Taomeow

(fixing it) Flotsam and jetsam -- this one captures all at once like a flying goat.

Not so much a disagreement -- I tend to agree -- as a parallel thought, maybe not exactly applicable in this case 100% but, to an extent, "A genius is someone who sees what everybody else has seen and thinks what nobody else has thought."

Part III of the interlude: Taomeow on coffee and ayahuasca I only had my cup of coffee a week later. On the way to the kitchen I was intercepted by our guide who informed me that our first ceremony would take place that very night -- not tomorrow night as we thought it would. And it so happened that a week later, I still didn't want any coffee. I think it was the first week in my life I spent without coffee since I was 13. I didn't want any. I didn't want any food either. I was in another realm, where people who go there spend a while and then come back to the ordinary one, in and out, memory downloaded, life as usual taking it from there. And it wasn't happening in my case. I was in, and I was deeper in, and then deeper and deeper in, and there was no "out." The shaman shook his head and said -- three days later -- "you're still in it, I have never seen anything like it." "Can you get me out?" I asked. "Of course," he reassured me. He made me lie down and sang slow, gentle, lullaby-like icaros for a long time, and shook a rattle of ayahuasca leaves over me. He made me stand in the river, shivering, while he poured buckets of water on me from the top, chanted, and blew smoke into the top of my head. "You should be back in no time," he told me. "He thinks he knows everything," She giggled -- She, the Mother of the Universe. A week later, I still didn't want anything because the world I was in and the world I had left behind didn't intersect on any common item I could pull out of the latter and bring into the former that made any difference to me, or any sense. I was surfing the waves of absolute extremes somewhere else, somewhere where nothing was relative, every truth was ultimate, every lie devastating to the core of every galaxy, every thought an act of self-sacrifice or of treason, every feeling magnified beyond human comprehension -- and then there was the big knowledge, the un-shareable, unspeakable knowledge of things I could discuss with no one, not because they wouldn't understand but because the bulk of my energy was being spent on desperate attempts to try to make myself not form that memory, erase it... Then, after a week of no change whatsoever, not an inability as much as acute incompatibility holding me back from rejoining the regular world, I realized that I have to have a cup of coffee whether I want it or not. It occurred to me that for many years, it had acted as the bridge between my sleeping and waking worlds, my usual, tried and true, so mundane, so ordinary, so familiar way to reconnect to the hustle and bustle, or whatever else was going on. It was my anchor. It was my Pavlovian reflex -- business as usual, life is going on, it's the morning of another day, the earth is down under my feet and the sky is up above, the air is what your breathing is after and daylight is what you catch onto your retina so as to tell your mind where you are, and memory's chief task is to remind you who you are. And who am I when I'm the ordinary me, the pre-ayahuasca me? I'm someone who always, always starts the day with a cup of coffee. So maybe if I start the day with a cup of coffee, I'll trigger some chain reaction of the ordinary, the mundane, the anchored in here and now (I chuckled to myself at the sheer idiotic pomposity of these ridiculous concepts) -- and holding on to that chain, link by link, I'll come back. A cup of coffee is the first link. If I just have it and discover it's not connected to the next one anymore, or to anything at all, well... at least I tried.

Part II of the interlude: Taomeow on Coffee and Ayahuasca Once again, the woman said something I didn't understand and then quickly climbed down the ladder and disappeared in the forest. I was hoping she went for help, and mercifully, I was right. In a few minutes, she was back, accompanied by an Indian man, who was, like her, short and thin but, hopefully, strong enough to take on the beast under the boot. He pantomimed a question to me to ascertain the woman understood me correctly. I repeated the tarantula dance, pointing at the boot. The man approached it very carefully and lifted it a bit with two fingers, peeking under and dropping it back on the tarantula with a nod of confirmation: still there. Then he straightened himself up and, with a brief but ear-splitting war cry, jumped onto the boot, landing with his both feet on where the tarantula was supposed to be underneath. After that, he lifted the boot carefully once again, pulled out the dead creature by one of its hairy legs and tossed it casually through the open door. Into the thick vegetation surrounding the hut it went flying, together with all my prior indoctrination regarding the utmost respect and unfaltering reverence native folks exhibit at all times for all creatures great and small. In my own home, if we spot a spider, we cover it with an overturned glass and guide it onto a sheet of paper, then turn the glass bottom down while covering it with the sheet of paper and proceed to shake the spider out into the wild with a word or two of gratitude for the honor of a visit. I expected something of this nature to happen here, but on a grander scale to match the size of the visitor. I was wrong. The man bid me farewell and left, while the woman did something rather inexplicable. She looked at me with fathomless eyes for a full minute, then she looked up and whispered something, then she smiled broadly and grabbed the pot of coffee she had initially arrived with, and made for the exit. Only then did I realize that its presence in the background of the whole tarantula scene had been a comfort for me all along -- something in me that always keeps track of coffee's comings and goings in and out of my life was aware at all times that when it's all over, I'll have a cup of fresh coffee waiting for me. I was wrong again. The eager move toward the pot inexplicably gliding away from me got noticed and rebuffed -- "No!" And down the ladder she went, taking all that fresh coffee to a fate unknown. I got curious, however. I climbed down myself and followed the woman. She walked a short distance to another hut, climbed in and immediately went back, empty-handed. When she left, I approached the hut and called, "Hello?" A man and a woman appeared in the doorway, each holding a coffee mug and sipping. "Do you speak English?" "We do." "What's the procedure for procuring coffee here? I saw you get a pot just now..." "Oh, you tell Maria -- she's in charge of the kitchen. Tell her that you want coffee and she'll make it for you. Tell her well in advance though, because all she has is a wood-burning stove, there's no gas, no electricity, nothing of this nature, and that stove takes a long time to start. You may want to time your coffee to when she's cooking anyway and the stove is hot." "Well, did you ask her?" "Of course. We do every day. Unless you ask her, she won't make it." I thanked the couple and went back, thinking, something here doesn't make sense... If Maria lives here, how could she make a mistake and deliver the pot to a different hut from the one to which she brings it every day? Then suddenly I knew. It wasn't coffee that made her come to me, it was my mental S.O.S., that's what she responded to! That's why she came! To find out what kind of trouble I was in, not to give away someone else's coffee! I remembered that the very first identified alkaloid of ayahuasca, currently known as harmine, was initially named "telepathin." So Maria, who, like many people in this part of the world, has been drinking ayahuasca perhaps all her life, is simply telepathic -- I called for help in my mind, she heard, and came to check on me while she was headed altogether elsewhere with that pot. That's what happened. I wasn't sleepy anymore, I was... well, still wanting a cup of coffee. So I got hold of my own trusty equipment and stash, no need to trouble Maria, I can make it myself... and into the forest I went in search of the kitchen. (to be continued...)

floating in the dao, a swarm of ladybugs strikes -- did you know they bite?

The human separation... Ultrasonic womb snapshots end oneness with mom

I've been taught that taoist altars are pretty invariably northern. In other systems, you can have an altar facing any one of the four cardinal directions, but in every case they will be set for different purposes (unless you're dealing with a burst of personal anything-goes creativity, either your own or your source's. ) Most traditional systems, however, use specific landmarks or skymarks for the directional orientation of the ritual -- e.g. always toward Mecca for moslems and always toward the North Pole Star for taoists. I wouldn't reform that without a good reason. For a home taoist altar, there's a difference in the set-up of the "formal" ceremonial one used by a practicing taoist and an "informal" ancestral one used by people who don't necessarily follow any other taoist rituals. The ancestral one can face any direction and the most common place for setting it up is the kitchen. This is practical because you offer food on this altar, and not special ritual food but whatever you and/or your living family are eating, plus the deceased ancestors' favorite dishes on holidays. For the formal ceremonial altar, it is important that it does not get any of the qi considered "offensive to the gods." So it can't possibly be in, next to, or aligned with the bathroom; a basement is not a good choice either because it can be read as a "disrespectfully low position," nor the kitchen. The only solution I found in my own current situation was to separate a part of the living-room with Japanese screens and create a room within a room. Some people like to display their altars to whoever comes in, but I was advised against it -- it's a private affair, and on a couple of occasions when I did display the altar to strangers by accident (people just walking in on some housecleaning I was doing in that area), the gods were displeased -- a candle sputtered when I lit it, and my three divination coins got stuck inside the metal vase and I couldn't shake them out, inexplicably enough.

Thank you, Yin Yat Taoist! Where does your recipe come from?

Coffee does not raise baseline blood pressure although myths of junk science and junk medicine abound. It does elevate it for about an hour after consumption, among its other multiple effects of the sympathetic-activation nature, but that is similar to the effects of, say, a hot shower, which elevates your blood pressure while you're taking it but does not give you the disorder. Long term effects of coffee on blood pressure are actually similar to those of prescription diuretics used to LOWER blood pressure, but without their nasty toxicity and dangerous side effects.

Thanks... coming soon!

Burdock leaves won't do anything for the hair but burdock root oil is an efficient remedy for hair loss. Washes out leaving no smell behind too. Oh, and nettle -- that's quite spectacular. You make a paste and rub into the scalp for hair loss, but even a simple rinse with strong nettle tea will give your hair the shine you've never seen before.

In my underwear I contemplate the Silk Worm Civilization (too late, it's gone)

White? Hey, it's just light, but on the beach in Del Mar, tourists look like ghosts

Parsley juice, Drew. Also a strong decoction of powdered fennel, cumin, caraway seeds -- use as a rinse.

Accepted with gratitude. Sometimes a simple "what do you mean?" helps avoid a potentially charged misunderstanding. My favorite question in the world.

I can only share my own experience, FWIW. I never "studied" ZZ but the very first time I opened the book, I just felt extreme delight! "In the Northern Deep there is a great fish, thousands of miles long. It turns into a giant bird whose back is thousands of miles in size. When it gets aroused and takes to flight, its wings are like clouds covering the sky." Such is taiji! One has to keep in mind that there's no classical taoist literature that is literature in the sense we understand it. It's not fiction or nonfiction, it's practice put into words. The modern way, when a book by a professional in this or that modality is written as an adjunct to a practice, is to include a CD or a DVD with it, you read the book and then you watch and listen and that's how you get what the book is really about. The old taoist way implied such a DVD -- it wasn't physical, but it was there. E.g., I recently chanced upon a book by a Dr. Sha, and just leafing through it, I was rather underwhelmed. But then I put on the DVD included with it, and there Dr. Sha sings some taoist chants, accompanied by particular visualizations as you chant, you place your awareness here and there and sing while keeping your mind on some inner developments. Whoa! I was instantly hooked. The voice, coming all the way from the huiyin with no tension, no strain and, as one of the endorsers of the book (an opera singing teacher) put it, "no ego," blew me away. I immediately sat down and started learning the chants, singing along and following the rest of the (rather simple but important) instructions, and then there's a "tao dance" part to the DVD and I intend to learn that too. So, a big difference between just reading the book and knowing experientially what it's about... ZZ is like that too... only his "DVD" is to be discovered, it's invisible... but it's there.

The "evidently disparaging" was is in your head, Dwai, not in my post, so whoever you got pissed at ain't me. So I step aside and leave you victorious over this figment of your imagination. Enjoy.

Tea and me now one, we call the Philly cheesesteak to come and join us

I didn't say "yoga is just soon asanas" and am surprised you thought I did. I merely believe that knowledge that is not embodied, knowledge residing as trivia in the head, to be corroborated or disproved by consenting or competing trivia from someone else's source of trivia, isn't worth as much as knowledge that is embodied. So, I was hoping to see what you know. Oh, and do you remember where it all began? I described a yoga practice that had nothing to do with asanas? I was describing a real practice I was taught, not something I made up, and based on my experience mentioned its complexity? remember? I based this assertion on my own experience of a raja yogic practice. I found it complicated. If it's simple for you, kudos. I haven't described the most difficult parts of the practice though, but even if I did, how could you show or not show me that they are really simple as you assert they are if they are all happening in the mind?.. Asanas, on the other hand, can be shown... are you catching my drift?

Care to post a video of you doing a couple of asanas you derived from knowledge baked to a crisp? Didn't you say "you do the practice, you get the results" just a short scroll up ago?.. Half baked or not, my yoga is half decent -- and I never even took a class, just contemplated some... So, how 'bout you show not tell?..

With 33 million deities it's simple?.. If you put 33 million amoebae in charge of a science, even then it is highly unlikely to be simple.

The best koans don't exclude the intellect, they just point out its proper place. Example: In the heaven of Indra there's a string of pearls, so arranged that each one of them reflects all the rest.

Years ago (before taoism) I used to experiment with a whole bunch of yogic sound effects. I remember a few exercises: chanting om while closing your ears with your palms, directing the sound to the left hemisphere, to the right, to the center, up, down, etc. Then the same but without opening your mouth -- through the nose. Then, like all things yogic, it would get more and more complicated. You chant om in your left hemisphere but let a dog bark in your right. You chant om in your right but turn a thunderstorm on in your left. And so on. The point was... well, I don't remember anymore what the point was, but it was fun.

Here's how it happened: A hindu met a taoist and asked him what system he follows. "I follow the tao," was the response. "What is tao?" the hindu asked. "Um.." the taoist hemmed, looking for a good way to put it, which as you all know is not easy. "Got it," the hindu said, and repeated, with his own Indian accent, "uum... uhum... ahum... ohum... ohom... ohommmm... ommm... I like it," he concluded, "tao is om. Let's go have a drink and celebrate."