Alice Keating Cheney

In Memoriam: Alice Keating Cheney,
November 12, 1897
Co-founder of The Jitney Players.

Rose

The beauty of the rose is not seen
in perfect symmetry,
nor in her crimson color.
She reveals her truth
opening as a tender bud
then shedding all
her garments
one by one.
As her petals fall
we glimpse the echo
of our lives, and catch
the lingering scent
of what we are.

The Dream of a Tall Horse - (running dream)

Across the wide grass running
A thousand meters high
The red cloud at sunset
Burned in back of my mind
Everything halting
Like statues on a train
The mumbling of passengers
Who never said hello.
The place reeks of poetry
And bad investments
Sawdust in the corner
Like robbery
And holding nothing dear
They come rumbling to a stop
Apocalyptic pencil shavings
and crumpled newsprint
The empty seats stare back at you
All those mornings yesterday
Came back in a rush
More horses in the rain
Running from thunder.
Concrete follows
Like a lean dog
In the undergrowth
Grinning with panic
The pain stumbles after
Hobbles the mind
Fetters the blood
A small dream
Of rabbits in the garden
Tattooed cats
And words
that crystallize in the sun.
I’m letting this get away from me
Because you were with me then
And we both had something in our eyes.
It almost gets you going
when you think it cant get worse
then the running happens
everything crashing after
just because the words didn’t fit their meaning.
There’s no need for you in the room tonight
this blue baby
catch your breath.
Leave us alone we bury our own.
Now the rain can come.
I really was crazy.
Everyone said I was.
Now it’s true.
You know whatever happens, they’ll come back to this moment.
I waited all these years, thinking it would be all right.
They are gone.
It never was all right.
Abandoned.
And why should I care.
You never see light like that in the city.
Always staring at the sky -
-till the needle breaks
and splits
like fire in the night.

home is where you make it

From My Little Problem

You can really tell a lot about my driving habits from this photo

Health Care

Here, I borrowed links from someone else's blog. Healthcare these days is kinda scary. A single mother i know can't afford coverage for both her and her kid. she also can't afford the time to invest in herself and get a better job. myself? most of my income goes to premiums, and debts for hospitalization. I am almost paid off for a small hospitalization in 2007. I had this little tiny cat bite on my hand--just a pinprick on the knuckle of my left index finger. didn't even notice it at the time. A day later it looked like a melon, and i was in the hospital getting IV antibiotics. Levaquin.

Think Progress: Uninsured 22-Year-Old Boehner Constituent Dies From Swine Flu

Update: Report: Miami U. Grad Did Not Have H1N1 - Kimi Young Died Of Viral Pneumonia

The New Republic: WealthCare

The Atlantic: How American Healthcare Killed My Father

bromeliad

bromeliad
Originally uploaded by _william

Monday morning, I went out just after first light and went down to the Pink Streets, hoping to find some good views at the parks along the waters edge. I passed this house just as the golden rays of sun were starting to penetrate the haze, and filter through the trees this one impressive bromeliad caught my attention as I passed.

chodron

Pema Chodron talks about her early reluctance to join into an unconditional relationship with Trungpa Rinpoche

"Steadfastness with one particular person translates into steadfastness with any situation that you could possibly encounter."

"I consider myself a spiritual friend to my students. I’m not a guru."

"The teacher serves as a mirror but also encourages your ability to trust in yourself."


"What is it that encourages a person to hang in there so that the minute
the teacher does something that you don’t like you don’t say, “I’m
outta here”? We Westerners have a strong habitual tendency to idealize
our authority figures. We romanticize them.
 
For Western students what
needs to be communicated is that the mind of the teacher and student
meet, not by the student making the teacher all pure or all evil, but
in the ambiguity between those two, in the capacity to sustain
uncertainty.

Otherwise, in the name of true devotion you’ll get a kind
of worship that inevitably flips into vast disillusionment because
sooner or later the teacher does something that the student can’t
handle."

"What I was left with from Trungpa Rinpoche was this: that between the
teacher and the student there can be a meeting of minds, a mutual
communication. The job of the teacher is to help the student experience
that their mind and the mind of the teacher are the same."

Dharma Quotes,

The Buddha taught the Three Dharma-seals," i.e. all dharmas made of components, arising from conditions, are
1) dukkha: subject to decay and destruction and thus, inherently unsatisfactory, tending to
suffering,
2) anatta: not-self;
3) anitta: transient and impermanent.


Four Stations of Mindfulness:
1) the body is impure;
2) feelings lead to suffering;
3) thoughts are
transient;
4) all dharmas are no-self


Going and returning with no border,
Movement and stillness have one source.
Opening and disclosing the mysterious and the subtle,
Understanding the mind and all its states;
Deep and wide and interfused,
Vast and great and totally complete....

Flower Adornment Sutra Preface




ZUG TONG PA WO TONG PA NYID ZUG SO
Form is empty Emptiness is form

ZUG LE TONG PA NYID ZHEN MA YIN
Form is none other than emptiness

TONG PA NYID LE KYANG ZUG ZHEN MA YIN NO
Emptiness is also none other than form

Posting from Library.

Loitering in the library today, awfully quiet at this branch. Very pleased at how fast the blog loads.

I've been collecting various links for a series of posts on Ngöndro at Gaia / Zaadz

Tulku Thondrup's Enlightened Journey comes to mind...

Advice from Hafiz

Last Night, as Half Asleep I Dreaming Lay  

My friend, before you wander in Love’s street,

Do not forget to take with you a guide—

So perilous for your undirected feet

The twists and turns once you are inside.



Yet many wonders you will meet with there,

And of the many this one not the least—

That there the timid deer it is pursues

The lion, and pulls down the lordly beast.



And when in doubt of what to do or think,

Hafiz, raise high, drain deep, the golden cup:

Take counsel of the vine, Hafiz, and drink

At once the wine and the dilemma up.



Poor Hafiz! After all, the spring is gone,

The roses and the nightingales are going;

Yet of the roses you have plucked not one,

Nor drunk one cup of wine, for all its flowing.

Ode 44



I can no longer call...

Dream of a black rabbit (continued)

My dream returned
like a late crescent moon
riding high over placid waters.
A black rabbit hidden by his own shadow:
still, in the grass at the edge of the road.

My ship came home empty,
a cargo of whispers
tossed in the easy wind
without the weight of apples
and iron to hold it's course.

And this summer storm has summoned
rain lilies from under the dessicated oak,
filled the gutters with new bamboo leaves,
washed the windows of the drunkard's cottage
and driven the old cat
from his post on the wall
at the end of the garden,
to the shelter of a window ledge,
where he watches the grey squalls
sweep across the bay.

He is older than I.
He has forgotten his name.
We call him by the sound he makes
when hunger wakes and claws inside.

I have not forgotten what the rabbit told me,
or what I read in "The Book of Dreams and Shadow"
on the dusty shelf of the old botanica.

I still recall the hours full of counting.
the lists of great importance.
Categories and expenses.
The taste of secrets.

How did this become the past?
Why can't I put the sky into all of my poems?
Or tell you what the rabbit hides from?
How have my dreams become,
These scraps of paper in an empty drawer?


(c) William C. Wheeler 2009

Rinoni

Rinoni
Originally uploaded by rreze

http://rinoni.gaia.com/

i still see you running

I remember , you were breathless on the beach from running, sand in your shoes,
A Black feather in your hand, from some sea crow. You said we could make a pen,
If we plunged it hot sand , to temper, and then carved the nib to shape the angle
Of the words. But you are gone and only words describe You now.

If we talked more, about seashells , or feathers and rain, instead of taxes,
Wills and estates, We could have been,
I mean we were, but somehow, we missed.,
Something. Ourselves.

I still see you running up to me, by the grey green waters.
with a feather in your hand. You said, "It's cancer."
Your eyes already deep.
I took the feather
and you said
your doctor's name.
again
but i still see you running...

loose in the depths

Unstrung the knot of my heart,
Loosed the chords that held me,
Let slip the quick fish of memory,
To flash in the green sea depths,
Among uncounted schools:
Alive, nameless, free
In the vast expanse
Of open water

<°)))><

Over the bowsprit, where the ship plows the new waves ,
cascades of white stampedes rear and plunge ahead,
racing across the surface. Blocks of sunlight
angle through the deep, like shifting cathedrals
built on the abyss. I still hear the sirens choir
through the years, the child, enthralled,
leaning too far over the rail...

Personal Narative (reblog)

Its a funny world where you can't waste time at work by doing personal
correspondences! maybe that kind of thinking is the reason no place
that I've ever worked wanted me near a computer. I started applying
for graphics jobs back in the eighties when i worked for GTE
publishing. They print the phone books for the southeast US Ohio and
the Nynex=New York books. It was the dawn of the whole computer thing
and The company bought a system that allowed you to do graphics for
those little yellow page ads. While I worked there I watched the whole
Art Department change from people that drew stuff to people that sat
in front of a terminal. I wanted in because I could have gotten in at
the ground floor of a major publishing revolution. I stead I spent the
year running the little ads through a wax machine so that they could
paste them up in the traditional manner. Some parts of the system took
longer to catch up. After I got passed over for a few openings I
dropped out to work for The local Renaissance Festival. I'd have to
get up at sunrise on Saturdays and ride the bus for two hours. In
costume. The bus stopped at the county Jail.
At the festival I sold Bamboo flutes for a man who made them. Since I
was a paid Performer, I also marched in the parades, and tootled
little jigs and reels for hat money. Mostly I flirted with attractive
young women. (it's part of the job.)
That was fun. But ...I didn't feel like traveling around the country
at the time so that left a whole year to fill up between festivals. I
worked as a file clerk for various temp agencies. All the while I
watched Other people struggling with their Macs and PCs envious, but
physically active. Can you Imagine how much paperwork there is for the
Insurance claims department at a major drugstore chain? I used a fork
lift to take down pallets, then sorted through the alpha numerically
stacked boxes looking for a single sheet of paper, which i would then
copy and take back to the office where no one would speak to me
because i was a temp. Most of the tome there was just me in a
warehouse with a million documents.
For fun I would hang around Downtown St Pete where the bars and banks
are. Friday afternoons if i wasn't working i could easily pick up
thirty bucks with a few Bach and O'Carolan tunes. One day A guy
stopped While I was playing Shakuhachi out side of a liquor store.
"You Should Come work Where I work," He said. Turns out that he meant
the hands on / children's museum which had just opened up."I already
applied," I told him.
"Well, they're hiring again. and you could use me as a reference," he
told me. So that was the next five years. School Tours, Insect Petting
Zoos, Sanitizing the 'Touch Tunnel.' Some of my friends used to call
my car 'The Black Hole.' It took years to figure it out. The Museum
had a portable planetarium. Really and inflatable dome and a
projector. I ended op being the guy who used it so, mornings i would
show up and stuff the "universe," into the back of my Toyota Celica,
and drive off to one of Pinellas County's's questionable schools.
Later, I told folktales with a guy names Uwezo Sudan. when he left, it
wasn't quite the same. I felt lost telling kids about Anansi and
trying to fake a Jamaican accent.
I dabbled in college but my heart was no longer in my work. then I
took some interest in a young lady who had been working at the museum
since i started. she had taken off for about a year and then returned
after her fiance/ business partner left her in charge of a sign
painting business. (she had trained me to Typeset on a GSP vinyl sign
cutter, so during her absence, I made the signage for exhibits and
what not.) She was in charge of special events and she considered me
responsible so, I would stay over at the Museum with her when we had a
sleepover for children. We also did little workshops where kids and
families could make masks or learn about fossils by making a
plastercast of a shell or something. We never dated, but we did talk
seriously about life and stuff. One day she came to me, very upset,
wanting to know what I did with the money from the folklore project.
Apparently there was a budget I was never told about. I always
provided my own musical instruments and props for the show. Then they
hired a new story teller who began spending money on educational stuff
like silly string.
Then we were told that My friend had been in an accident. We were
given a gag order not to speak of it. Then were were told that she had
been attacked and left for dead at her apartment. She never regained
the ability to speak due to extensive brain damage. I was terminated
soon after. The reasons differed. Some people were told that I sold
Drugs at the museum. (False) that i showed up late for work, (True)
Other people seemed to realize that I had been assaulted by the
Education Director who was in charge of The Folktales budget.
No one said much to me after I left.
I only saw my friend once after she came out of her coma. Her parents
hovered around her protectively, and she looked like some one who had
been sewn back together. I know she couldn't talk, l but there was
something in her eyes, that I understood. We both cried. I lost faith
in the human race on that day.
She still owes me a book. I loaned it to her about a month before her
assault.The book was "Song of the Forest" by Colin McKay
It's Out Of Print.

nautalis shell

I found this shell, a fragment on the sand;
A poets perfect spiral cracked by time,
Crushed by tides, abandoned on the shore.

The gulls were done with what had lived within.
The striped shell and pearl insides, both picked clean.
Snails and crabs had scoured the smallest chambers.

The empty test left me dreaming of whorls;
Imperfect spirals wrapped around my heart.
Each cell extended life another day.

Between the sun and wave I lost my self`.
A great sound echoed in that broken shell:
Cupped against my ear, something lost returned.

All along the beach a great silence fell.
My empty head against a broken shell.

small world

create your own personalized map of the USA

notes towards a paper on Jesus (part two)

"if jesus taught reincarnation then it stands to reason that he should have clearly taught the rabbi’s that the torah was woefully insufficient as a text document concerning metaphysics."

 The more orthodox version of Jesus holds that we will be reborn in heaven and / or reincarnated the flesh at the end of the world.

Messianic Jews do not believe that. For them Jesus was a redeemer, who taught Orthodox Judaism. The doctrine of successive rebirths over time is not orthodox, but some believe that this may have been an idea that was circulating at the time. Certainly when Father Origen later made case for this, he felt that it was in accord with Pythagoras and Plato.

The Biblical Jesus does say "You must be reborn." to Nicodemus, and taken with the rest of the teaching, I find it plausible that the Jesus did teach something about successive reincarnation to some of his followers. He does clearly teach different messages to the disciples from what he says to his flock as a whole.

Why do you assert that the Torah is inadequate? Clearly it is not so for millions of Jews. Additionally they have the Talmud Which is more like commentary, including Mishnah which is mostly about law (as far as I can tell I claim no expertise here.) Oh Yeah, there's also the Kabballah, which is usually not taught to young or immature people. Lots of metaphysical knowledge there.

My own feeling is that metaphysics are particularly useless when it comes getting on with life ... life tends to be rather short and we need a way to make it beautiful and worthwhile. Having a set of core values and practical guide lines for how to live makes life not just easier but possible...

Apart from "The Anointed," non-divine, version of Jesus, there is "In principio erat Verbum" at the beginning of John.   Probably written around 90 AD not later than 125 AD
This is very metaphysical, and for many (non traditional interpreters,) this passage draws from Greek philosophy where the "word" is equated with an ideal rational governing principle. This concept of God is very abstract, and distinct from the idea of God as an old man with a white beard an also different from the Gods as Embodied natural elements found in the Rig-Vedas.
There is a later ontology of Shiva creating the world through the utterance of Om. The Seven Musical Notes of the scale are said to emerge from this one Syllable, and in other accounts, the syllables of the Sanskrit alphabet are said to emerge.
 The Kabbalah does have a rather complex metaphysics describing the creation of the world through the generation of numbers and letters.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us .?.?." (John 1:1-3, 14)

It would be over simplifying to say that the Greek Logos, the Kaballah and the ontogenesis of  the world through the Shiva's drum all had a common origin. A student of Karl Jung would be quick to point out an 'archetype' in the collective consciousness, which had something to do with our ability to describe the world through language.
The differences between these "systems," their history and the role they play in their respective cultures,-- the differences are too numerous to ignore. For me If I study these metaphysics to long without some teacher to ground me and keep me on course, I start to loose my ability to discriminate, make decisions and function. When I did first study Kaballa and Tarot, in my early twenties, I had experienced "God" Through the fellowship of worship as a young Christian. I'd also had a kind of ecstatic awareness of divine presence just as a child walking in the woods. Some of the ministers I knew acknowledged this, but showed me how to keep this secret private relationship free from words concepts and the judgment of others. I also did some work with a 'Dance' company which introduced me to a level of body awareness and social interaction which I had never experienced before. All these prior religious and spriritual experiences prepared me in different ways for The kind of intellectual melt down I felt. I could literaly use up my whole life trying to describe what I saw, but there would be no real point. It was a spiritual crisis, and I could have benefited from having a teacher who knew the way.

One of the other overlays on Jesus is the imprint of Roman Emperor worship. Julius Caesar was the first  Emperor and the Roman Senate officially elevated him to the status of deity two years after his assassination.  The phenomenon of "god-kings' is hardly unique to Rome. It is interesting that Caesar had A close relationship with Cleopatra, considering Egypt's history of divine kings.
I speculate somewhat when I suggest that the apotheosis of Caesar may have 'evolved' from primitive ancestor worship. It is not unusual to find elevated and idealized ancestors playing a spiritual role in tribal cultures. In a preliterate society, a strong leader or a good hunter, can easily transform into a powerful legendary figure. Of course "worship" doeas not always mean that ancestors are elevated to the status of gods. A modern version could be as simple as praying for your grandmother, or laying flowers on a grave at Easter.   
 I think there is some consensus that early forms of ancestor worship are based on a basic fear that the dead would come back and interfere with the affairs of the living. So rituals range from offerings and appeasement, to some kind of banishment.

The role of martyr ....

notes towards a paper on Jesus

I apologize if I am speaking out of turn, but it seems to me That site has too many flashing, turning things. It all seems a bit hyperbolic.

I did like this quote though...
"Judaism needed to be preserved separate, in order to preserve the bedrock from which truth could once again emerge more easily in the future."
I do remember reading some things about the collection of writings referred to as the dead sea scrolls which do seem to inform the idea of a true or original teaching which has been obscured.
Some scholars have concluded that the four gospels all share some references, in other words they are quoting some other older texts, and there appear to be three or four of these texts. Some of the references are shared by some of the dead sea scrolls, so it is possible to piece together a king of hazy image of what those original lost texts might have contained.
Another observation about these ancient texts is that the four gospels were treated as independent books and often included with some of the other texts like the books of Thomas and Philip. I guess it was a little like the way that American Buddhists might have Titles by Thich Na Han, Chogyam Trungpa and Shunryu Suzuki all on the same shelf.
It is clear from looking over the material, that some of the Texts share references to texts that did not inform any of the four Biblical gospels. Taken all together these texts do portray a very different Jesus from the one the Catholic Church shows us.
These collections of text were likely maintained by groups or individuals who had a regular practice of proto-Christian worship, and it is most likely that they were very scholarly. The texts would have been commissioned to be copied in Coptic or Greek. It seems that there must have been an original in Aramaic or Hebrew. The consistencies between the texts from Oxyrhyncus and those found at Nag Hamadi. I suspect that these early Christian may also have been reading Plato and Phythagoras. I'm not sure where I got that idea but the history of Neo-Platonism in Christian writings is well known. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoplatonism

The issue of Gnosticism inevitably comes up here, and there is often an almost reflexive rejection of this by more traditional Catholic and Fundamental Christians. I know that generally Salvation is thought to be earned through good works and strong faith, That is how I was brought up Episcopalian, but the core Gnostic idea - that one can find salvation through direct experience of the divine, - that does seem to pre-date the historical Jesus.  It is interesting to me that so many modern Christian put a strong emphasis on accepting Jesus as a personal savior and having direct communication with him. To me it sounds like a kind of gnosis - experiencing The Divine directly and being guided by this divine intuition. It does seem a bit hypocritical to reject the apocryphal texts or the Gnostic view of Christ, if one is claiming that he or she receives direct guidance from God.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnostic_Gospels
 

My view is that there is an historical Jesus, or perhaps two of them. One was certainly allied with John The Baptist and I think that part of his ministry was encouraging people to disengage from the branches of Judaism which had come under the complex influence of the Roman empire and the Persians.
For the followers of John and Jesus, it was important to go out and set up a community apart from the cities and the Synagogues. The Baptism has something to do with this, the process of washing off the world and being reborn into a new community is integral to Christian life back then as it is today. Of course I don't think that they were trying to start a new faith, they were trying to purify themselves from the corruption and entanglements of history and their own political world. It has been suggested that the baptisms were done in a cave actually in the womb of the earth, by the light of little oil lamps. So imagine yourself in that situation, underground, and perhaps the water is springing directly from the earth, icy cold an pure, or they might have drawn the water into special basins carved in the rock and added herbs to heighten the sense of cleansing and purification. They would have done this more than once, repeating the ritual with prayers and confessions until one emerged into the light of day reborn as a new person.

I really don't know Judaism well enough to know if there is any precedent for this kid of ritual bathing. I know that the Romans loved their baths, but this is different. There is a precedent in Greek religion. The Eleusisan Mystery Cult revolved around an experience similar to what I have described. The Romans did borrow Greek architecture and Pantheon of Deities, but I'm fairly certain that the resemblance between the two cultures is a very subjective and superficial thing. We tent to see the Greeks through Roman eyes and our view of the Romans is similarly filtered through centuries of Christian history. As far as I know, the Romans had a very complex array of religious practices. On the one hand were the Cult of the State, and the well known pantheon of deities borrowed from the Greeks. These were often composite deities blending elements of Etruscan gods with the more recognizable Greek figures. On the other hand there were household gods of the hearth, doorways, and the  very personal ancestral deities, the lares and penates. Additionally there were local deities of field and stream, perhaps more like nature spirits.
http://www.roman-empire.net/religion/religion.html

I suspect that ancient Greeks as a similar, if not richer religious life. Simply put, the 12 or thirteen Olympians are more of a synthesis, while actual worship varied from one region to another. There were also hero cults, forms of ancestor worship and oracles. One practice which has always interested me is the Pharmakos where a person, usually a slave was beaten stoned and expelled from the city. This scapegoat was supposed to take with him the collective sins and defilements of the community. The Greek Tragic plays like Sophoclese Oedipus Rex, were supposed to have taken the place of such sacrifice, by placing the cathartic action in a symbolic context on a stage, for all the community to see. Some suggest that the early dramatic festivals actually culminated with the sacrifice of a goat, hence the word 'scapegoat'. I tend to think that catharsis was the actual expulsion of a person rather than a ritual execution. This is after all what happens to Oedipus in his tragic cycle. First he is cast out by his father, to prevent the fulfillment of a prophecy and later in the action of the play he blinds himself and exiles himself in punishment for his own crimes of incest and patricide. The real sin here is hubris which can be translated as something like pride, ambition, or the vain notion that one could actually outsmart the gods. Later In the cycle, Blind Oedipus achieves apotheosis where he achieves a state of grace, having transcended his flawed human condition through suffering and through recognition of his own true nature. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_ancient_Greece
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmakos

So is the sacrifice of Jesus a "Greek" idea? Or is this a kind of universal role -- that of a dying god-- tied to agriculture in the origin myths of cultures around the world?
I can find those threads in George Frazer's Golden Bough, or Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces.
http://orias.berkeley.edu/hero/

What about Jesus as a reformer of Judaism? I can see him as a radical figure, leading his people out of the influence of Rome and puppet kings like Herod, towards a simpler, more righteous lifestyle. This thread continues up to the present, from the Puritans and the Shakers up to the contemporary Amish, and the communes of the seventies like the Farm in Summertown, Tennessee. There is a strong message of simplicity and voluntary poverty in the Gospels, This is likely ot a Greek or Roman idea. There is also the aspect of opening up faith of the Hebrews to others, not born out of Jewish bloodlines. This is one of the most radical concepts in Jesus' message. Judaism still remains a very conservative almost tribal religion, while the faiths of Christianity and Islam are open to all - and all ore seen as equal in the eyes of God.

As far as the Christ being a divine being offering salvation through knowledge, We can see that this also has roots in Neo-Platonic philosophy. This is also where many also find the influence of Asian religion. In fact some Indian people do revere Jesus as an avatar of Vishnu - like Lord Krishna.

I don't intend this as a research paper, or an exegesis of my personal beliefs. These are some thoughts I wanted to explore and I hope that others might want to read some of the materials and form their own opinions. I do apologise for the repetitive rambling nature of this post, - spelling errows typo's etc. - I just wanted to put this out and get some reactions before I go back and do some actual research.  This roughly follows some beliefs of mine, formed at a much earlier age. I reserve the right to change my position on any of these ideas.


Perhaps you have other thoughts on this?

Pax Vobiscum
-william

misc. lincs
http://www.kheper.net/topics/Neoplatonism/Plotinus.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Thomas

Quotes:
"The Gnostic myth also describes the exile of the soul in the material world as a form of bondage or enslavement to the body, a type of ignorance or forgetting, and as a state of being asleep."
???

"Woe to you who put your hope in the flesh and the prison that will perish. How long will you forget and suppose that the imperishables will perish?"
Didymus Jude Thomas

"I am the light that presides over all. I am all: it is from me that all comes, and to me that all goes. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift a stone, and you will find me there."
Thomas

2009 Writers in Paradise Evening Reading Series

Eckerd College - Saint Ptersburg, Florida

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Stewart O'Nan

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Peter Meinke & Les Standiford

Monday, January 19, 2009

Ann Hood & Sterling Watson

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Tom Perrotta & Scott Ward

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

No Readings

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Jill Bialosky, Nahid Rachlin and Helen Wallace

Friday, January 23, 2009

Michael Koryta & Laura Lippman

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Dennis Lehane

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A multitude of ties (first star)

(draft)

it wasn't the first in a long chain
the memories strung
back through the years
Christmas cards and photographs
the old family
ornaments preserved
all this time
clusters on the mantlepiece,
drapes the banister
and festoons every surface.

Somewhere in the middle,
you and i popped in,
appearing in our appropriate order.
the spun glass trumpet from Uncle Ed
A quartet of felt elves
the year mother folded
all the cards into a wreath

The accumulation goes back
a few generations. That angel
on the top with unpeakably dirty yarn
for hair appeared in your
great grandmother's time
we never met but she too takes part
in this pageant.

The stories change over time
depends who's telling.
The shabby pine cones
from a visit to california
The wooden creche was mine
you made these snowmen in school

The brightest star appeared
for me, when i first remembered this
and took my place in the ritual
hung the ornaments just so
and learned to repeat the tales
of high and far off times.
perhaps it was the same for you.

For me the thread is broken now.
I imagine that it continues for you
And perhaps your children
have grown into that continuous
chain that connects the generations.

Sun, December 28, 2008 - 10:17 PM

What am I missing? (Besides the point.)

Naiveté implies a kind of innocence, which can be expected as opposed to ignorance, which implies a condition of being grossly unconscious. There is also a sort of blindness, which, like the absence of vision, cannot really be overcome.
I'm tempted to declare that women and money were my two major blind spots, growing up. Those are fairly obvious. The subtleties of both are such that even an experienced man can always find new turns in the familiar. The difference thought is that money, while complex and often elusive, can be quantified, and understood through largely mechanical methods. Women on the other hand are subtle and certainly not understood as objectively.

What I did not understand about money was that hard work and intelligence did not guarantee an income. Even when it was possible for me to be resourceful in finding work, the complexities of office politics often eluded me. Actually it was kitchen politics in my first few jobs, but the office was no less complex. Even to day, I have trouble figuring out what alliances and enmities lie beneath the surface, but I know that there will be some. The secret of money I found is that of providing a service and transforming something ordinary into something else. A friend of mine referred to it as the “Art of Turning Gold into Gold”. Just as a n example what he used to do is buy gold jewelry and coin, melt it down and make new jewelry out of it. He was of course a talented artist, and his jewelry spoke not only of the radiance and value of the materials but also the glory of life itself and the transcendence of the human into the divine. It turns out that people will pay for that. Of course it is possible to do the same thing with les valuable materials. But then you are relying on your own talent, and while I’ve always found my own talent to be reliable, people can be very fickle about other people’s talent. For example there are many talented people who paint in oils, many better than I, at making a likeness of choosing a balanced array of colors. The majority of people will admire the artist who appears to have the best ability to draw attractive subjects.

This all sound a little out there. Art is not really the best way to make money, but what I’m trying to say is that there is an art to making a business work. Even if you have all the accounting, the best location, well-made products or services, it isn’t hard to fail. So if that happens where does all that investment go? For my one friend, It’s gold, Even the stuff that hew bought as stock – raw materials – has tripled in value. That’s pretty good And the interest in his work is still pretty good because the raw material has intrinsic value. Now it really does take a lot of work to make these fie gold pieces but it doesn’t feel like that awful ‘work’ that people complain about because it really is something that he loves doing. I actually taught him how to do the casting, so he could keep more of the profits for himself. I didn’t get paid for it, I enjoy doing it so much that I just shared what I knew and cast many of his pieces myself. I didn’t even know I was being generous because to me it was part of doing my own work. I needed to have control over the casting process in order to make sure that no one over heated the kiln or damaged the centrifuge. I just got in the habit of  casting every ones work because it was easier for me to stand there with the torch and do one flask after another. Later on, there were some other people in the studio who kind of took advantage of me, and it was not pleasant. The difference was that they expected me to show them how to do it correctly or that they just wanted it done for them. And worst of all there were a few who just presumed that they could go ahead and cast without regard for any one else. 

So what was I naive about? Some readers are probably thinking; “everything.”  I was Naive in thinking that money and business were not like school where work was rewarded with a grade. And school was not entirely like that either, Looking back I can see that there was a fair amount of prejudice in elementary school, and even more in high school... I just thought it would be expressed upfront, as if the teacher were going to come up and say, “I don’t like you.” Some of them did to be true, but they were actually fairly reasonable and objective believe it or not.  I really did not care for sports that much as I was not really a strong athlete, (asthma). Later I realized how much I benefited from learning to pass the ball to other players and spot weakness in the other team. Some times a strong athlete could be a weak link because of their ego.  So I was pretty clueless about my ability to make money, in part because that people would sort of work as a team at different jobs. I just didn’t know how subtle and competitive people were in the world and I also did not realize how much of that was driven by the need to acquire money.

My problems with Women are partly the same. I’m not that good at determining peoples motivation, I cannot always tell if women like me, and the one time I was married,  think that the girl was ‘after my money’.  It was actually my parent’s money and she might not have been conscious of it at the time. I think she liked the sex too, but she was not so keen on intimacy as far as I could tell. Not at first. It was the kind of long monotonous repetitive sex that . . . well I have nothing to compare to. She would just want to get on top very soon and her face would sort of go away. There was a kind of animal ecstasy to it. But I could go for a long time like that. It was like a drug or a trance. I think that she was kind of looking for disposable relationships. She had a girlfriend that she really admired, and maybe they had a sexual thing at one time, but it was only after a long time that she seemed to care about me. I mistook the whole sex thing as real affection, but poor fool that I was, I  had little experience to compare to. The other part of that relationship was  the class difference. I really did not see it at the time, but I had this veneer of the educated elite. I went to boarding school and my adoptive parents both attended a very elite New England college and taught there for a time.

Well, I know that I’m not coming to the point here.  There was something missing with this girl. I don’t know if it was me or not. I suspect that yeah I was off too. I’d always felt horrible lonely starting in elementary school. Sexually dthe whole desire thing started when I was about eleven. I don’t know if any one else other boys had those feelings at that age or not. Some of the kids paired off imitating what they say on Welcome Back Kotter, (weird because it seemed like the girls idea and they had no roles in the TV show besides arm candy). I think it had more to do with social ranking. They had to sit in a particular order in the class room. There was actual kissing at some point, but I don’t actually know about intimacy. Later ther were a couple of kids who had a lot more experience, they went to public school where there was a lot more peer pressure and less adult presence. The first time I had a relationship that had mutual feelings of wanting to kiss, was with some one I’d known since nursery school. We really grew up together,  so it was awkward to try to change the way we were together.  I really missed out on how important that relationship was. People seemed to think that I was a late bloomer. Any way I was pretty much aware of  the opposite sex, and I read a lot about human sexuality, my mother was an anthropology professor so she thought it was important to have all this knowledge early on. We didn’t really talk about it. So in that way it was kind of useless. I was rather religious in my own way. I had a definite Idea of love and how it was mutual and reciprocal and how people could trust and care for each other. My first official girl friend was very religious in her own way and romantic in a way that was sort of unreal and more about role play. We never seemed to talk about real stuff. Like the fact that I stopped a guy from raping her in the woods. He also tried to have sex with me a few times. (This was at a Christian Youth camp. He tried something with another person and was asked to leave the program). I was in a relationship with her for about a year but we mostly exchanged letters as we lived in different states. When I saw her the next year, she really didn’t care for me much but she sort of kept things going until the very end of the retreat. I think that it had a lot to do with keeping up appearances. But as it turned out there was another girl who liked me, so my girl might have been playing me to save herself the embarrassment of finding some one new.  So in one year we went from being very similar and kind of innocent, (despite getting sexually assaulted by the same person,) to a relationship where she was pretty much morally superior and I was emotionally devastated because of things that happened at boarding school that year. I don’t know maybe she was emotionally devastated too. She never mentioned it.

Facial

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back to black

I decided to return to the 'black' background for my blog. the colored fonts look like little Christmas lights. I had it printed in yellow on green for a long time because I read somewhere that this was very readable on a computer. I think dark green type on a light green background would be really readable, and not so far off from what people expect. But as I said I like the colors against black and the Texture behind the header fades to black edges. I like the effect. I'm still trying to work with the format that allows swapping in 'gadgets' from google. some of them, like FriendFeed, sort of clash with anything but icy blue and white. Against black the little windows seem disembodied. which seems OK right now.

No novel writing month

well. . .
I survived the great NaNoWriMo -- by not participating -- again. I don't know what it is about these absurd arbitrary deadlines that makes me balk. Perhaps I'm just being pragmatic.
Any way it went by and once again I didn'd writ a novel. this year I even signed up, so if I could post something if I had written it. but i was not inspired. Actually I had a sense of relief because after the first day, I knew that I had no intention of writing a novel that month. I admit that I am lazy in that respect, that I am justifying inactivity with a sense of self assuredness, and that I'm not going to get anywhere with that kind of attitude, but i think that the right thing to do is give up when you over-commit. I've taken on excessive work before, particularly in school, where iwas taking 18 credit hours one semester and working two part time jobs. some times the right thing to do is say no, or pass the job on to someone else. While I managed OK in school, there were other times when I knew I couldn't finish all the papers I had unless I buckled down, and I would just not do it. I was obsessing all the time about writing this or that, or maniacally running over conversations in my mind about how this should be worded, an how wonderful it would be if i did write it. But I'd never get stuff done. It was all a kind of fantasy that I was doing all this writing in my head while i put nothing on paper.
The Idea behind writing a novel in a month is not really as far fetched as people seem to think. the reality is that a professional writer gets about three or four months to write a book and get it to a publisher and most people (even writers) are prone to a lot of thinking about writing before they actually put stuff on paper. The thinking and pre-editing tends to get in the way of good ideas and real creativity.

offering Tsok feast Mantra

oṃ guru deva ḍākiṇī gaṇacakra pūjā hoḥ ucchiṣṭa baliṃ te khāhi

Short mandala offering

From Rigpa Wiki

sa shyi pö chü juk shing métok tram
The ground is purified with scented water and strewn with flowers

rirap ling shyi nyidé gyenpa di
It is adorned with Sumeru, the king of mountains, the four quarters of the universe, and the sun and the moon;

sangyé shying du mik dé pulwa yi
Thinking of it as the blessed buddha-fields, I offer it

dro kun namdak shying la chöpar shok
By virtue of this offering, may all beings here and now attain the happiness of that pure land!

tram guru ratna mandala pudza megha samudra saparana samaye ah hung

a

ā

i

ī

u

ū

ṛ

ṝ

ḷ

ḹ

e

ai

o

au

aṃ a

Consonants of the Sanskrit Alphabet

ka	kha	ga	gha	ṅa
ca	cha	ja	jha	ña
ṭa	ṭha	ḍa	ḍha	ṇa
ta	tha	da	dha	na
pa	pha	ba	bha	ma
ya	ra	la	wa
śa	ṣa	sa
ha	kṣa

---------

Vowels

a	aa	i	ii	u	uu	R	RR
L	LL	e	ai	o	au	aM	aH

Consonants

k	kh	g	gh	G
c	ch	j	jh	J
T	Th	D	Dh	N
t	th	d	dh	n
p	ph	b	bh	m
y	r	l	v
z	S	s	h

Writing

One of the things about writing is that i find myself needing excuses to write. I know there are lots of reasons and perhaps nearly as many excuses not to write, but i still find myself needing reasons to put stuff down on paper or into the hard-drive, datasphere ..what ever.
writing about writing is one of the best methods or writing about not writing. Every once in a while i find myself reading an article that lists ten or so habits of good writing. Even though the world may already have enough lists of articles about writing, I can't see any harm in writing more. the rest of the junk and clutter may have covered over the previous lists, reducing them to compost. Any way lists are always a good thing to put on your blog. They look so attractive with the little numbers - it almost makes me want to start tweaking the layout- so lets get on with it what are my reasons to write?

1. I don't really have a career, writing makes me feel important. it' also time consuming and terribly intellectual. half the people i meet are a little bit afraid of writing because of some bad experience they had in grammar school of college.
   
2. Writing helps me keep my body in shape. Let's face it - if i didn't write then my little fingers would get fat and we all know how unattractive that is.
3. Writing is good for the ego. I know it looks like I've already covered this, but when i write i can pretend to be whom ever i wish. thats very liberating - even if it is a little delusional.
4. Writing exercises that part of my brain that would otherwise be driving me nuts. A part of me is always fiddling with stuff and reviewing statements arguments and re-doing it the way it should have been. I can't really win any arguments from the past but i can improve my arguments in a paper i wrote, and i can rewrite the arguments for fictional characters. If I didn't have writing to work on that part of my brain would be trying to edit parts of my life. I can't hep thinking that's not healthy.
5. Writing makes my mother proud. I don't need to say more on this do I?
6. Writing improves my writing. I know this seems obvious, but its the same thing with my guitar playing, it really sounds better when i play more often - even if it is the same couple of songs I learned in high school.
7. Writing is the face you present to the world. OK this doesn't apply to all you real worlders. but in academia and here on the interwebs, Its pretty much all words unless you are a programmer.
8. Writing can make money. This is probably the worst reason to write unless you write books about making money by writing, in which case you may attract quite a few fans among the ranks of destitute writers.
9. Writing is creative. writing makes something out of nothing. in the worst cases writers just rearrange words that other people have used before (as I'm doing here) but even that creates a new perspective. Even if you just fill up a page a day in an old ring binder, you will eventually look back and find something impressive. Every so often I go through the old boxes in my garage, chase away the silverfish, and read some of my old notebooks. When my life seems rather insignificant, i look back and remind my self who I was back then and get impressed by what a good writer i was back then.
10. Writing is how I connect to other people. I' sure this is starting to sound redundant but I do think about people in terms of words, and words are the tools i use to comfort (and hurt) others in my life. writing them down seems to give them more solidity and substance. I genuinely like people and I enjoy communicating with others. It's really cool to be able to do this with my fingers.
    
    

That's about all that i can think of right now.
You don't have to take it very seriously. Its just an exercise - list ten reasons why you write. something else to fill those voluminous spiral notebooks with.
What got me started was this article pointed out to me by some one on Friend Feed. Give it a look for a more sober take on 10 Reasons to Write Every Day