silent thunder

I'm echoing joeblast here. When I'm working, I leave the house 5am and return home at 7pm. This makes time tight, but I wake up early enough to do a short form and some shaking in the morning. Many days I don't feel the need to eat at lunch so I'll take that 45 minute break to do another short form or sitting meditation on the jobsite. Coming home at night allows ample time for another form or usually walking work. In the end, it's about what you want to do with the time you've got.

From my version of the Tao Haiku Thirty spokes form wheel. Within the empty center, source of wheels' motion. Clay shaped into pot, yet the space inside becomes that which is useful. Form walls into house. Emptiness inside allows space in which we live. Form provides framework; usefulness in emptiness, both spring from the Tao

I get nearly all my clothes at Ross or a similar outlet. About 1/4 to 1/3 the retail ripoff prices. Best to find out when they get their deliveries and what is available is always random. It simply amazes me that people regularly pay $20-50 for a t-shirt, or $80+ for pants or shoes... I guess you could check overstock.com if there is no similar outlet in your town. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK8mJJJvaes I also LOVE thrift stores...

I find Pranayama to be magical. One session and my friend was cured of Asthma, which he suffered for over 20 years... he has never touched an inhaler since. edit: although magic is just a word for saying... that's cool and I don't understand how it works...

I saw Godzilla and Neighbors over the weekend. Godzilla was not a let down, as I had no expectations. I gave it a C- Neighbors was a let down as I worked on it and thought it would be better. It got a C as I chuckled a couple times. I'm stoked for Xmen, that one will not disappoint. Since you mentioned a vampire film, I'll add that the only vampire movie I've ever really liked was Cronos. 1993, mexican film. Good twist on the vampire genre.

Drool...

I absolutely love this verse. It's the one that peaked my interest in Taoism.

I love gynostemma...

Lyle Lovett got to have sex with Julia Roberts.... that proves to me that music is magic.

Barefoot walking in the morning dew is one of my favoritestest things in this universe!

When not working on a show, I nap almost every day in between Qigong sets and walking meditations. All those naps I didn't want when I was four... I'll take those now thanks. Sometimes it's my body telling me to go under and then it's often the mind. I find a mid-day nap to be a bit like rebooting a computer. A quick recalibration. I also have had many valuable dream experiences sleeping at off times, allowing higher, more intense lucidity. Good stuff all around. I have yet to find a downside to it personally.

Water flowing downhill. High pressure settling with low pressure. A drawn bow settling in balance. Waves cresting into flat sands. Wind blown leaves. Sun shining on my face and casting shade on my back.

I recalibrate often, usually by camping alone. Love that on/off switch.

Given the way it's stated... I lean to yes... although nearly every fiber of my essence has a tendency to say... no absolutes.

Our world is always in communication. We can cultivate and tap into the awareness which tunes this into daily/practical consciousness.

No abstract repositioning of responsibility to an abstract g_d or government. Full acceptance of responsibility for ourselves. Love it.

and me too

The druids had an interesting take on this. A man or woman is three things They are who they think they are. They are who others think they are. and They are who they are. edit: that said: I'm a discernible pattern of conditions, remnant of stars exploding and coalescing within a toroidal sphere of awareness, simultaneously expanding and contracting...

yet, among the analogs at least, even a broken clock is right twice a day... I guess some things are useful insofar as they can help us more effectively know who we are in showing us who we definitely are not.

If you can't encounter it in all, you can't encounter it at all...

mmm kabbalah...

I was asked in PM to expand on these experiences, so I figured I'd put it out here in case it would be of use or interest to anyone else... So in one of my psilocybin experiences, my wife and a good friend and I had decided to take the train up the Hudson river to a spot called Breakneck Ridge. It's a spot where the train stops at a little wooden platform along the river at the trail head that leads up to the cliff that bears the name. We brought along mushrooms and ate them on the train. When we arrived and started on the trail we were already under the effects. My wife sort of settled back behind my friend and I on the trail, as when I'm on mushrooms I go through a phase where I tend to want to run and sprint and climb and really get into the kinetic experience of the body and she is more contemplative. My buddy fell in beside me and soon we were sprinting up the trail to the cliffs overhead. When we turned the last corner among the trees along the top of the ridge, (the cliff was maybe 700-800 feet above the forest floor overlooking the river) we disturbed somewhere in the neighborhood of 35-40 redtail hawks who lived in the area. They had been sitting in the trees all along the ridge and upon us bursting into the area, they exploded up into the sky all around us. I was completely jarred into silence and stillness by the sight. After some minutes of stunned witness of them, I settled down near the slope of the cliff edge and started to do a meditation I call flying. It's where you sit head down on a hill so you can't see the ground and the sensation of being upside down would give me the sense of flying. My buddy came and lay down next to me and after a time of us being silent and still, the hawks began to settle into their usual routine of riding the thermals along the cliff edge. As we lay there watching the hawks floating, they became so used to our presence that they would float over us, within mere inches, well within arm's reach. I remember being struck by how 'effortless' their flight was... merely opening their arms and being lifted up by the warm air. Staring off into the sky around me, I was struck then, by this epiphany. I realized that for as far back as I could recall, I had been living in anger. That in each day, living in NYC, I was finding something in my local environment that I could be pissed off at and with good reason. I realized that for untold weeks and months, maybe years, I had fallen into a pattern of perception which was focused, really obsessed with focusing on what was wrong and that was engendering a reaction of anger at how unnecessary it was... In that moment, I realized that there would always be something nearby to be angry about, to be upset at; that in any given moment there could always be something that was amiss, wrong or imbalanced and that if I continued in my current way of perception, that it would be possible for my entire life to pass away with me living in this constant state of anger and derision for what I perceived to be wrong with the world. And then I let it go. Just like my brothers and sisters floating effortlessly... in my mind I just spread my wings and let go and started to float and the inertia of that anger melted. The most incredible sensations of joy and weightlessness overcame me. Tears of joy and waves of ecstasy replaced years of judgement and anger. Now this isn't to say that I never grow angry any more, or that I just turn my head and avoid things that are wrong, or that upset me. Far from it. I'm engaged fully with the world and I don't bury my head in the sand over things that are messed up. However, what I no longer do is feed that perpetual machine of judgement and anger. I focus my life on what I can heal and on what I can do to enjoy what is right with the world more fully. The second mushroom realization I had was in line with this first one, but it related to how I interact with people and relationships, rather than how I view the world and it is summed up much more simply... I don't know the source of the quote but it paraphrases like this "An entire sea of water can't sink a ship unless it gets inside the ship. Similarly, the negativity of the world can't take your joy unless you allow it to get inside you." While talking with my wife at our kitchen table, we got onto the subject of what the source of my disdain for people was; for some time I had been extremely depressed and was a serious misanthrope. She had great instinct and was pressing me on the process of how I related to people and in my trying to explain to her how I viewed people and related to them, I came to the realization that in my energetic and spiritual practice I had somehow come to the belief that I had to take what other people were putting out, into myself in order to understand it, so that I could counteract it and transmute it into light and love. While sitting there at the table under the influence of psilocybins, epiphany hit again and I realized that all I was doing, in trying to take other people's darkness and negativity into myself, was putting myself into a dark, hurtful place. I had been operating under a massive misconception that I somehow needed to 'understand' them in order to help; when in reality, what I needed to do, was to be myself, live my truth and allow my joy to flow and in this way, healing would be possible for both of us. It's quite possible that I could have come to both of these realizations without the psilocybins, however what transpired, was that in the altered state of perception due to the mushrooms, these realizations came to my mind so naturally and beautifully that I could not possibly go back to seeing the world the way it had before. So I have deep gratitude for the presence of those mushrooms and those experiences.

Ha! I love synchronicity. Found this on a site I haven't been to in months. Seems to fit. http://www.spiritscienceandmetaphysics.com/magic-mushrooms-may-have-long-lasting-positive-effects-on-personality/

Echo this! The Cartesian model is easy to adopt, especially for a Western raised mind and it's influence on the entire organism in which it resides is destructive in my opinion/experience. Rewire yourself.

I have immense respect and love for the animal spirits. Red Tail Hawk is my totem spirit and has been my constant companion this life. Cat Ram Raven Wolf Owl Blackbird Eagle Serpent Bear Hummingbird Otter Have all brought me strong medicine and aid/support when needed or requested. Recently Heron has figured prominently in my thoughts. Patience and focus, with the ability to sit and allow its eyes to adjust to the mirror/illusion of the surface of the water in order to pierce accurately to what lies beneath and is the goal.