Bees of the Invisible

You can never get enough of what you don’t really want.
Eric Hoffer

...there’s an old joke about a guy who quit smoking, drinking, and sex, and, as a result, was in perfect health up until the day he killed himself...

...(of course, to be relevant to the twenty-first century yoga crowd, it might be better to rephrase that as quit wheat, gluten, and genetically modified foods)...

...it’s always easy, I think, to talk about other people’s bad habits...if she knows how bad that is for her, why doesn’t she quit?....next time you find yourself saying something like that, it might be a good idea to pick something you love, something small, that, nonetheless, provides countless little moments of pleasure to your life, maybe keeps you going day by day, regardless of whether it’s good for you or not...reality T.V. shows...or junk food...or surfing the internet...or masturbating...and quit cold turkey, starting now....then, after a week or so, ask the same question about that alcoholic/cigarette smoker/crack addict you were talking about before, and see if the answer might be a little bit clearer...

We are the bees of the invisible. We frantically plunder the visible of its honey, to accumulate it in the great golden hive of the invisible.
Rainer Maria Rilke

...reading Rilke, some more...sitting in full lotus...or listening to Beethoven...how very German...wonder where I can get me some good vienerschnitzel in this town...though guess it might be good to find out just exactly what vienerschnitzel is, first...

...been called lazy...by myself, mostly....some people seem to admire my drive in certain pursuits...though those generally don’t involve producing marketable goods and services of easily quantifiable value, and do little to keep the wheels of the great machine of capital churning...

...then, a related problem might be that I’ve never been so good at relaxing, either...despite so much practice...lying propped against cushions with book in hand, wandering in the woods or along a deserted beach, or sitting in a coffee shop....and yet it all seems like an ongoing struggle to achieve the relaxation so badly needed without ever...or, at least, rarely...actually achieving it...

...that was what Dharma Mittra got on me about...couldn’t care less that I couldn’t do full lotus while in head-stand for ten minutes like most of the people in the room, but was the first yoga teacher every to criticize my savasana, specifically the fact that my fingers and hands don’t really relax, most of the time...

...work may be hard, but relaxing may be harder...

Midsummer Blues & Greys...

Summertime, child, and livin’s easy...
The Gershwin Bros. (via Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Herbie Hancock, Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, Chet Baker, John Coltrane....)

...wracked with traffic tickets, impending dental bills, internet problems...etc....etc....etc....escaping the coming heat wave, at least, to walk on a beach at one a.m....early enough even on the summer solstice to be suitably dark....some select stars shining through the eastern haze of humidity...listening to Richard Thompson through ipod headphones....

...everything you do leaves you empty inside,

time to ring some changes...

...maybe not quite so bad as all that, but he’s got a point....even later, inside reading Duino Elegies, salvaged, earlier, from my dad’s bookshelves...(soon to be emptied by people who get paid to dispose of stuff other people can’t bear to get rid of, themselves).....thinking I gotta get up early to take screens in to be fixed before the renters come next week....then coffee, air-conditioned yoga, and waiting for the cable company...a beach house ill-kept of late...where, if nothing else, I’ve done an awful lot of writing...among other things...in the past....now with a For Sale sign out front....finally, a long walk down to the point as the sun sets on this longest day of the year, its heat diminished with the light...another cosmic cycle moving along on its way...

Denn Bleiben ist nirgends.*

Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies

* For there is no remaining,

no place to stay (David Young, trans.).
For staying is nowhere (J.B. Leishman and Stephen Spender, trans.).

Running Into Mirrors (Part One)

...I try not to be too hung up on authenticity...since, y’know, just because it’s authentically what some they did in some far away there in a long ago then doesn’t mean it’s good...but I do try to avoid the more obvious bullshit...

...recently took a long plane flight which dropped me into the Philly airport just in time for a forty-five minute wait for the last—12:09—train downtown, where I could wait more than half an hour for the last train going anywhere near home...standing around a series of platforms thinking about the dinner I never had...so, utilizing the few options at hand...and, no, no organic local fair trade vegan ayurvedic co-op produce was available...got a packet of cheese crackers and a peanut bar from a machine and a large McDonald’s fries...though I glanced at the new “healthy” items on the lit-up plastic menu...ultimately deciding that, if I’m gonna fool myself, I don’t wanna do it quite that blatantly...would rather have something authentically bad, without the pretense...

You have not grown old, and it is not too late
to dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly gives out its own secret.
Rainer Maria Rilke

...had a thought recently that I might feel perfectly okay about where I am in life if where I was in life were just twenty years younger...a twenty-five year old with a forty-five year old mind....so, apparently, I’ve got an issue with aging...and some people might say that’s not very yogic of me...and, most likely, start throwing out the standard positive affirmations about aging...(which might have a bit more truth-value if people didn’t feel the need to repeat ‘em so much)...except in the sense that being yogic means accepting and embracing rather than rejecting and repressing not just the feel-good shit but also whatever not-so-positive-feelings might arise, and all that goes with ‘em...and, y’know, in that sense, of course, it’s all yogic...

...music plays...some of it’s good...raspberries, mangoes, a little bit of kale, and ice make an excellent smoothie...and life doesn’t answer to my fondest fantasies...when was it ever any different?...