Today was one of those sublime, glorious, beautiful days.
In the orchard this morning, I was thinning the apples to help the fruit grow better. I was lost in the arms of the trees. The three-dimensional juxtaposition on my field of vision of the many branches of varying distances, all seeming to move at different rates when I turned my head, as well as the veins of the leaves glowing at me backlit by the sun, illuminated with tiny reflective hairs at their edges, all combined to give me that feeling of awe that Reality Itself is all around me and that I am really here, really alive on this planet.
Thinning the apples, as an activity, also gave me some reflections. Taking off the apples that are diseased or that aren't getting enough light allows the tree to channel the energy more efficiently, for better fruit. That is pretty much what I am trying to do with myself, here, only ideally without attachment to the fruit!
Sometimes, there would be two or more apples in the terminal growth that all looked strong and healthy and good, but I would have to choose just one to keep. I'd have to make a choice. It reminded me of how, in my life, I often try almost compulsively to keep as many options open as possible, sometimes going out of my way or wasting energy to do so. With the apples, I have to have confidence that whichever one I choose to keep will be the right one, and in life it's faith that reminds me I'm safe and protected, even without every door open. I don't really need that many escape routes from myself, after all, and besides, if I spend all my time holding all those doors open, how will I ever walk through one?
2009-06-30
2009-06-16
Desperate Poetry Before The End Of Time
desperate poetry before the end of time
kneel, poets, before the end of time!
kneel, poets, surrender to your defeat!
at the far edge of a still expanding universe
lurks the inevitable heat-death of all creation
reality will melt and words will lose their reference
when language itself pales and trembles before god!
his molten flaming dance subjugates all grammar
as he stomps on the crushed skulls of tense and number,
snaps under his slender feet the fragile grasp of every clause,
scatters word order like dust across the stage
this dance, the ultimate act of god, destroying, destroying absolutely
surrender, poets!
admit that your words and language
the very grammar of your minds
will always be outdone
you may weave words to deceive
to make believe knowledge
some primitive security
but you will all be slain
when the inexorable inexpressible
onslaught of reality
carries you away
surrender, poets!
and admit that you, yes you
you love this killer
reality’s final breakdown will be a grammatically challenged moment that never subsides, a moment of perception that can literally never be named or ever even approximate being named because what it signifies is the end of time and the end of space and the end of life and the end of everything which has a meaning, a moment we can only hint at, because naming it would mean knowing it, and knowing it would mean that even faith would evaporate, and the self would be decapitated. then even if god’s words still existed, we’d have nothing to speak them through or with. even these pronouns, we, and verbs, have, would evaporate, poof poof! like people mysteriously fading from photographs in those time-travel movies you saw as a child.
memories disappear, meanings dissolve, minds unravel
your words slow to a crawl, kick once, then are still
god is all
kneel, poets, before the end of time!
kneel, poets, surrender to your defeat!
at the far edge of a still expanding universe
lurks the inevitable heat-death of all creation
reality will melt and words will lose their reference
when language itself pales and trembles before god!
his molten flaming dance subjugates all grammar
as he stomps on the crushed skulls of tense and number,
snaps under his slender feet the fragile grasp of every clause,
scatters word order like dust across the stage
this dance, the ultimate act of god, destroying, destroying absolutely
surrender, poets!
admit that your words and language
the very grammar of your minds
will always be outdone
you may weave words to deceive
to make believe knowledge
some primitive security
but you will all be slain
when the inexorable inexpressible
onslaught of reality
carries you away
surrender, poets!
and admit that you, yes you
you love this killer
reality’s final breakdown will be a grammatically challenged moment that never subsides, a moment of perception that can literally never be named or ever even approximate being named because what it signifies is the end of time and the end of space and the end of life and the end of everything which has a meaning, a moment we can only hint at, because naming it would mean knowing it, and knowing it would mean that even faith would evaporate, and the self would be decapitated. then even if god’s words still existed, we’d have nothing to speak them through or with. even these pronouns, we, and verbs, have, would evaporate, poof poof! like people mysteriously fading from photographs in those time-travel movies you saw as a child.
memories disappear, meanings dissolve, minds unravel
your words slow to a crawl, kick once, then are still
god is all
2009-06-06
West Oakland: "The Animals Don't Wake Up Until Later"
Early Monday morning I walked from Jack London Square Station for an hour to the place in West Oakland where I was planning to stay. The place had been hooked up for me through a friend of a friend's friend. I have since decided that three degrees of separation is too many.
I didn't know I was going into fifty cent's neighbourhood, I didn't know West Oakland was basically a ghetto! I just walked there innocently singing om dum durgaya namaha, jaya durga ma to a melody I'd invented on the train that morning. Everyone greeted me just like on Sesame Street. The twirling children in the schoolyards were laughing and adorable, and my heart was melting in the sun reflected off the shining white teeth in the smiles of their little brown faces.
"The animals don't wake up until later," said an old man to me. Whatever, I thought, this place is lovely. But the morning sun hides all ills, making each day seem fresh and new. Later comes later.
The house where I was supposed to stay had eleven people in it. Eleven people of varying degrees of negativity with varying amounts of steel stuck through various body parts, various jobs as (macabre?) circus performers, and code names like "Trinity" (as usual). None of them, it turned out, actually knew I was coming, so I had to explain myself to the three pit bulls at the door. The mug from which I drank my bhoomi amalaki had a graphic of a skull and the word "havoc" written with blood dripping from each letter in that font usually appearing on Halloween products. This seemed emblematic of the household overall.
The room where I stayed had parts of dead animals strewn across the floor - taxidermied parts, not decomposing or anything, but still! - and was painted with chaotic red and green swirls that looked like tangled yarn stuck all over the walls... except for where the visual cacaphony coalesced into the semi-recognizable figures of that cultural cliche, the gray alien. And when I moved the dirty cloth off the head of the mattress, underneath was a humongous veiny dildo and at least five used condoms. Fuck!
The leader of this den went over the stories of every house on the block for me, dealer-dealer-whorehouse, dealer-dealer-whorehouse. This one saw his father kill his mother with a knife, that one sells her body to send her son to school... then I was briefed with the rules and tactics for negotiating the streets and their denizens if coming home after dinner. "If [complex social cue], then [apply social skill set beyond my comprehension]."
(And I'm thinking: Yeah, you anarchist kids are so fucking cool for living in hell! Yeah you are really proving your solidarity, good for you. But you can't fool me. The glee with which you recount these stories of horrors not your own betrays your tourist mentality. The truth is you are a child of privilege and you are slumming it, motivated partly by guilt it's true, but still, partly for kicks and for ego... and so I now apply that criticism most stinging to the young and idealistic: You Will Grow Out Of It!)
And they judge me cool for seeming to take it all in stride. Every item of clothing I own is brightly coloured and my face is a smile, in contrast to their affected scowls and unwashed, unravelling, black garments. Yet still I am judged cool because I am unruffled. Externally at any rate. I realized this was a test I had to pass, so I pretended that I didn't give a shit about anything.
But, dear reader, in fact I am SO cool that what I really give no shit for is seeming cool. Test still freshly passed, I quickly outed myself as a totally uncool enjoyer of life: "So where do i go to look for clues left for me by the beatniks and the hippies?" Shocked eyes stared at me. "Not for me personally of course. I mean clues in the general sense... inspiration. I'm not crazy." A glimmer of light seemed to dawn. (And I think to myself: how can you live without inspiration?!)
I left my backpack in the dildo room and lit through the neighbourhood to rapid-transit myself across the Bay to San Francisco, the former capital of music, peace, and love...
I didn't know I was going into fifty cent's neighbourhood, I didn't know West Oakland was basically a ghetto! I just walked there innocently singing om dum durgaya namaha, jaya durga ma to a melody I'd invented on the train that morning. Everyone greeted me just like on Sesame Street. The twirling children in the schoolyards were laughing and adorable, and my heart was melting in the sun reflected off the shining white teeth in the smiles of their little brown faces.
"The animals don't wake up until later," said an old man to me. Whatever, I thought, this place is lovely. But the morning sun hides all ills, making each day seem fresh and new. Later comes later.
The house where I was supposed to stay had eleven people in it. Eleven people of varying degrees of negativity with varying amounts of steel stuck through various body parts, various jobs as (macabre?) circus performers, and code names like "Trinity" (as usual). None of them, it turned out, actually knew I was coming, so I had to explain myself to the three pit bulls at the door. The mug from which I drank my bhoomi amalaki had a graphic of a skull and the word "havoc" written with blood dripping from each letter in that font usually appearing on Halloween products. This seemed emblematic of the household overall.
The room where I stayed had parts of dead animals strewn across the floor - taxidermied parts, not decomposing or anything, but still! - and was painted with chaotic red and green swirls that looked like tangled yarn stuck all over the walls... except for where the visual cacaphony coalesced into the semi-recognizable figures of that cultural cliche, the gray alien. And when I moved the dirty cloth off the head of the mattress, underneath was a humongous veiny dildo and at least five used condoms. Fuck!
The leader of this den went over the stories of every house on the block for me, dealer-dealer-whorehouse, dealer-dealer-whorehouse. This one saw his father kill his mother with a knife, that one sells her body to send her son to school... then I was briefed with the rules and tactics for negotiating the streets and their denizens if coming home after dinner. "If [complex social cue], then [apply social skill set beyond my comprehension]."
(And I'm thinking: Yeah, you anarchist kids are so fucking cool for living in hell! Yeah you are really proving your solidarity, good for you. But you can't fool me. The glee with which you recount these stories of horrors not your own betrays your tourist mentality. The truth is you are a child of privilege and you are slumming it, motivated partly by guilt it's true, but still, partly for kicks and for ego... and so I now apply that criticism most stinging to the young and idealistic: You Will Grow Out Of It!)
And they judge me cool for seeming to take it all in stride. Every item of clothing I own is brightly coloured and my face is a smile, in contrast to their affected scowls and unwashed, unravelling, black garments. Yet still I am judged cool because I am unruffled. Externally at any rate. I realized this was a test I had to pass, so I pretended that I didn't give a shit about anything.
But, dear reader, in fact I am SO cool that what I really give no shit for is seeming cool. Test still freshly passed, I quickly outed myself as a totally uncool enjoyer of life: "So where do i go to look for clues left for me by the beatniks and the hippies?" Shocked eyes stared at me. "Not for me personally of course. I mean clues in the general sense... inspiration. I'm not crazy." A glimmer of light seemed to dawn. (And I think to myself: how can you live without inspiration?!)
I left my backpack in the dildo room and lit through the neighbourhood to rapid-transit myself across the Bay to San Francisco, the former capital of music, peace, and love...
2009-05-30
The Labyrinth
Perhaps my mind is a maze, but life is more like a labyrinth. The difference between a labyrinth and a maze, of course, is that a maze has branches and dead-ends, but a labyrinth only has twists and turns. If you just keep walking, you will get to the centre. In other words, no matter how complicated the maze of my mind tries to make my life seem, those twists and turns are just veils hiding the unchangeable truth that reality is a reliable path.
Recently I had the opportunity to walk the Peace Miracle Labyrinth at the Sivananda Yoga Ashram Farm in Grass Valley, California. I went into the labyrinth pondering my future plans, wondering how to move towards goals without confusing process and outcome, and seeking to reconcile the concept of plans in general with the uncertainties of life and of time in general.
To enter, I took off my sandals so that I could walk barefoot. I wanted to be really aware of what was happening, for, as I have learned, awareness seems to be the key for me to ensure that I learn from my experiences. After a few minutes I began to notice the result of my decision: I was, as I had intended, very aware of what was happening. The sensations of the temperature and texture of the stones beneath my feet added to the immediacy of my experience, enhanced my ability to perceive the wonder of creation cradling me as I walked - yet the stones sometimes hurt. Isn't this what it is to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge? We have been taught that (in the Bible) this was a fall from grace, but to me, the independent decision to seek understanding and to act according to our own god-gifted conscience is no fall at all. It is the beginning of the path. What we gain is the opportunity to be aware, fully aware, of our experience here on earth, to be able to learn from it... and at the same time to suffer pain. Suffering is part of the sacrifice we make in order to live on this planet. It is part of the payment we make in exchange for the learning we are blessed with during our time here. Simply by coming here, we have already become renunciates. We have renounced painlessness. Now the challenge is to accept our decision.
The paths inside the labyrinth are all "paved" with small white stones, and each part of the path is demarcated by borders of larger rocks. As I continued to walk, I noticed that I had to keep my eye on the path so that I wouldn't accidentally step over one of these borders and find myself in another section, not knowing which way was forward. Yet I could still see and be inspired by the tall pillar at the centre of the labyrinth. Inspired! Spiral, respiration, spires of churches... aren't these all connected? I kept my footing, looking up now and then to remind myself where I was going, but keeping my focus on where I am right now. Like life, the path is what takes me to the ultimate goal, to the centre. And it is also what keeps me from walking directly to the goal! It keeps me walking in spirals around, but not quite touching, the centre, even as it leads me there. Just like maya, it's a cosmic foreplay, veiling the ultimate truth, yet at the same time, with every atom, proclaiming nothing other than that very same truth. And so I walk. The path is the arrival. Isn't contentment on the path part of the goal? Isn't the path itself the goal?
I walked by some blackberry bushes on the outer spiral arm of the labyrinth. Of course, blackberries are not in season yet, but the thought of the delicious ripe blackberries of the future breifly crossed my lips. I noticed how nonsensical it was to think of those particular fruits. Keep walking! It's not good in life either to stop. If I have to stop moving forward in order to get something, then I know that my only motive is greed! For example, I had to come here, to California, to Sivananda Ashram Yoga Farm, to finish something I'd started, but there is no need for me to stay longer. I'm finished doing what I came to do. In my life, too, I am finding that there's an art to realizing which actions are really part of my path, and which are beside the point (like the blackberries). I am learning to ask myself, is this keeping me on the path? No? Let it go (even if it does dribble juice down my chin). Is it keeping me on the path? Yes? Follow it (even if it does dribble juice down my chin - no harm in that as long as the juice doesn't take me for a detour).
There seemed to be a pace innate to my own feet as I walked the labyrinth. I was pretty slow. In fact over the past year I have been getting the message over over that slowing down in life is what I need to do. I let the others who were entering the labyrinth go in before me so I wouldn't be holding them up, or moving at a pace unnatural to me. It didn't seem to matter if I went more slowly than others as long as I remembered that my pace was my own. I wondered sometimes how close I was to the centre, and looked to others a few times to try and orient myself. But in all those twists and turns of the labyrinth, seeing the motions of others gave me no clue at all as to where I would be walking next. Every turn continued to be a surprise as I seemed to move towards and away from the centre. Yet there was no need to strategize about where to step next - at any pace, walking in any direction, forward was forward. I didn't have to make anything happen. Just keep walking! It's easy to practice this kind of faith when I know that I am in a labyrinth. In life, I sometimes forget this. I have to remind myself to keep my faith in faith.
As I finally reached the centre of the labyrinth, I encountered my most difficult steps. Other people were standing around the tall pillar, and I knew they were waiting for me to get there before walking back out again. I knew I was close, but I didn't want to lose my awareness by starting to hurry. About twenty seconds before I arrived, the others actually did start to walk back out. I had to squeeze to the side to let them pass by me in the other direction. At first I was annoyed, but after I got to the centre myself it became a good lesson. When it was my turn to leave the centre, I found myself going in the "opposite" direction too. It reminded me that I'd best not resent people whose purposes seem to oppose my own - if I keep following my path, sooner or later I'll be going in the same direction myself. Once we get to the centre, we are all going the same way. That's good to remember.
The labyrinth did help me with my ponderings. As for my plans, I need to remember that my process is the outcome. And the uncertainties of life and time are just twists in a labyrinth that I can follow with faith to the centre. Awareness keeps me grounded where I am now; acceptance of pain underlines my commitment to learning from this life. Acknowledgement that the path takes different directions at different times allows me to accept my own pace and direction and those of others. Keeping my eye on my goal while remaining mindful of where I am now keeps me walking foward, renouncing strategic scheming in favour of faith. And contentment on the path keeps me from getting snagged in blackberry bushes.
Recently I had the opportunity to walk the Peace Miracle Labyrinth at the Sivananda Yoga Ashram Farm in Grass Valley, California. I went into the labyrinth pondering my future plans, wondering how to move towards goals without confusing process and outcome, and seeking to reconcile the concept of plans in general with the uncertainties of life and of time in general.
To enter, I took off my sandals so that I could walk barefoot. I wanted to be really aware of what was happening, for, as I have learned, awareness seems to be the key for me to ensure that I learn from my experiences. After a few minutes I began to notice the result of my decision: I was, as I had intended, very aware of what was happening. The sensations of the temperature and texture of the stones beneath my feet added to the immediacy of my experience, enhanced my ability to perceive the wonder of creation cradling me as I walked - yet the stones sometimes hurt. Isn't this what it is to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge? We have been taught that (in the Bible) this was a fall from grace, but to me, the independent decision to seek understanding and to act according to our own god-gifted conscience is no fall at all. It is the beginning of the path. What we gain is the opportunity to be aware, fully aware, of our experience here on earth, to be able to learn from it... and at the same time to suffer pain. Suffering is part of the sacrifice we make in order to live on this planet. It is part of the payment we make in exchange for the learning we are blessed with during our time here. Simply by coming here, we have already become renunciates. We have renounced painlessness. Now the challenge is to accept our decision.
The paths inside the labyrinth are all "paved" with small white stones, and each part of the path is demarcated by borders of larger rocks. As I continued to walk, I noticed that I had to keep my eye on the path so that I wouldn't accidentally step over one of these borders and find myself in another section, not knowing which way was forward. Yet I could still see and be inspired by the tall pillar at the centre of the labyrinth. Inspired! Spiral, respiration, spires of churches... aren't these all connected? I kept my footing, looking up now and then to remind myself where I was going, but keeping my focus on where I am right now. Like life, the path is what takes me to the ultimate goal, to the centre. And it is also what keeps me from walking directly to the goal! It keeps me walking in spirals around, but not quite touching, the centre, even as it leads me there. Just like maya, it's a cosmic foreplay, veiling the ultimate truth, yet at the same time, with every atom, proclaiming nothing other than that very same truth. And so I walk. The path is the arrival. Isn't contentment on the path part of the goal? Isn't the path itself the goal?
I walked by some blackberry bushes on the outer spiral arm of the labyrinth. Of course, blackberries are not in season yet, but the thought of the delicious ripe blackberries of the future breifly crossed my lips. I noticed how nonsensical it was to think of those particular fruits. Keep walking! It's not good in life either to stop. If I have to stop moving forward in order to get something, then I know that my only motive is greed! For example, I had to come here, to California, to Sivananda Ashram Yoga Farm, to finish something I'd started, but there is no need for me to stay longer. I'm finished doing what I came to do. In my life, too, I am finding that there's an art to realizing which actions are really part of my path, and which are beside the point (like the blackberries). I am learning to ask myself, is this keeping me on the path? No? Let it go (even if it does dribble juice down my chin). Is it keeping me on the path? Yes? Follow it (even if it does dribble juice down my chin - no harm in that as long as the juice doesn't take me for a detour).
There seemed to be a pace innate to my own feet as I walked the labyrinth. I was pretty slow. In fact over the past year I have been getting the message over over that slowing down in life is what I need to do. I let the others who were entering the labyrinth go in before me so I wouldn't be holding them up, or moving at a pace unnatural to me. It didn't seem to matter if I went more slowly than others as long as I remembered that my pace was my own. I wondered sometimes how close I was to the centre, and looked to others a few times to try and orient myself. But in all those twists and turns of the labyrinth, seeing the motions of others gave me no clue at all as to where I would be walking next. Every turn continued to be a surprise as I seemed to move towards and away from the centre. Yet there was no need to strategize about where to step next - at any pace, walking in any direction, forward was forward. I didn't have to make anything happen. Just keep walking! It's easy to practice this kind of faith when I know that I am in a labyrinth. In life, I sometimes forget this. I have to remind myself to keep my faith in faith.
As I finally reached the centre of the labyrinth, I encountered my most difficult steps. Other people were standing around the tall pillar, and I knew they were waiting for me to get there before walking back out again. I knew I was close, but I didn't want to lose my awareness by starting to hurry. About twenty seconds before I arrived, the others actually did start to walk back out. I had to squeeze to the side to let them pass by me in the other direction. At first I was annoyed, but after I got to the centre myself it became a good lesson. When it was my turn to leave the centre, I found myself going in the "opposite" direction too. It reminded me that I'd best not resent people whose purposes seem to oppose my own - if I keep following my path, sooner or later I'll be going in the same direction myself. Once we get to the centre, we are all going the same way. That's good to remember.
The labyrinth did help me with my ponderings. As for my plans, I need to remember that my process is the outcome. And the uncertainties of life and time are just twists in a labyrinth that I can follow with faith to the centre. Awareness keeps me grounded where I am now; acceptance of pain underlines my commitment to learning from this life. Acknowledgement that the path takes different directions at different times allows me to accept my own pace and direction and those of others. Keeping my eye on my goal while remaining mindful of where I am now keeps me walking foward, renouncing strategic scheming in favour of faith. And contentment on the path keeps me from getting snagged in blackberry bushes.
Those Crazy Vedantists
Over the past three and a half weeks, I left Yasodhara, spent time at "home" in Victoria, went to Port Alberni to visit my Grandma and extended family, hung out with my friend Jason in Seattle, and took the train to California to finish my Sivananda training in Grass Valley at one of the ashrams Swami Visnu-devananda founded. I'd initially started this training last year in India, but it was cut short by a relapse of my epic illness (my doctor at home in China had told me I wasn't well enough to leave home yet, but I didn't listen and got on the plane.)
This ashram has a different vibe than Yasodhara for sure (as evidenced by my free use of the terms "vibe" and "for sure"). In addition to the whole California-hippie-peace aura, there is a nice sort of family feeling too. There are kids running around all over the place, students chatting over meals, a mother and her daughters baking cookies in the kitchen while I do my karma yoga on dishes, couples strolling together in the early evening, and even (gasp!) karma yogis getting married to each other!
There are also a couple of older men who sit around on the veranda outside the boutique in the afternoons, sipping cold beverages and discussing spiritual and global matters.
Today, not really meaning to eavesdrop, I heard one of said fellows saying: "Spiritual neurotics are building castles in the sky. Spiritual psychotics are living in castles in the sky!"
"I wonder, which one am I?" I joined the conversation.
"By being on the spiritual path at all, you are admitting to at least some degree of schizophrenia," he expounded. "Think of it! You are eating the bread of this world, and yet doing the work of the other!"
"That's a matter of perspective, isn't it? It depends how much you feel that the things of this world are infused with the reality of the 'other' world," I responded.
His eyes bugged out and he laughed. I suddenly remembered something I'd written in my journal a few days before, and since he seemed like a good sport I decided to share it with him: "May 27. Sometimes I think vedantists sound like psychotic power-crazed maniacs when they rave about transcending Nature."
The old man laughed and laughed. He rose from the table, walked around to where I stood, raised his short arms up and embraced me. "You see what I mean!" Still laughing he went to sit back down.
I left to go do my karma yoga.
This ashram has a different vibe than Yasodhara for sure (as evidenced by my free use of the terms "vibe" and "for sure"). In addition to the whole California-hippie-peace aura, there is a nice sort of family feeling too. There are kids running around all over the place, students chatting over meals, a mother and her daughters baking cookies in the kitchen while I do my karma yoga on dishes, couples strolling together in the early evening, and even (gasp!) karma yogis getting married to each other!
There are also a couple of older men who sit around on the veranda outside the boutique in the afternoons, sipping cold beverages and discussing spiritual and global matters.
Today, not really meaning to eavesdrop, I heard one of said fellows saying: "Spiritual neurotics are building castles in the sky. Spiritual psychotics are living in castles in the sky!"
"I wonder, which one am I?" I joined the conversation.
"By being on the spiritual path at all, you are admitting to at least some degree of schizophrenia," he expounded. "Think of it! You are eating the bread of this world, and yet doing the work of the other!"
"That's a matter of perspective, isn't it? It depends how much you feel that the things of this world are infused with the reality of the 'other' world," I responded.
His eyes bugged out and he laughed. I suddenly remembered something I'd written in my journal a few days before, and since he seemed like a good sport I decided to share it with him: "May 27. Sometimes I think vedantists sound like psychotic power-crazed maniacs when they rave about transcending Nature."
The old man laughed and laughed. He rose from the table, walked around to where I stood, raised his short arms up and embraced me. "You see what I mean!" Still laughing he went to sit back down.
I left to go do my karma yoga.
2009-04-13
Green Snake and Disco Salamander Dig Celibacy Together
This is the last thing I thought I'd be posting.
Celibacy. What a daunting concept for the inexperienced!
For the past three months, I have been living in an ashram where celibacy is practiced willingly by everyone. When I first arrived here, I was not too thrilled with this aspect of community life. Instead, I was hoping to confirm my preconceived notion that this whole celibacy thing was just bunk, just a bunch of yoga propaganda. I thought for sure the whole idea of a self-imposed dry spell – even with yourself – could be dismissed as an arcane practice of self-punishment, a relic from a time when society was so hierarchical that it could not tolerate even that slight glimmer of individual agency reflected in the human sex drive. Even the instruction on celibacy (bramacharya) in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras seemed suspect: sex should only be used for its intended use... procreation, of course! Wait a minute, I thought, who says the only pure use of sex is procreation? Humans have understood the female fertility cycle for thousands of years. Only recently have we become so cut off from the rhythms of nature that this god-given method of natural family planning has become an “ineffective” method of birth control. So sex can’t be only for procreation. Isn’t it also, and perhaps more often, useful for creating moments (and hours) of blissful, sensory experience of life on earth?
So I was pretty skeptical of this whole celibacy thing. I didn’t really take the idea seriously beyond its social implications at the ashram. I agreed that it would be a good idea to avoid forming “relationships” at the ashram, but I thought of this more from a human resources management perspective than from a spiritual one. It would take a lot of coordinating to get all the pregnant karma yogis (in our ignorance of fertility cycles) to Nelson for their ultrasounds and monthly medical check-ins... and who would be willing to do a town run every time someone craved pickles and ice cream?
Of course, you can’t get pregnant from yourself, no matter how daft you are at recognizing your fertility cycles. So the whole “not even with yourself” thing seemed like rigid authoritarian overkill. Nevertheless, my chances to be a rebel were severely constrained by having a roommate, and by having shared bathrooms. Yes, as you can imagine, the tension was almost unbearable at times. And of course the ashram is over-run with radiant, glowing, shining, beautiful karma yogis and yoginis... ouch, ouch, and ouch. Though initially I schemed for my rare chances to flout the teachings in the privacy of my own company, these opportunities rarely materialized. Instead I often woke up in the middle of the night panting, cursing my body’s desires.
Eventually it so happened that the rigor of the course, combined with this lack of private opportunities, eventually worked together to keep me truly celibate, yes, even with myself, for an epic three weeks.
After the three-week mark, I noticed strange things beginning to happen.
The waking up late at night, the urges, the inappropriate thoughts... all began to melt away. I began to feel peaceful. People started commenting that I seemed serene, that I seemed at peace, contemplative even. I felt calm. I looked at my reflection in the mirror. Who is that radiant one? I wondered. Had I become one of these beautiful, shining yoginis, myself? There was no doubt that my skin had a fresh glow, almost like... an afterglow. I didn’t feel like I needed release anymore. Instead, I was happy to chant in the Beach Prayer room to my favourite god Siva, and let the feelings of bliss radiate up and down my spine, spreading out to my whole body, with each repetition of the mantra. Am I in love with God? I could just inhale, looking out over the lake, and feel waves of pleasurable sensation caressing my whole body. Just feeling the Light brought me to a place that would in the past have required foreplay. And the breeze. OM Siva, you are blowing on my skin in the breeze...
Bliss is everywhere, and it exists on the fine line between the physical, and something deeper. It balances on the fine line of interface between this body through which I physically experience the glory of Creation, and the deeper essence of my Self that underlies and transcends this physical form.
These ‘physical’ feelings were the subtle yet overwhelming feelings I’d previously associated with sex, yet they became so much more available to me as I concentrated my energy on spiritual practices. They are like those waves of joy that I feel in my body when I listen to true music, but even stronger and with a wider range. (Needless to say, my experience of music has gotten to a point where the term “bliss” is far, far from hyperbole.) Was this all part of the process I’ve read of, by which the “lower” drives are transformed into subtler experiences on “higher” levels? I had never understood why anyone would want that because I thought that “subtle” meant weaker, less powerful... while I tend to want more, not less. Yet the experiences I am having are not at all less impressive to my being. The word “subtle” does apply to my experience, but in a different sense. The feelings themselves are not weaker, but maybe the “signal” that transmits them takes more subtlety for me to pick up.
I wonder if I would still have this access to this “subtle” level of feelings if I was having sex again. Of course, I have a mind that is greedy, and usually wants more. It’s also a curious mind that likes to experiment and discover. But I don’t want to put down these aspects of my mind. Though they have at times caused me to overtax myself in life, they have also acquired for me many valuable experiences that have brought me HERE, NOW, to this place and time, which is the perfect place and time for me to be. So I feel like I want to try it. I want to stay with my practices, to stay with Siva’s breath on my subtle skin, to stay with the vibrations of bliss along that subtle line of interface between my embodied form and my underlying transcendent essence... AND have sex. Can I have both? Can’t I make use of my god-gifted sexuality to feed my love affair with the Universe? Maybe there are subtler levels in the physical act than what I have experienced before.
As I like to say ever since being told it in a dream, I may have been born blind but at least I was born with a map. My body is the map. Pleasure is one of its languages, one that I am learning to read on levels I didn’t know existed. I don’t need huge neon signs to point it out to me anymore.
And celibacy? It was a challenge at first, but it has became a gateway to new dimensions of pleasure.
Celibacy. What a daunting concept for the inexperienced!
For the past three months, I have been living in an ashram where celibacy is practiced willingly by everyone. When I first arrived here, I was not too thrilled with this aspect of community life. Instead, I was hoping to confirm my preconceived notion that this whole celibacy thing was just bunk, just a bunch of yoga propaganda. I thought for sure the whole idea of a self-imposed dry spell – even with yourself – could be dismissed as an arcane practice of self-punishment, a relic from a time when society was so hierarchical that it could not tolerate even that slight glimmer of individual agency reflected in the human sex drive. Even the instruction on celibacy (bramacharya) in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras seemed suspect: sex should only be used for its intended use... procreation, of course! Wait a minute, I thought, who says the only pure use of sex is procreation? Humans have understood the female fertility cycle for thousands of years. Only recently have we become so cut off from the rhythms of nature that this god-given method of natural family planning has become an “ineffective” method of birth control. So sex can’t be only for procreation. Isn’t it also, and perhaps more often, useful for creating moments (and hours) of blissful, sensory experience of life on earth?
So I was pretty skeptical of this whole celibacy thing. I didn’t really take the idea seriously beyond its social implications at the ashram. I agreed that it would be a good idea to avoid forming “relationships” at the ashram, but I thought of this more from a human resources management perspective than from a spiritual one. It would take a lot of coordinating to get all the pregnant karma yogis (in our ignorance of fertility cycles) to Nelson for their ultrasounds and monthly medical check-ins... and who would be willing to do a town run every time someone craved pickles and ice cream?
Of course, you can’t get pregnant from yourself, no matter how daft you are at recognizing your fertility cycles. So the whole “not even with yourself” thing seemed like rigid authoritarian overkill. Nevertheless, my chances to be a rebel were severely constrained by having a roommate, and by having shared bathrooms. Yes, as you can imagine, the tension was almost unbearable at times. And of course the ashram is over-run with radiant, glowing, shining, beautiful karma yogis and yoginis... ouch, ouch, and ouch. Though initially I schemed for my rare chances to flout the teachings in the privacy of my own company, these opportunities rarely materialized. Instead I often woke up in the middle of the night panting, cursing my body’s desires.
Eventually it so happened that the rigor of the course, combined with this lack of private opportunities, eventually worked together to keep me truly celibate, yes, even with myself, for an epic three weeks.
After the three-week mark, I noticed strange things beginning to happen.
The waking up late at night, the urges, the inappropriate thoughts... all began to melt away. I began to feel peaceful. People started commenting that I seemed serene, that I seemed at peace, contemplative even. I felt calm. I looked at my reflection in the mirror. Who is that radiant one? I wondered. Had I become one of these beautiful, shining yoginis, myself? There was no doubt that my skin had a fresh glow, almost like... an afterglow. I didn’t feel like I needed release anymore. Instead, I was happy to chant in the Beach Prayer room to my favourite god Siva, and let the feelings of bliss radiate up and down my spine, spreading out to my whole body, with each repetition of the mantra. Am I in love with God? I could just inhale, looking out over the lake, and feel waves of pleasurable sensation caressing my whole body. Just feeling the Light brought me to a place that would in the past have required foreplay. And the breeze. OM Siva, you are blowing on my skin in the breeze...
Bliss is everywhere, and it exists on the fine line between the physical, and something deeper. It balances on the fine line of interface between this body through which I physically experience the glory of Creation, and the deeper essence of my Self that underlies and transcends this physical form.
These ‘physical’ feelings were the subtle yet overwhelming feelings I’d previously associated with sex, yet they became so much more available to me as I concentrated my energy on spiritual practices. They are like those waves of joy that I feel in my body when I listen to true music, but even stronger and with a wider range. (Needless to say, my experience of music has gotten to a point where the term “bliss” is far, far from hyperbole.) Was this all part of the process I’ve read of, by which the “lower” drives are transformed into subtler experiences on “higher” levels? I had never understood why anyone would want that because I thought that “subtle” meant weaker, less powerful... while I tend to want more, not less. Yet the experiences I am having are not at all less impressive to my being. The word “subtle” does apply to my experience, but in a different sense. The feelings themselves are not weaker, but maybe the “signal” that transmits them takes more subtlety for me to pick up.
I wonder if I would still have this access to this “subtle” level of feelings if I was having sex again. Of course, I have a mind that is greedy, and usually wants more. It’s also a curious mind that likes to experiment and discover. But I don’t want to put down these aspects of my mind. Though they have at times caused me to overtax myself in life, they have also acquired for me many valuable experiences that have brought me HERE, NOW, to this place and time, which is the perfect place and time for me to be. So I feel like I want to try it. I want to stay with my practices, to stay with Siva’s breath on my subtle skin, to stay with the vibrations of bliss along that subtle line of interface between my embodied form and my underlying transcendent essence... AND have sex. Can I have both? Can’t I make use of my god-gifted sexuality to feed my love affair with the Universe? Maybe there are subtler levels in the physical act than what I have experienced before.
As I like to say ever since being told it in a dream, I may have been born blind but at least I was born with a map. My body is the map. Pleasure is one of its languages, one that I am learning to read on levels I didn’t know existed. I don’t need huge neon signs to point it out to me anymore.
And celibacy? It was a challenge at first, but it has became a gateway to new dimensions of pleasure.
2009-02-13
How-To: Using An Epilator
This bit is a time capsule from Dai Xin (Cierra), age 22, in Shanghai, year 2001... recently unearthed from the now-defunct icetornado website.
How-to
Using an Epilator
The epilator is an extreme machine for extreme people. Read about mine and find out how you can use your own.
Using an Epilator
I. My Epilator
The Epilator is really, really cool. I was attracted by its shiny design: picture gripping in your hand the curves of a desert landscape with a pearl-blue satin finish, topped by a row of eight shiny, revolving, mechanical pincers. It's like a very sexy android crab.
So I bought it. I took it home and plugged it in. The metal pincers whirred menacingly, flashing in the evening glow of my tianli lamp. Entranced by the fascination of it all, I let the little creature run up and down my legs and torture me for about an hour. It wasn't quite as painful as slicing myself with a knife, and it sure is a more effective hair removal tactic.
II. Buying an Epilator
The saleslady at LeGou let me read the instruction manuals for each of the different epilators they carry (all Phillips). In a variety of sizes and pastel hues, the epilators range in price from 60 to 150 Canadian dollars. I ended up buying the cheapest one because I didn't want a shaving attachment or a skin cooler or a massager with it. What's the point? I can massage with my fingers, I can cool with icewater and lavender, and I can avoid shaving for the rest of my life now that I have the epilator! My epilator is called a "Satinelle" by the manufacturers. In my opinion, although it's from the lower end of the line, it's a pretty posh product. It even comes with its own pearlized vinyl carrying case. The nylon drawstrings are a bit tacky I suppose, but one can't expect everything, can one?
III. My Epilation Expertise
Anyways, since I read all of the instruction booklets for the entire line of Phillips Epilators, and then epilated my own legs, I now consider myself to be somewhat of an epilation expert. And I do get a kick out of being an epilation hero for withstanding the pain. So, in my infinite benevolence I thought I would share my expertise with you.
IV. What is an Epilator? Epilation vs. Shaving
What is an epilator? Aside from being an object of aesthetic perfection (I'm about ready to fetishize the damn thing), it is an electronic tweezer set. You know shaving? Well, shaving is really dumb because you have to do it every few days if you want your legs to be smooth, and they are never even perfectly smooth anyways since even the next morning you can have a bit of leg stubble to wake yourself up with. No, you didn't leave sandpaper in the bed, that's what you get for SHAVING! I personally hate shaving and I never do it. Prior to last night I had both long underarm hair and long leg hair, a visual and sensory testament to my hatred of shaving. God, I'd rather grow a rainforest on my shins than have stubble. Yecch!! Stubble is for handsome boys' faces, not pretty girls' calves (unless the handsome boys' stubbly faces are getting somewhere near the pretty girls' satiny calves).
Epilating is NOT shaving. Rather than cutting your hair for you and causing skin irritations from the allergenic shaving cream, an epilator roves up and down your legs grabbing the hairs and yanking them out by the root! A much more effective method, and the violence makes it much more exciting. Even if you're allergic to metal, as I am, using the epilator is ok since it doesn't have to touch your skin. It just has to come close enough to grab those hairs.
V. Getting Ready to use the Epilator
First, if you have been growing your leg hairs, you should trim them with manicure scissors until they are a half a centimetre long or less. This is for optimum epilation.
Epilating is an extreme activity. Phillips cautions: If you have diabetes, if you are pregnant, if you have haemophilia, or if you have any type of immune definciency or reduced immune response, you should consult your doctor before using the epilator. Also, you should not use the epilator on irritated skin, skin with spots, varicose veins, or hairy birthmarks.
Since it is such an extreme hair-removal instrument, it can cause mild skin irritation. This is a normal reaction and will quickly dissappear. Well, that's a no-brainer, think of ripping out all your hairs, of course it's gonna hurt! However, Phillips and experienced epilator users all say that after epilating a few times, the user no longer feels the pain. Anyways, for the epilation virgins among us, it's a great idea to have with you a bowl of cold water with a cloth soaked in lavender. You can use this to reduce the inflammation more quickly after epilating.
Epilating works best after a bath or shower because skin and hairs must be clean and free from grease. However, they must be completely dry.
The epilator has been extensively tested for use on underarms and bikini line. BE CAREFUL with the bikini line. I would never bring an epilator anywhere near my bikini line, but then, I would never bring a bikini anywhere near my bikini line either. However, if you must dehumanize yourself by wearing a bikini, I'd rather you epilated than shaved, god, stubble is just wrong in such a nice, soft, place.
VI. Using the Epilator
Some girls change their mind about using the epilator when they hear the loud and frightening sound it makes. Those girls are obviously wusses who do not listen to enough punk music, and in my opinion they don't deserve the epilator anyways. If you want to use the epilator, you should grit your teeth and withstand the scary noise.
Pull your skin tight so the hairs stand up a bit. With the epilator at right angles to the skin, and the on/of switch facing the direction you want to move it in, epilate against the direction of hair growth. This is the stage at which many girls quit - the sudden sharp pains brought on by this violent assault upon the very roots of your leg hair make you jump at first, then they make you feel like you have to pee, but if you get over these initial reactions, it starts to be fun in a perverse sort of way. It helps if you listen to loud music (Andy Kim or New Pants are best). Don't use earphones though, it creeps me out if I can't hear the epilator working. Besides, with no loud music on, the distinct sound of the epilator will make your roommate think you are using a new vibrator. You don't want that, now, do you?
VII. After Epilating
Cool your skin with lavender icewater. Let it relax, and then treat it with your favourite cream or lotion (make sure it does not contain any alcohol). If you don't have a favourite cream or lotion, dilute ten drops of lavender oil, three drops of tea tree oil, and six drops of patchouli oil in a tablespoon of sweet apricol kernel oil and slather it all over your smooth new leggies. Admire the shine on your calves. Run your fingers up and down the smooth surface. Your legs haven't been this smooth since you were born! Try on all your anklets, put on your favourite shoes, roll your jeans cuffs up really high as though you are digging for clams at the beach... you now have fantasy ankles, so show them off!
When your leg hair starts to grow back in three to four weeks, it will be the ends of brand new hairs poking up through your skin - no stubble! New growth tends to be lighter and softer. You can re-epilate as soon as your hairs have reached 0.5 millimetres in length. Wow! If you were shaving, that would be like the next DAY! Epilating is really way better than shaving. You get three to four weeks of hair-free smoothness, and when your hair grows back it's cute soft little fluff.
When you epilate in the future, it won't hurt as much.
Take up the habit of regularly massaging your legs with a loofah. This prevents the new hairs from becoming ingrown.
Before putting your epilator away in its pearlized baggie, clean it with the brush provided. Do not use water, just whisk the hairs out of the epilating disks, put the protective cap back onto the device, admire it for a moment, and then put it away.
VIII. Conclusion
Now you can wear whatever shoes you want, whatever socks you want, whatever pants and skirts and shorts you want. I used to have to wear birkenstocks and hippie dresses in the summer if I wanted to go bare-legged and still look fashionable. Now, however, now, I can wear anything I want, from shiny pink fake-leather pants to flowery frilly miniskirts. Not that I would wear those particular things, but anyways I COULD.
Buy an epilator. Enjoy it. Admire it. Find out if you're brave enough to use it.
How-to
Using an Epilator
The epilator is an extreme machine for extreme people. Read about mine and find out how you can use your own.
Using an Epilator
I. My Epilator
The Epilator is really, really cool. I was attracted by its shiny design: picture gripping in your hand the curves of a desert landscape with a pearl-blue satin finish, topped by a row of eight shiny, revolving, mechanical pincers. It's like a very sexy android crab.
So I bought it. I took it home and plugged it in. The metal pincers whirred menacingly, flashing in the evening glow of my tianli lamp. Entranced by the fascination of it all, I let the little creature run up and down my legs and torture me for about an hour. It wasn't quite as painful as slicing myself with a knife, and it sure is a more effective hair removal tactic.
II. Buying an Epilator
The saleslady at LeGou let me read the instruction manuals for each of the different epilators they carry (all Phillips). In a variety of sizes and pastel hues, the epilators range in price from 60 to 150 Canadian dollars. I ended up buying the cheapest one because I didn't want a shaving attachment or a skin cooler or a massager with it. What's the point? I can massage with my fingers, I can cool with icewater and lavender, and I can avoid shaving for the rest of my life now that I have the epilator! My epilator is called a "Satinelle" by the manufacturers. In my opinion, although it's from the lower end of the line, it's a pretty posh product. It even comes with its own pearlized vinyl carrying case. The nylon drawstrings are a bit tacky I suppose, but one can't expect everything, can one?
III. My Epilation Expertise
Anyways, since I read all of the instruction booklets for the entire line of Phillips Epilators, and then epilated my own legs, I now consider myself to be somewhat of an epilation expert. And I do get a kick out of being an epilation hero for withstanding the pain. So, in my infinite benevolence I thought I would share my expertise with you.
IV. What is an Epilator? Epilation vs. Shaving
What is an epilator? Aside from being an object of aesthetic perfection (I'm about ready to fetishize the damn thing), it is an electronic tweezer set. You know shaving? Well, shaving is really dumb because you have to do it every few days if you want your legs to be smooth, and they are never even perfectly smooth anyways since even the next morning you can have a bit of leg stubble to wake yourself up with. No, you didn't leave sandpaper in the bed, that's what you get for SHAVING! I personally hate shaving and I never do it. Prior to last night I had both long underarm hair and long leg hair, a visual and sensory testament to my hatred of shaving. God, I'd rather grow a rainforest on my shins than have stubble. Yecch!! Stubble is for handsome boys' faces, not pretty girls' calves (unless the handsome boys' stubbly faces are getting somewhere near the pretty girls' satiny calves).
Epilating is NOT shaving. Rather than cutting your hair for you and causing skin irritations from the allergenic shaving cream, an epilator roves up and down your legs grabbing the hairs and yanking them out by the root! A much more effective method, and the violence makes it much more exciting. Even if you're allergic to metal, as I am, using the epilator is ok since it doesn't have to touch your skin. It just has to come close enough to grab those hairs.
V. Getting Ready to use the Epilator
First, if you have been growing your leg hairs, you should trim them with manicure scissors until they are a half a centimetre long or less. This is for optimum epilation.
Epilating is an extreme activity. Phillips cautions: If you have diabetes, if you are pregnant, if you have haemophilia, or if you have any type of immune definciency or reduced immune response, you should consult your doctor before using the epilator. Also, you should not use the epilator on irritated skin, skin with spots, varicose veins, or hairy birthmarks.
Since it is such an extreme hair-removal instrument, it can cause mild skin irritation. This is a normal reaction and will quickly dissappear. Well, that's a no-brainer, think of ripping out all your hairs, of course it's gonna hurt! However, Phillips and experienced epilator users all say that after epilating a few times, the user no longer feels the pain. Anyways, for the epilation virgins among us, it's a great idea to have with you a bowl of cold water with a cloth soaked in lavender. You can use this to reduce the inflammation more quickly after epilating.
Epilating works best after a bath or shower because skin and hairs must be clean and free from grease. However, they must be completely dry.
The epilator has been extensively tested for use on underarms and bikini line. BE CAREFUL with the bikini line. I would never bring an epilator anywhere near my bikini line, but then, I would never bring a bikini anywhere near my bikini line either. However, if you must dehumanize yourself by wearing a bikini, I'd rather you epilated than shaved, god, stubble is just wrong in such a nice, soft, place.
VI. Using the Epilator
Some girls change their mind about using the epilator when they hear the loud and frightening sound it makes. Those girls are obviously wusses who do not listen to enough punk music, and in my opinion they don't deserve the epilator anyways. If you want to use the epilator, you should grit your teeth and withstand the scary noise.
Pull your skin tight so the hairs stand up a bit. With the epilator at right angles to the skin, and the on/of switch facing the direction you want to move it in, epilate against the direction of hair growth. This is the stage at which many girls quit - the sudden sharp pains brought on by this violent assault upon the very roots of your leg hair make you jump at first, then they make you feel like you have to pee, but if you get over these initial reactions, it starts to be fun in a perverse sort of way. It helps if you listen to loud music (Andy Kim or New Pants are best). Don't use earphones though, it creeps me out if I can't hear the epilator working. Besides, with no loud music on, the distinct sound of the epilator will make your roommate think you are using a new vibrator. You don't want that, now, do you?
VII. After Epilating
Cool your skin with lavender icewater. Let it relax, and then treat it with your favourite cream or lotion (make sure it does not contain any alcohol). If you don't have a favourite cream or lotion, dilute ten drops of lavender oil, three drops of tea tree oil, and six drops of patchouli oil in a tablespoon of sweet apricol kernel oil and slather it all over your smooth new leggies. Admire the shine on your calves. Run your fingers up and down the smooth surface. Your legs haven't been this smooth since you were born! Try on all your anklets, put on your favourite shoes, roll your jeans cuffs up really high as though you are digging for clams at the beach... you now have fantasy ankles, so show them off!
When your leg hair starts to grow back in three to four weeks, it will be the ends of brand new hairs poking up through your skin - no stubble! New growth tends to be lighter and softer. You can re-epilate as soon as your hairs have reached 0.5 millimetres in length. Wow! If you were shaving, that would be like the next DAY! Epilating is really way better than shaving. You get three to four weeks of hair-free smoothness, and when your hair grows back it's cute soft little fluff.
When you epilate in the future, it won't hurt as much.
Take up the habit of regularly massaging your legs with a loofah. This prevents the new hairs from becoming ingrown.
Before putting your epilator away in its pearlized baggie, clean it with the brush provided. Do not use water, just whisk the hairs out of the epilating disks, put the protective cap back onto the device, admire it for a moment, and then put it away.
VIII. Conclusion
Now you can wear whatever shoes you want, whatever socks you want, whatever pants and skirts and shorts you want. I used to have to wear birkenstocks and hippie dresses in the summer if I wanted to go bare-legged and still look fashionable. Now, however, now, I can wear anything I want, from shiny pink fake-leather pants to flowery frilly miniskirts. Not that I would wear those particular things, but anyways I COULD.
Buy an epilator. Enjoy it. Admire it. Find out if you're brave enough to use it.
2009-01-29
My Roller Coaster's Got The Biggest Ups And Downs
It's amazing and crazy being in this intense self-development program at this intense amazing and crazy ashram.
I have learned from physical messages inside my body and from clear messages in my dreams that my nasty old friends Judgemental, Controlling, Insensitive, Nervous, and Overanalytical are perversions of Discernment, Self-discipline, Self-protection, Awareness, and Reason... and they occur when I don't allow my emotions. My old friends turn nasty when the messages they give me about sadness and fear and vulnerability are pushed away. I've been pushing my negative emotions away in order to get stuff done ever since I was 12. Was it ever a shock to me, when I tried it in karma yoga the other day, to discover that yes I can still get stuff done even when I don't push my emotions away. It just feels more sad. Sometimes.
Yes, that is what happened. I made a decision on a high of inspiration to allow my emotions and see what happened... and the next day I was deep in a pit of despair.
I was crying all day, for all kinds of things, little things, big things, that I had just pushed away before. It was not pleasant but I did observe that I am just as capable when I am feeling negative emotions as when I am feeling positive ones, or none at all. I also observed that the feeling of dread hanging on the horizon was gone when I didn't push my sadness and fears away and just let them inhabit me. I guess the only thing I was scared of, the only thing that was really making me so anxious before was the fact that I was trying so hard all the time to hold off the rainy weather.
I missed home, my mom, my dad, my brother, my hometown, all my exes, my computer, my dead dog, my sitar, so desperately. My whole body was seething with sad longing and I knew that my sadness was inflected with earlier sadnesses I'd pushed past, just to get stuff done: people and places I'd left, turning on a dime, without ever looking back. The sadness I had felt when I got my first period at the tender age of 9 and lost my innocent belief that I would someday be a certain kind of man. Sadness from being sick and almost dying last year. Sadness from my grandma dying. Sadness from my grandpa dying. Sadness from my great-grandma dying. Sadness from not being Chinese. Sadness from not being able to fly like Peter Pan. I could get into a list... but no. That's not the point.
For two days I was the embodiment of sorrow! Crying constantly, crying all night, crying myself to sleep. I have never really let myself do that before. I just let it happen. It was soft. I had to check in often to stop from pushing it away - admit it, you're scared of this - yes I'm scared - but I want to let it happen. I want to go to this place where my emotions are allowed and I can be with myself and care for myself with my old friends, not turned nasty. Discernment, protect me - judgement, don't torment me. Etcetera.
It lasted for two days. The next day, every movement felt like making love with myself, my breath, my body. My self.
Om Nama Sivaya!
I have learned from physical messages inside my body and from clear messages in my dreams that my nasty old friends Judgemental, Controlling, Insensitive, Nervous, and Overanalytical are perversions of Discernment, Self-discipline, Self-protection, Awareness, and Reason... and they occur when I don't allow my emotions. My old friends turn nasty when the messages they give me about sadness and fear and vulnerability are pushed away. I've been pushing my negative emotions away in order to get stuff done ever since I was 12. Was it ever a shock to me, when I tried it in karma yoga the other day, to discover that yes I can still get stuff done even when I don't push my emotions away. It just feels more sad. Sometimes.
Yes, that is what happened. I made a decision on a high of inspiration to allow my emotions and see what happened... and the next day I was deep in a pit of despair.
I was crying all day, for all kinds of things, little things, big things, that I had just pushed away before. It was not pleasant but I did observe that I am just as capable when I am feeling negative emotions as when I am feeling positive ones, or none at all. I also observed that the feeling of dread hanging on the horizon was gone when I didn't push my sadness and fears away and just let them inhabit me. I guess the only thing I was scared of, the only thing that was really making me so anxious before was the fact that I was trying so hard all the time to hold off the rainy weather.
I missed home, my mom, my dad, my brother, my hometown, all my exes, my computer, my dead dog, my sitar, so desperately. My whole body was seething with sad longing and I knew that my sadness was inflected with earlier sadnesses I'd pushed past, just to get stuff done: people and places I'd left, turning on a dime, without ever looking back. The sadness I had felt when I got my first period at the tender age of 9 and lost my innocent belief that I would someday be a certain kind of man. Sadness from being sick and almost dying last year. Sadness from my grandma dying. Sadness from my grandpa dying. Sadness from my great-grandma dying. Sadness from not being Chinese. Sadness from not being able to fly like Peter Pan. I could get into a list... but no. That's not the point.
For two days I was the embodiment of sorrow! Crying constantly, crying all night, crying myself to sleep. I have never really let myself do that before. I just let it happen. It was soft. I had to check in often to stop from pushing it away - admit it, you're scared of this - yes I'm scared - but I want to let it happen. I want to go to this place where my emotions are allowed and I can be with myself and care for myself with my old friends, not turned nasty. Discernment, protect me - judgement, don't torment me. Etcetera.
It lasted for two days. The next day, every movement felt like making love with myself, my breath, my body. My self.
Om Nama Sivaya!
2009-01-25
Savasana
I breathe in, the universe breathes into me. I breathe out, breathing back into the lungs of god, reciprocating, responding in the only way I'm meant to and the way I always will. None of us will die with our lungs full of air. We always give it back before we go.
In life what comes to me, what I receive through my senses in my daily existence, like my in-breath, is what the universe gives to me. My awareness of it all and my attentiveness to it can be honed to better receive this gift. Like my out-breath, the actions that I give back out into the world also affect my own body. Every response brings me tension or relaxation. Relaxation or peace of all kinds, and stiffness or unease of all kinds: these are the binary ones and zeros of my communication with god. In and out. We are mouth-to-mouth, we are communicating in morse code. Relaxation is a reward. It's god inside me saying yesssss.... I can choose to feel this relaxation and invoke it with every action I take, accepting that god is speaking to me through my autonomic nervous system, prompting me, as one of his creatures, to do his work of creating a sattvic universe. Being aware of what I receive, creating peace with what I give back out. Yessss....
In life what comes to me, what I receive through my senses in my daily existence, like my in-breath, is what the universe gives to me. My awareness of it all and my attentiveness to it can be honed to better receive this gift. Like my out-breath, the actions that I give back out into the world also affect my own body. Every response brings me tension or relaxation. Relaxation or peace of all kinds, and stiffness or unease of all kinds: these are the binary ones and zeros of my communication with god. In and out. We are mouth-to-mouth, we are communicating in morse code. Relaxation is a reward. It's god inside me saying yesssss.... I can choose to feel this relaxation and invoke it with every action I take, accepting that god is speaking to me through my autonomic nervous system, prompting me, as one of his creatures, to do his work of creating a sattvic universe. Being aware of what I receive, creating peace with what I give back out. Yessss....
2009-01-23
Dhanurasana
The Bow. Like bow and arrow. Like Sagittarius. Like Robin Hood.
Robin Hood. I've always wished I could be a hero for myself and others. But I tell myself I can't, that I'm not strong enough. I usually feel like I would need to be stronger to be able to embody my heroic ideals. So I try to force it. Grrr! The result? Rigidity, not strength.
In The Bow, one lies on the stomach, holds the ankles with the hands, and lifts the hands and feet up while looking farther and farther forward. According to the instructions, this pose requires me to balance flexibility with strength. What strength? I feel so weak. Usually I try to get into the pose by brute force, straining to lift my legs up behind me. Grrr! The result? No power... groan, grrr, wind down, dead batteries: I'm still on the floor, unable to even imagine lifting up.
Now, one of the things yoga is about is the union of opposites. What are my opposites? And how do strength and flexibility relate to them? Since kindergarten, I have been consciously attempting to get my masculine self in balance with my feminine self. Flexibility, openness, receptivity... these "feminine" traits are at the core of my being and they have allowed me some amazing experiences throughout my life. But until recently, my masculine side has kept these delicate creatures carefully protected. My strength, which in childhood was my precocious rational-intellectual ability, has been allowed to do the talking since that was such an advantage in terms of getting me through my interactions with my confusing world. No wonder I sometimes feel weak! There's nothing tough about being a bookworm!
Yet in the Bow, I'm supposed to balance my opposites. I hadn't gone into the Bow since last fall, before my freakish illness and bizarre recovery experiences began to open up a leading role for those softer aspects of my nature. I didn't know what to expect going into the pose now. I relaxed and reached my arms back, clasping my feet. For the first time, it seemed obvious to use my super-snap-back-ability and bennnd my spine baaack while lifting up, only then using strength to stabilize myself in the pose and lift higher. In other words, for the first time in this pose I was leading with my flexibility and assigning a supporting role to my strength.
Ta-da! It was easy to come up when I used my resources in this new and different way. Is this my real balance? Am I more at home when I let my softness lead my way? In this new balance, my flexibility becomes my true "strength" and my strength acquires the "flexibility" to step back and be supportive, instead of pushy.
Maybe I can be stronger when I use the strength I do have instead of focusing on the strength I don't. Maybe I can hit my targets if I let my soft side feel my way forward, instead of squinting into the distance, hardening myself, gritting my teeth, and pushing. Maybe the strength I already have IS enough for me to be a hero after all, if I remember to use it supportively and let my gentleness lead the way.
I'm such a gentle hero that my bow shoots flowers instead of arrows! And they hit the spot!
Robin Hood. I've always wished I could be a hero for myself and others. But I tell myself I can't, that I'm not strong enough. I usually feel like I would need to be stronger to be able to embody my heroic ideals. So I try to force it. Grrr! The result? Rigidity, not strength.
In The Bow, one lies on the stomach, holds the ankles with the hands, and lifts the hands and feet up while looking farther and farther forward. According to the instructions, this pose requires me to balance flexibility with strength. What strength? I feel so weak. Usually I try to get into the pose by brute force, straining to lift my legs up behind me. Grrr! The result? No power... groan, grrr, wind down, dead batteries: I'm still on the floor, unable to even imagine lifting up.
Now, one of the things yoga is about is the union of opposites. What are my opposites? And how do strength and flexibility relate to them? Since kindergarten, I have been consciously attempting to get my masculine self in balance with my feminine self. Flexibility, openness, receptivity... these "feminine" traits are at the core of my being and they have allowed me some amazing experiences throughout my life. But until recently, my masculine side has kept these delicate creatures carefully protected. My strength, which in childhood was my precocious rational-intellectual ability, has been allowed to do the talking since that was such an advantage in terms of getting me through my interactions with my confusing world. No wonder I sometimes feel weak! There's nothing tough about being a bookworm!
Yet in the Bow, I'm supposed to balance my opposites. I hadn't gone into the Bow since last fall, before my freakish illness and bizarre recovery experiences began to open up a leading role for those softer aspects of my nature. I didn't know what to expect going into the pose now. I relaxed and reached my arms back, clasping my feet. For the first time, it seemed obvious to use my super-snap-back-ability and bennnd my spine baaack while lifting up, only then using strength to stabilize myself in the pose and lift higher. In other words, for the first time in this pose I was leading with my flexibility and assigning a supporting role to my strength.
Ta-da! It was easy to come up when I used my resources in this new and different way. Is this my real balance? Am I more at home when I let my softness lead my way? In this new balance, my flexibility becomes my true "strength" and my strength acquires the "flexibility" to step back and be supportive, instead of pushy.
Maybe I can be stronger when I use the strength I do have instead of focusing on the strength I don't. Maybe I can hit my targets if I let my soft side feel my way forward, instead of squinting into the distance, hardening myself, gritting my teeth, and pushing. Maybe the strength I already have IS enough for me to be a hero after all, if I remember to use it supportively and let my gentleness lead the way.
I'm such a gentle hero that my bow shoots flowers instead of arrows! And they hit the spot!
2009-01-22
Ombama Obamananda
The ashram got really excited about Obama's inauguration.
1. They put an Obama/Biden campaign sign on the altar in the Temple of Divine Light on the 18th and I think it is still there.
2. The morning of the 19th, it was announced that just as Barrack and Michelle had designated Martin Luther King Jr Day a "day of service" and were themselves dedicating the day to "karma yoga," so we too would engage in selfless service all day. I vaccuumed the whole Barn. (There are no actual animals in the Barn except for the girls. That's right. They named the building where they keep us "The Barn." Which makes us the...? The painting on my wall, depicting a super-hot Krishna petting his cows, answers the question. And gives me something to focus on when I feel lonely... come on Krishna, pet ME!)
3. On the 20th, in the atrium after dinner, one of the swamis showed us a video of the inauguration. Everyone crowded around and many people even sat in the lotus position with spines erect as though listening to a spiritual talk by an enlightened master. Thank goodness we were "on silence" otherwise I'm sure I would have heard some sensitive new age commentary. Not that there's anything wrong with that...
4. The next day, during evening satsang, we got a lecture featuring many references to the beautiful metaphors for the spiritual path contained in Obama's "talk." Come on, I thought... it wasn't a "talk"! It was a speech!!!
So what do you think about all that?
1. They put an Obama/Biden campaign sign on the altar in the Temple of Divine Light on the 18th and I think it is still there.
2. The morning of the 19th, it was announced that just as Barrack and Michelle had designated Martin Luther King Jr Day a "day of service" and were themselves dedicating the day to "karma yoga," so we too would engage in selfless service all day. I vaccuumed the whole Barn. (There are no actual animals in the Barn except for the girls. That's right. They named the building where they keep us "The Barn." Which makes us the...? The painting on my wall, depicting a super-hot Krishna petting his cows, answers the question. And gives me something to focus on when I feel lonely... come on Krishna, pet ME!)
3. On the 20th, in the atrium after dinner, one of the swamis showed us a video of the inauguration. Everyone crowded around and many people even sat in the lotus position with spines erect as though listening to a spiritual talk by an enlightened master. Thank goodness we were "on silence" otherwise I'm sure I would have heard some sensitive new age commentary. Not that there's anything wrong with that...
4. The next day, during evening satsang, we got a lecture featuring many references to the beautiful metaphors for the spiritual path contained in Obama's "talk." Come on, I thought... it wasn't a "talk"! It was a speech!!!
So what do you think about all that?
2009-01-19
Kurmasana
As we entered the tortoise pose, our teacher asked us, "When is withdrawal helpful in life? How can you create sacred space in your daily life?"
The harmonium broke the silence of the dark early morning; the voices of my classmates rose in response. We chanted AUM as we relaxed forward, taking refuge under our tortoise-backs in the safe cradles created by our opened legs and hips. OM...
I withdraw when I need the support and cradling of my ancient animal body self, the one that has been passed down to me through the vastest span of intergenerational time, from when we first were single-celled organisms pulsing and living and dying in rhythm with the eternal Ocean, and the tides would cycle with the Moon, and the Sun would rise and set just as it still does today with my now-human breaths to echo it, along with the four-chambered pulsing of my mammal heart. I can create my body as a sacred space by tuning in to the rhythms of Nature, to its timeless cycles that my body has evolved to mirror, to reflect, to pay tribute to. If Nature is the Mother, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then my Body is a living breathing upright-walking temple to Her. I myself am a form of worship, as is each creature who shares the gift of Life: we are an hommage to our sacred origins. We've been creating ourselves and each other in Her image since before time began.
And we're gonna keep on doin' it! Yeah!!!!
The harmonium broke the silence of the dark early morning; the voices of my classmates rose in response. We chanted AUM as we relaxed forward, taking refuge under our tortoise-backs in the safe cradles created by our opened legs and hips. OM...
I withdraw when I need the support and cradling of my ancient animal body self, the one that has been passed down to me through the vastest span of intergenerational time, from when we first were single-celled organisms pulsing and living and dying in rhythm with the eternal Ocean, and the tides would cycle with the Moon, and the Sun would rise and set just as it still does today with my now-human breaths to echo it, along with the four-chambered pulsing of my mammal heart. I can create my body as a sacred space by tuning in to the rhythms of Nature, to its timeless cycles that my body has evolved to mirror, to reflect, to pay tribute to. If Nature is the Mother, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then my Body is a living breathing upright-walking temple to Her. I myself am a form of worship, as is each creature who shares the gift of Life: we are an hommage to our sacred origins. We've been creating ourselves and each other in Her image since before time began.
And we're gonna keep on doin' it! Yeah!!!!
2009-01-18
Inside Outside Upside-Down
This is the first of what could potentially be a series of really strange posts, because I am doing really strange things in a really strange place.
I'm at Yasodhara Ashram on the shores of Kootenay Lake, British Columbia. I've signed on for a three-month course called the Yoga Development Course (YDC). This is something I've been wanting and planning to do for myself this winter for the last three years, ever since I was exposed to the teachings of the ashram's founder, Swami Sivananda Radha, at their outreach centre in Vancouver. I almost didn't make it, but I am here now, hopefully for the full three months of the course.
So what is so strange about this place and the things I am doing here?
Before I made the journey (it is easier to get to China from my hometown than it is to get here, by the way - I haven't felt this far from home since my first night in Shanghai almost 9 years ago), I was told by a wise wizard that "the energy in this area is really intense." I'd also heard from past YDC participants who I know in Vancouver that the energy at the ashram, specifically, was, again, "intense" and that "strange things" happen here. And indeed, strange things started happening as soon as I arrived. Twenty minutes after arriving, actually!
The first strange thing happened at lunch time in the dining room. Yay, after my epic 24-hour journey, I was here in time for lunch! All meals (delicious whole foods, mainly veg, organic, and local) are served buffet-style and we are all free to help ourselves. I didn't mean to dish myself up so much food, but by the time I had added a bit of this, a bit of that, and ooh there's that too? Some of that! And oh my, some of this one as well... can't pass up my opportunity for a muffin!... and brought my plate to a table where I could sit and eat the bounty, the table had turned into a toadstool and all the people had become little elves in red caps with carrots for noses.
Just kidding!
Ok, the strange thing that really happened was that as I began to eat, I briefly worried about whether I'd have trouble finishing it, and thought to myself: "I'm going to have to stop taking so much food on my plate, and then I won't have to worry about how I will get it all in." Those who know my gluttonous nature will find this thought strange indeed, but even stranger was what then happened to my thought... it spontaneously opened into another dimension!
What am I talking about? Ok, you know when you see a line painted on the wall of a building in the distance, but then you take a couple of steps forward, and it turns out that the line was actually the thin edge of a freestanding three-dimensional object not attached to the building at all? And that your depth perception just hadn't picked it up because it was foreshortened in your line of sight? Or when you take mushrooms and the moss under your feet suddenly has all this extra depth to it, and you realize that patterning was really there all along? Well the same thing happened spontaneously to my thought. It expanded outward into wider dimensions of my life: "I'm going to have to stop taking on so much, and then I won't have to worry about how I will get it all in."
Ping! Wow, could my gluttonous appetite really be the same thing as my constant "hunger" for more, more, more? My habit of taking on ridiculous amounts of plans and activities, having too much "on my plate" and then wearing myself thin trying desperately to get them all in? Pong pong pong! And that was just after being here for twenty minutes!
It happens constantly with everything. Another example is that a couple of days later, when the cold I'd caught from Seb finally kicked in, I didn't go to hatha class and kept sleeping instead. When I woke up I felt awful. Ugh, I really need to stay alone today, said my body, and so I didn't go to my other class either. Later, I learned that the assignment for that day revolved around "being with yourself" and that my classmates had been pondering the questions, "What do you do when you need to be with yourself? How do you know when you need to be with yourself? How do you create a space for being with yourself?" Ha, ha, ha... I don't! I just go and go until I get sick! Often I am not calibrated with enough precision-engineered sensitivity to detect a need to be alone, unless of course the symptoms are bold and in-my-face (literally, in-my-sinues, making it physically uncomfortable to talk to people). Just like that very day! Mere coincidence, or Coincidence?
It's like I'm living in a hall of mirrors inside my head and body and heart. Everywhere I look, reality is so vivid and jumping out at me. Oh, and did I say there are no drugs here of any kind (except coffee which I'm staying away from so far)? So I'm not high or anything. The river running under the bridge, formed of melting snow, was happening because my rigid, overintellectualizing side (symbolized by the hard, cold, frozen snow) has to "melt" and make room for my body-heart-feeling side (symbolized by the flowing water of emotions) to express its true nature in my life (what could be truer than obeying gravity and flowing downhill into Kootenay Lake... just like the stone rolling down THIS VERY HILL after me in the dream I had three years ago before even seeing this hill with the mouse who said to me, "Can't you just accept that god exists?").
The wise wizard was right... I'm just going to give up and talk like a trippy hippie myself now. The energy here is so intense, man!
I'm at Yasodhara Ashram on the shores of Kootenay Lake, British Columbia. I've signed on for a three-month course called the Yoga Development Course (YDC). This is something I've been wanting and planning to do for myself this winter for the last three years, ever since I was exposed to the teachings of the ashram's founder, Swami Sivananda Radha, at their outreach centre in Vancouver. I almost didn't make it, but I am here now, hopefully for the full three months of the course.
So what is so strange about this place and the things I am doing here?
Before I made the journey (it is easier to get to China from my hometown than it is to get here, by the way - I haven't felt this far from home since my first night in Shanghai almost 9 years ago), I was told by a wise wizard that "the energy in this area is really intense." I'd also heard from past YDC participants who I know in Vancouver that the energy at the ashram, specifically, was, again, "intense" and that "strange things" happen here. And indeed, strange things started happening as soon as I arrived. Twenty minutes after arriving, actually!
The first strange thing happened at lunch time in the dining room. Yay, after my epic 24-hour journey, I was here in time for lunch! All meals (delicious whole foods, mainly veg, organic, and local) are served buffet-style and we are all free to help ourselves. I didn't mean to dish myself up so much food, but by the time I had added a bit of this, a bit of that, and ooh there's that too? Some of that! And oh my, some of this one as well... can't pass up my opportunity for a muffin!... and brought my plate to a table where I could sit and eat the bounty, the table had turned into a toadstool and all the people had become little elves in red caps with carrots for noses.
Just kidding!
Ok, the strange thing that really happened was that as I began to eat, I briefly worried about whether I'd have trouble finishing it, and thought to myself: "I'm going to have to stop taking so much food on my plate, and then I won't have to worry about how I will get it all in." Those who know my gluttonous nature will find this thought strange indeed, but even stranger was what then happened to my thought... it spontaneously opened into another dimension!
What am I talking about? Ok, you know when you see a line painted on the wall of a building in the distance, but then you take a couple of steps forward, and it turns out that the line was actually the thin edge of a freestanding three-dimensional object not attached to the building at all? And that your depth perception just hadn't picked it up because it was foreshortened in your line of sight? Or when you take mushrooms and the moss under your feet suddenly has all this extra depth to it, and you realize that patterning was really there all along? Well the same thing happened spontaneously to my thought. It expanded outward into wider dimensions of my life: "I'm going to have to stop taking on so much, and then I won't have to worry about how I will get it all in."
Ping! Wow, could my gluttonous appetite really be the same thing as my constant "hunger" for more, more, more? My habit of taking on ridiculous amounts of plans and activities, having too much "on my plate" and then wearing myself thin trying desperately to get them all in? Pong pong pong! And that was just after being here for twenty minutes!
It happens constantly with everything. Another example is that a couple of days later, when the cold I'd caught from Seb finally kicked in, I didn't go to hatha class and kept sleeping instead. When I woke up I felt awful. Ugh, I really need to stay alone today, said my body, and so I didn't go to my other class either. Later, I learned that the assignment for that day revolved around "being with yourself" and that my classmates had been pondering the questions, "What do you do when you need to be with yourself? How do you know when you need to be with yourself? How do you create a space for being with yourself?" Ha, ha, ha... I don't! I just go and go until I get sick! Often I am not calibrated with enough precision-engineered sensitivity to detect a need to be alone, unless of course the symptoms are bold and in-my-face (literally, in-my-sinues, making it physically uncomfortable to talk to people). Just like that very day! Mere coincidence, or Coincidence?
It's like I'm living in a hall of mirrors inside my head and body and heart. Everywhere I look, reality is so vivid and jumping out at me. Oh, and did I say there are no drugs here of any kind (except coffee which I'm staying away from so far)? So I'm not high or anything. The river running under the bridge, formed of melting snow, was happening because my rigid, overintellectualizing side (symbolized by the hard, cold, frozen snow) has to "melt" and make room for my body-heart-feeling side (symbolized by the flowing water of emotions) to express its true nature in my life (what could be truer than obeying gravity and flowing downhill into Kootenay Lake... just like the stone rolling down THIS VERY HILL after me in the dream I had three years ago before even seeing this hill with the mouse who said to me, "Can't you just accept that god exists?").
The wise wizard was right... I'm just going to give up and talk like a trippy hippie myself now. The energy here is so intense, man!
2009-01-16
Brent's House: Catching Up
So before leaving my hometown yet again, I really wanted to see Brent's house.
Brent is an old friend of mine. Actually, that's a bit of an understatement... "old friend" doesn't fully express it. Brent was my best friend for seven years! He was also my lover for most of that time (with a few breaks here and there), and we lived together in three different cities. Brent was also the person in my life who broke my heart the worst: he and a mutual friend secretly started a romance together when I still thought we were "lifers"! The suffering I went through at that time (and created for myself, partly) was one of the most difficult, painful, and dangerous episodes of myself I have seen.
Of course, time passes. My debts are paid off, my heart is no longer broken, and Brent is still a great guy. Our mutal friend (who I didn't know quite so well at the time) must be great too, because she is now his wife and they just bought a new house!
My mom thougth I was crazy to want to visit them, and wondered why I wanted to see them at all, as if it would be like re-opening an old wound. I didn't talk to Mark about it but from things he has said in the past, he probably would have said "Ugh, you don't need those jerks!" Seb, ever the balanced perspective, said, "Hmmm, sounds awkward."
I don't know why I didn't see it that way myself. I just wanted to see Brent's house! I wanted to meet his dog, Astro, whose legendary cuteness I'd so far only witnessed in pictures. It seemed so exciting to me that he had a house and a dog and a wife. I mean, how different can you get from the path I've taken? And I wanted to see Kaisha too, because even though I never knew her very well, I did really like her at first. Plus, I have kept in touch with her over the years and I've enjoyed how both of us have deepened our involvement with yoga over time. So I thought it would be a nice way to spend a couple of hours, a fun thing to do. I thought I would feel glad to see them.
"Glad" is not a strong enough term!
I felt like I was over the moon as soon as Kaisha opened the door. She was the one I remembered, the super nice one from when I first met her, and not the kind-of-mean one from later when (I now realize) she was probably just uncomfortable with me because of her desire for my at-the-time partner. She was smiley and sweet, the same girl who invited me to an Easter Egg Hunt and took me to her stitch-n-bitch group and went to see Nardwuar with me and introduced me to her vegan celebrity friend and played badminton with me at the beach and just CARED about me all those years ago.
Brent is still the same soft-spoken, kind, unassuming, intelligent, great conversationalist he was when I first met him. A bit tubbier now, and not as shy, but overall, he's the same nice guy I was best friends with for such a long time. I think he might have been a little bit shy of me from not seeing me in so long, because I ended up exchanging more words with Kaisha than with him - but then again, Kaisha (like me) talks a lot, while Brent has always been a man of few words. When he does speak, it's like Silent Bob: meaningful and to the point! I'd really like to hang out with Brent again when I go back to Victoria, maybe one-on-one, so we can have the kind of rational-mind-on-overdrive philosophical conversations about life he's so good for, as opposed to one of the stoned philosophical conversations about life I'm good for!
Their son (oops I mean dog) Astro is as I expected. Brent and Kaisha are both serious dog lovers, and Brent in particular has an amazing affinity for animals. He is able to understand dogs' thoughts and feelings and communicate effectively with them. In fact, Brent's interactions with humans are often guided by what he has learned from interacting with dogs. (When I first met him, he modeled his interactions with me after his interactions with his childhood dog, Amber. "I could rub your tummy all night" was one of the things he said our first night together. I didn't bark.) So I was sure his dog would be well-trained... and he is. Astro did tricks casually that are far beyond other dogs' mastery. And I heard, but have yet to see, that he is an almost Olympic-calibre frisbee catcher. Apparently Brent plays frisbee with Astro every day... just like he used to do with me!
And their house is perfect. It's a cute small fixer-upper in Fernwood and they are doing a great job with the renovations, aided of course by Brian (Brent's handyman dad who I've often missed, even more than I've missed Brent). Their plans for the house sound great to me.
It was a real trip to hear their updates on people once familiar to me but now strangers: Tom Godfrey, a guy I dated briefly in first year and Brent's great friend since elementary school, is now married to a Chinese girl. Wesley has a baby. Brent's mom Gabi's MS has acted up and she uses a scooter now. All the news brought tears to my eyes, either of joy or of sadness.
Now, as if the house, dog, and wife weren't enough... Brent offered me a ride to the bus stop in his car! These people are real adults, man, they even have a car! The way he casually offered made my jaw drop. "You have a drivers' license?" I asked, incredulous. Brent had failed his drivers' test multiple times back when he and I were together. Brent laughed. He still hasn't passed! Kaisha drove.
Overall, I felt like I was reconnecting with my great friends. It felt SO GOOD to be with Brent and Kaisha again! It has been years, and I don't think I really knew how much I missed them in a just-hanging-out way until I went to their house. I feel so much love for those two people and I was almost overwhelmed by the warmth of my emotions when I realized that I was reunited with people who are still, after everything, my friends. Yes, that's just what it was - I felt like I was seeing my dear and much-missed close friends after a seperation of years.
Thanks for the visit Brent and Kaisha! I won't be back in Victoria until April but when I come back, I sure hope to see you again. Let's not be strangers anymore!
Brent is an old friend of mine. Actually, that's a bit of an understatement... "old friend" doesn't fully express it. Brent was my best friend for seven years! He was also my lover for most of that time (with a few breaks here and there), and we lived together in three different cities. Brent was also the person in my life who broke my heart the worst: he and a mutual friend secretly started a romance together when I still thought we were "lifers"! The suffering I went through at that time (and created for myself, partly) was one of the most difficult, painful, and dangerous episodes of myself I have seen.
Of course, time passes. My debts are paid off, my heart is no longer broken, and Brent is still a great guy. Our mutal friend (who I didn't know quite so well at the time) must be great too, because she is now his wife and they just bought a new house!
My mom thougth I was crazy to want to visit them, and wondered why I wanted to see them at all, as if it would be like re-opening an old wound. I didn't talk to Mark about it but from things he has said in the past, he probably would have said "Ugh, you don't need those jerks!" Seb, ever the balanced perspective, said, "Hmmm, sounds awkward."
I don't know why I didn't see it that way myself. I just wanted to see Brent's house! I wanted to meet his dog, Astro, whose legendary cuteness I'd so far only witnessed in pictures. It seemed so exciting to me that he had a house and a dog and a wife. I mean, how different can you get from the path I've taken? And I wanted to see Kaisha too, because even though I never knew her very well, I did really like her at first. Plus, I have kept in touch with her over the years and I've enjoyed how both of us have deepened our involvement with yoga over time. So I thought it would be a nice way to spend a couple of hours, a fun thing to do. I thought I would feel glad to see them.
"Glad" is not a strong enough term!
I felt like I was over the moon as soon as Kaisha opened the door. She was the one I remembered, the super nice one from when I first met her, and not the kind-of-mean one from later when (I now realize) she was probably just uncomfortable with me because of her desire for my at-the-time partner. She was smiley and sweet, the same girl who invited me to an Easter Egg Hunt and took me to her stitch-n-bitch group and went to see Nardwuar with me and introduced me to her vegan celebrity friend and played badminton with me at the beach and just CARED about me all those years ago.
Brent is still the same soft-spoken, kind, unassuming, intelligent, great conversationalist he was when I first met him. A bit tubbier now, and not as shy, but overall, he's the same nice guy I was best friends with for such a long time. I think he might have been a little bit shy of me from not seeing me in so long, because I ended up exchanging more words with Kaisha than with him - but then again, Kaisha (like me) talks a lot, while Brent has always been a man of few words. When he does speak, it's like Silent Bob: meaningful and to the point! I'd really like to hang out with Brent again when I go back to Victoria, maybe one-on-one, so we can have the kind of rational-mind-on-overdrive philosophical conversations about life he's so good for, as opposed to one of the stoned philosophical conversations about life I'm good for!
Their son (oops I mean dog) Astro is as I expected. Brent and Kaisha are both serious dog lovers, and Brent in particular has an amazing affinity for animals. He is able to understand dogs' thoughts and feelings and communicate effectively with them. In fact, Brent's interactions with humans are often guided by what he has learned from interacting with dogs. (When I first met him, he modeled his interactions with me after his interactions with his childhood dog, Amber. "I could rub your tummy all night" was one of the things he said our first night together. I didn't bark.) So I was sure his dog would be well-trained... and he is. Astro did tricks casually that are far beyond other dogs' mastery. And I heard, but have yet to see, that he is an almost Olympic-calibre frisbee catcher. Apparently Brent plays frisbee with Astro every day... just like he used to do with me!
And their house is perfect. It's a cute small fixer-upper in Fernwood and they are doing a great job with the renovations, aided of course by Brian (Brent's handyman dad who I've often missed, even more than I've missed Brent). Their plans for the house sound great to me.
It was a real trip to hear their updates on people once familiar to me but now strangers: Tom Godfrey, a guy I dated briefly in first year and Brent's great friend since elementary school, is now married to a Chinese girl. Wesley has a baby. Brent's mom Gabi's MS has acted up and she uses a scooter now. All the news brought tears to my eyes, either of joy or of sadness.
Now, as if the house, dog, and wife weren't enough... Brent offered me a ride to the bus stop in his car! These people are real adults, man, they even have a car! The way he casually offered made my jaw drop. "You have a drivers' license?" I asked, incredulous. Brent had failed his drivers' test multiple times back when he and I were together. Brent laughed. He still hasn't passed! Kaisha drove.
Overall, I felt like I was reconnecting with my great friends. It felt SO GOOD to be with Brent and Kaisha again! It has been years, and I don't think I really knew how much I missed them in a just-hanging-out way until I went to their house. I feel so much love for those two people and I was almost overwhelmed by the warmth of my emotions when I realized that I was reunited with people who are still, after everything, my friends. Yes, that's just what it was - I felt like I was seeing my dear and much-missed close friends after a seperation of years.
Thanks for the visit Brent and Kaisha! I won't be back in Victoria until April but when I come back, I sure hope to see you again. Let's not be strangers anymore!
2009-01-02
Old Poetry Scavenger Hunt
I've scanvenged some old poetry from my old laptop. Here are three poems together for you to read.
this first one is my haiku from a new moon monday in august two years ago. it was a very special morning with very special substances involved.
monday morning
plump woodbug
explorer of the grass
becomes my guide.
soft green blades
below my hand rest
then tower
suddenly
swaying in the lawn
patterning
Bottled By Cierra D.
I want to personally encapsulate
a whole summer day
in billions of little grains of sand
and put them all in bottles
and carry one with me
and open the cap whenever I smile
and let people inhale the vapor
and I’ll sell the rest to the rest of the world
not expensive, and I’ll sign them for free
and everyone will know they came from me
somehow, roundabout
secondhand, but still -
you got it from me
and you get it every time you open the bottle
This one is also from a couple of years ago. This is what happens to cynical students when they grow up into cynical adults who still don't trust school principals.
Education
Let Education
shape our tongues
and mold our speech
into confined boxes
stunt our bodies
stuff us into desks
and strain our eyes
as we turn page after page
of state-sponsored lies.
train my pen
and choose words that
teachers want to read
stifle my thinking
strangle my breath
and stop my mind
as I comply day after day
leaving my self behind.
Someday let Me
stick it to these bastards
and tell them what I
was too small to say,
too trusting to know:
you’ve wasted my time
enough already
so leave me the fuck alone
I’m going outside to play.
Magnetic Woman
This is another one from my old laptop.
My mother is a magnetic woman, just like a comic book superhero.
When I was a child she used to rub herself down with Coppertone number 8, put on her bathing suit, and go out in the backyard to lie under the sun on her lawn chair. Without even trying, she would attract every butterfly in the yard. She could have four or five butterflies sitting on her: on her wrist, on her shoulder, on her ankle, on her thigh… She could reach out her hand and a butterfly would land on her finger.
My mother can also attract birds. She had always put birdseed out from fall to spring, for those birds overwintering in the yard, but when she decided to take up “birding” as a hobby, her magnetism really took over. All she had to do in order to attract species of birds that had never been seen in our yard was to sit by the window with her binoculars, look them up in her bird book, and announce her intention to see them. She’d raise her head, and there they’d be. In this way, she attracted Rufus Hummingbirds, Yellow Grosbeaks, American Goldfinches, and a whole flock of 12 white doves.
Men can’t get enough of my mother. Neither can lesbians. My mother barely needs to look at someone, and he or she is smitten. She has this effect on people of every race and creed and it has always been this way. She could be wearing anything, makeup done or not, hair long or short, bleached or dyed, spiked or smooth, carrying extra weight or super-model slim. Just one glance from her humongous owl eyes and whoever is at the receiving end starts sending her flowers at work and buying her gifts, telephoning at all hours and showing up unexpectedly.
Parking spots are also magnetically drawn to my mother, usually just outside the door of wherever she’s going, or in the shade if it’s a hot day. Mom never has to circle the block looking for a spot to park. The spots always come to her.
Jobs and are this way too. A long job search has never happened. Interviews always lead to employment. It seems she attracts the exact interview questions that her own life uniquely qualify her to answer perfectly. It was also this way when she went back to school. She was shortlisted for the School of Social Work right away and in the panel interview she got a question that, as a mature student, she was able to answer much more easily than the other, younger applicants.
Of course not all of this magnetism is a good thing. Mom has attracted her share of headaches, disillusionments, and disasters. Still, though, the solutions always collect like iron filings around a bar magnet.
My mother is a magnetic woman, just like a comic book superhero.
When I was a child she used to rub herself down with Coppertone number 8, put on her bathing suit, and go out in the backyard to lie under the sun on her lawn chair. Without even trying, she would attract every butterfly in the yard. She could have four or five butterflies sitting on her: on her wrist, on her shoulder, on her ankle, on her thigh… She could reach out her hand and a butterfly would land on her finger.
My mother can also attract birds. She had always put birdseed out from fall to spring, for those birds overwintering in the yard, but when she decided to take up “birding” as a hobby, her magnetism really took over. All she had to do in order to attract species of birds that had never been seen in our yard was to sit by the window with her binoculars, look them up in her bird book, and announce her intention to see them. She’d raise her head, and there they’d be. In this way, she attracted Rufus Hummingbirds, Yellow Grosbeaks, American Goldfinches, and a whole flock of 12 white doves.
Men can’t get enough of my mother. Neither can lesbians. My mother barely needs to look at someone, and he or she is smitten. She has this effect on people of every race and creed and it has always been this way. She could be wearing anything, makeup done or not, hair long or short, bleached or dyed, spiked or smooth, carrying extra weight or super-model slim. Just one glance from her humongous owl eyes and whoever is at the receiving end starts sending her flowers at work and buying her gifts, telephoning at all hours and showing up unexpectedly.
Parking spots are also magnetically drawn to my mother, usually just outside the door of wherever she’s going, or in the shade if it’s a hot day. Mom never has to circle the block looking for a spot to park. The spots always come to her.
Jobs and are this way too. A long job search has never happened. Interviews always lead to employment. It seems she attracts the exact interview questions that her own life uniquely qualify her to answer perfectly. It was also this way when she went back to school. She was shortlisted for the School of Social Work right away and in the panel interview she got a question that, as a mature student, she was able to answer much more easily than the other, younger applicants.
Of course not all of this magnetism is a good thing. Mom has attracted her share of headaches, disillusionments, and disasters. Still, though, the solutions always collect like iron filings around a bar magnet.
Chinese Guys Wrestling
I am reading a bunch of crazy old shit from my old laptop today. Here is something from China in 2002. Definitely pre-Olympics... these days it would not have been this sweet and innocent. It's also nice to see that the status of naked skinny guys on television seems to have changed, at least from the impression I give in this paragraph. Or maybe it's me who has changed?
Channel Surfing Finally Pays Off
They are fighting in a 6-sided ring sponsored by Red Bull and when they kick each other in the groin the commentators keep saying stuff like, “That was beautiful! Beautiful!” I can’t even tell what kind of sport this is supposed to be: they are dressed like boxers, with boxing gloves and everything, but on the other hand I see some wrestling moves, and that is definitely soccer they are trying to play with each other’s nuts. Typical, shy-looking, slender-bodied Chinese guys… sweating, half-naked, and grunting at each other. God this is novel. A bit of aggression at all is almost shocking, but along with bare skin? Shiver! My favourite part is where they hug each other after each, what, match? Yeah, the part where they hug each other, that smooth, skin-to-skin contact. I am definitely enjoying this program too much. And I love how the commentators keep going over the age and marital status of the models, er, I mean athletes. You can see up the legs of their shorts when they fall down, backs to the mat. After each match, they have close-up shots of the guys’ chests and backs as they walk off the ring, cuts and scrapes and new pink bruises glistening on their sweaty golden skin. These guys are so solid looking. In
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