silent thunder

The health of the tree is revealed in the quality of its fruit. ~anon

maybe wait another month or two though...

People say we got it made Don't they know we're so afraid? Isolation We're afraid to be alone Everybody got to have a home Isolation Just a boy and a little girl Trying to change the whole wide world Isolation The world is just a little town Everybody trying to put us down Isolation I don't expect you to understand After you've caused so much pain But then again, you're not to blame You're just a human, a victim of the insane We're afraid of everyone Afraid of the sun Isolation The sun will never disappear But the world may not have many years Isolation

where is sean? sean is gone. gone is sean? gone is sean. gone sean... gone. where sean gone? gone long sean? loaded the bong? having fun? unkown sean having away run or just in fun yet all remains one

My son just told me about a Donut Cafe in East Hollywood. Apparently they've mastered adding mashed potatoes to their donut batter and offer "Blood Orange Blueberry Potatoe Donuts" oh. my. god. I told him, next time I'm on location anywhere near there, I'll bring home a dozen. Though I'm an early year Gen X, not a hipster... I'm still all in on that shiz!

Well, in 16 years, sean has posted ~3200 times... (unless he's playing @ puppets with us ) In the seven years I've been a member, the only activity by him I've ever witnessed was the recent sweep. Though I do take long breaks, so perhaps I've missed some of his former visits in that time. Either way, I get the sense this place, though owned and started by him... is not much on his radar, nor a priority. Absolutely Nothing wrong with that. He shagged out the old admin crew when he returned and found the tone untenable... and has since allowed to ground to go fallow now. Chaff and weeds will grow, but equilibrium will find a balance between mud/bog and good mountain valley soil. It's up to each of us, what we'll plant in our responses... only now, the only repercussions come in the form of... more responses... or not. No mommy daddy figures to play authority. I prefer this over the unavoidable biases of any admin. It's a nigh on impossible task to be neutral and fair across the board. So we share what we share and folks respond... the shit responses are shit. Unqualified observer's responses are akin to traffic noise. Devoid of inherent applicable value and meaning. No biggie here. Words... ideas... concepts. True, no new members can join, but perhaps that's part of going fallow and allowing things to settle. All sharing here is thoughts, mind stuff... and nothing about thoughts are inherently real, true, or even important, no matter how pithy or insightful. It's playful coming here, some times the conversations are deep, revealing and insightful. Much is social in nature. Some is trite and assinine... so what? Nothing wrong with any of it, to me. Still plenty of pearls shining in the mud... in fact, the mud helps bring focus to that which shines in contrast... and without mud, where would the lotus anchor?

“I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.” Bilbo Baggins

Perhaps the body and blood of Christ compels the virus into recession. I'm all for a good blood cult ritual... was raised in it (though charismatic lutheran, not catolica) The Power of Christ Compels You! (couldn't resist)

Food Qi Health Exercise Stillness Emotional Equilibrium... it's all related to me. Master Zhou, when specifically asked once by a vegetarian at a group retreat about whether people should eat pork, smiled broadly and responded "Pork! Big Qi!". She was rather taken aback. I was not. But that's me and I've been eating for my blood type for years to great benefit. I find overall health affects Qi flow and Qi flow affects overall health. When I was dealing with an irregular heart beat... Qi was very low for a time. Processed foods are a power sink, and a drain for me. Lack of exercise for an extended period will dampen Qi flow. Many factors contribute. The foods that are high in phyto-chemicals help promote a strong immune system. And a vibrant Wei Qi field prevents illness and promotes spherical awareness. Our family eats a diet, high in high fat proteins a fare amount of fruits, and a ton of veggies high in phyto-chemicals. We avoid processed foods, but still go out to eat at restaurants and enjoy some treats, but keep that minimal. We don't eat a lot of grains any more and cut out cow's milk and dairy years ago. I have a personal motto... if it grows, it flows. But, if it comes in a box, with a bright colorful label, even if that once grew, i avoid it. We tend to shop only the perimeter of grocery stores.

peace and gratitude.

Music is off for now. Hearing the dicing and prep of my gal cooking. and over that... the intermittent shrieks, riotous laughter and joyful screaming of our Japanese neighbor, chasing her young daughter and toddler son about their living room... all while loudly humming the theme to 'Mission Impossible'. Such pure simple joy and unapologetically wholesale bliss! Treasure!

dear sean, today's turds tomorrow's tulips? (please sean, continue to post any replies only telepathically)

.

True Story. LIfe, it turns out, is the leading cause of death.

Fire Hands Qi Gong For its primal foundation, sensitivity enhancing, refurbishing, replenishing. (this practice rebuilt my body after several years of being crippled, stuck in a chair/walking with a cane). Heaven/Earth Qi Gong. Directly linked to Fire Hands. Next level form: For directing, pulling and manipulating flow. Both as taught by Zhou Ting-Jue (18th gen) Wuji/Spontaneous (mostly this the last two years) for loss of sense of self in raw presence and emptiness dancing. Self arising praxis. Druidic Inner Fire (stillness) Third Eye work from decades ago. Lakota singing and stompin in a circle. From my time @ Rosebud immersed in the ways of the Plains Indigenous For martial training. Five Animal Shao Lin and Jeet Kun Do as taught by Richard Huang and Larry Tan Whirling in the Sufi tradition had a massive impact. A short and very intense practice, about six months during my last show as an actor Off Broadway, we trained with Sufi's for six months in prep for a show featuring the poetry of Rumi. Too intense to maintain long term... but pivotal in my life. This came during a fulcrum of internal shift and its timing and manner of flowering proved to me that the teacher is always present... it's only the student is not always listening... when listening... all of life reveals as teacher. Five Organ Circuit/Third Eye Pathing (stillness) as taught by Wang Liping. Tree work and sleep meditations as well. Paradigm shifting. Resulting in complete rewiring of mental relation to notions of reality, conception of self/other. unwiring of assumptions and projections... deeply uncomfortable, inclucating several years of intense decompression, physical and mental rewiring. Great benefit, quite unpleasant day to day process. But far above all others... not even a close second among them, my favorite is barefoot walking in the hour or two before dawn. Simply unmatched for overall effect, impact, benefit, equilibrium, elevation, simultaneous expansion/contraction. Unmatched for me... simple presence while walking dominates.

Another resonant share arises as to whether another should determine your presence here, or anywhere aside from you... or determine what practice you should do, or how you should think or feel about your pathing in life... In this case it does not seem a true question seeking an answer which will be heard. This question arises as a call for attention and the outcome/reaction to it has already been cast and will be justified as such no matter what responses alight. That aside, the notion that one would seek approval of this nature brings up a worthy quote from an awakened individual. "If one's state, is determined by another... by someone, or some condition outside of us. Then are we enslaved. If one's inner life can be determined by what lies 'out there' whether the actions of others, or the conditions of the our direct environment... if one creates and merges their identity and sense of self to these, then one's life becomes enslaved by and owned by this. Quality of life constantly at the whim of conditions and the spoken thoughts of others." Slowly but surely as the tone remains of one note... it becomes so one tone as to begin to fall beneath notice. Becoming background, devoid of meaning empty, like traffic noise. Like pungent odors, that are soon rendered unnoticeable by their unoscillating nature... so too, the constant noted sounded recedes beneath notice and for all impactability, vanishes. what do i think? soon nothing at all... you've almost fallen off the radar entirely. These last words are offered with a genuinely open heart, I've drank that bile and rage decades ago... pitiable.

Thankful for the vivid and clear lesson that we are not punished for our anger, envy, vitriol, rage or any such. We are punished by them. Heartened by most of the reactions to the heightened emotional reaction of hate on the boards. Given the level of fear in the general populace, this entire last couple months has been quite heartening in the fact that far more people are behaving admirably, reaching out, vocalizing love and functionally expressing nurturing. It's part of the mounting cumulative inertia of bliss and love that manifest in my lungs each morning for the last three days now. Emotions flow like waves. In tides. Ebb and flow. And we don't choose them... aside from some rather miraculous practices from time to time. Emotions often arise from beyond localized awareness' influence... we don't choose them. Though with presence and awareness we can begin to dance with the process. Choose which ones we'll feed. Exhibiting influence over which emotional waves we will paddle in and ride and which we allow to move through us. Emotions like joy often come and go spontaneously and quickly. They are not often resisted, as they are so welcome... and so they move through the body and mind and are gone. Like birds flight through sky. But the harsh ones, the one's we do not enjoy, how long they linger when we resist. And how we can become addicted to the cortisol, to the adrenaline... Not to mention the self engendering nature of emotional mind cycles. Emotion arises, prompting a thought, which reinforces the emotion, which brings rise to another similar thought... These cycles can become lifestyles in the sleeping/hypnotized. We dont' choose our emotions, but with cultivation, with presence, or stillness, or deep martial pursuits... in myriad ways, whatever ways work for the individual... we can become aware of them as they arise, begin to dance with them, or to simply observe them and let them pass, leaving our awareness as the sky after clouds passing. Even get to the point to not take them personally. But observe they come and go almost like physical sensations like an itch. Without emminent impact, importance or relevance. At least to not mindlessly be swept along by them for long, or in the worst cases, to be able to avoid engaging in them with full intent and malicious glee... to no longer have the impetus to feed and be fed on by them. I find humans need to take great care with persistently arising emotions and seek their source with discipline and terrifying self-honesty... or not, at their peril. For persistent emotions, fed and pursued for hours or days, become a mood. Moods fed and sustained for months, becomes years... transforming into personality traits. Take great care what you feed your body, for health. Take greater care what you allow yourself to consume in mind. Take greatest care in what you identify with emotionally. And most thankful for this reminder. Just because one thinks something and feels strongly about it; doesn't make it real, true, relevant, or important. They're just thoughts and feelings. We have 60-90k a day on average. Don't believe everything you think... or feel. With abiding gratitude for these resonant reminders. *deep bow of respect*

I love 432 tuning. My guitar is usually tuned to 432Hz... sometimes 417. Been strumming and picking leisurely quite a bit during this 'health retreat'.

To crave attention this bad. It's like slavery. pitiable, the vitriol is poison mate.

My intro was in Philosophy, early teens. Then I met my first teacher and saturated in martial aspects teens through early 30's. While processing being crippled for a few years, my focus turned inward, when the external praxis was not possible. This was transformational and such a gift in hindsight, I'm profoundly grateful for not being able to walk for a couple years. When I returned to full mobility after recovery, it was revealed that the forms were superficial, compared to the internal. For the years I was crippled, I would run the forms mentally as a method of dealing with chronic pain without resorting to pills or pain killers of any kind. This work rewired my entire frame of physical manifesation and the echo between mind and body became a locus of holographic reflection that brought full recovery but catapulted me into internal work. This was utterly transformative. The most challenging and rewarding gift of my life, aside from my son. The inward turn infused, saturated and affected all other aspects of life, transforming my paradigm of reality through exposure to methods and several lineage teachers, Richard Huang/Larry Tan, Wang Liping, Zhou Ting-Jue. I'm no longer any type of 'ism'. Outward forms are all encountered as potent, but very vapourous in nature. I am a man flowing in the universe as i am. isms are quaint mental notions of reflections of reality, but do not hold much depth of reality... sort of akin to how the picture of a sandwich on a menu will communicate an idea, but not provide nourishment. Though some rituals have arisen naturally and could be said to be flavored with taoist/chen flavors, my connection to life is a constant flow of rise and fall... effortless wei wu wei is the order of being. Do without forcing. Open to the flows about and within. As Above, So Below. As Within, Without.

We're focusing on high protein, high fat and high raw/phytochemical diet. Not different from our usual actually, we eat hardly any processed, grains, boxed foods. I did load up on high fat meats, pork, chicken, turkey and some tilapia (wild). Our biggest change in diet has been in not going out. There are three restaurants we frequent. Ph'o, Green Temple (veg/organic/farm to table) and the Red Car Brewery (also farm to table and local brew). I did buy a couple treat like items on my last foray out... smoked salmon and shrimp for the gal. Dark chocolate for the boy, he loves that. Gotta keep the spirits up. We stopped going to TJ's over a month (six weeks already?) ago. Too small and cramped. Von's is doing an admirable job, allowing 35 customers at a time in the store. They have stations marked out in tape at the entrance to keep the line in from squashing and compromising distance guidelines. They have two people stationed at the entrance ticking those who come in, communicating with the person stationed at the exit counting those as they leave. Not having more than that in the store helps maintain safe distances and allows the staff to continually restock shelves as needed. Plenty of everything except beans, lentils and ramen. The store was well provisioned. Meat section was surprisingly packed (last trip, two weeks ago it was bare) and absolutely loaded with great deals. Chicken cutlets, whole chickens, ground meats of all varieties, steaks, pork tenderloins, all at great prices. Picked up a couple corned beefs as well. Cabbage, loads of veggies n fruit. My body and mind are vibrant and accute. Equilibrium has shifted dramatically and wonderfully these last few days, particularly between 3-4:30 am. Wife and son both woke today sounding better. Coughing down, no fevers. slow and steady wins the race.

I've got this one running in the background on loop most days. Often use it concurrently with several others, tibetan bowls, waterfall/rain in the forest, etc. it's currently running with this... shout out to the Northern Clans of my Ancestral Homeland. Skol!

the music! ugh. why always with the music? *sigh*

Wang Liping talked about three types of Taoists at our retreat. Mountain recluses. Full time and solitary (tiny social interaction). Temple Taoists. Full time dedicated to temple and partly social, no family obligations. Family Taoists. Part time, due to social and family obligations and dedications.