Well that's your first problem!


- habitat for humanity NC 

There's this thing that I like to do at the end of my yoga classes and anytime I'm in a contemplative mood... like tonight when I was watching the sky darken in the forest. I like to listen (I haven't really experimented a lot with the other senses) and let everything sort of jumble into ambiguous sounds. Like I'll be lying there and people will start moving all around me and I'll hear the floor creaking and clothes shuffling and voices whispering or like tonight I'll hear birds chirping and leaves rustling and the wind howling and sounds of cars driving by in the distance and If I'm real good then everything will just be "sound" instead of "footstep" "bird" "wind" "whisper." I'll stop my mind from labeling. In these moments, I am neither happy nor sad, anxious nor peaceful.. I just am. Maybe you can call it being peaceful? I think I like just being better. These moments of just being are among my favorites. At least I think they are? I guess I can only appreciate them in retrospect. But I'm so beyond words happy that I have them because sometimes I feel so alone being around so many silence fillers. And when I'm not categorizing then I'm also not drawing any conclusions ie. I should be anxious right now or somewhere other than Here or going through a laundry list of other things.

I like the relationship I have with this blog at the moment. Now, when I write, I feel like I'm getting a hug. Like tonight, I was in this weird mood and I didn't know what I needed - meditation? company? food? laughs? something to stimulate my intellect? And I'm happy that I've given myself a place to write.

Silence can be the most courageous act. So can speaking. And vice versa. so funny, how we react to things ephemeral.

One of my uncles seems pretty hot tempered sometimes, pretty adamantly convicted of some of his decisions (ie. can I go out tonight with friends?) but as soon as you throw in an "I love you" he melts and you can get him to do whatever you want! I hope that I never grow so callous and numb that I am not moved by an appeal to love. I hope I am always capable of being (when necessary, a least a bit, maybe a lot...) vulnerable.

I've been thinking a lot about this: you are what you repeatedly do. Time always seems to be the necessary ingredient. If I decide that I want to be forgiving, keep forgiving, even when it hurts. If I decide that I want to be healthy, light-hearted, ultra-disciplined, insane, a good whatever....  repetition. Keep forgiving, especially yourself.

I've noticed that, for whatever reason, I REALLY like learning. It's not that I love music, dance, contemplation, etc. etc. etc. in and of themselves... it's really just that playing music or ballroom dancing or anything new gives me something new to learn. And I'm most happy when I can get to the point of being able to improv or "speak" with ease through any of these mediums. People keep saying why do you keep going to that stupid bar or why don't you find another job and the biggest reason is because anything that I've held tight to is a fertile garden of education.

And then what is all of this for, this learning biznas? I was thinking about "for better or for worse" the other day and I like it a lot, but I'm going to give whoever/whatever is at the other end of that as easy a job as possible by keeping my mind fertile, my body healthy, my spirit pure.

just

It’s just a thing we do,
Feathered and floating,
Dripping with concession.  
It’s our essential nature 
to just wade.

time

Right now, at least, it's not about God. It's not about the Music. It's not about the Dance. It's not about being the strongest, making lots of money, my ego, accumulating educational merits, being a greater lover, being the most flexible, the most meditative, looking good, talking pretty. It's about what happens mentally, physiologically I guess, when I sustain any of these activities for a good length of time. It's all about sitting in that split for a half hour despite the little voices inside my head telling me that I should be doing something else, that this is too painful, not worth it...anything negative. It's about strumming that same chord for hours despite the fact that some little voice keeps telling me how boring it is. It's about getting over that hump, that 'i-should-be-anywhere-but-here' phase to the inexplicably euphoric place of meditative absorption, then reaping all the after-effects. Stayin' alive, stayin' alive, oh oh oh oh......  it's about putting in the time and silencing anything that is not 'this is exactly where you should be right now.'

    Ironically, it was all about the music. It was all about God. It was all about the Dance and the love and the gymnastics and education. But really it's just about sitting with something you love or something you hate and getting to know it. Watching the clouds, laying in bed, painting your nails, reading a book, watching a movie, doing a dance, playing a song. repetition. Philip Glass comes to mind right here. Then anything mundane will quickly turn into ecstasy. And I'm tempted to say that the finished product doesn't really matter.. but it  does... it's a testament to a practice that has worked and it's what motivates the act of sustaining. it's a testament to commitment. And that's what it's all about; committing, being there. Keep up. It's happening right here right now, man. 

it's cloudy up there

Leila is eternalizing the sunshine of her spotless mind and letting thoughts pass by like clouds.

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!