Drifting Back

Parallel Drift...

Moving here and there...not necessarily ascending, gaining, improving. My attention drawn toward blogging on the election, enjoying the warmth of the summer, a month in Vermont, packing and relocating to a new home.

Beyond all that now. Winter solstice is approaching. The last full moon of 2008 has ripened. The aluminum sky of Buffalo winter has arrived. A string of tiny blue lights drape across a window. White lights circle a doorway. My tribute to the holiday season amazingly uplifting.

Well Enough

Forms of cancer, such as multiple myeloma, are often referred to as "chronic disease." Although I am healthy and well, there remains the potential for the cells to go haywire once again. I am relieved for now to know my most recent checkup tells me that all is well with my blood and bones. I move on with life with more and more confidence.

People who get sick do get better.

As a child, I was fascinated by the tale of Heidi in the Swiss Alps, especially the part about the crippled friend who is healed in the fresh mountain air. As a young woman, I tasted the pioneering hippie towns in the Rocky Mountains on my way to California, but it was not until years later that I found my way to Red Feather Lakes to visit the Shambhala Mountain Center.

During my last visit there six years ago for a Thanksgiving weekend meditation retreat, I joined a guided group hike on a crisp afternoon. The leaves crackled underfoot as we silently wandered the land. After climbing a steep trail, the guide instructed us to keep eyes shut while she lead each of us up to a ridge. We were then asked to repeat the phrase...This is my mountain home...three times before opening our eyes to the most unexpected vista.

Awestruck and inspired, I swallowed the words whole. This is my mountain home.

Refreshed and renewed, I returned to my city home in Denver. One year later I grew mysteriously ill. Diagnosed with multiple myeloma, I spent the following year in-and-out of hospitals, treatment, and healing. Now residing far from the high altitudes in my hometown on the edge of the Great Lakes, Niagara Falls and Erie Canal...I am well.

My landlord recently died and I must soon move out of my lovely rental home. Packing belongings now, I carefully wrap the small square painting on my wall...tin toy airplane affixed to blue-grey painted wood with collaged words at home in the world. Made fifteen years ago, it has become integral to my mobile environment that has been moved from one dwelling place to another.

Being well is being at home in the world, moment-by-moment, living with impermanence.

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

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)

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.

No Plastic Bag

Where do they all go?

One small action at a time

Take that canvas tote.

Sunday Bike Ride

Lush Ellicott Creek

Warm breezy cool jade water

Eighteen mile pedal.

Remember Simon Luna

Sun rises sun sets

Don't forget the lineage

Wake up wake up now.