Saturday, May 29, 2010

There's a Place...


...in a dream was traveling somewhere...at first, some kind of urban square at night...people sitting around a fountain...someone offering something...enticing, yet unnerving, dangerous...declined...but not without regret...

...moving on to a trail...apparently, at first, a high desert canyon I know in Arizona, but heavily wooded, and crowded...like that hill in Gettysburg, overlooking the valley where the worst fighting took place in 1863...gallons of blood shed in trying to get to where we stood looking at historical markers...but also still the Wet Beaver Wilderness...(no, not a dirty joke...one of my favorite places in the southwest...about fifty miles south of Flagstaff, twenty east of Sedona)...and a group of people were getting off onto a rough side trail into woods so tangled you wouldn’t think there’d be a trail there at all...voices shouting about how rough it looked ahead...

...continuing along the gentler path, alone, and around the next bend, a line of gigantic rock formations rising up above the trees, amber yellow pillars, like sandstone...but more solid-seeming, strangely geometric, like something Picasso might sculpt if he was a god and feeling particularly cheerful that day...bright beneath a clear cerulean sky....in the valley below, a stunningly crisp multicolored lushness surrounding the broad stream...maybe a river...but a quiet, shimmering blue...cool and slow...flat, glimmering stepping stones arrayed across the water...

...standing on one of those flat stones, struck, in the dream, by the very existence of this place...that if I was down, in pain, depressed, I could come here...to its water, its rocks, its trees...its sublime clarity...

....turning and looking back the way I came, was surprised to see I was closer to civilization than I'd thought...but the buildings I could see back there at the head of the canyon were gorgeous, too, like some mythical Northern Italian hillside village....though it seemed the rock under me, maybe the entire landscape was moving, and there was a strange sound...the phone...a friend wanting to tell me about her new job and asking if I wanted to get lunch...which was only reasonable at nearly 11:30 in the morning...and, really, there are worse ways to wake up...




*note on the the title of this post: it comes from here*

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

If I Should Fall From Grace With God...


If I should fall from grace with God where no doctor can relieve me,
If I’m buried ‘neath the sod where the angels won’t receive me,
Let me go, boys, let me go, boys,
Let me go down in the mud where the rivers all run dry...

Shane MacGowan

...lemme just come right out and say it: I don’t feel like writing about yoga...not that it’s ever been the sole topic here, anyway...and, yeah, though I keep saying I'm gonna stop, I keep writing comments about it elsewhere...but they’re mostly just arguing against one viewpoint or other...and arguing comes easy...can do it in my sleep...which might explain why I don’t feel particularly rested most mornings...

...which is not to say I’m sick of yoga...it seems, in fact, like the one thing I’m passionate about, lately...when one class ends, can hardly wait ’til the next starts...on average, six days a week....but trying to wrap the mind around yoga, get a grip on all associated ideas, thoughts, theory, philosophy, beliefs, interpretations, traditions and innovations...bleah...

...to sum up: practicing yoga’s no problem...I’m just sick of thinking about it...

...just this past week or so, finally got to where I can hop up to a handstand consistently...though it’s been a long and difficult process...the body gets me there, but the mind panics half way up....so, really, I realize now, the trick isn’t maintaining control and being confident I won’t fall...but letting go the mind’s grip, being open to falling...

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Dreaming.....................


Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?
Alfred Lord Tennyson

...was taking a walk, trying to figure out why I’m writing so little, lately...but mostly got lost in daydreams, as I have quite a lot, of late...which, I thought, might be exactly why I’m writing so little...


Dreams are like paper. They tear so easily...
Gilda Radner

...to really get down to it, there’s probably very little I’ve spent more of my life doing than daydreaming...if usually while also doing something else...find it’s difficult, otherwise...even if it’s easier than just about anything else....told somebody a few days ago that walking is my absolute favorite thing to do...and biking’s high on the list, as well...but both, really, along with kayaking, cross-country skiing, or driving on open road, are, more than anything, highly effective vehicles for daydreams...all involving simple motions...allowing lots of space to let the mind roam...


Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.
John Lennon

...daydreaming, as such, could be seen as the opposite of mindfulness...but, then, it also might be essential for creativity...

...art, maybe, is what happens when you’re mindful about your daydreaming...





*my latest at Elephant Journal: Dharma Cats*

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Better To Stay Silent Than To Write Crap


Don’t turn away. Keep your eye on the bandaged place. That’s where the light enters you.
Rumi

I knew a man who gave up smoking, drinking, sex, and rich food. He was healthy right up to the day he killed himself.
Johnny Carson

...better to stay silent than to write crap...
Ancient and Revered Yoga Cynic Sutra 45:931



*...until more inspiration hits, be sure to read and re-read my latest exposé: Elephant Journal: Not Affiliated With the Republican Party...namaste & all that shit...*