It is absolutely impossible to do certain spiritual exercises if you are habituated to an alarm clock. That most insidious of imaginary necessities. And that’s all I am going to say about it…
Category / Agora
First Fisherman of April
Every year he comes briefly and faithful like wild violets, 8 or 9 seasons now, long as I defy the clock and occupy astounded this abode. It’s not true, how things seem, that he projects staunch solitude and won’t converse. But you must approach with reverence for nature, and show you’ve learnt how human natures all command respect. Else most you’ll get is a tipped forehead and good day.
2 Forks Off The True
Advisory messages heard at the edge of an early spring’s rushing mountian stream, swollen and forceful with surging transformed snowmelt… Tell of what you’ve seen and know, living waters!
Disputes Among Three Mirrors
Westernized Neo-Buddhism is eager at every opportunity to point out that Self is maya, an apparition, while the doctrine of no-self, anatta, is an early gleaned fruit on the path. I think this is both wrong and an incomplete interpretation. In truth, the conception of Self is evolving, and must do so more, especially now. This is the openly secret message behind the radical Gospel indication of I AM, most clearly evidenced in John. There are stages of I-ness which unfurl to the aspirant, qualities shed and cultivations added. A faucet spills liquid ceaselessly in a theater of consciousness. First we are the water; then with considerable effort we may become the faucet; perhaps later still the force of will which regulates the whole meshugina. But this is still only a beginning… Happy Easter!
Conspiracy Theory
Where did IT (Information Technology) come from? And what is it’s underlying premise? The factually inclined rush to their Wikipedias and mime out the history. But suppose you wished to distract two or three generations of logically oriented career seekers away from reality? Could you do better than to ‘invent’ IT?
Resolve
First you don’t see
this light within,
you intend it.
You make word flesh.
_______RS
[ Image : I came upon this image within the past week or so, but cannot for gold, frankincense or myrrh recall where. If you’ve seen the source kindly tell me so I can acknowledge the creator. ] (link)
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Hormone Train
I heard that story, a month ago, about some radio station in Ohio or somewhere proclaiming they’d banned any further airplay of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” due to its supposedly Neanderthal take on #me-too morays. Don’t really like the song that much, but my gut reaction was to organize a marathon podcast featuring every cover of the song I could find. Then a dream came a few nights later, resolving the matter in a different direction. Adapted below… it takes place probably somewhere in the mid 2030s.
Pilgrimage to Moishe’s
My solo evening meal at one of Leonard Cohen’s favorite haunts. Perhaps the main reason why I came was to figure out why I came…
[ Parc du Portugal, in the evening ; Leonard Cohen as an almost-young upstart, from his first album cover circa 1968 ; Moishe’s Rumanian ambience ; Leonard Cohen as an old upstart, performing in London to wide acclaim, aged 75. ]
Christmas Intonation (2018)
These lines made me write them early last Christmas morning, while still half asleep in bed… they still seem entirely relevant and quite difficult to improve upon, so I offer them again this holiday season, having added only exactly one word. Warmest hopes and thanks to all readers. 🙂
It is the question you cannot ask which matters
The axiom you must never scutinize
Shepherd Flutes Of Slovakia
In centuries recently past, but not before men’s memory, deeply haunting and evocative calls echoed over valleys between adjacent hills, under the wing of night in the rural countryside of central Slovakia. The shepherds who loosed these sounds, it is told, communicated observations about wolves numbers and directions to others of their trade. Sometimes five kilometers their informative melodies would traverse. And an art form grew from this, the shepherd musicians soothing one another and flocks alike in the loneliness of the dark central European nights. Whether this legend was ‘true’ no long mattered to me when first I came across it; I knew I had to go there.
[ 3 fujarists under a crystal sky ; Details of traditional fujara decorative carvings ; Young musician integrating an alto fujara into her performance art ; Dushan Holik, selling his musical wares ]
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