Monday, November 29, 2010

Ignorance is Unnatural




"Modern man lives isolated in his artificial environment, not because the artificial is evil as such, but because of his lack of comprehension of the forces which make it work- of the principles which relate his gadgets to the forces of nature, to the universal order. It is not central heating which makes his existence 'unnatural,' but his refusal to take an interest in the principles behind it. By being entirely dependent on science, yet closing his mind to it, he leads the life of an urban barbarian." —Arthur Koestler

Get Your Mind Out of the Gutter




"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

- Sigmund Freud

Quis hic locus? Quae regio? Quae mundis plaga?


What world is this?... What kingdom?... What shores of what world? It's a very big question you're faced with. The *choice* of your *life*. How much will you indulge in your flaws? What are your flaws? *Are* they flaws?... If you embrace them, will you commit yourself to hospital?... for life?

[pause]

Big questions, big decisions! Not surprising you profess *careless* about them.

- Dr. Wick, Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen, 1994

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

let experience talk


"I should listen to all that you or anyone else have to say. Then I make up my own mind. I choose what I want to believe. And if I'm having trouble figuring out what the truth is, what my truth is, I ask questions, listen, and let experience talk to me."

- Victor L. Wooten, The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music, 2006

Monday, November 22, 2010

Small Things with Great Love



“We cannot do great things on this Earth, only small things with great love.”

"Ask yourself, “Do I really love others as I have been loved?” Unless this love is among us, we can kill ourselves with work and it will only be work, not love. Work without love is slavery."

~Mother Teresa

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Let Go.




"Let go of what your perceive as proper, normal or seemly behaviors. Surrender to your internal beat, release your natural rhythms, yield to your inner pulse, feel the surge and give in to the urge, go with the flow... palpitate, undulate, vibrate!"

- John M. Ortiz, The Tao of Music: Sound Psychology

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

En Route to Riverside, 11/8/10

I'm on my way toward somewhere I've never been.

The sky is overcast, white with cottonmouth clouds muffling the voice of God so he seems far away from us. The road before us, the sky and branches, the cars are grey and the leaves have already turned blood red and are dripping from the trees as they prepare for their annual demise.

Everything has fallen. It is fall, and everything has a downward direction. Some cells in my body are crying out little death rattles. Part of me is dying... but also, like the trees I am lighter now.

They have laid down their arms and given up on the sun. They have shed their delicacy and stopped reaching outward... declared abstinence from their tree sex and from their provocative adornments. It is almost winter and now they stand tall and naked, strong and brave in self-embrace. They are ready.

When things change like this, if you keep looking for beauty and inspiration in all the same places, you will be sorely disappointed. These days the beauty is in the letting go, and the death rattles, and the blood leaves dripping from the trees.

It sounds tragic, but as I write this the sun pierces its way through the clouds and bathes the mountains in a rare blaze of saturated brilliance. In its transient light, the forest is on fire- the cotton has been pulled from God's mouth and he is screaming and the fiery trees are screaming back at him in E minor, and it sounds sad, but also very pretty.



It was over before I even realized it. I'm not even sure if I remembered it right. I'm not even sure it happened at all.

White rocks, golden trees. Foggy mountains. Things which may or may not have happened.

A beginning, that starts with an end.