Yes, This Blog Still Exists...

A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it.
Don DeLillo

...some time ago decided I was gonna focus on practicing yoga and not think about it so much...read about it less...certainly stop arguing about it...and, for the most part, that's been a good thing...

...though, as a result, have also been writing about it a lot less....as readers may've noticed...but, then, I'm writing about other things less, too, as I try to work on a novel about dysfunctional superheroes...which I haven't been doing much in recent weeks, either...okay, let's fact it, I been slacking...

...anyway, more recently been practicing yoga a lot less, too, due to the injured arm...iced as I type...(was telling a friend about it, said it was getting better for a while, but then the recovery seemed to plateau....she asked if I was icing it...I said I was until it started feeling better....took me a couple minutes to make the connection between those two answers)...

...nonetheless, went on a yoga retreat with my friends and teachers John and Diana at a hilltop villa in the Umbria region of Italy...

...yes, that's actually the place...ancient stone buildings with modern infinity pool, hot tub, and yoga studio....before and after which, spent time in the magical city of Florence...

 



...as well as Barcelona (see also the lovely Antonio Gaudi doorway, at the top of the post),





and Madrid...



...after so much quality time with Miro, Picasso, Bosch, Botticelli, and ancient, storied rivers of red wine, wasn't easy to settle back into the autumn at home...been doing a lots of meditation and mindfulness mini-retreats, and, a few weekends ago, a Yin Yoga teacher training with the amazing Corina Benner in an area of South Philly not long ago infamous as the city's mafia battleground, now one of it major hipster neighborhoods...impermanence, y'know...

I heard the old, old men say,
'Everything alters,
And one by one we drop away.'
They had hands like claws, and their knees
Were twisted like the old thorn-trees
By the waters.
'All that's beautiful drifts away
Like the waters.'
William Butler Yeats, The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water

...but, anyway, told some fellow students about my semi-legendary blog...figured it might be a good time to post something...anything...for whatever it might be worth...

I had a discussion with a great master in Japan... and we were talking about the various people who are working to translate the Zen books into English, and he said, "That's a waste of time. If you really understand Zen... you can use any book. You could use the Bible. You could use Alice in Wonderland. You could use the dictionary, because... the sound of the rain needs no translation.

Alan Watts

Mindful Distraction

It is so much simpler to bury reality than it is to dispose of dreams.
Don DeLillo

...old loneliness unearthed like shattered tablets or multiple-amputee goddesses who don’t seem to notice...photos of long-dead people as smiling children...ladies’ shoes found incongruously on uninhabited south sea islands...coffin lids scraped by desperate fingernails...vampires, figurative and otherwise...legions of slaves buried intentionally if, no doubt, unwillingly, with their kings...organic waste turning gradually to petroleum while petroleum products don’t seem to be turning to anything any time soon...flowers and dreams we hope will bloom again come spring...landmines left over from almost forgotten wars, potent as ever...

...recently read about a guy who spent years in solitary confinement as a political prisoner in...I think...China....when he came out, people were surprised at how calm and centered he seemed following such an ordeal....he credited meditation with getting him through it...though, he said, finding time to meditate was a constant struggle...even stuck as he was by himself in a cell all day, every day...

...of course, these meditative disciplines mostly come from places—India, China, Japan—that, despite romantic pastoral images in western minds, have been really, really crowded and noisy for a long, long time...maybe that’s not a coincidence...