beat it...

"just because everyone can't do everything, doesn't mean somebody shouldn't do something."

these are great, good words taken from Joel Salatin, a revolutionary farmer and speaker who travels all over the world advocating for a more self-sustaining and historically normal approach to our food and our planet.

they are also taken from the book my father and i have elected to read, he and i, two members of the world's smallest book club. each week we slog thru a chapter or two, then meet over the phone to discuss this week's gleanings.

And Salatin does this great thing... especially for egg-heads like me and my pa, who would be just as content to debate the hell out of a thing, and then let it glisten forever in the abstract, unmarred by any stain of pragmatism or slovenly implementation. ... He gives you homework.

Whether he's talking about proper use of land or livestock, water usage, herbivores, urban farming.. what have you.. at the end of each well-written and thoroughly researched (and embodied!!!) chapter, tools for the trade. so, you too, gentle reader, may begin to take those first faltering steps down the path to normalcy,, self-sufficiency, all that....

it's great.

and it rings a bell somewhere in my brain.

as someone who operates with a head full of lofty ideas and grand imaginings, it is oftentimes exceedingly difficult for me to put one foot in front of the other, as it were. In my head, rings bells, trumpets, a symphony!!! and in my hands i bang a tiny, tinny tambourine... looking at my ill-shaped instrument, i bemoan... how does one make music with such a thing?

by doing it. start banging that drum, damn it. it may not sound like the footfall of angels you've got going in your head, nor the cacophony of beauty that's looping round and round on instant replay (but only just for you.. unheard, unsung, unknown by the ever-waking world...)

Begin it.

Begin it.

so many things to occupy a life, and indeed this world, in the fashion in which we dream... so many systems in place, of government, media, big business, blech.... conspiring to keep us ever-marching to the beat of a zombie, meat-head drummer from some awful '80s hairband... beating off with a drumstick in his hand...

the song played so loud, the soundtrack looping for so long, we forget.... we helped to write these notes... we began to hum this tainted melody once upon a time... before the tune got permanently lodged in our brains... to exclusion of all other music... and sound...

we can write the notes anew. even if we don't yet know the tune.... i've got a hankering for a great opening line... i bet you could help me with the refrain.... the bridge we'll build when we get there...

i get overwhelmed by the brokenness of the world.. indeed the brokenness of myself as well. how many grand, wonderful amazing things i would like to do... pull a ghandi and "be the change i want to see in the world".....

and i can't do it all today. no one of us can. and there's the trick. and there's the beauty of the thing..

without an orchestra assembled in our basements, we simply begin by doing what we can... a sprinkle of change here, a snippet of revolution there.... it sounds like rain and it sounds like footfalls and humming...

i grab my drum. you take your ill-strung fiddle out of storage and let's start to play. maybe invite the kids from down the way with a cow bell or two... my neighbor's got some spoons, a harp and a cuppa' sugar to boot. let's roll. ...

what is the sound of the many, hundreds of thousands.. maybe more... of someones doing something... something vital. something real. something precious and amazing and compassionate, brave, ingenious and grand.

of us all, minute little someones, conspiring each day to do the something - the burning beauty waiting to be born into the world... and us their patient, humble midwives.... conspiring to create an Anthem... drown out the dirge....

start humming. let's make up the words as we go along. i have a feeling.... the sounds of a million someones... therein lies the Song.....

stripped....

around the world in 30 days!!! or... just.... the contiguous US.. in 21. or so. .... (just don't sound the same...)

.....and thank goodness for travel. of any sort. because it pries you open. helps you to see what you're missing... the good, the bad, the terrifying... and the peculiarly & unexpectedly beautiful.... the orchids blooming in the cracks of cement... days spent communing with a long stretch of open highway and my thoughts... reminding myself to breathe, breathe.. be still... Enjoy.

....days of napping in the back seat, ensconced like a giant human S...waking up with a stiff neck to view the world.. anew.... days of road food & NPR... of blisteringly strong coffee & motel sheets.... of gorgeous rock formations and the dancing of the light... of clear gulf waters & magnolia trees bowing to the ground.... of reminders of home.. of the joy of forgetting.... of travelling to the end of the road... and finding you had a home... a face & a fellow... perhaps you'd forgotten... of warm & rowdy & scintillating conversation over an afternoon's third round of canned beers... of rest... of sunshine... of heat.... of prying your head out of your damn ass long enough to wake up and see that there is a surplus of spunk & beauty EVERYWHERE!!! .. if you know how to tilt your head and look.. just right... of yes's & thank you's & please. Please. Yes. MORE. ... let this ever-unfurling journey continue... without... Within....

and i am reminded that people are people.. everywhere you go. the same.. just.. Different. and as much seemingly bad is marring the world today.. there is so. Much. Good. Shit. Yes!!! it just becomes a matter of what you are staring at... and so you follow... so you become....

and i am reminded to get off my high horse, temporarily abandon my flowery speech & high-minded asceticism... and abandon all names.. all credos... and to just be. humble. simple. Breathe. .... for there are many things which i aspire to... beautiful words & notions... pillars of word & vow unfurling day-after-day, a large, pink cloud nestling my mind's eye...

and i am reminded that this means nothing - NOTHING!!! if my perfumed words & honeyed descriptives amount to a putrefied hill of beans.. worse! ...."if i can move mountains but have not love......" ......

it is like my good friend Noah says... a self-described Buddhist.. and athiest... how would you characterize this brand of Buddhism you practice there Noah???.... simple, he says.. with an ever-present glint in his eye... i live by 4 simple words.. Just... "Don't be an asshole!" .... and it's great. and it's sterling. and, in a way... amazing.. in it's ability to reduce all the evocative images i keep stashed in my head.... memes on how to be, and how to live & the sacredness of things & life & bla bla bla.... Noah takes it down to a science.. exacting & true.

Don't be an asshole. ...

think about it. ....

covering so much with such minimal verbage... don't take what is not yours... be kind. always treat others with as much integrity & respect as you possibly can!!! (even if you feel you've been shafted in this way...) ... look for the good. ... recycle. take care of the planet that has made your own human life possible... etc. etc. ETC....

and so for the moment, as the last leg of my journey continues... i temporarily am stripped of all my high-minded badges and -isms.... i step down off my petty soapbox & party platforms... i give up. i pledge my allegiance to these simple words...

...because in the end... eloquence serves me little... poetry turns toxic... distasteful.. foul.... if the life that i am leading... bears no resemblance to my faustian semantics... say less. do more. and let your own life & light shine so humbly & Brightly... there are no need for words.....

i have been thinking as of late about attachment... about specifically the things we attach ourselves to... hmmm.. for that matter maybe the ideas & people too.. funny...

when i was 14 after several overpriced trips to several different doctors, i was diagnosed as bipolar. recognized as a disease in modern medical literature, it is when "the patient" swings from bouts of mania to severe bouts of depression.. there are about a gazillion variations on this tune. everything from mixed mania, hypomania... prolonged hypo/hyper depressive states.. etc... (it's kind of amazing in hindsight how many bullshit psychiatric terms we can coin just to diagnose what is essentially the human condition...)but i digress...

at the time i remember thinking Yes! Finally! A name, a label, a safe, stringent set of terms & descriptors that tell me what I am going thru!!! Halle-loo-yah! Thank ya Jeezus!!! and then you read on... in much of the literature (which is mostly aimed at helping others deal with & compassionately navigate the tumultuous waters of their manic-depressive loved one's state) you read about what happens to a person "under the influence", so to speak of a manic or depressive phase.... For Mania: anything from loss of sleep & appetite, to huge bursts of energy & creativity, visions of grandeur, rabid spending sprees... taking on large debts or massive projects.... And Depression, the ugly mole-faced step-sister: ... weight gain or loss, social isolation, withdrawing, inability to cope with the tasks of daily life, sleeping for hours on end... you get the bit. and somewhere in these lines, after the initial relief you find the slightest trace of... what.... well... i dunno.. i halt to put it into words... simply put the rational, sane, compassionate party reading said text is heartened to not take the actions of a bipolar person completely seriously or try to relate to them rationally during a manic or depressive episode (which begs the question... aren't they pretty much always in one or the other??!?) ... rather.. wait until a time when they are functioning in their "right mind" (and properly medicated, to boot) to try and reason with them.. and negotiate the inevitable fall-out of their hyper-manic or hyper-depressed states... much like you would choose your words with utmost care to speak to a child.. who has not developed the capacity necessary (so we believe) to digest your input straight from the tap, as it were, so too, for the manic-depressive we must weigh & water down our words... from such an altered state, they are unable to relate to you (the sane, salient, normal one, let's recall) in a rational, objective way. Huh.

This is fucking infuriating.

...

is this to say that my husband, who suffers from a hearing problem, needs special treatment, as it were, when relating to him one-on-one, mano-a-mano... teatime, coffeetalk style? does my sister, who suffers from the occasional bout of fatigue and a spot or two of psoriasis - must i choose my words carefully for her, knowing that she is under the influence of these things??? what of my friends who smoke cigarettes (which we know.. alters brain chemistry.... duh.. why else do it??)do i need to cater my speech to them, knowing that they are not functioning from an optimal place?

my neighbor has been known to get up at 1 o clock in the morning.. and start working on a project.. should i alter my context of conversation to him knowing that he keeps drastically different sleep patterns & modes of creativity than I do?

i have friends that watch a lot of TV (and don't Tell me that that shit don't alter your brain chemistry, folks... ha. ...) do they need a light hand when discussing the finer workings of things or the essential bits of life? ???

i have friends that do a lot of yoga, drink a lot of juice & spend a lot of time outdoors... maybe I should watch what I say to them as well....

There are times when readily don this diagnostic crown that I was given some 15 odd years ago. i lean into it. and heavy. at moments when I am down, unable to pull myself up from a slump of days or weeks.. wondering why life does not hold the joy it once did.. even a day, a week ago... why? i wonder? why is everything so effing hard? and then i remember.. oh yeah. this is part of that wave they were talking about.... "the depressive state" ..."all part of the disease" ... "this too shall pass".. I am Bipolar. ..so they say.

and then the Heights!!! the glorious, brilliant luminous heights! where words & thoughts, images, brilliance & compassion flow freely.. as if tapping the vein of some gorgeous body of Life.... full, fluid.. eva-frigging-nescent!!! and it is me... the truth of me.. this is who I am!! not that sad, sorry creature of a week ago who could barely rise from bed or muster much more culinary skill than burnt toast or leave the house... This - this lovingLife, glorious Byzantine creature that has emerged - THIS!!- is my truer nature. Surely. It must be. ...

and rather than let the wave pass thru me, around me, underneath me, about me... i ride it.. hard... trying like mad to grip the reins of this wild thing... to see if I can hold onto the feeling of Yes! of good. of bliss.. and let the bad drain away... but it isn't like that . That's not how we roll.

Into each life... a little rain... in the form of hearing loss.. disease, fatigue, odd & funny skin eruptions, weight gain, weight loss, cigarettes & alcohol, anger, frustration... Joy, elation, love, beauty... wheatgrass, twinkies, brown-papered packages tied up with string... these things... a little rain must fall..

It is the stuff of Life. and sometimes the rain is heavy & gray.. and bids you to stay indoors.. perhaps longer than is healthy or "good". and sometimes it's light & airy.. pliant & delightful... & smelling of earth & plants... inviting you to Dance & jump barefoot into puddles... it feeds the stream...

and there is no pill for this shit. there is no proper diagnosis. there is no cure. It is Life. and you can't take it all too seriously i am told. and you can't be afraid of getting utterly messy. and Wet.
and thank God.

and we do the best we can... and try, yes, Try... to not attach ourselves too strongly to any of it... our grandeur, our failings... our foibles.... our scars.. our demons... our Angels.... we keep moving... with an open heart (or as open as we can...) and stay the Vessel... that Life... in all its' vertiginous Beauty... can Occupy.

and thanks...

i need reminders that i am blessed.... there are weeks when things move so slowly, so haltingly, so irritatingly backwards & frustratingly i need to remember... that grace abounds.. that this is yet another season of my life... and that it serves the greater purpose of the whole... i am one to leap willingly, joyously.... wholehearted & caffeinated-ly into the good - the JuJu, the Bahva.. the good schutff... Yes! I can be heard to proclaim! This is it! The stuff of life! The nectar of existence. Atlong last!! How I've found you! Claimed you! I now take you for my own! Let us never be parted! Let the goodness that now runs thru my veins and in-habits my Sphere .. let it never cease! Let the bad, the drudgery, the anger,the vexation.. the pain... let it wait forever upon my doorstep, never to be summoned, nor answered again! For Yes!!! Joy! How I'/ve found you!!! Let us never be parted!! I've tapped the goodness, I've entered the flow... never to exit again... But then.. You are... The flowing, gorgeous sense of continuity that guided your steps for a few days, maybe even weeks... goes on leave.. takes a vacation.. perhaps an extended one.... and the things that were so right.. so glisteningly perfect & humming.... their song, for the time, is silenced.... unaccompanied... inharmonious... unpleasant.. inert. for if it hums, it falls on deaf ears... your Joy receptors have gone on holiday.. leaving you with..... What????? and i need to remember... there is no light without darkness... there is no beauty without the deep cavern of sometimes pain & suffering (of both small & great magnitudes I am sure...) to lend the waters of ease & enjoyment a place to reside... let the uncomfortable, loathsome & hard spots carve you deeper... so that you can contain yet more joy!!! (but it is so difficult to remember at times...) i need reminders... i need reminders.... i need to re-member sometimes... that this too is a part of the blessing... that the world is an ever-waking dance of both death & vitality.. and they walk side by side.. hand-in-hand.... and every day.... we get to wake up.... and make the decision.... moment by moment.... which wins.... the darkness or the Light... and sometimes Darkness gains a foothold..... sometimes we wander in the cave.... sometimes we forget the warmth & nourishment of the Sun.... and then.. and then... so we keep reminders..... folded, origami-style in our back pockets, splayed across our walls and our refrigerators... lurking in the eyes & reassurances of those we love.. and sometimes of those we have yet to know... that frankly... none of us gets out of here Alive... and the best any of us can do... is to do.. well... the Best we can do.. on any given day.... though it may feel rotten or unendingly difficult.. ploddingly.. but assuredly... one foot.. then the other.... keep coming toward the Light... and i am given reminders.... an unexpected embrace... a beautiful sunset... art & children.. & the joys of a wet bathing suit..... rambling words that somehow makes sense of the thread.... prophets, luminaries, poets, pranksters & madmen... all come up to take arms... and walk alongside... and just to ground down into this bits.. these pieces that forever rise up to bring me back to a sense of YeS!! and Whole-Ness in my meandering journey... I say Thank You... I bow .. in gratitude & remembrance. Thank you beautiful jagged skipping stones of remembering... how to Inhabit this Life... showing me once again... Yes. For we are so very BlESsEd ..........

checking out...

i have been having a serious case of the "i sucks"s this week. from standing at the front of a room, leading strangers thru downward-facing dog, instructing them to breathe & release what no longer serves them, wondering "What the hell am i doing up here?!?" to holding my squealing, squalling infant in my arms - unable to comfort her - with either my words, sounds or body.... helpless. inert. grossly incompetent and unable to meet the demands of life - as they present themselves in this moment... well... or at least.. that's how ya' feel. ... from staring covetously at a friend's smooth skin, firm belly or tidily-coiffed hair, while my own body is still in the process of recovering from & meeting the new demands of motherhood... it seems we're primed to engage in an endless game of covetousness... always someone else's life, or the accessories thereof... barbie's perfect dreamhouse is always perched just one spot over the hill.. and never residing where you are NOW. we are clothed in lack.. drenched in longing... and it is Encouraged. No! It's True! the ads & accompanying voices seem to say... "You are NOT enough! Buy this! Use this cream! This shellack! Try this ab routine! This insider tip. This secret-handshake-twenty-dollar-club-badge-membership trick. One more thing, more tidbit, last tweaking, last temporary stamp of approval.. before you are enough.. good enough. presentable. lovable. acceptable. GOOD. and i'm tired.. i'm tired of a game that pits me against a would-be friend, a mirror, an ally.. and turns them into someone i must either idolize or demonize... someone i must weigh my own value against.... well, she's thinner than me but at least i'm smarter... they make more money, but i have a cooler, more bohemian life... they're more talented than i, but i know the "right" people... bull. shit. i am tired of a game that turns friends into frenemies... assesses my life's value & worth based on how effing well i look & measure up to, EVERYBODY ELSE. it's as if high school never ended!!! hey, look, folks! no need to cultivate any strain of authenticity, any depth or grit.. any nuanced flavor or soul.... all you've gotta do is cultivate the right ratio of fat to muscle, floss, wax & scrub the right things, read fucking cosmo, fill your brain, that delicate and valuable gray real estate with nothing more than sex & diet tips.. and newer ways to whiten your teeth & eradicate wrinkles. cuz, you know.. it MATTERS. and i'm tired. screw this. of a game that views the soul as an afterthought, the spirit as an accessory akin to earrings or lipstick. in the words of the wise & erudite Homer Simpson.. "This Game SUCKS. Let's play Chinese Checkers." .... so I'm giving up. I'm calling it quits.. handing in my playing cards, admitting DeFault.. No way... So when the conversation inevitably shifts towards bodies & what we all virtuously hate about our own - our thighs, our butts, our "less-than-perfect" triceps & glutes... I will cradle my soft & stretch-marked belly, declare myself to be Perfect & Beautiful. AND MEAN IT, DAMNIT

. .... when longing words of what so&so does or drives or earns or how successful & accomplished they may be and So Young too.... I will write songs. I will play my ukulele, slowly & maybe out of tune... do cartwheels on the lawn & make gurgling noises at my beautiful kid.. and have so much fucking fun , that I will not CARE ....... I will love deeply & play with abandon... I will create, Create!! without thoughts of paychecks or outside recognition... On the days when I suck - at every task at hand - i will give myself permission to do just that - SUCK! - fully, completely, with glee & joyous aplomb!! - I will dance & sing & seek inspiration in all the gorgeous forms in which it chooses to find me.. and I will give thanks. .... I will stand on my own two feet & declare "Here I am!" and know..now free of the bound & cumbersome rules of the never-ending game of Human Monopoly I've just exited... that finally.. & beautifully - I am EnOuGh . ......... and to those still playing on the other side of the fence... over on Barbie's dream hill, living Barbie's dream life, driving Barbie's dream car.. striving Barbie's dream Striving... I will issue a friendly wave.. from my new patch of wild grasses & rambling clover... the air perfumed with the intoxicating scent of pOsSibILiTy... and bid them Welcome. Should they ever choose to vacate the stifling patch of Astroturf... and join me together inhabiting... a brand new SpHeRe ......

disclosure: I am a reader of horoscopes. not in the drink-the-koolaid, buy in hook,line & sinker sort of way... not in the superstitous, "lemme check in with the demi-gods of free internet astrology to determine how to chart the course of my life & day" sort of way. more, uh, i dunno. like you pick out what clothes to wear in the morning. how am i feeling today? a blue scarf? maybe a cap? is it a jeans or skirt sort of a morning? and how do we feel about socks? ??? ... some brief little pithy check-in, to help lend my morning a spot of color, a flavor... lime or orange, tobacco or peppermint, please... what shall it be? * and discount shopper that i am, if one does not give me quite the Thang I was looking for.. I'm off in search of another (well, Yes, Mom said no to Tv & ice cream before bed but let's try Dad - he's a sucker- he'll say yes.) from the generic & overly-perfumy words I glean from the peddler of Vagueries app on my phone to the so eerily specific references I get delivered to my daily inbox they make me wonder if Google & the CIA have perhaps joined forces to monitor the daily workings of my life.. to my favorite.. but the one I least turn to because he does not merely dish out empty platitudes and lofty, feel-good pop-psychology wrapped in the satiny tissue of the stars, but rather... this guy... who takes it several steps further and issues warnings, nudgings, commands & directives that are often times hard to swallow in one fell gulp. "Now is not the time to be complacent, dear Pisces.. step up and steer your ship! Be willing to serve as the captain & commander of your own life!" or somesuch thing.... Activist Astrology - commanding you to stop being lazy, get out of your rut, stop clinging to the things that no longer work for you - take charge and step into the protagonist role of your own damn storybook.... or atleast that's what I get from him anyway.. and, so, entreatingly, intrepidly.. after both my aforementioned Sources had failed to supply... "what's on the menu for today? stripes & chenille? polka dots? feathers? a toupee?" No thank you. And off to my last resort - my own personal, psychic manufacturer or these, "the pills that are large & difficult to swallow"... and what should I alight on but this.. these words.. glimmering... poignant.. a song...a lark. "Rob Brezsny says the apocalypse is now, so let's dance." *and a small lightbulb is lit in my head. of course! because it feels like so many things are falling apart... personally, politically, structurally, incredibly... i feel like *( and correct me if i'm wrong)... we are being collectively led to a place whwere the old ways simply will not serve.. beat-up, sullied, stagnant & gentrified ways of conducting business, relating to one another, constructing our worlds.. the car we've been driving thru life all these years - that once was so shiny, new, humming & perfect -now runninglike the beat-up old jalopy that it is.. making strange new sounds, grumbling & sparks... one more trip to the mechanic.. try & sew up the seams of this outworn mode of existence... and it's broken.. and yet we're clinging.. and so says my dime-store prophet, my world-wide-web-soap-box-savior... "Yee-haw!" Let's party. put on your favorite records & boogie. Cuz this is just Life's way of cracking you open.. stripping you down to your essence so you can Breathe.. helping you, oftentimes painfully, repeatedly.. release what is futile, heavy, & leaden & dead in your world... helping you shed all your scales & hook-lined gils & fins .. so that you can swim again - Unbounded - in the deep blue sea of your own Life.. and the last shall be first and the first shall be last... the meek becoming the inheritorsof this - this brand new earth... emerged from the fissures of the past.. cracked wide open by well.. Love - that great leveler of playingfields.. the stuff that melts molecules & shifts substance... so in the maelstrom of your brokenness give Thanks! Take a page from Leonard Cohen or a Sufi poet and breathe a quiet prayer of Yes. ... all right.. I give up.. cuz its only just the Light... bravely, boldly. & sometimes quite painfully!!.. finding its way In.....

cognition...ignite ...

the last few weeks in review... 3 weeks ago, my partner, the love of my life, the father of my infant child, and the man who nearly one-fell-swoopedly scooped up the contents of my heart almost 12 years ago... he went on a bender. ..... 3 weeks ago, i very dramatically scooped up my child, as much cash as i could find inside my house, filled a banged up toyota corolla to the brim with children's toys & clothes, shoes, books - Whatever I imagined we might need... 3 weeks ago I slept in my childhood bed, with my daughter by my side, and listened to her breathe. 3 weeks ago, i sat in my sister's tiny little living room watching trashy reality television, sipping coffee, changing diapers & playing with our kids, reading magazines & taking turns dissecting the vicissitudes of one another's worlds... 3 weeks ago, when pressed, i pointedly told my own mother - the one who saw fit to drop everything in her world at that moment and run to my aid, cradle my daughter and i in the confines of her house-beautiful home & soothe us with 400-thread count sheets & impossibly fluffy scrambled eggs - i told her - that I thought she was frivolous & silly. that she ought not to spend so much time just buying shit & why couldn't she contribute something useful in some way? I made my mother cry. and in the end, all i could think was - careful to hang yourself up on the splinter of another - when there's a massive log in your own damn eye... 3 weeks ago, i sat on the big, mortgaged deck with my father - that overlooks mountains & trees & a beautiful sunset - discussing farming & subsidies, consumerism, cancer & the My-oh-Mys of what a pickle we all are in. And I felt lost. So lost. & small ..... 2 weeks... i camped in the woods with mosquitoes & firewood and improvised woolen mittens for my 3-month old daughter from socks - who likes to sleep with her hands held aloft - as if she were absorbing Grace from the Ether into some infinite power strips traversing the width of her palms... i had bad, horrible dreams where i would wake up, wanting to spit and pummel at the man sleeping beside me - friend, lover, husband - betrayer - .... i stood at the edge of a stone-lined, grass-laden labyrinth by a river - closed my eyes - and whispered - avowing to live at the Center of my life - with heart & courage & verve & wisdom. then quietly walked to the center of the stones...eyes closed. i sat in warm pools and took deep breaths. i napped. i cried. 3 days ago, i went on my own bender - of listening to the news for 3 hours straight - deluged by the endless rain of Civil Rights not gradually, but so rapidly eroding, our food supply ever-more tainted, the corporate stranglehold on our nation growing ever greater - the Endless litany of "The BAD GUYS are winning"... playing its insouciant dirge another round in my head... and i could barely put one foot in front of the other - for fear of everything I buy, every morsel I eat, every trip downtown I take in my little petroleum peddler - somehow only adds to the Demise... this week i sat and listened to my breath, watching the endless rocking train, engine seemlessly linked up to the caboose -of my thoughts- for FIVE WHOLE MINUTES. this week i sat in the company of warm, imperfect women - & we dug together - pliantly nudging at the contents of our hearts & guts - as one. i walked, i wrote, i rode my bike & ate bananas. and i thought... how in the end, the political is, in fact, deeply personal. what a radical thing to move on into the center of your own life - inhabit all of it - the fear, the anger,, your doubts & your own great smallness- the myriad uncomfortable places - and to sit. Breathe. Listen. then to quietly ask, open-palmed, for Grace to come aloft - and be your Guide.

..operation gold, not straw...

i forget who came up with this idea.. or where i heard it. but i woke up with the very ringing, singing , quietlytuggingatyoursleeve and at the back spot of your brain...this prayer,this mantra today... arT BoMB .... remember back at the beginning of the whole iraq/afghanistan debacle when the media was still trying to put this great, g.i.joe, American Might&Right against the Bad Guys spin on the whole affair... (are they still doing that? at one point, i simply had to stop listening...) while we were bombing the shit out of homes, schools, hospitals, & the like... day after day, relentlessly pelletting a people with our gunfire, our fear, our obscure & jingoistic notions of Justice & Honor.. our wrath, our Entitlement... our billion-dollar video games dropping bombs like hell from the sky... obliterating entire families, towns...and what's more a people's sense of hope & joy.... in one fell-swoop... we called it Operation Shock & Awe......(remember with me if you will)... and we were told that if we could just keep on'em.... assault them with a daily, torrential dose of good ole American-style justice, then surely, and quickly, the Victory was ours'.. (and yet here we stand...) but i wonder, somewhere in that thinking, there lay a kernel of truth.. single droplet of gold, spun in reverse-Rumpelstiltskin style... taking something lovely & spinning it back into a meaningless lump of hay.. well, let's begin to spin it back, i say.... (oh, won't you walk this way with me for a spell??)....... beginning today.. our own little operation shock & awe... or better yet *gOLd, not sTrAW!!!* still with me? for while that which is ugly, small, & hateful has a way of in-toxic-ating everything in its' wake.. soo those random acts of truth & beauty.. well, you see where i'm headed here... 30 days. release your art (in dance, in song, in word, in rhyme, in catterwheeling stand-up comic-ry, in beautiful noise, in flowers, in prose, in spontaneous hugs donated at will to those who could use 'em...) upon the world... unhook your line from the stream of commerce and go dangle the bait of your brilliant, creative self in the waters of commune-

ity for a time... Random Acts of Beauty.. as many as you can.. or as you choose.... Art Bomb your little local world... make a poem or a drawing & staple it to a telephone pole for all to enjoy, do cartwheels in your local town square, set up a booth by your local post office & offer free face-painting for kids of all ages on any given Tuesday, JUST BECAUSE. lay down your yoga mat in the parking lot of the nearby liquor store and offer handstand lessons to anyone who wants 'em. ... get OUT of your comfort zone. bring your faithful kazoo & perform your 6-minute one-woman show about the beauty of daffodils right by where you buy your morning coffee. Smile at people for no other fucking reason than that shit is Catching... and we need it so right now. Leave a bouquet of daisies, perched happily upon a random parked car,, or better yet... plant a stealth vegetable garden in a public space. .... let's do it. cuz the bad shit is overwhelming i know.. but so is the good... once it takes hold. ... if the concentrated efforts of a few shortsighted men can dismantle a world as it existed, so the consistent, open-hearted efforts of the artfully-inspired many... can re-write it.... turning these base metals of human experience once more.. into GO-LD.... write and tell me what you do! send me a pic. remind me once again that there are amazing people out there in the world, enchanting the sphere, each day.. hoo-ray. 30 DAYS. Let's go..........

splinters...

i was raised in the Bible Belt of California.... (and huh-hoh! lemme just say, for those who doubt the existence of such a place... we're a big ole state, capable of housing any manner of masses, viewpoints & counterpoints.. for better or worse.) ....... and much like the Autistic tends to think in Images.. so the Bible-reared soul (myself at least)has a tendency to engage the world in a stream of vaguely dogmatic, mytho-poetic verse....... one line that comes to mind,again & again... particularly in moments when i am attempting to initiate some change.. act as harbinger in my own daily life.. ( say, errr, daily blogging or taking up running..) a line begins to chime in my mind... "pick up your cross daily..." a token of advice to christ's followers stating, basically.. come on people... get on board. you say you want to live the spiritual life.. walk the spiritual path.. (substitute in here that of the artist, writer, yogi, painter, athlete, avid dog-walker... whatever you choose...) .... it's a daily deal, this life that you've chosen.. rain or shine, come hail or sleet, in sickness or health... you know the tune. ... it speaks to the notion that Love... is a form of action.. committed daily, in ways both big & small... that the world is slowly (but most surely) built in this fashion ... by the daily acts of devotion we take along the path.. as if you could build an altar in your mind's eye (or in your living room perhaps..) that greets you cloyingly each morning with a smile and a query: What have you done for me lately???? for love (or anything for that matter) without action is Dead. ... moot... a sample in a hallmark card... pointless.. inert... in order to live this life, i am reminded, one must inevitably get a little bit dirty... pick up the cross, although it most assuredly contains splinters and wreaks of pine.... strap on your boots, your pen, your ballet slippers - whatever be good for the walkin'.... and follow me... ...... cuz this little girl believing as she does that just the right amount of ART can surely save the WORLD... (most likely 'twere the gospel tale to be re-written by moi, the good lord would prob'ly come down from heaven wielding naught but his guitar and a handful of oil pastels...) ...... and so it is with this daily jingle making its' rounds in my mind that i pick up my pen (or trusty laptop, as it were)...with nothing much more to glean than just that.... and begin (again) this daily business of building the world... aNeW.

...gestation...

i would make a very lousy butterfly.. for indeed i make a very impatient & undisciplined, somewhat cantankerous caterpillar... (to borrow the children's story vernacular for a moment) ... .................................... for i know, to the trained & watchful eye, a chrysalis is, itself, a thing of beauty, enfolding the quiet growth of wings as they are waiting to enfold.. the silence itself, mesmerizing & sipid all its' own.. but from inside... such quiet .. you can drown in it... such darkness.. it can make ya' blind... ......................... reaching deep into the quiet of one's life.. a momentary pause.. where clear-headed, caffeinated mind assures us that yes, this is just a season, a rest, a breath, a sigh... before the lungs begin their ever-busy job of once again carrying this lofty bod ever higher up the path.. but in such times.. i forget. what it was ever like.. to feel the busy-ness, the involved-ness of it all... things to do & places to go... small paychecks received for jobs never truly enjoyed.... small pittance for work not necessarily well-done... moot titles granted for papier-mache hats crookedly-donned... there is much comfort in busy-ness... in part-time labors which lend themselves to outside validation.. a notice, an honorable mention.. a nametag, a placemat.. announcing your small, but (indispensable we assure you!!!) place in the family of things .... .................... for now i have been granted my wish.. a space, a clearing.. a wide, open strip of silence, solitude & expanse.. for which to plumb my passions and my thoughts... and it is under & over-whelming all the same.. ...... i do not want a shitty daytime job. ... i am blessed. ... i do not need it. ... and yet ...... ..... everything i want to do.. seems so very hard. .... and there is no golden cherry-picking award at the end. ...... i want to make ART..... to write books(that people will read!!!) and make music and paint and dance to ridiculous unseen rhythms & share the day & time & space with others who do the same... to do these things i want to do.. it troubles me..... there are no guidelines, no degrees (not really)... no salary, no references, no applications to busy myself and fill.... just the page... waiting, humming, pulsing... daring... .... to do what i (say i) want to do... means to stand in the Ether for a spell.. (forgive me my self-induced visions of grandeur for a spell...) ... shout into the void, scribble like mad, converse with the gods (who have a tendency to respond in chortles, deep-bellied guffaws & maddening SILENCE... .. ...................... and so i return... again.. (once more and to the barre)... this business of practice,, practice,,, pRaCTiCe .... heartened yet chastened.. because this business ... well, my.. it takes work ..... to gRoW WiNGs.......

the pupil...

... a friend relayed the news the other day that a mutual friend of ours' was in the market for a Spiritual Teacher. ... ... now... i find this to be an honorable impulse... noble even.. in this day and age where there are so many directions to turn, many roads to plumb, so many things to buy..... well... it's nice to know that there are those who are striving towards the higher realms.. but it got me to thinking. in the yogic tradition there are thousands of things to contemplate, to initiate, to master... there is asana, the daily hour(s) spent upon the mat, fine-tuning the vehicle of the body, pranayama - refinement of the breath intended to still the processes of the mind, that roguish monkey-chatter... the bhandas, the vrittis, the koshas, the chakras, the yamas.... the layman's acquisition of sanskrit, the alignment with the guru. and lalalalalalala.... and at the bottom of the page, the end of the chapter, that last section of the book you thought contained only notes and literary references, a note: from the teacher that says, in effect: All these things are unnecessary for he who has already attained enlightenment.. these regimes, practices, dictates, & disciplines.. well, hey, if you've already reached the mountaintop, saith the buddha, shit-can 'em. sit back and enjoy the view... and i wonder... in this small, quiet effort to democratize my own life.. to quietly wrest power away from the hospices of madison avenue and any brilliant ad campaign that seeks to take the contents of my wallet by selling me on the notion that true beauty is only attainable in the form of a cream or rosy blush. ... in the effort to re-direct my food supply away from the powers-that-be that care nothing for my health and even less for the planet and back to the work of my own two hands, the soil in my own backyard, the leaves on my own damn tree... in a search to cultivate wisdom, beauty & truth.. to acquire learning, to make the small patch of ground on which i stand a bit more blessed, richer, deep, & MINE.... i have to wonder... another friend reminded me recently of a fabulous title of a book i have yet to read " If you Meet The Buddha, Kill Him" ... Yeah. cuz really.. is not Your Life.... the unsexy details of it all... the Teacher Itself? The beautiful infant child who exists to remind you that Love is a form of Sustenance and that Beauty happens in the still, quiet moments... the gorgeous sunset that stills your mind and Alters your Breath.. the poignant piece of music you play again and again, in the sanctuary of your bedroom, Again & Again, because it fills your being with unspeakable Joy. .. and more even.. is not the teacher nestled in the partner/lover/boyfriend/girlfriend/neighbor/parent with whom you constantly squabble, reminding you that you have a tendency to prize your own stupid opinions over those of others??? the empty bank balance at the end of each month, stating plainly, painfully, that you spend your time & energies on worthless shit.. too much of it.. when what you need to do is fill your life with what is real & true & nourishing - & this shit comes for FREE. perhaps i oversimplify dear reader, but i have to wonder, in an age where we have given so much of our power away... civil rights handed away nilly-willy to keep some unnamed terrorists at bay... profound thought & creativity shuffled aside in favor of near-constant handheld entertainment... real food in exchange for its' chemically-altered, genetically-modified mutant cousin... real life for...... what??? the list, i am sure, continues... but i am willing to bet, and to begin to believe that , we have all already been granted great spiritual teachers... "When the student is willing, the Teacher will appear." but as the words of a modern-day Icelandic poet bespeak (Bjork = ) .... "All is Full of Love... you just Ain't Receiving." so i would like to go on record as saying that I am not seeking. Rather I am finding... the teacher, the lesson, the gorgeous hallowed beauty they told me I would find... if I could just show up, wait & listen.. to this, my oh-so-ordinary life.. and every Gorgeous Speck of Wisdom it is just waiting to Impart . ....

begin it...

i have been giving this "occupation" thing a second (and third & fourth adnauseum) thought. even as the movement itself seems to have come to a blustering standstill ( an uproarious victory, one might coo, for the powers of "same as it ever was"... and "let's all just keep get back to the business of polishing the damn brass of our individual state's rooms onboard this here titanic"..).. but really.. the movement, as such, has left an indelible impact on the larger conversation, and on the one that continues daily in my own mind... and the words go something like this.. what is it, then, to occupy this space? to begin to radically re-imagine a world, a society, a culture, a people, or even an individual life on a grand scale? and i begin to think.. that the truly radical work begins on this very small, cellular level. the devil's in the details and, indeed, the angel's got her fingers in the minutea. for we have been told, again & again, in so many varying tones, that we are to be defined by our jobs, our social status, the car we drive, the people & politics with which we associate ourselves, the damn clothes we wear, the shit we buy or do not buy. hell, even the "Organic Movement" has managed to do little more than turn our thoughts toward another mode of CONSUMPTION. But what is it, really, to stand, un-accessorized, stripped down, raw, messy, scrappy - unswathed in any pat answers or a cure.. but just to live, radically, simply, rooted at the very center of your life??? what is it to show up, day after day, and say something.... I've read somewhere that the most revolutionary act one can accomplish is to Finish A Sentence. So. With that in mind, that is what I herein intend to do. To show up at the page each day... To begin the painstaking process of radically, authentically inhabiting the center of my life... in all its' ordinary, nitty-gritty splendor. ... Because it is Monday ( a nasty, nosy bitch of a day if ever there was one) and because at any given moment there is so much to do - such business that calls to us... start a diet, an exercise plan, do the laundry, clean the damn house, fill out job applications, learn to knit.... and i am coming to believe that the truly powerful thing is to stand, rooted in a certain stillness.. do not pass go, do not collect one hundred dollars... and forgive me, dear reader (whoever you are...) but do not even stop to edit or revise, nor determine how good a thing may be.... Natalie Goldberg writes: writing memoir is a very stupid thing to do. ..... there are a thousand other more logical ways to spend one's time... and yet... it is exactly what i intend to do... today and tomorrow... and all the many days after that. to show up, fill the page, keep my hand in motion.. until i can feel that this little piece of psychic real estate i've been granted.. has been indeed,, properly.. thoroughly.. authentically.. messily & ravenously... Occupied. Perhaps if, collectively, we could all begin to live in such a way - writing, spinning our lives into existence from the inside out - A Movement - may once again take flight. .....

digging...

oh yes gentle reader.. it's that special time again. for i've got a hankerin', a yearnin', an itch a-waitin' to be scratched, a bone just achin' to be picked... oh yes. i've. got. beef.

we all have those folks - those special people in our lives - who, by their very presence, invoke great feelings of "less-than-ness", inadequacy, bring up all our little skeletons and insecurities and ask us to have a dance with them... spending time with my own skeletal choreographer i feel the pot begin to stir once more.. and i am obliged to take a look inside.. and see just what strange meats... are cooking, barely simmering below the surface.. once again..

my grandmother loves to tell this story: when i was 1, diapers, drooling & onsie territory, mind you.. guests and family would come over to our small house, upon glancing at my "darling" infantile self, would remark to me and my beaming mommy.. "Oh, what a beautiful baby!".. to which my pudgy face would screw up in disgust & malice.. the slobbering mouth would usher forth the pronouncement in the offending direction: I NOT A BABY!!!..... as in "f*#k you! how dare you?!?!? i am a child of God... made from the same stuff as moons and comets, i can scoot on my on damn ass all the way across this here room, form new sounds and sentences each day and wail - WAIL!!!! - with the fury of a thousand caged yet wild & ferocious creatures!!!" ... "Sure I may need to be picked up and have my own ass wiped by others but really.. really... A baby??!?!! a bAbY!!!! Why you gotta be talkin' that shit on me???"

A glistening preview of things to come I suppose.. to this day, if anyone, other than a well-meaning, gray-haired, bespectacled diner waitress condescends to call me "Sweetheart" or "Hon" , it's enough to send me into minor coniptions.

And so this other, this mirror, my Perfectly-Wrought-Iron-Stirrer-of-Pots... in the garden of life she is a Tulip.. growing orderly, methodically, beautifully, Just So, and according to Formula, adhering to the proper amount of Sun & ratio of Water & Nutrients.. abiding contentedly in the Goldilocks Zone.... whilst I.. (and let's face it, while it does take two to tango - much of this may very well just be in my own mind...) I grow wistfully outside the well-tended flower box.. existing on random bits of sunshine, the company of squirrels, and the whims & well-wishes of god... A dandelion.. who can see the beauty of the Tulip for all that it possesses.. clean lines, good breeding, an arduous attention to detail.. but carries no desire.. to cross over to that world.. this lovely, gracious Being whose very presence feels, at times, like an eternal pat on the head, each word uttered a well-meaning "SWEETHEART". ...under whose good-omened palms I slightly shudder...

And so i fumble for a minute.. sucking down water, flailing of arms & legs, spitting up mucous in this - the endless, salty sea of iNsECuRiTy....... but I hold up hope.

Because I think in the end.. and this is my lesson, as well, dear reader.. I think we all just want to be seen - for the unique, messy & glorious beauty which we all contain.. not to be formed, or compared to another.... but to simply be beheld.. in all our infinite, hair-brained beauty..

So as the Tulip beams proudly, steadfastly, gorgeously upward & on..

the Dandelion gently chides.. No. no,I am not a weed. I am an oracle - a granter of wishes, a gracious dancer, a witch's scruff, a fairy's wings, a dragonfly's mane.. I am glorious.. to the one who truly seeks to behold me.. Kindly tilt your head a bit & have a closer look... and if you do me this small kindness..Ican promise you this.. I'll also do the same.
...........