Monday, December 10, 2007

Holiday Shop

Another holiday shopping season unfolds. I have little involvement with it, but happened to read an essay* about a 'Mall Quest' teaching experience offered by Elias Amidon.

In 1993 I attended a 'Vision Quest' experience offered as a class-for-credit through Naropa Institute. Elias was one of the three wise teacher/guides who accompanied my group of students. This week-long wilderness experience took place in the canyonlands of southeast Nevada. During this time, I spent three days and nights outside by myself in a on the edge of a wide canyon with a couple jugs of water, sleeping bag, and plastic tarp. Sleeping under the full moon without a tent was magical. The experience of interconnection to the entire living planet can be illuminated in the wild or in the mall. Elias quotes a chant voiced by one of his students at the start of the mall quest:

Sacred Mother Mall,
Provider of All,
Give us what we need,
Satisfy our greed.

The mission of the mall quest was to wander in silence while observing physical and emotional reactions to whatever signs or symbols touched the unconscious. Elias comments:

As I entered the mall I felt an astounding difference from any other time I had been there. By maintaining mindfulness, the environment became psychedelic in its intensity. A thousand simultaneous messages flooded in : colors, images, words, sounds, smells, movement, everything beckoning for attention: "Buy me! Buy me!" Each storefront was bursting with abundance, the entire mall a cornucopia. I breathed calmly and witnessed this extraordinary onslaught. It was like entering a mythic underworld, an astral realm where begins wandered perpetually shopping for things to fill an unassuageable void within them. I cautioned myself not to judge, just to witness. It was difficult. I knew that every product in this vast sea of products had left a trail of disruption somewhere in the world: forests clearcut, exhaust smoke in the air, bulldozers flattening some creature's habitat, noise breaking a tranquil morning, oil sheen in the puddles. What were we doing? Is it really worth it? A hundred years ago in this spot, I would have been looking out on a tall-grass prairie running up to the foot of the mountains, there to join with the conifer forests. Antelope and buffalo would be wandering here.

He comments on finding a colorful puzzle of the earth, printed with these words...

In the end we will conserve only what we love:
we will love only what we understand;
and we will understand only what we are taught.

If the elders are addicted to the trinkets of commercial culture....who will teach the young?

What do we love anyway?

* Essay from DHARMA RAIN: Sources of Buddhist Environmentalism, edited by Stephanie Kaza and Kenneth Kraft, Shambhala Publications, 2000

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Good Songs

I often prefer silence, but sometimes, rock and roll (this refers to anything I like) is necessary and I have been listening to these songs lately.....

Heart of Glass (Puppini Sisters)

Old Man (Neil Young)

I Summon You (Spoon)

Summertime (Janis Joplin)

Eleanor Rigby (The Beatles)

Take Me To The River (Talking Heads)

Egg Cream (Lou Reed)

I'm Looking Through You (The Wallflowers)

The Future (Teddy Thompson)

Don't Let Him Waste Your TIme (Jarvis Cocker)

Sunlight (The Youngbloods)

Rehab (Amy Winehouse)

King Of The Road (Rufus Wainwright)

There Is A Mountain (Donovan)

Gimme Shelter (Patti Smith)

Turning The Page...

A few titles I have been reading lately...

Wabi Sabi: The japanese art of impermanence (Andrew Juniper)

Shambhala: The sacred path of the warrior (Chogyam Trungpa)

Open To Desire:
Embracing a lust for life (Mark Epstein)

Breaking Open The Head
: A psychadelic journey into the heart of contemporary shaminism (Daniel Pinchbeck)

How To Expand LOVE:
Widening the circle of loving relationships (His Holiness the Dalai Lama)

Perfect Love Imperfect Relationships: Healing the wound of the heart (John Welwood)

Pronoia Is The Antidote For Paranoia (Rob Brezsny)

Zen Path Through Depression (Philip Martin)

Sit Down and Shut Up (Brad Warner)

Recollection Of My Life (Diane diPrima)

The Three Pillars of Zen (Philip Kapleau)

Strange Ritual (David Byrne)

Coney Island Of The Mind (Lawrence Ferlinghetti)

You Have To Say Something (Dainin Katagiri)

Quirkyalone: A manifesto (Sasha Cagen)

The Secret Life Of The Lonely Doll:
The search for Dare Wright (Jean Nathan)

The Diving Bell And The Butterfly ( Jean-Dominique Bauby)

No Logo (Naomi Klein)

Florence Broadhurst (Helen O'Neil)

The Creative Habit (Twyla Tharp)

Natural Cures (Kevin Trudeau)

Monday, September 24, 2007

Watching the Screen

A few films and cable series I have watched lately...

Modligliani
Fast Food Nation
Volver
The Namesake
Children of Man
My Architect
Little Children
Freedom Writers
Fur
Because I Said So
The Painted Veil
Away With Her
Bagdad ER
Jonestown
Once
Rescue Me (Season 3)
Sicko
Summer of Love
Weeds (Season 2)
Maxed Out
The Waitress
Amargosa
Everything Is Illuminated
51 Birch Street
Crazy Sexy Cancer
Nip Tuck (Season 4)
Somersault
Interview

Year of the Dog
Tales of the City (1 and 2)

Two Days In Paris
Matthew Barney: No Restraint

Eyeglasses Required

Has anybody else noticed the oversized late 1980s eyewear is coming back in 2007? And the term geek seems to be used a lot lately. I made this assemblage a couple years ago when I noticed the similarity of the specs. I collect found pictures and make a few myself using an archaic 35mm Pentax camera.

Wikopedia claims...The definition of geek has changed considerably over time, and there is no definite meaning. The social and rather derogatory connotations of the word make it particularly difficult to define.

A definition common among self-identified geeks is: one who is primarily motivated by passion, indicating somebody whose reasoning and decision making is always first and foremost based on his/her passions rather than things like financial reward or social acceptance.

Geeks do not see the typical geeky interests as merely interesting, but as objects of passionate devotion. The idea that the pursuit of personal passions should be the fundamental driving force to all decisions could be considered the most basic shared tenet among geeks of all varieties. Geeks consider such pursuits to be their own defining characteristic.

Yes.

The geek on the left is Bill Gates...brainy billionaire brandman. On the right is a former version of me....more quirky than geeky, something that is more true over time as my choices and lifestyle are decidedly unconventional.

Monday, September 10, 2007

No Plastic Bag


Where do they all go?

One small action at a time

Take that canvas tote.

Monday, September 3, 2007

Sunday Bike Ride


Lush Ellicott Creek

Warm breezy cool jade water

Eighteen mile pedal.

Monday, August 20, 2007

Remember Simon Luna


Sun rises sun sets

Don't forget the lineage

Wake up wake up now.

Friday, August 17, 2007

Crazy Sexy Cancer


Healthy and well now

No evidence of disease

Moment by moment.

Friday, July 6, 2007

Reflection

Self-reflection becomes tedious.

Listening to Arcade Fire's Black Mirror...my latest favorite music.

Mirror mirror on wall...

I admit to possession of five substantial mirrors hanging in various locations...not counting the very large one attached to the dining room wall and smaller one on the medicine cabinet door.

A heavy squarish one with pale grey art deco base was once the mate to a vintage dresser I was given when I moved into my East Village apartment the summer of 1979. Over the years, I painted and re-painted the walnut wood with red, white, black, grey. The functional piece had annoying sticky drawers and I dropped it at my local Goodwill store before leaving Denver in 2005.

The rectangle framed in weathered aqua wood was captured at a Denver flea market in 2001.

Another with an avocado green architectural frame is back in my life again. Found in a New York junk shop during the 1980s, then passed on to the family cottage in 1992, I wound up with it again when I found myself furnishing my new life in Buffalo.

Hanging by the back door is an oval mirror attached to a silver plywood backing. It features a question handwritten in red lipstick...Who are you? Originally one section of a five-part installation shown at Boulder Artists Gallery in 1993.

Most recently acquired at a garage sale down the street is another detailed wood frame painted my favorite metallic silver.

Mirrors reflect vanity, curiosity, disconnection, unity. The universe is my mirror.

Sunday, June 3, 2007

When I'm Sixty-Four

I am a bad blogger, but I am back. I enjoy the process...still, I tend to drop away. Lack of discipline.

When The Beatles entered my consciousness at age eleven, Paul was ten years older than me. Five years later we heard him sing When I'm Sixty-four on the Sgt. Pepper album and it was very funny because it was an inconceivable notion at the time.

I was moved to see a lengthly article in the latest issue of The New Yorker all about Paul's upcoming June 18th sixty-fifth birthday and the fortieth anniversary of The Lonely Hearts Club Band. I still have my original vinyl record and I am listening to it now. I have not read the article, but I will.

Tears streamed down my face when I saw the gorgeous photo of a weathered Paul McCartney at sixty-four (nearly sixty-five). This response has nothing to do with Beatlemania. It has everything to do with the heartbreaking beauty of reality. Despite the dyed hair with just a splash of silver at the temple, there is no denying the passage of time on Paul's face. He wears a dark high-collar shirt and the pose is reminiscent of the Meet The Beatles cover.

A line from The Velveteen Rabbit speaks well to this...
Real isn't the thing you were born with. It's what happens to you.

Life on the planet seems to have a way of shaping us. The eastern Wabi Sabi defines true beauty as rooted in the mark of imperfection. It does not reveal itself until the winds of time have had their say. True beauty is in the cracks, the worn spots, and crooked lines.
I seek a little grace in my own weathered crooked reality.