silent thunder

I've always held deep reverence for the Bow. The process of drawing, nocking, aiming and releasing is an elegant expression of Tao to me, indeed much of my spiritual process mimics this very process. This guy's devotion and insight to the bow is awe inspiring. Holding his arrows in his draw hand, and nocking his arrow on his draw side, not crossing it... his speed is incredible, but his accuracy with his speed, while in motion and firing at moving targets just stuns me. What a subtle and powerful shift, approaching the bow from a perspective of constant motion. edit: to fix link

Love it.

yields to the connection... there is so much depth and presence in that.

This is endearing and sweet. What an awesome lady. http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/short-film-showcase/dolls-replace-people-in-this-deserted-town

That is freaking incredible. Love it.

dang... and I thought making a didgeridoo out of pvc was cool. This guy rocks.

I just added The Web of Life by Fritjof Capra to my pile. I was looking for The Turning Point, which was the basis for the script to one of my favorite films of all time, Mindwalk, but they didn't have it. For my son, I found Tesla and the Taming of Electricity and Nikola Tesla: A Spark of Genius, he's got a biography report due next month. plus a big ass picture book of European Castles... Libraries for the win...

I much prefer to be outside on cloudy days to sunny. I'm very fair skinned, the sun causes me discomfort. Rainy days are the best. Just have the right gear and there's no reason to feel trapped inside. But then, I don't often wear the gear... I'm naturally watertight this lifetime. I've never understood the innate dislike some folks have of life falling from heaven, free and unregulated.

fucking war... the fucktards that start wars, don't fight in them, they profit from them... here's a gun, now get on this plane and fly over to (_____). now kill people that you have never met because you are told to war is killing people you've never met, to make some rich, fat guy, richer.

oh. another war movie. oh yay.

I love this piece. Anna Breytenbach heads to a big cat rescue home to see if she can help a leopard that is not adjusting well to it's new home outside a bad Euro-zoo. Intriguing.

"and... let it begin with me." awesome sauce!

I don't allow any device to suggest words... it's the written equivalent of the person who constantly fills in and finishes your sentences for you.

mmm tao tea... welcome mate!

don't look at finger

I love synchronicity... just got off the phone with a long time friend who lives across the country and he laid out for me his dis-ease with the speed that people just reach for their keyboard now and google something, instead of sit for a bit and try to recall it on their own, or reason it out for themselves... He's quick to add that it's amazing that we have this much information available to us so readily... but there's a price to be paid, for not endeavoring to chew on things a bit before being handed a spoonful. To which I always add... 'Yea and consider your source for whatever you put in your mouth, or your head' I've always been intrigued by those maps that show what are the most searched for terms in various states or countries... After our conversation I found this: http://www.google.com/trends/2014/

For my b'day or father's day, my family usually gets me a gift card to Singing Dragon publications, so I can pick out books, or they will pick out crystals for me. I'm a sucker for our shiny cousins, or a good read. Other than that, I'm not into many gadgets or thingies. For my wife, I like to rent a cabin in the woods for a long weekend. She loves that. For major gifts like Christmas/Solstice my wife and I now exchange livestock through the Heifer Charity, these are given to families in developing nations. This year we donated a Water Buffalo to a family in Ghana and a Llama and some Bee Hives to a family in Honduras. I freaking love that charity.

I can't find my copy, are you referring to the mudra where you hold your hands over your LDT with your thumbs covering the opposing hands' lao gong point? If I recall right, it's used to close off the energy points leading out of the hands, internalizing that energy for practice, clearing blockages and such.

It has struck me repeatedly over time and more so of late... there are so many 'teachers' around these days... almost an overriding compulsion among people to teach everyone around them, their personal way. I consistently wonder, 'who is there to receive the teaching when everyone is the teacher and more importantly, did anyone even ask for the lesson?' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KXidr0z1RY (link to video of the Advaita trap... confusion of absolutism and relativism) Paradoxically, I consider everyone and everything to be a teacher, though most often not in the traditional sense, as the most important lessons are realized through awareness of self and relationship to surroundings coupled with an active desire to participate authentically and openly. I was wearing a Vajra at work one day and a coworker, a painter, saw it, recognized it and asked... "Oh you're wearing a vajra... do you have a teacher?" "yes" I said and started pointing around the sound-stage we were working on... "you, him, her, that pile of wood, the dust floating in the air, the sun streaming through the open door..." And by that I meant, that when open and authentic, everything around me is a potential source of wisdom and insight. But the action of the energy involved has never been one way. Teaching to me is not the action of one source imparting some thing to another, nor imprinting 'truth' on anyone, it's sharing something of personal value openly and letting folks work with it as they are able. In the end, I'm into sharing. When folks share something important to them, or relevant to them in an authentic manner, I can't help but accept the teaching and participate, even when I don't agree with the point. Once, long ago, a teacher said something perfectly timed and very profound to me. He was a traditional teacher, at a University and he said... "This class isn't about me teaching you, it's about you learning. Teaching isn't really possible. I can't teach anyone anything, but anyone can learn. Learning is not something you do passively. You can't come into my classroom, sit here and open the top of your skull while I pour in knowledge... Learning is an active process. You will learn only what you reach out and interact with, what you actively participate in and seek out." That said... I'm off to the beach... I hear there's an excellent teacher there

of late, for me it's learn from everyone follow no one.

absolutely everything around me is a teacher that said... I still specifically seek a plumber when the pipes break...

I never get tired of this topic... so many great ideas come out of it. A lot hinges for me in the relationship between cause and effect. I (experiencer) vs other (outside influence). Independent origin vs complete universal connection. From where I experience life now, the idea that I am somehow an independent force exerting my will on the conditions of the Tao, making choices of independent origin and exerting my power on the world is mainly illusory. Such as my 'choice' to respond here and now. Or to go and get a drink of water vs tea... I could say on one level that I'm making a choice and back it up nicely... On one level, it does seem that I read the words and decide to respond, or brew tea vs pour a glass of water. Yet I can just as easily back up the reality of the experience on a deeper level, that the course of actions that took place and led to my posting, or reaching for the pot, were almost completely predictable based on existing conditions of my experiential awareness and such responses are more akin to a predictable compulsion than a free thinking, independent choice. I sense that most of the processes I used to refer to as a choice, were not decided by me in the moment with my conscious mind. Conditions present a situation in the present moment, I react and in the moments after the event, is when the justifying, evaluating mind frames that action as a choice and the associated reasons why are generated after the fact, so that the experience may be added to the list of experience/stories that become my sense of self. I guess... More than anything, I'm certain about not being certain...

fall away is exactly my sense of it. there is not effort, it's like a book falling from an open hand

me too!

I may be occasionally following 'the signs'. But I have the sense that I am forging a path, not following one. The Path and The Traveler, together make The Way.