watch your actions and thoughts

I am making some kimchi right now, with a giant daikon from my garden, as well as baby carrots, onion, another trype of radish, and turnip. I purchased Napa cabbage, peppers, and garlic from the coop. This time I splashed a bit of fish sauce into the mix, as that is a very traditional ingredient to kimchi. I think it will turn out beautifully.

What I really need to do is clean out all the ferments I have in the refrigerator. There are all sorts of goodies in there, some of which may be past their prime.

I went out looking for Ford Ranger trucks yesterday, as fremenine went to an old friend's wedding in Mankato and I had some time to do this important search. It was a flop; one person I called told me her truck just had the "service engine" light turn on so she wanted to get it checked out, one truck just stunk, and another I had found on craiglist was just sold. Since I had driven 30 minutes to find one of the trucks sold at the lot, I decided to call the next place on my agenda, and found out that they had lent the truck out to a friend and he had forgotten to return the key with the truck. So no go on that one for now, plus it is all the way down in Savage which is like a 45 minute drive, so I don't know about checking it out at all.

All in all, I think maybe the spirits are telling me something about Ford Rangers.

I think I am going to get my shoes on and go buy some flower at the farmers market.

time...is on my side

Yes it is!

To reflect on time has been the essence of this 30th year of my life. Perhaps all of us who reach thirty years of age are somewhat amazed. Of course, years are an relatively arbitrary invention, but that doesn't mean that a year is not intensely important to our souls, bodiess, hearts. The impact of time is still being deciphered, age after age.

To follow my sweetheart, fremenine, to follow my Ecstatic Heart, to follow the stories of my friends and family, to follow my garden, to follow the path, to follow the seasons and cycles of life through time is all there is. It seems that, at least in so-called "civilized" cultures, we try to sort of ignore the passage of time, try to make light of it, but time, and his sister space, are what we have to work with here, and if we work with them poorly, life will be poor, uninspired, ugly. If we want beautiful, inspired, joyful living, we can't ignore the impact of time.

There is a natural time and unnatural time. We are stuck in unnatural time because of our jobs, lifestyles, societal pressures, and so on. This is not necessarily the worse thing that could happen to humanity, although it may be, but how do we work natural time into our lives, to struck some sort of cosmic balance?

It is a question that is hard to answer. Perhaps there is no answer, only striving toward balance.

If there is one thing I have learned in my 30th year it is this: To utterly relax and enjoy the passage of time is an infinitely valuable skill.

If there is another lesson I have learned it is to follow my heart, always, no matter how hard it is.

If there is one last thing I have gleaned in 2009 it is to allow all things to just be, to be aware as much as possible, and in that open awareness to follow my bliss toward love.

The desires to define, box in, codify, win, acquire, name, and possess are all related pressures. I feel three words can best describe my inclination toward these desires right now.

Let it go.

end

beginning

triage

I found some words I wrote a few years ago that resonated with me.

Sleep like a baby
Dream like a boy
Live like a man

thunder and lightning

I woke up this morning, back in my comfy bed in Minneapolis, to crashing thunder and pouring rain that echoed my pounding heart in a chaotic swirl of elemental energies. When I was away, as I read a story about the North Wind zapping the Daughter of the Sun with lightning, a symbolic knife that cuts her into her elemental pieces, her most basic intrinsic beings, tornadoes whirled through Minneapolis without warning. Nobody was hurt, but the reminder is there: Nature, the life force, is always present and strong, and Chaotic Time is sometimes the instigator of change.

I did have a vision on my quest, but it wasn't necessarily about it me, it was about my place on this Tree of Life, my story in the big story. I have found a path that I will follow, but it is no big thing, it is just what we all must to do live our lives in love.

I did have realizations and insight into my own personal journey, and it was very helpful to have some time to understand these things, our lifelines, our story patterns. In a way, I feel like trying to relate these insights and thoughts right now will not be helpful to me, as if I am nurturing a seedling and I need to grow it to a certain height before I can begin to harden it off outside in the real weather of the world. Also, the written word is not as alive as the spoken, and I would like to explore my connection to the life of communication via the spoken word for awhile, which may mean that I post less on this blog.

Suffice it to say, right now, that I have the intention to follow the Ecstatic Heart on my journey, my storyline on the great tree of Life. From what I can tell, the Ecstatic Heart is the spirit of all that I believe, and has many other names, but is essential to the creation of love. In a few months, I may discard my ideas for new ones, as we all do, but that is fine as well, because underneath all of my ideas, concepts, and philosophies, there is the pulse of the ecstatic heart, my soul, my spirit. Everything I do comes out of that great well of life.

Even writing those last words illustrates the difficulty of relating my experiences. So I will stop now and wish you a beautiful day, full of good heart and tasty stories.

The thing that men don't understand is that women see things more clearly, more in tune with what is really happening, here, on earth. We want to believe that our reasoning can make sense out of all this madness.

Jingwakoki

Off in a week to seek the vision that will guide me through the rest of my life.

all one

Seeing the dharma is like seeing a river for the first time. Each drop of water holds in it the essential nature of the entire river, and each river is merely a collection of the ten thousand drops of water. And when one starts to see the dharma of the river, one can't help but see the dharma of the lakes and seas, the earth and sky, and so forth. And when one can see the dharma in oneself, then we have a buddha. When seen in someone else, we have sangha. In terms of interdependent origination, they are all one thing.

I am tired today, and it is going to be dark and rainy, which is fine.

Christoga

Holy fucking shit:

spineless

The moon is full. The tides pull us out to sea, that salty brine that gave birth to us vertebrates. It has been a cool week, a cool summer, and the leaves have grown long in the sun. Fruits hang perilously on branches.

I wake up and my spine is stiff. I sit and drink my dark coffee. My spine softens as the day unfolds. I haul heavy stones and move gravel and soil from place to place. My spine becomes weary. Soreness, an ache that leaves me breathless for relaxation. And I wonder, would I relax as much without the hurt?

I long for isolation. Words drop from my mouth that do not mean anything. I feel forced to explain my every word and action. I would rather sit and watch the loons dive into the chilly waters of a lake left by ancient glaciers, sit on a rock moved by crawling frozen water from one place to another, my spine straight.

cosmic moments

We have all had cosmic moments, indeed. In the last few years, I can attest to a handful that have left me breathless and mindful of what exists beyond my perceptions. I enjoy my senses, but I have a sense that there is a world of energy that exists beyond them, or perhaps only beyond what I have understood to be my own sensory limitations.

I have sat in my car on a busy street in St. Paul, Minnesota, and had the distinct pleasure of melting away from myself, and into all that surrounded me. What I was experiencing was ego death, perhaps, and an expansion of my boundaries. I felt as if I was everything around me, the people, trees, sidewalk, air, all of it. It was almost as if I had been holding myself back all of my lifetime, and finally had understood that I could let go. The ease of slipping into the cosmic moment. To feel deep compassion for the life force that surrounded me. To see myself in the eyes of others. I felt connected, my heart opening, pouring out as well as being poured into. Love is endless, the ultimate renewable energy source. I expanded outward, until I felt my boundaries reaching space, which is when I put on the psychic brakes and came rushing back into this body, this ego that has pushed me along my life path. This ego that I love, but that exists to feed itself, a snake eating it's tail, if you will. I felt constricted, comfortable once again.

I have been aware of time as the formation of crystalline moments, time as space unfolding like flower petals, every drop of liquid an essential life force, a consciousness, a player in this cosmic game of energy. I have become aware of my movements, the pumping of my heart, the expansion of my lungs, my eyes darting to and fro, the air moving against my skin; all of this illuminated by great gasping waves of time, time that doesn't exist as a parsed linearity, or a diced up mathematical goulash, but as the very essence, the endless Now of Zen, the last breath of our lives being spent so quickly and slowly, a glacial hummingbird sucking the nectar of life.

Once, my eyes opened in the morning, and I realized that I was still dreaming. This whole play of the dream we call reality. This play of reality we call a dream. We believe we have woken up, but only until we understand that we are dreaming are we really, truly awake.

I have seen places in between the pages of what we call reality and have wondered incessantly about these mysteries. My best guess: Life is the Art of Energy. Visionary, Mystic, Poet, Artist: all have been cracked opened, intentionally or not, and have experienced the dreamtime. They have attempted to bridge the gap. The calling of the endless openness drones on in the ears of those who have awoken to something more then themselves.

Consciousness is in everything, I have thought. The rocks and the hummingbird, even the TV and a spoon have spoken to me. I have decided to open my heart to this dream in order to understand and connect to the endless openness, rigpa. All I can do is live my life as well as I know how to, and open my heart to this beautiful dreamtime. My best effort is all I know.

It is raining and
our garden is
the most beautiful thing in the world

raindrop thoughts

I am reading a lot of books simultaneously these days, almost as if I am returning to a place I left a long time ago, a cast aside fragment of who I used to be; an avid reader. Reading is one of my most consistent pleasures, an activity I can look forward to with delight, especially if I have found an intriguing new book at the used bookstore or library, and have an entire afternoon free to sit around, munch on snacks, and just read. I love to read, and I am not sure where I got this tendency. I am sure that, down the DNA coil, an ancestor of mine was a writer, perhaps a spiritual scholar, somebody who understood that the written word, if nothing else, was an incredibly dynamic way to forge endless connections between all the thoughts in your head and feelings in your bones. I read to understand, I read to plant new seeds, I read to relax.

Now, the reading I have been doing lately has turned me on to some serious topics, such as the mystery of time, the mystical nature of space, and the magical reality of the Dreamtime. So many of the ideas, feelings, and words that have been born from the books I have read over the past few years have coalesced inside of me that I feel like I am entering a new stage of life, one in which I would like to erase all of my previous words, as well as all my previous foolish actions in life, and start all over, anew, fresh as talcum powder on a baby's bottom. I know this is a common feeling throughout the history of humanity, so I am not as troubled by it as I could be, but man oh man, wouldn't it be nice to really start over? I want to let the world know that I am a new man, but of course, the world doesn't believe it until it sees it. In any case, we are always becoming new, being reborn, every second, every day, every decade. The newness is the breath of life, the gift of time.

Sometimes we feel like we are stuck in the same old routine over and over again, and I have felt that way a lot in my life. But I am beginning to See that, it isn't life that is monotonous, it is us. But the blame doesn't lie solely on our souls, the monotonous and bizarre patterns of modern life are enforced upon us by the entire thrust of Western culture, especially in the wake of the Industrialization of human culture, utilizing the Gregorian calender and the atomic clock to squeeze individual life paths into convenient little boxes that can be utilized efficiently to milk the last bit of energy from the planet. This, of course, is not sustainable nor is it desirable to most of the people of the planet.

How many of us want to be able to sleep until we are rested, when we need to? Why is this solely the prerogative of the wealthy? Shouldn't rest be a human right? There have been a lot of improvements in the work week, due in large part to the courageous individuals who sought to improve the quality of workers lives, in opposition to the machines that ran them. Behind these ideas are thousands of words, many books by many people who have realized the essential fallacy of the workweek, the calendar, and even time as proscribed by the machine. We are not machines, so why are we run by them?

When we latch onto the paradigm presented to us by the established machines of power, I feel that we have already given up. Of course, we have to latch onto the machine somewhat in order to function well in this culture, but in our personal life paths, we don't need to at all. But it seems that we are cosmic monkeys of habit, and when we punch out at the end of the day, we punch in to our own schedules, schedules still prescribed by the power machine, the media machine being simply the screen through which we are taught what to do. What to do with our time, time as a linear sequence of events that end in death. And in allowing this idea of time to rule our every moment, we are pushing the natural, spiritual path of human fulfillment out of our way as we pursue material wealth.

We are human beings, and we are conscious, we think. We can feel love, we can feel energy of all sorts, and we can be agents of a permacultural way of life, instead of blind servants to a dying machine. We can work on our life as if it were a miraculous garden, and with this commonplace miracle understand that the entire cosmos is life itself, awareness itself, the ultimate manifestation of the dream. Or we can ignore this and pursue our own power over death, the ego's never-ending life, in the paradigm of the machine.

The machine interacts with us through the screen, telling us that it is real life, and in some ways, maybe most ways, we would be better of as living beings doing away with the screen between us and actual life. Of course, the irony is not lost on me as I sit here, typing my thoughts on a screen. We have developed our technologies to a degree that they seem indispensable to our modern ways of life. I do feel that the most interesting old cultures are the ones that can adapt most successfully to the technological realities of modern life, and yet still retain all the spirit of their ancient ways, and in that sense I believe that our technologies can be returned to the status of being tools as opposed to being the whole game, tools that better our lives. Essentially we are all cyborgs already, what with glasses, shoes, cars, houses, all the technologies that allow us to live. That is a subject to be explored, one that is too vast for this blog entry.

I dedicate this blog entry to the eradication of modern time, and the return of the myriad time spheres of the earth; hummingbird time, walrus time, redwood time, grass time, love time, star time, heart time, sleeping time, cooking time, eating time, building time, sex time, dance time, singing time, sipping time, snow time, wind time, magic time, sad time, pain time, fish time, raindrop time, wolf time, shitting time, anger time, kissing time, raven time, truck time, oil time, limestone time, death time, hunting time, meditation time, writing time, reading time, weaving time, buddha time, cat time, fire time, and of course, the Dreamtime, our life time.