silent thunder

My son and I often walk to a local bakery and get croissants for breakfast on weekends. They are fresh and soft and warmed up and utter bliss, if not so nutritional. We have to cross a couple major avenues to get there. On our walk home, we sit in the courtyard of a small local newspaper and eat while chatting, surrounded by their gorgeous bamboo and flower garden. Yesterday the conversation revolved around soft power. How Bees shape the destiny and food supply of countless species including humans, cultivating and pollinating untold millions of fruiting and flowering plants that sustain life all about the planet. Without the tiny, fragile bees, life as we know it would not be. And as we're not far from the beach, we spoke for a while about the incredible power of water, nearly the softest of all... to erode entire shorelines of craggy cliff stone, into soft pliant sand. And then the passive power of sand to strip away the paint (and skin) when blown about by the wind. As we returned home, Lil C smiled and pointed and barked a laugh. We were greeted by this plant, gently poking its soft power way through the concrete curb to reach the light.

Been incorporating multiple tracks simultaneously for a while now. Usually it's a deep ohm chanting underlying and playing with other chants, or other long-form, non-psychological music. Currently these two are dancing looped through the house.

This transition zone between raw presence and story is where the game plays out for me lately. The play between raw simple unfolding beingness, pure sensation and living in and engaging in storylines of life... is endlessly ebbing and flowing. It's fascinating, this blurry interplay between voluntary and involuntary. The thoughts arise involuntarily. How i engage that, is often more voluntary. Which avenues of thinking do i feed with more attention and energy. Silence and emptiness manifest off the mat, it's such a simple joy to fall into raw being for moments on end, though like a bellows, some sensation triggers the storyteller i'll find the sweeping story arising again. I'm fascinated by the involuntary seeming source of these stories and their endlessly deep detailed structures, for being instantaneous, spontaneous occurances... they are often entire noumenonical worlds of themselves, arising and crashing down in a few moments in the scape of thinking.

Absolutely. All of life is always speaking, all of the manifest and non-manifest. When the sleeper wakens, all of life becomes a teacher, a sharing, a reflection of self.

wow @steve Your sharing triggers a memory. Late this morning... an extended dream, mildly lucid of being carried along reef lines by massive underwater waves and currents... lightly interactively tumbling along as carried effortlessly in the arms of deep ocean currents. vast, expansive, utterly sweeping and my awareness, my senses... like a leaf effortlessly rolling, tumbling along in bliss and joy at times swimming a bit to orient but mostly, just relishing the pure movement being carried by the Mother one effortless aspect of all that shifts and all of it, pure sweeping sensation without thought beingness thanks for sharing mate... deep gratitude. I often feel of folks who disregard energetic sensations and interactions, the way I do of folks who find relationships with animals irrelevant. I feel they are missing great dimensions of life. Then I remember that this is just my mind, making stories and I relax. The sense memory of this dream is utterly pervasive to mind and body. I'm sitting here in a near stupor of simple joy of raw beingness. such simplicity... life... beingness.

I've come across a similar concept in Buddhist worldview. Called the storyteller, or builder. The aspect of mind that habitually creates entire scenarios and universes of content, from a momentary reactionary emotional trigger.

Soft Power. Like the ability of music to affect my mood. The music does not force, but exudes response and is undeniably powerful... yet via opening, presence, not coercive action. Affecting impact without coercion. Through attraction, unfolding and offering, encompassing, expanding, and supporting... affecting effect through offering, rather than convincing, coercing. what a great idea for a conversation @rainbowvein. thank you!

Yes. Lately, last few years some smells have really become awareness consuming in a way they never used to. My sense of smell has altered dramatically over the last twenty years, twice. Once downward, and once again back open. When I moved to the desert from the forests of the Midwest and the East Coast, I had never experienced allergies or any nasal issues. In California, I experienced a chronic desensitization of smell. Massive reactions to desert pollinators and dry air. Stuffy nose was standard for a year and a half straight. Or, it alternated with utterly dry nose, incapable of distinguishing any but the most extreme smells much of the rest of the time. It began to improve over subsequent years, as I added liberal daily doses raw local honey to my diet on recommendation of a nutruitionist acquaintance. This slowly improved for years. Less reactions, less intense when they arose. Looking back, it nasal response seems to foundationally shift and heal, about two years after returning to daily breathing practice. These days my nose is always wide open and clear, even when the wind blows from the East... but now, when my nose stuffs up, it's for a few minutes. With very slow, methodical breathing only through the nose, the pathways soon open in just a few cycles. It may continue to run quite a bit. I may be blowing my nose often, but it remains wide open and unobstructed. Lately, some scents seem much more intense even awareness consuming, cutting through all other activities, and the driving reason for my response here is the following fascinating development... In recent years, i sense strong scents that seem to be internally generated. Floral seeming, but unfamiliar... and it seems, simply not there for anyone else. It used to arise only on the cushion, some time after starting a new practice. Then it began to expand and arise spontaneously throughout the day. For a time it was steady, almost rhythmical. But it was always individual. No one else smells it when I ask "hey what is that? do you smell that?". Curious as it's so intense and it's processed exactly like externally stimulated smell sensation.

Reminds me, whenever I'm looking at photos, I glance at the subject (particularly with staged pictures) and spend most of my time perusing the background stuff. So much fascinating stuff going on... all the real stuff. Bit of the detective in me? lol. hmm... that just triggered a thought. As a detective... your superpower was "giving a shit to such a phenomenal degree, you spent your professional career enduring and exploring the worst of people's behavior, in order to protect the innocent and soft. *deep bow of respect ma'am.* it only registers from time to time, just how intense a life you've led, on behalf of the rest of us... talk about service! woof!

My son and I hanging out at home one afternoon. He's seven at the time. And without context or prompt, as is rather routine for me, I ask him some random seeming question. Me: Hey! If you could pick any superpower right now what would it be? Invisibility? Super Strength? Flight? Son: (pause) Me: ... Son: (more pause, then) I'd be able to make angry people feel love. Me: ... Wow... That's amazing. (sinks in more, hang my head in mock shame) Son: what? Me: Well... your power kind of puts mine to shame... Son: Why? What's yours? Me: ... Son: ... ? Me: ... *sigh* i'd be able to shit other people's pants...

*goes looking for vampyre churches... http://vampire-church.com/ I should have known...

Inescapable. True Nature akin to Sky... not all this... weather.

I walked into Spirited Away at the behest of my wife, knowing nothing about it, other than it was an anime and she was interested. I walked out with my jaw in my hands, utterly gob-smacked at the shear volume, intensity and depth of creativity, feeling and above all, an endearing love of the ideals embodied by the heroine's story arch... Chihiro/Sen in that film, how she relates to the shifting entities about her, the loss of her parents... And the eventual revelation of her enduring relationship to the spirit of the river.... A handful of characters in stories have stirred my awareness on such a deep level. I was utterly gob-smacked by that film's paradigm. What a gem. Promptly went straight to a video store and began seeking out everything Miyazaki ever had a hand in making after that. eta: Totorro with umbrella, a gift to my family last solstice. We continually move him about the house for each other to discover.

well said. Does a tree strain to force sap up its trunk? Do flowers unfold in great effort? I suspect they do not, but, as you say, by not getting in their own way, their nature unfolds of itself... wei wu wei... do without forcing.

I imagine as i sit here sipping my coffee, in ancient daoist times, certain folks sitting about the chess cafe talking practical philosophy and looking down their nose at the common plebes, assuming them incapable of 'getting it', while being cat called in return by the local farmers and log splitters who walked by wondering what type of morons managed to stay alive, without a real job, spewing impractical words and concepts at each other endlessly over tea and gameboard pieces... Humans do as humans do. Some talk. Some act. Some do both. Some just doodoo. None of them are wrong in my opinion... just doing as they do...

The French call it the Fond. Adding water to the crunchy bits and mess in a pan and slowly simmering it into a sauce base. I believe it's deglazing in English. Whatever its name, I find it an invaluable resource of amazing flavor and people who pour or scrape that shit out and throw it away are quickly beaten with uncooked pasta and escorted out of my kitchen these daze.

How awesome to see this after all this time! I studied with Master Tan and Master Huang in NYC from 97-2000. Universal Form was an apt name for this form. It was a major part of my path back then and has continued to be a regular presence in my energy work and play. Playing Universal Form, is akin to a constant unfoldingness in presence. I recommend it highly. Short, simple. Raw, and potent. but perhaps most impressive is its adaptability to play one form with many techniques of moving. Saw Richard just last Summer, he was out for vacation and we hung out for a bit. He hasn't aged a day in over two decades... Master Tan went off grid some time ago and so far, none have heard a peep from him. Wish him contentment and awakening, wherever he may be now. Deep gratitude for his taking time to share insights and techniques all those years ago. The seeds planted, continue to bear fruit...

Totorro was what my son asked to watch, every time he got the opportunity to choose, for yeeeears. He's 13 now and we still break it out regularly. Hayao Miyazaki's superpower... storytelling.

"At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance." T.S. Eliot.

the level of disconnect... staggering. may you awaken in healing, contentment and love. peace.

you my friend, have embodied that to me, from the first words of yours I ever read.

done and thank you... *deep bow of respect* superpowers being expressed plain as day... right here, now.

quoted from this post: one more from this post: your words your claims our reflection back to you I wish you no ill will, no harm. As with the parents who abused my wife as a child... I wish them no harm, no ill will. I wish only healing and peace and stability... in the selfish hope, that you and they, will cease abusing and inciting violence on the unsuspecting and the innocent.

If it's made up, then you made it up and frankly that would be preferrable for me. It's why I didn't immediately confront it, as intial inertia compelled me to.... We are now reflecting the light of your own words back to you mate. The whole point of this push back is the similarity in the lack of ethical behavior that you call out in others, that you yourself, with your own words, have admitted time and again to using on unsuspecting, underage girls. You bragged about it, wore it as a badge of achievement and high skill, bathing in the attention. You brought that information here. You shared it. This time, when you started a public conversation condemning perverted and predatory behavior, when you chose to attack others for it, I did not resist the compulsion to reflect the light back this time and others simply have resonated harmonically and added their vibrations to my own... And we're not all males. Illuminarien... (one who brings light) has shown considerable care and compasssion to spend her own time and energy (female energy... gasp!) To reflect back to you the irony of it. You claimed this. You brought it here, to a public forum. Others are naturally reacting to it. We are calling you on it. We are holding up a mirror.