silent thunder

since when is sexuality not spiritual? what is this assumption that to be spiritual we must be divest of connection to one of our more potent processes? such odd puritanical assumptions and projections among such awake people

The Mists of Avalon: Marion Zimmer-Bradley Rereading this amazing telling of the Arthurian legend from the perspective of the women. One of my all time favorites.

My wife and I were hiking up along the cliffs of Big Sur about 12 years ago. As we were walking up the path we encountered a man who appeared to be under the influence of an intense chemical high. He was starry eyed and spoke slowly and all he said was... "as you go further up, make sure you take the right path" and went on his way. We said nothing to him but we giggled a bit at his 'spaciness' and wondered aloud what he was taking... A short time later we found the split in the path he mentioned and took the right path. Soon we found ourselves in a very old grove of Eucalyptus Trees. In the center of them were several dozen monarchs, very lazily spinning and floating in the sun. It was simply amazing. We arrived and sat in silence there for a minute or more until my eyes widened and I pointed up with a gasp... "Oh dear god sweetie.... the trees! Those aren't leaves! It's all Monarchs..." There was not a single leaf visible in the trees. The Monarch flock had hunkered down there and most were sleeping. So many that the branches were bowed with the weight of them. We walked down that path after some time, just as high as that guy had been... what a gift he offered us that day. I wonder what he's up to right this minute?

Thanks for letting us know. I will hold space for him.

In the gutters, where the water carries the sludge downhill effortlessly to the sewers filled with lumps of our collective coagulating turds, there is tao. There is jing. Is it male or female? Male and female are not two things... they are the varied expressions of the one human energy. Within male and female, there are masculine females and feminine males, as well as the 'accepted roles'. None of them are wrong or right. There is unified human energy on our planet. tao is tao. words are no more real than thoughts... though sometimes I sure enjoy them, other times I enjoy to not enjoy them it seems.

I freaking love Rilke! So much so, I was planning to name my first daughter after her... Well I never spawned a daughter, but I did find this quote that has been shaking my tree for the last few days... The world is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper. ~Yeats

co-arising

Inhale love Exhale gratitude repeat until the mind quiets, even a bit then sit with no expectation patiently allow all thoughts to come and go as they will feed nothing, follow nothing just be repeat as often as you can we can meditate for seconds any time of day, at the stop light, on the bus, waiting for the teacher to start a lecture, during the commercial breaks while watching tv... there is nothing separate, or special about meditation, it's absolutely the most basic and non-complex process to me

While we are often diametrically opposed in our views, it's seldom more clear than in this instance mate. Your perception that organisms are individuals striving alone with self generated action, while not surprising or new to me, is still strikingly strange compared to my experience of reality. But such is the limitless nature of perception and expression of tao. There is room for everything. To me... Life is an implicitly and utterly interconnected web of nigh on indistinguishable co-arising conditions which constantly and fluidly combine in the persistent co-creation of what we reduce with language into the word reality. Life and existence, indeed all phenomena are inexorably linked to me via the foundation from which they arise... awareness. Life and death is one fluid process and expression, not opposites, but varied extremes of one unified field of energy which is constantly arising from the foundation of awareness. The lower condensation of vibration is our experience of physical reality, yet it is a mere pinprick of experience when viewed within its woven place among all manner of subsequent variations, vibrations and frequencies on the overall scale. Further, even within our next small sphere of perception, our consciousness is divided into myriad frequencies in a web of interconnected experience on the subtle. The problem solving waking state, appears to dominate, yet is always floating softly on the top of the ocean of our underlying consciousness and awareness. The many states of dream, the variety of meditative states, the trance states and all of those varied again within the context of fluid motion and/or stillness. The shear engine of the unconscious which fuels all the biological processes, oh which many derive the majority of our underlying emotional and hence subsequent types of conscious thought forms. All interconnected. Patterns within patterns, fractal re-expression... as within, without. We are fluid expressions. All of us, including the stones now standing at the beach which will someday be sand and another day be 'living beings'. And while I can point to the spot just beyond the tip of my finger and say 'this is where my body ends' there is no escape from the awareness that the elemental expression of my body, is a flow of constant food, oxygen, sunlight and water from my body to every continent on our planet, my breath is recycled from the dawn of our atmosphere... as are all of my conscious states... there is an unending flow into and out of every aspect of our minds and bodies in the present moment and while our perception seems to compel some to identify as somehow independent, I cannot escape the awareness that while I am composed of many small things, I am one small aspect of that which seems infinitely greater...

Equanimity

sunflower butter...

I haven't encountered any thing, or non-thing that lacked spirit...

opening

yes, nearly exactly... walking along outside in a meadow surrounded by trees, body begins to lose connection with the earth I begin to take larger and larger steps until... swimming around in the air

been 'spending some time' considering time time can be measured... seemingly in many manners by the moon: 28 day 13 month in a yearly cycle, very accurate; solar: varying days to the 12 month with leap years blah blah, sidereal, seasonal, galactic. they are all ways to mark the fluid progression of events relative to our position and perception, but really are there ever any separate moments? there is of course, nearly everywhere the dominant modern time reminders that run nearly all aspects of our life: mechanical, digital, atomic, precise within parameters of definition by machine, as set by humans yet still fluid and relative. Einstein made sure we got that much. but what is it? what is time? what does 9am on monday mean? to a hawk? to an infant? to a business owner? I have experienced extreme subjective time... time slowing waaaaay down, on several occasions. I've also experienced what seemed like no time. outside of time, it was alternately horrifying and blissful when it occurred for me. past and future are little more than mental projections to me, not real at all, but reflections and projections of mind. the present seems real enough, but what is it really... how long is the present? how long is a moment? 1/256th of a second? 1/64th of a second? 1 second? the time it takes to complete a simple action? how many present moments are there in a kiss? one? twenty? right now, it's the middle of the night relative to my position on the planet and how we as a culture define day and night. the present mechanical time is 1:11 antemeridian. there is a present second a present minute within the present hour of the present day in the present week of this present month and year with the present decade of this current century within the present millennium epoch era bang indeed given a potent vocabulary word and from a certain perspective, i can say with conviction that we are in the midst of the present eternal moment time can be many things it seems but there is only one present

“Never mistake my silence, as ignorance I'll speak on it when I'm ready. Never mistake my calmness, as acceptance, I'll deal with it in due time. Never mistake my kindness as weakness my scars are proof that I'm a survivor not a victim, but most of all, never mistake that because I chose to ignore, that I was blind, even a fool knows snakes in the grass only move when found out and I want everyone to see you first”

“Never mistake my silence, as ignorance I'll speak on it when I'm ready. Never mistake my calmness, as acceptance, I'll deal with it in due time. Never mistake my kindness as weakness my scars are proof that I'm a survivor not a victim, but most of all, never mistake that because I chose to ignore, that I was blind, even a fool knows snakes in the grass only move when found out and I want everyone to see you first”

I spent a summer observing the lemur family at our local zoo. It started as a project on behavioral interaction and family structure in primates, but became my obsessive joy, to go and sit with them, one I continued nearly every single day of that summer long after the project ended. Their baseline manner of interacting and behaviors stood out. They struck me as incredibly intimate, loving, joyful and mischievous in a sweet manner.

Wow timing... this really resonates... I was just saying to my gal a few months back, that I would like to take some of our ancestral talismans and create a focused shrine in our home. There is a palpable drive that continues to gather inertia, to reach out with conscious intent through the objects from my life, around my home, that are filled with the potency of living memory and connection to those who walked before me, rather than just to keep them out and around in a loose, decorative manner. Birth and death do not seem like opposites to me, I've never had an experience of the fear of death, due to early childhood experiences, birth and death seem to me the two extreme expressions of the unity of the life process. That process does not seem one way to me, nor static and never has... early experiences rendered me incapable of fearing body death. After my son and wife had fallen asleep the night of the burial, I went back to the cemetery and sat on my mother's grave. All around me were my ancestors, blended with the soil, her brother, her parents, grandparents... and I just sat there, no projections, or questions, just me, sitting there, offering my attention and presence. Just me, alive, sitting on the soil where my ancestors rest. Powerful. Resonant. Freeing. For the next week, we traveled back across the country toward 'home', stopping in yellowstone and the black hills and the canyons of utah... and everywhere we went, I would look at the soil and think... someone's ancestors are here, everywhere and they're mine too... we are all of us, one race and there is one earth and we are buried here when we pass... Crazy Horse when asked "where are your lands now Crazy Horse?" He stretched out his hand and pointed "my lands are where my people lie buried..." one people one earth honor all that pass and who are passing so potent.

mysterious gate

breathe in relax breathe out let go repeat

yes please!

Abby!

So like I mentioned my family has spent a lot of time in the truck recently... and after listening to The Time Keeper, we started pointing out all the references we caught about time... we had a really good time

Ah synchronicity... just came across this while looking for books on cd for our road trip. The Time Keeper The inventor of the world's first clock is punished for trying to stop time. He is banished to a cave and for centuries endures the voices of all who end up seeking more days, more years, because of our sense of time. Eventually, with his soul nearly broken, Father Time is granted his freedom, along with an hourglass and a mission: a chance to release himself by teaching two humans the nature of time. He returns to modern 'time' - now counting by atomic measure, the hours he so innocently counted with water drops - and commences a journey with two unlikely partners: one a teenage girl who is about to give up on life, the other a wealthy old businessman who wants to live forever. To save himself, he must save them both. And stop time to do so. The timing of it was particularly cheeky and the book was pleasant and insightful...