Mare Pacificum and The Ent

Christmas Day, 2007 led D and I on pilgrimage to the coast. The wide, glorious ebb and flow of Charybdis’ belching tides careened and smashed into the craggy cliffs where the mountains cool their toes. The Oregon seaside was white-gray with clouds and the waves: huge. The biggest waves I have ever seen- breaking far out beyond the black today towering coast rocks, folding over the velveteen aqua-seafoam rippled crests, carrying driftwood to the cliff base for smoothing...Glorious Tiamat swirling and stirring her sea to anger.

The sky’s white met the sea-white horizon, hanging a haze over the dripping, cool, but somehow warm(?) day…and the greens! My goodness! The greens! Every evergreen that ever evered seemed to grow here by the ocean….and the sea took great delight in her bonsai art, sweeping conifers into permanant wind blown shapes. And so many greeny green green trees are cloaked in their winter lichen velour wear. A little finch with bright yellow rock-n-roll eye makeup flitted about for her photoshoot.

On the Visit to the Ent

Reluctantly leaving the coast, and tip-top full drunk on Sea Vibe, we headed back toward Portland. And there on route 26, surprisingly was a sign that pointed to the oldest Sitka spruce in the country, who, at 750 had just last week been severely damaged in a vilent storm. We U-turned and pulled off the road, crossed a little bring and there he was…it was as though we’d entered a hushed cathedral- the nearby road noise pushed out by the sanctity of the place, adn no other humans near. His enormous wide base and trunk was nubbled and lichen covered and branches finally spread out near his top. A searing gap had opened in the tree about ¾ of the way up the trunk, cutting a deep spiral gouge, and the platform was littered with bloody, meaty, sawdust-like wood-tissue. Even though the tree and his wooden platform had been roped off due to falling branches (and perhaps a final whole-tree fall), we took our chances, ventured close, caressed, sent love, bowed and honored the spruce in all his grandeur. He was surrounded by his towering, vibrant, full grown children…standing watch, holding vigil for him.

After the Storm

So I haven't posted in forever... My beloved took these amazing pics in Portland, Oregon- just after that big storm came through this week...Mount Hood and the Port of Portland...

In the Spring We Eat Cucumbers

We must have beginner's mind, free from possessing anything, a mind that knows everything is in flowing change. Nothing exists but momentarily in its present form and color. One thing flows into another and cannot be grasped. Before the rain stops we hear a bird. Even under the heavy snow we see snowdrops and some new growth. In the East I saw rhubarb already. In Japan in the spring we eat cucumbers. -Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Music is a continual state of becoming - Aaron Copeland

So far, so good this week. Class was fun, and brushing up on this theory stuff is only going to be good medicine. Plus, I have designs (hee hee) on putting up a theory site, basically, just a way to solidify the studies for myself. How nerdy am I?

Rehearsal today with R, harp, cello, etc, and we’ll be open to Gabby Faure visiting.

I'll Have Another Ordinary Sunday, Thank You...

I am up painfully early, especially for a Sunday, and have been whiling away several hours doing nothing but tea-ing. I was doing some mandatory printing of documents to help out D, and the printer ran out of ink. Thankfully.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed and excited about the mountains of work I have for this autumn: HGO, classes, lessons, coachings, and much fun creating recordings and original music for Toni's performance piece at DiverseWorks.

Very thrilled about this coming week’s recording session with Herr R and gang.

So I get these little Daily Dharma nuggets in my mailbox every morning. The one below, I like because it is the same about the practice of preparing the way for music to happen: I don't practice music, I practice the craft of creating a path for music to visit...

Tricycle's Daily Dharma: August 27, 2006

Awareness cannot be practiced.

Awareness cannot be practiced. There has been some confusion between awareness and mindfulness. They are related, but distinct. Sati, or mindfulness, implies there is action of the mind. We purposely set ourselves to pay attention to our minds. We exert effort. Awareness is different. Awareness is devoid of any action. The mind simply "awares." There is no action here, only a collected and spontaneous awareness that just "sees." Here, mindfulness is the cause, and awareness is the effect. You cannot practice or train the effect. You can only practice something that will cause it. We have to start with mindfulness so that awareness may arise in us.

- Thynn Thynn, in Living Meditation, Living Insight
from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book


Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Back from the weeklong trip to NY and NE. Tired and, as expected, having difficulties resuming my usual level of practice, discipline, activity. Motivation low.

House is clean. Tea is taken. On to practice.

Grateful is the day...

Ah, late morning rains finally relieve the pavement of her Texas July heat and serve a sacrament to our garden…

Oh, how I love the sound of the steady summer rains against the street, pattering the bougainvillea leaves outside my window..

Recording day looms, as in tomorrow…I’m feeling pretty darn good about it, actually. Feeling prepared, if only a tad nervous. I’m anxious to get my new system and explore recording onsite myself- very different both technically and musically from my recordings here at home…

Another red-letter day in the project success department for D. We live truly blessed lives…truly…

Summer Sizzle

The rains step into the morning

with their darkness and
kindness to the garden.

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Y’know, mean people suck. End of story, there. Bitter, mean people suck too. I guess in order to be mean you must be bitter also.

I continue to make gentle headway in dealing with difficult personalities. My tolerance for unacceptable behavior has lowered and my antennae to detect Nasty Types are becoming more fine tuned. I am very easy to work with, and I sometimes allow things to go too far before putting my foot down, but I am getting better at setting boundaries and figuring out what ‘too far’ is before I get there. This is facilitated by my increasing awareness of the creative direction my life is taking, coupled with my ability to manifest my creative work in the world.

Oh, yeah, and after seeing The Inconvenient Truth: Al Gore for President 2008!

Impossible is Nothing*

Monday, June 12, 2006

Basement time is history acting on us.

Ordinary time is awareness of time-flow.

Conscious time is knowing a present moment, and its extent.

Creative time is the future reaching back, pulling us towards it. – R. Fripp.

Not having a high pressure performance this weekend has helped me to take a good long look at my continued case of nerves. I wrote a blog entry that went unposted about some serious-ass performance anxiety, and how I did, or did not deal with it. Consequently, the incident that created so much anxiety went very well, and I did get the gig, so I must be doing something right. I am poised and graceful and professional, etc, etc, but it certainly does not feel like I am capable of doing my best with nerves shorting out my breath, and wiring me up.

One technique that occurred to my yesterday and that I will employ tonight, is based on acceptance. If acceptance is such a powerful state (golly, I have to find a better word for it, because acceptance, to me, feels like resignation. What about self-compassion? Hmmm….that sounds pretty good). So the idea is this: the anxiety seems to be exacerbated by wanting to change how I am feeling: I should be able to control this! Relax! It is ridiculous to be so nervous! Take deep breaths. You will do fine. This is not a critical situation, etc, etc. My encouraging internal litany goes on and on, and you know what? That fails miserably. So, what if I just observe my body’s reaction to the stress, without trying to employ techniques that attempt to change that physical state? What if I just say, Ok, this is how my body and mind are feeling right now. So what. I am not wholly those parts of me. They are like the ever changing cloud cover that sweeps across the sky- constantly morphing. I will observe, and be compassionate with myself under these stressful circumstances. Sort of like holding the hand of a terrified 2 year old. Just being there is enough. I am hypothesizing that attitude may rob the fight-or-flight state of some of its power. I have not tried it, so we shall see, and since I am my own Life-Lab, I am my own great, evolving, intriguing, exciting, experiment.

Looking forward to the drive to Galveston today.

*From a Nike commercial? I added it to my Oblique Strategies that are ever in my workspace.

Ah, Rilke!

My life is not this vertical hour
in which you find me in such haste
I am a tree in front of my own background
I am only but one of my many mouths
and the one which is the first to close
I am the silence between two sounds
that only with difficulty grow used to one another
for the tone of death also wishes to be heard
but in the darkness of the interval
they make peace with one another, trembling
and the song remains beautiful

Rainer Maria Rilke

From Gaelin 's blog

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Ah, early summer rainy days. It is pitter-pattering outside the bougainvillea window right now. Gray loomed and has now given way. I just love this wrapped up in the clouds and the wet and the banana leaves dripping late morning feeling.

Working on the recording for T. Made gobs of headway.

Early rising.

Surfing

How lame is it that I am just now staring Faith straight in the face? I’ve not being able to pinpoint how I lost Faith, or how long I went without It, and now, in seeing Its re-emergence in my life, I have to ask, ‘what is Faith?’ How did It re-emerge, or more likely, how did I miss that it was here all along? Ah, sweet awareness! I am still not sure what Faith is, though I suspect it has something to do with my reclaimed feeling of surfing the Tao.

You won’t hear me prattle about religious faith, cuz that’s not where I’m coming from- though I’d say I’m somewhat of a Zen Buddhist/Taoist/Yogi/Earth Mystic. Enough for ya? It is has been through a vigilant, practical practice of noticing that Faith has re-emerged in my life, or that I have re-emerged to It. Not through prayer or belief. In fact, I am seeing quite clearly that belief and Faith are not the same thing, no siree, Bob. I’ve been down the prayer/belief road and found well nigh nothing there for me- perhaps some inspiration in ritual, which I hold a special place for, but few practical tools for living my life. I needed more structure and practical direction to get the gist of where The Universe was coming from. I’m not saying the prayer thing is of no use, I’m saying either it doesn’t work for me as I understood it, or I did not know what prayer really was about.

Some of my current thoughts on what Prayer is not:

Mumbling some mumbo jumbo in a building with a bunch of other folks where everyone droning on together sounds like a devil worship scene from a 70’s horror flick or a bad made-for-TV version of an Orwell classic.

Prayer is neither wishing, asking, begging, nor entreating (I love when I get to use ‘nor’).

Some of my current thoughts on what Prayer is:

a verb.

a doing.

a noticing and an awakening.

ultimate responsibility and ultimate freedom.

working it out with The Universe.

Being.

Prayer is all the above and none of the above (that’s the zen answer, thankyouverymuch).

Sub ‘Faith’ for ‘Prayer’ above. Same results.

Mirror Me This

Y’know, I’ve been singing forever. For more than years. And it was not until I’d taken on this particular practise of music, this discipline, that I really found just that: Discipline. A practise that is morphing, affirming, grounding, frustrating, painful, and delightful- a mirror, every day, a mirror held up to Being:
It changes as I do, but I continue anyway.
It shows me brilliance, and I water anyway.
It shows me pain and limitation, and I weed anyway.
It shows me endless fields of undulating potential, and I tend to it anyway.
It is a real, daily discipline of faith and wonder and transformation:

These things, methinks, are the difference between the hobbyist and the aspirant.

One definition of success is that there is no distinction between success & failure - R. Fripp.

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Music doesn't need to be about anything. It simply is, and that is by far enough.

It’s A Matter of Balance*

The learning never ends, I say. Why would I assume that it does? As I continue to interface with the creative-types I’ve always been involved with, I am now noticing some patterns- the way some people want to suck me into their drama, suck me into their agenda, in their strange unfulfilled need to have me (or someone) see things from their perspective. Maybe it is because I am such an empath, maybe it is because I am keenly aware that one of my physiological trips is trying to find replacements for older siblings- and that often creates a situation where I put myself in subordinate relationships. At least now I am onto all that and I am not just blindly reacting. I am not trying to change someone else, but I am changing.

A decision changes the world - R. Fripp

I have a tendency to want to agree with my friends and associates. I am finding now that it is ok not to agree. It’s ok not to want what they want. Isn’t that funny? So basic. I think this is at least partly because I am now getting clearer and clearer on what I want, and less and less sympathetic to what other people may want to use me for to achieve their aims. It so happens that due to the above, I’ve become extremely good at helping others’ do their thing- and in some ways, I had scarified my own needs on that altar.

I’m guessin’ this is what boundaries are all about. I find it shocking that I’d not seen this before, that I had not known this. It seems so obvious. It does, however, take constant vigilance, confidence, good old fashioned gumption, the sure-footedness of standing my ground, and of course, the biggie: the ability to say no.

*It's a Matter of Balance, Jacob, one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite people, Larry Reidt.

Caterpillar on a Hot tin Roof

I managed an absurd amount of practice today as well as time for zazen, an hour of yoga, and a lovely M Park workout.

The garden is beautifully out of control, though the sunflowers now have a discouraging itsy-bitsy worm blight that is causing the blooms to barely open. Nature.

We’ve spotted another chrysalis on the cassia and are waiting for the emergence. Yesterday we spotted a big fat cassia caterpillar on a nearby firecracker fern. He was up-side-down and ready to do his chrysalis spinning. This morning, I saw him in lovely form- up-side-down, tail affixed to a fern stem, and head dangling by a silken thread- all systems, go! Well, lo-and-behold, by this afternoon his chrysalis was complete and I’d missed the whole thing! Some awareness!

Creative meetings an much practice ahead this week. All wonderment.

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Saturday, April 15, 2006
I am tired of giving my power over to others. I am tired of having words coming out of other people’s mouths influence how I feel about myself. It is an exhausting, defeating rollercoaster. Words are all well and dandy when they are strung together to create encouragement and praise, but when they are laced with negativity, either couched toward me or others, they bring me down, man. Can words be de-powerized? I don’t know. My instinctive answer is, ‘No’. Words are simply too powerful. They are the raw material for prayer, incantation, vows, poetry, literature and song, as well as the tools for deceit, lies, betrayal.

I am becoming more aware to hear others’ agenda for me in their words (both good intentions and otherwise), or others’ own weight, drama, baggage, failures and shortcomings, that they may want to project onto me, perhaps unwittingly, perhaps not. I cannot accept this. I think I have strongly relied on the praise and affirmation of others and I have sought that (who doesn’t?). If I am to reject negative projections that are created to saddle me with somebody else’s issues, I must also not be fed by the praise, resisting the lure of how praise makes me feel ‘good’. There must be a middle ground where I can accept affirmation, and not seek it out, where I can be impervious (is anyone?) to the negativity that drains my energy and depresses my spirit.

Bayou Bend

Yesterday D and I went to Bayou Bend to stroll through the lovely gardens there. He took a number of amazing pics, including this one to the right, and the one below, of these enormous and astounding sycamores. There is a glorious bridge that serves as the entrance to the gardens and house, both of which are easily missed at the end of a nearly hidden road, secreted away from busy Memorial Drive. The bridge traverses the chocolaty and tree shaded bayou, and is an undulating, wooden suspension bridge, that I adore. Beautiful unidentified trees spring from the muddy banks and wrap their shade across the slowly flowing water.

A zen moment overheard in passing, upon our exit across the bridge:
Mum: Isn’t this a cool bridge? Do you like it?
Baby Girl: Why?

It doesn’t get better than that, yes?
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Today we potted a cassia from M’s yard next door since he’s sold the house and it will be demolished soon. We’ll be getting more plants from over there…

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Mistakes are at the centre of learning. – Guitar Craft

Discipline is a vehicle for joy

I admit to being quiet here for sometime, having suspended a daily diary discipline, though I have been writing nearly daily and continue to work on a larger as yet unidentifiable work based on poetry/lyrics- suspending my desire to define what it may become, and keeping some of that creative meat out of the blog.

As evidenced by these stellar pics, our garden is rockin’. When these Moon pains have passed I plan to launch a bee photo vigil. We have a particularly enormous bumble bee who visits the front garden in the late afternoon. I like to think he is the same bee, and even the same bee from last year- our five o’clock bumblebee. Yesterday I attempted to photo the many honey bees, but the breezes kept the fuzzy purple salvia blooms waving, and it was truly impossible to capture the bees’ delicious and gentle roostings.

"All the universe is one bright pearl," said the Zen Master Dogen. "Even in the black mountain cave of demons, complete freedom is working."

Zen Master Caterpillar

I am so excited about this. The other day D & I spotted a large yellow with black spots caterpillar, all legs stuck to the underside of a branch on our lovely cassia. I thought he looked very like he was ready to start his transformation. The next day we saw that, indeed, he was beginning his morph. He hung upside-down, tail touching the skinny branch, and head suspended by his silky thread making. This pic if from today, and we’re so sorry we missed taking a before pic. But here he is now- all wrapped up in a cocoon so like the leaves of the cassia, I can hardly believe it. Oh! The Universe it its mad array of wonder and delight! Surely this is just the sort of thing that inspired stories of a Creator who ever so carefully and gently crafts each and every detail of Maya in Its cosmic workshop. The Creator who dabbed with Its brush just that last little brown spot on the tip of my cat’s nose before It sent her down from the celestial expanses to me. And easily, perhaps even more so overflowing with awe, and filled with wonder, is the cold and desolate vacuum of both All and Nothingness.- the random beauty and terror of everything evolving, alone, interdependent and One.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006
I had a dream I was writing or listening to a great poem I was working on…wanted to capture it in the dream, but could not.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is on a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.” – Martha Graham

Bats Rock

Bats rock. D took this cool pic today on our adventure. We went down to the Waugh St Bridge today for the first time to watch the sunset Emergence. Wow! There were, well, gazillions! Beautiful! Ok, so they were a little smelly. When we got there, we walked down and under the bridge accompanied by the sweet chirpy music of thousands of bat voices. Just a few minutes later they started emerging in, well, droves. Delight! And to think this is just minutes from my house! We also noted the presence of several very happy birds of prey who’d come to eat their dinner-time fill.

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Wednesday, March 08, 2006
One little glass of wine last nite and I go to bed with, and wake up with a headache. Ugh. Windy, warm, gray day today.

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Tuesday, March 07, 2006

I seem to continue to feel burned out. It is also my mooncycle which simply amplifies all my anxieties, tiredness, etceteras.

I find myself playing the same worn-out old tape over and over in m head: what am I doing? What should I be doing? Is what I do worth anything? Yadda, yadda, yadda. I generally do not feel this way, but over the last couple of weeks, with the ever so slow onset of my Moon, I seem to have ground to a halt and everywhere I look I see dead ends (not dead people!).

Or is this what is not so affectionately known as a wall?

Must allow this pass….Have returned to daily zazen. Curious, that the onset of these depleted feelings coincided with the lapse in my daily sittings, and the trail-off of my workouts.
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A little garden lesson
Our garden actually looks quite lovely this spring, considering we’ve put far less work into this year than last. D, of course, fusses over watering (gosh knows, I don’t!), and I did plant bunches of bulbs too early. The bulbs are actually now coming up, some are even blooming, and it is all looking rather lush. D, K (and sometimes I) did gobs of work over the last year and a half on the garden and now, lo-and-behold, that is all taking root (ha, ha), in a luxurious greengreen garden…funny, when you actuall plant something and tend to it, it grows! Imagine that!

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Just yet and another and another
Glorious Texas winterwinter day
Sun and skysky forever and everso
The loop at the park
3 miles of umber trail
Crunching and passing easily under my feet
I even notice the biggest of the pines
How did I miss that?
On so many runs
Like our very own Redwood sister in the South
And
Everyone checking everyone out
Mostly unwittingly
Some on purpose
Lots of shirtless muscley-ness
And magazine perfect women bobbing
In their stylish shorts and bra tippy-tops
The crème de la crème
There daily to train to compete
But I am here to keep
My pasta habit from
Causing me to have to buy
A bigger pair of blue jeans
Vanity is a task master

Then I see him walking, determined
Toward the water fountain
Inching toward the bubbler
In ordinary gray shorts and a shirt
{His grown son (I guess)
Walking easily behind him
Earphones tuning out the traffic and I don’t know what all else}
His arms are frozen
Bent at the elbows
Trembling hands
Touching crooked fingers brushing
Each foot shuffling
Forwardforward
Step step step inch step step inch step
Nearer the water
He is not old
But aging faster even as this day passes
Into late sapphire Houston afternoon
Faster under the merciless tutelage
The strict disciplinarian
That is the illness he carries
But he is even more relentless
On this maybe daily walk
Surely not heedless of his trembling chin
Surely not heedless of what I imagine is the pain in his body
Surely not heedless of his locking knees
The paralysis slowly
Slowly everso so slow and slower still still
Still
Freezes his legs
His arms
His hands
His face
But not his heart
Or does it?
But he does walk
Himself
In the sun today

My throat is terribly dry from the cool blue air
I so want a drink
But I pass
Afraid
And wonder what his name is

The Acorn & the Ego

It just doesn’t get cooler than this: Genesis Video. Very early Genesis: Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins and the boys. A rare glimpse at an acorn after the great oak has grown. WOW!
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I feel like I’ve been sitting around waiting for someone to tell me what to do. Giving over control to everyone else in my life, and using excuses to keep myself from taking control of my artistic direction. I’m beginning to have some concrete ideas about that…
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What does the ego-consciousness serve? How can ego-consciousness serve me?

A reminder from an article I found online in Enlightenment Magazine (which, incidentally, I never read):

Was ist "das Ich"?

An interview with James Hollis on Carl Jung
by Amy Edelstein

James Hollis Ph.D. is Executive Director of The Jung Educational Center of Houston, Texas. Hollis trained as a Jungian analyst in Zurich, Switzerland, and is the author of eight books and over forty articles on Jung's work. He has his own active therapy practice and travels around the country lecturing to audiences of students and peers on Jungian theories of human development and what he calls "the meeting point of psyche and soul."


WIE: What, according to Jung, is the ego?

JAMES HOLLIS: The ego as defined by Jung is the central complex of consciousness. When we hear the word "complex" we tend to think of something that's pathological, whereas all a complex really is, is an affectively charged cluster of energy. The complex of the ego begins to form when we first split off from the primal other, which is typically our mother; that is when we separate from the breast. And while that separation is necessary for the formation of the individual, it's also very painful because it's the loss of that early experience of unity and sense of primal belonging.

Jung saw the formation of the ego as essential for consciousness. Consciousness is predicated on the split between subject and object—to become conscious I have to know that of which I am not. I have to have a sense of "that over there" versus "this over here." He also saw the ego as a necessary agency of intentionality, focus and purpose. How is it that you and I arranged to meet at the same time to address the same subject? It was a function of "ego focus" that was critical for this conversation to occur.

The ego, as a complex, is extremely malleable and "invadable." When the ego gets invaded by contents from the unconscious, when it's in the grip of other complexes, it becomes insecure or power-driven, or whatever the case may be. You see, what we often call "ego" is really the ego under a state of possession by one or more of the complexes, such as a money complex, a power complex, a sexual complex or an aggression complex. These complexes are not an individual's core nature, but they do have the power to usurp or possess the ego.

WIE: In Jung's view, is the ego a positive, negative or neutral force in the personality?

JH: As I described earlier, the ego is a necessary formation for the creation of identity, consciousness, intentionality and purpose—all of which are pluses. The ego itself is not a problem. However, when it's in a state of possession by our insecurities, when it's in the grip of our history, it becomes neurotic, so to speak—it gets in the way. So the problem is not the ego; the problem is what happens to the ego. The perfect balance—if we could ever achieve it—would be an open ego state in dialogue with the other parts of the outer and inner world, where we could absorb messages from the culture, but not necessarily be subsumed by them, and we could also dialogue with the unconscious.

WIE: Do these complexes have a will of their own or do we, in the end, choose which complex predominates?

JH: Let's take an example: A person could say, "When I look at my history I see that there are certain patterns there. The only person who has been in every scene in the history of my life has been me, so I am somehow the manufacturer of those patterns. I can blame Western civilization or my parents, if I want to, but I have to recognize that somehow I am doing this." We'd say that that's good work by the ego because it's opening up dialogue with other parts of the psyche.

WIE: Is the ego, according to Jung, equivalent to who or what we refer to when we say "I"?

JH: Generally speaking, "who I think I am" is the ego state. But the problem is "who I think I am" can also be a complex. I could be born a slave and have the identity of a slave. The only time we're in a pure state of ego, I think, is when we're responding strictly reflexively to the moment. In an activity of sports, one is normally not in a complex. One could be at the batter's plate so filled with anxiety that one couldn't swing the bat, but usually in the moment of the ball's flight, one is wholly absorbed and present to the moment. That's a pure ego state.

WIE: Would Jung's pure ego state be equivalent to a condition where we were in touch with reality directly as it is?

JH: Yes, that's right. In that sense it would be not unlike the Zen concept of "no mindedness"—it's just pure being. And yet to function in culture, we need an ego that allows us to structure time and organize our energies in service to certain abstractions like economics or service or whatever.

Jung's concept of the ego evolved over time. Early on he wanted, I think, to privilege the messages of the unconscious and to say that the job of the ego was to serve what the unconscious wanted. Later in his life he modified that and emphasized the need for ethical responsibility. For example, if I dream I'm murdering someone, I don't wake up and murder the person. I say, "What's that about?" That's a proper use of the ego—to serve as a conscious processing of life's experience, neither giving too much authority to the outer world, nor too much to the inner world.


WIE: What was Jung's view on the relationship between conscience and ego?

JH: Well, let me step back and I'll come around to that in a moment. You see, for Jung, the superordinate reality is what he called the "Self"—which is not to be confused with the ego. In the first half of life, our task is to develop an ego, a conscious sense of who we are that's strong enough to leave our parents and go out into the world and say, "Hire me, I can do that job"; "Have a relationship with me, you can trust me"; etcetera. If we fail to develop our ego awareness sufficiently, we remain children. The dialogue in the first half of life is the dialogue with the world: What does the world ask of me? But the second half of life, Jung said, was for the ego to develop a dialogue with the Self. The question then is: What does the Self ask of me?—which is much more of an interior dialogue, and one could say, a religious dialogue. Because the Self may very well wish one to go in a direction that the ego would prefer not to go in—a direction that might lead not to a path of self-aggrandizement but to a path of sacrifice. For example, if the summons of the Self is to be an artist, then chances are you're going to starve in our culture. And yet if that's what the Self is asking and the ego continues to fly off in the other direction, immense internal suffering is going to be the by-product. So ultimately, the ego would have to come to respect what the Self was asking. There would be an ethical and religious responsibility to dialogue with that and still live in the real world. And part of the task of the ego is to cope with the conflict that that could produce.

WIE: What is the Self according to Jung? Is it that which represents or calls us to realize our highest potential as human beings?

JH: The Self would be the wisdom of the organism. The totality of the purposefulness of that which we are, which transcends consciousness.

WIE: You mentioned that in "dialoguing with the Self," one might discover that one's destiny was to become an artist. When Jung refers to this "summons of the Self," it seems that he is referring to that undertaking or role in life for which we are best suited, which utilizes our talents most fully, regardless of what it may be—and that it is not necessarily a summons to the spiritual path.

JH: Well, it would be our true vocation in the sense of the Latin vocatus—to be called. What is it that one is called to be, as a being, as a person?—which has very little to do with ego. History is full of people whose egos could have been well-served by the position they were in, but who felt some other kind of summons and had to leave that secure world in service to meaning or enlargement or depth.

WIE: What would you say would be the goal of Jungian psychology? Would it be to help us realize our highest potential?

JH: Yes. You see, for Jung the central metaphor was "individuation," which is so often confused with ego development. It isn't ego development—it's positioning the ego in relationship to that superordinate reality that we all are. Individuation means becoming that which the gods intended, not what the ego intended. And there can be quite a difference. When one says, "Not my will, but thine," that's the ego dialoguing with the Self. Now, the "Self" is a word like "God"—it is meant to be ambiguous; it's not referring to an entity, it's essentially referring to a mystery.

WIE: How does Jungian therapy help us cultivate the willingness and ability to respond to the call of the Self?

JH: Well, the by-product of not responding to the Self is symptomatology. When the Self is violated, it will show up in our relationships, it will attack the body, it will be in our dreams, it will produce emotional states. In other words, the symptomatology is a measure of the autonomy of the Self because it's saying, "Look, you are off course." And the purpose of therapy, whether it's formal therapy with a therapist or an individual process, is to pay attention to what those symptoms are saying. The Jungian approach to symptomatology is not to suppress but to ask, "What do they mean? Where is the wound and what is the corrective asked?" For example, it's not our goal to remove depression. Depression is really a way of saying some vital dimension of our life is not being lived.

We have some paintings in our institute by the Swiss painter Peter Birkhauser. When he first started out he was a graphic artist. He was very rational and thought modern art was anarchic and valueless. Then, at midlife, he went through a real depression. He went into therapy in Zurich, and his therapist asked him to start painting his dreams. He did, and this led to a whole different realm of creativity and to a different kind of art for which he became rather famous in Switzerland. This was an example of the Self critiquing the narrow range of his ego's understanding of himself. There are paintings in which he shows himself afraid of that creativity. One's called At the Door, where he's anxiously holding the door shut and at the other side of the door is this huge beast. Naturally the ego's going to be afraid to open that door—it's going to be eaten up! But the beast was his own calling, and when he opened the door, he was flooded with energy. So you can see why it's necessary for dialogue with the unconscious as well as with the outer world. And there's a need for the strengthening of the ego, so it can take on this dialogue, but not strengthening it in the fantasy that it will be in control. The proper attitude for the ego is really humility.

WIE: In spiritual traditions the ego is seen as a negative force in the individual; for example, as the force of pride or selfishness. From that perspective, it is entirely paradoxical to imagine the ego cultivating an attitude of humility. Yet it seems that Jung was elucidating two different aspects or stages of ego development—one where the ego, as a self-regulating function, needs to be strengthened in order to help us navigate the challenges of life, and the other, where the ego needs to be humbled in order to allow the individual to discover the deeper and more subtle wisdom inherent in life.

JH: That's correct. Generally speaking, there are two tasks in our development. One is the formation of ego to be strong enough to take life on, to meet it on its own terms. The other is to have the strength to humble the ego and say, "Now what do the gods want of me?" That's a whole different thing.

WIE: Jung spoke in depth about the shadow. What is the shadow in his view, and how is it related to the ego?

JH: Well, the most functional definition of a shadow is: that within myself which makes me uncomfortable about myself. So we would quickly think of typical issues like anger. I would not want to acknowledge my anger because it's unsettling to my self-image. But many times, as in the case of the Swiss painter, our most powerful qualities are also a part of our shadow. So the shadow is anything that would challenge the ego's fantasy of control.

WIE: So the shadow can also include our positive traits or those impulses within us that could lead us into something unknown and potentially even further our growth?

JH: Yes, absolutely. And that's why the shadow is not synonymous with evil. The shadow is omnipresent in our culture—in our indifference to suffering around us, in our own pettiness, and in our own sins of omission as much as commission. But on the other hand, the shadow is often the place where the real creative energies are to be found.

WIE: Would Jung see evil as a complex or force within us? Or would evil be our own egotistic or narcissistic urges taken to an extreme?

JH: Well, those are all possibilities. In Jung's book Answer to Job, he talks about the shadow side of God and says that our entire Western theology has been one-sided. The shadow got split off and sent underground or projected onto the enemy over there. The dark side of divinity is our own opacity toward the dark side within ourselves. Underneath those dualities is a unity of life's energies; it's just that ego—and this is a good example of what ego can do—in feeling uncomfortable with the ambiguity of all of that, tries to split things off: "I'm good. You're bad. Our people are good. Those people across the Hudson are bad." It even tries to create a split in theology. What do you do with evil in monotheism? Well, it gets split off into Satan—the "adversary"—or the devil, which means "the opposite principle." And that split is the ego at work seeking to privilege its own insecurity. I would say that the sign of a healthy ego is its capacity to live with anxiety, ambiguity and ambivalence—triple A's—without trying to always solve them. Because life is anxious, life is ambivalent, life is ambiguous, and that's the reality. And the more we try to solve that or resolve that or split it off, the more we're going to fall into a fundamentalism of some kind—military, political, theological, economic, psychological—and that has the seeds of totalitarianism in it. Much of what I would call fundamentalism is really an anxiety disorder—which they try to solve by black-and-white thinking and projecting onto others. It's very unconscious, and it's very poor ego development. You can see how important it is for the ego to be strong enough to tolerate those tensions. When I can't tolerate them, I'll dump them on you. That's all projection. And projection is that which the ego is just not dealing with.
You can see how we use the term "ego" in so many different ways. And there's a place for the positive ego; it's not always an obstacle in enlightenment. It's responsible for consciousness and for ethical behavior and for dealing with the conflict of opposites.

WIE: Many Western psychologists have criticized Eastern spiritual traditions for their "ego negative" views. They fear that the Eastern emphasis on taming, subduing or destroying the ego could hinder healthy ego development in ourselves and jeopardize our normal maturation as individuals. What do you think about this discrepancy of views?

JH: Frankly I think a lot of it is just terminological confusion of ego with egotism. Even Jung's concept of individuation has been misunderstood as a form of egotism, when in fact it's about humility and submission to one's calling as a person. And that's far from egotism.

WIE: Jung's view of our highest potential as human beings seems to include more of a spiritual dimension than Freud's view did.

JH: Absolutely. The Self is really, in the generic sense of the term, a religious encounter. In fact Jung says, "Every genuine encounter with the Self is experienced as a defeat for the ego"—because the ego's fantasy of control or comfort is overthrown by what the Self wants.

Yesterday, Today, and The Day after Next

Yesterday
Tea and morningtime.

Tidying and workout. Energy seems to be returning. D is going to help me chart my moods so I can actually see how they graph out….interesting little project.

Listened to some of The Met broadcast of Samson et Dalilah. Well, interesting. Something, undoubtedly missing with no visual. Woofy voices, to me, anyway.

Interesting intermission interview with Rufus Wainwright. He’s being commissioned by the Met to create a new opera. In the coming seasons, the Met is trying to broaden their audience with new works, collaborations with theater and dance artists, multimedia access, etc…hmmm….


Day before Yesterday
Tea, morning, low energy. Feeling overwhelmed. Not at the peak of the roller-coaster, as it were…

With other plans creating waves, I feel like I am losing sight of how much joy I get out of the process. Funny, I’ve been hooked on that goofy Olympic Ice show that’s an analysis of the previous night’s skates. It is my little Olympic guilty pleasure- I LOVE Mary Carillo, Jamie Sale, David Peltier, Scott Hamilton, and everyone’s favorite skating curmudgeon, Dick Button. Scott Hamilton said something great:, ‘It’s about the process, be open to the result, but it’s all about the process…’ Yeah, Scott!

Butterfly Bandit

Yesterday was my birthday and I am sure I am the only person ever to get a kiss from a butterfly on my birthday! Maybe I am the only person to ever be kissed by a butterfly, ever! We went to one of my favorite places, Houston’s Butterfly Center at the Museum of Natural Science. I can’t get enough of that place. The first part of the exhibit has gleefully delightful creepy-crawlies of all sorts that must be oohed, aaahed and eeeewed at appropriately. There are particularly enormous, beautiful katydids whose leaf bodies must have taken Gaia quite a while to fashion so very perfectly. A budding 7 year old zoologist was adamant that I admire the neon blue scorpion with the requisite level of admiration. A glass enclosed wall houses rows of suspended cocoons from which the butterflies emerge, allow their wings to dry, and are then transported by their human caretakers to the enormous-several story-jungle paradise-glass butterfly-ary, complete with a hefty orange and green sagacious Iguana Lord. Once inside the lofty home of the Iguana Lord, all manner of unidentifiable tropical plants shoot to the far off ceiling, and of course lots and lots of equally unidentifiable butterflies flitter and flutter and perch and float, feasting on large plates of exotic fruits supplied by their human friends. One such friend walked the stone paths with a colossal Owl Butterfly happily sitting, wings closed, right-smack on top of her head. A milliner’s inspiration!

As we headed up the spiraling stone stairs that corkscrew the outer edge of the butterfly-ary, I am startled to notice that a large Rice Paper Butterfly (one of my very favorites!), has landed, wings wide, on the lacy edge of my maroon camisole. In other words, right at my breast! So I am standing there thrilled, amazed, delighted! Looking down, I see he walks a few butterfly-y steps upward, further onto my skin - and tickly, tickle, tickle!- his little black feets are quite spiny! To my complete astonishment, he flit-flit-flutters right up to my mouth to have a little kissy, and in my surprise, I pssssspht! And away he flies, having stolen a kiss!

Hooray! The Kissing Butterfly Bandit has struck again!

Every other day of the week is fine, yeah...

Tea, etc. emails, performance space research. Cold and gray. Impending run at M Park.

Practice.

I hate ice dancing.

Run @ M Park & Workout

The Oblique Strategy cards continue to come up as Water and Change nothing and continue with immaculate consistency. What lessons those are. As if that isn’t enough, and somehow I am always meant to push myself past the limit, when I’v learned (repeatedly) that doesn’t produce any results. Slow, consistent practice takes the cake.

I’ve noticed some cool nuggets of training advice from watching the Olympics. The athletes’ training regime is so inspiring and impressive - and how they really back off from pushing themselves leading up their event. They’re not there to train, they’re there to compete. This has led me further along with the development of an idea of mine: the 80% Rule. What I am aiming to cultivate is to have an excellent performance at about 80% of what I call the Shower Factor. The Shower Factor is how absolutely awesome a performance in the shower is- in other words, some of my best singing is in rehearsal. No surprise there. The trick is to develop skill to such a point that under the stress of performance/audition that my 80% totally rocks. Then if I am able pull more out, great- but that 80% is better than excellent. I think I am seeing this in the Olympics. The athletes that show up and give 110% end up crashing and burning (this is all very separate from Olympic Spirit and 'heart'). A great example is the Russian figure skater Evgeny Plushenko. He nailed the Gold, big time. And the guy was not pushing himself. I don’t mean that he didn’t do his best, but under all the pressure, he was a simmering battleship. His Olympic ‘best’ was just another day on the ice, and I am banking that his Olympic performance was below what he does on normal practice days. He had room to fail and still kick everyone else’s butt. See my point?

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Here’s a recording I was working on sometime ago, and frankly, it is unfinished, yet complete at the same time. I have other ideas for work to do on it, including adding the missing flute, and am not really even sure how I feel about it. I have lots of other ideas, and I plan to continue recording, but am so happily wrapped up in the completely different world of classical singing that I am not making the time right now for new recordings. So, I am putting it out in the world- here it is: Afternoon.mp3. Lyrics:

days drift by and i'm sure
there are others who've known
and breathed open their wings

earth spins beads of the stars
springing lives from her dust
cast us back into her curves

days drift by and i'm sure
there are others like me
who've breathed open their wings

take the time you and I have passed
a thousand afternoons
when eastern skies
dropped down their hands
and reached for us

breathe open your wings
reach for us

ripen your destiny
sharpen your dream

take the time you and I have passed
a thousand afternoons

Sunday Best

Cold wintry day unwinding
Backyard yawns
In the loosed morning light
Wet wet grasses of our little jungle
Strung lights sleeping now
Camellias gardenias azaleas sunflower bloom
Don’t their petals need sweaters on such a day?
On the garage roof
2 doves nestle at the edge
After my love has fed them

Hike Who?

Tea, etc. The new Valentine Matching Cat Cup has a strange perfume-y smell from the store that I am having a difficult time removing…hmmmfph…

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Sheet gray skyopaque
A new sunflower pops up
Birds sing on the roof
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Kitchen table sits
Meow silhouette waiting
For night grasshoppers
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Valentine rosies
And posies in vase with reeds
Fading this morning
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Thursday, February 16, 2006
Great coaching . Looking at recital piece prospects.

Good thoughts to MB&C….

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Tea and small morning.

Fab meeting. Much to do.

Solstice Cat Cup Set debut!

Oh! That was the guy from the *beginning* of the movie!

I am simply PMS-ing. That had not occurred to me before!

Valentine’s Day plans ahead!

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Part of the whole zen-ness of things is to allow what to be to be and not identify who I am with what I think or feel. Yes, my thoughts and feelings are part of me, but are not me.
Giving myself permission to feel how I am feeling without judgment.

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Fairie Oracle card today: The Fawn.

Oblique Strategy: Water. Just able to do that. Ah! Is enough!

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An ordinary Tuesday or
Not so with roses and grassy reeds and some other flower
Pinker than red, I don’t know what
Pistil and stamen hummingbird waiting
And oh! My only very favorite chocolates- the deep dark dark cherry sippy sips
And the coolest of coolness rest of the earthenware catcup tea set
Doesn’t get better than that to match the Solstice present catcup tea tea tea and iron trivets, too!
And me, really quite pissy and grumpy grouchkins for half the afternoon at least
But I did get you the cutiest-cutsie ILOVEYOU elephant with red heart ear insides
And don’t forget Love Potion #9
Hear Heart Hear Heart Hear Heart Hear Heart Hear Heart
And then the park so bluebluebluey-blue
That sky out there in Texas February is like glass glass glass azure I’ve never seen
Both opaque and translucent simultaneous freshness breathing in the afternoon cobalt
And then, well, the rest of the lovely lusciolicious afternoon...then…shall we say…

Angry Yucky Me

Ok, so I’m breaking my own rules. I am not posting the poetry I wrote yesterday during my Solipsistic Self-Pity Sunday.

So here is what I know: I was not loved unconditionally by my rearers. Boo-hoo for me. Join the big ole club. Thus, I am always trying to gain some kind of approval, prove myself, achieve whatever, etc. even though, I swear, I swear, I swear, I tell myself I am not.

How to get out of this dead-end loop?

Angry me is getting comforted. Looking forward to V-day tomorrow. I decided to post the poems after all. Go figure.

Good workout. Still taking a much needed practice break. Reflection. Re-evaluation.

And I am loving the Olympics!


Sunday, February 12, 2006

Expecting too much from
Me, and me and me, and me
And You, and all those everyone else’s whoevers
And from whatever I find or seem to find myself in
Never enough from a barely surrogate tribe
I have surrounded myself
With everything not-enoughs
And can never be, be, be
Big enoughs
Or bright enoughs
And time is too closely guarded by whoever it is that keeps it
Cuz it clearly ain’t me

…….

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

You have dismissed me
Diminished my voice
My thoughts
Denied my being
It has never been
Clearly
Enough
To be
Me
Always having to produce something other than what simply is
For whose? Enjoyment? Do you really get enjoyment seeing me
Struggle like so many soul birds in mesh
To win attentions and empty accolades
Of dozens of years
To prove what to you? To who? To me?
Having been programmed and brainwashed to think
I was so deserving I didn’t have to do a thing
And then in realizing the lateness of it all quite and very capably within my reach
(with a dozen or so years more of time that I maybe don’t have)
Despite that, and perhaps because of it
I’ll always be much much more than you can take on
And I can go so much farther and far deeper and higher and wider and brighter and beautier than you would ever expect, or could ever do yourself and so there.
Ever guess
Standing there in your fucking suburban kitchen
Did you not realize (ha. like there is a spark of awareness there behind those I loathe to admit brown eyes we share, forchristsake)
That this would all simply make me think
Everything you think
And do
And are and represent is
Meaningless and nothingness-
Just as you treat me?
And guess what?
I am incensed that you even think I am part of whatever
Catholic brood you’ve emerged from
With their blank stares and unthinking fall-in-line take it for granted that I am like you all
Which, by the way, I am not
If you haven’t noticed
And sucking off my bright power will not make you like me, no matter how hard you try
Plus, dead people only decay into a rotting stink if they are not properly burned

Heaven's Little Lies

It’s funny that I can feel defeated by myself. Hoodwinked, as it were. Convinced I’ve been all zen-blissed out and living the Suzy-Process Oriented high life….and then having reality slam me down like an unexpected ski fall on a piece-o-cake run. What I thought was a piece-o-cake run.
Perception is indeed a master of deception. I’ve been quite proud of thinking I’ve been all in the moment. So proud of myself that I was keeping my eye on the ball, doing what the moment required, blah, blah, blah. Pride ought to have been the red flag there, buddy. What I think I am ready for and what the reality of what I am ready for is quiet different. Maybe that is just another of perception’s slippery slopes. I simply cannot tell.
Is this a gift of waking up? Getting comfortable with uncertainty must surely be part of the puzzle. I also have had a more emotional stake in my endeavors than I am willing to admit. Another little lie from heaven that I am very happy to believe.
Learning is not linear. Ah…
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Run @ M Park with D. Gorgeous, glorious cold, sunny Texas winter day.
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Deelish dinner treat at MB’s with C.
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Feels good to be taking time off….and a little thing we call Olympic Gold!

Stormy Weather

Miracle of miracles: I actually slept. Tea time, and prep for task ahead today. Stressed. Nervous. Ugh. I do not like this feeling. Can I cultivate equanimity even when I am uncomfortable? Surely. Bummed that the Olympic coverage has not yet started this morning. Dealing with prepping my music, primping, and blasting some U2 and Green Day.

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Wine and pasta at Empire with my darling. Ah,...comfort.

Stormy out...

Nap.

Had a long stressful day and week. Don’t really want to write about it. Feeling like just writing: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…disheartened. Lost.

Pissed that freakin NBC is the only one covering the Olympics and am sure their coverage will be as lame as ever.

Yesterday- Thursday, February 09, 2006
I have difficulty maintining my routine and usual steadiness in the face of stress. Stressy, stressy day. Listening to the new U2. Great coaching and A. happened to show up and we did some really, really helpful dramatic and movemenet stuff with my arias.

Crucible

Tea, morning prattle, etc.

Practice. Run@M Park. Practice. Weights.

Feeling fabulous. Ready. Intense. Strangely in the right place at the right time….content to be where I am doing what I’m doing without much concern with what may come of it all.

Zazen.

I had a Chinese Medical Doctor tell me once I had a lot of wood and was low on fire. This translates to having lots of raw creative material and little ability to ignite in. Over the past few years I feel like I have really cultivated the focus and disciple to finally see the ignition of my potential. I did not realize how much intense energy this would take. I did not realize it is a mind-set that permeates my whole life. It is a way of life, a way of being. As Robert Fripp says, How we hold our pick is how we organize our life and In tuning a note we are tuning ourselves. If feels to me, that it is all about being more me. Discovering who I am, what I am about. Being more human.

And they don’t call it discipline for nothin’. I imagine the serious reaction that has to happen just to create a spark that will then grow into a flame that burns wood (potentially!) or fuel, that can warm your home, cook your food…power a city. I’m goin’ for powerin’ a city! (was that my outside voice?)

Have you ever used a magnifying glass to ignite paper? It is a pretty intense process to focus that big ole star, Sol. No wonder it took us so long to discover fire!

Ah, crucible. That is the word. The crucible of discipline. Through repetition the magic if forces to rise. And rise it does.

I just saw Paul McCartney on the Grammies (which I never watch, cuz I hate the manufactured-ness of it. Rant. Rant.). Anyway, sweet honey in the rock- is Paul cool or what? He played Helter-Skelter with his way cool band. And that, my friend, is what we call rock and roll. That and the fact that U2 is still making music means there is, indeed, hope in the world.

Never react: respond.

"Earth appears as one entity. It is unique, it is one planet. And you realized that this one planet is the only thing we have." "You see it very well that thin, thin, thin layer just above the surface, that is the atmosphere of the Earth, and that is it. A few 10 -12 km thick, and that is it. Below that is life, and above that is nothing. It is a vacuum." - Julie Payette, Chief Canadian Astronaut, orbiting the earth in the Space Shuttle Discovery, May 27 to June 6, 1999

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Didn’t sleep at all last nite with D out of town. Ugh. I hate that. He’ll be home today! Yay! So I am feeling really tired and groggy to say the least.

Morning tea time and emails. Blog reading. The Brad/Nishijima/Mike soap opera continues on Mike’s blog, sadly. Oh, well, that’s what I get for spending the time reading these posts instead of doing something much more constructive!

Cyber Transition
My website looks great except it does not reflect at at what I am doing now. I have not been painting and I have been far more excited and embroiled by music-making, yet have neither enough classical music info about myself to put up, nor more sound clips of new recordings (I love when I get to use that neither/nor thing!). I have neither made it a priority to finish a recording I have been working on, nor carved out time to record new material (there it is again! Hee!). I have been spending so much time singing and practicing, I’ve not made the time for other musical things. Must think on that…

Took a nap, and am feeling better. Practice. Practice. Zazen.

Goddamnit. I let Meowsie out today because she was totally begging to get out and no sooner did she zip out the back door, than she is over at Michael’s behind the garage fighting with Fat-Cat-No-Tail. I hear them yowling and run over there armed with my trusty spray bottle. So I’m squirting them and they run behind the garage back to our yard and I run back over and continue the ineffective squirt bottle bombing. Ok, so I leave them to it. Whatever. Back to cleaning the kitchen. Next thing I know I hear the horrible I Am a Hunter growling in the kitchen and there is Meowsie with a very limp mockingbird in her mouth. I chase her out and with the help of Michael, chase her down and get her back inside, sans bird. Y’know, I feel terrible if I keep her inside and I know full well the impact house cats have on bird populations and I feel just awful about that, too. Spring has sprung and we must keep her doors more…

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Gayatri Mantra

Om bhur bhuvah svaha
tat savitur varenyam
bargo devasya dhimahi
dhiyo yonah prachodayat

Let us honor the unity of Divine Spirit
that pervades all realms of existance:
the earth, the atmosphere and the heavens.

May That most brilliant Divine Light
protect us, sustain us
and illuminate our consciousness

that we might realize
our inherent goodness,
our inborn divinity
and our unity with All That Is.

By this knowledge may our actions be inspired.


Om - Sound as the basis of creation, Brahman Unity of all that is visible and invisible
Bhur - The gross: earth, existence, physical body
Bhuvah - The subtle: atmosphere, prana, subtle body
Svaha - The causal: heaven, Atman, the soul, causal body
Tat - That: Brahman (The Ultimate Reality is simply referred to as "That" because it defies description through speech or language.)
Savitur - The protector, Savitri, equated with the luminous, life-giving energy of the sun
Varenyum - Supreme Consciousness that inspires adoration
Bhargo - Goodness, radiance, luster, illumination, destroyer of ignorance
Devasya - Divine radiance or grace
Dhimahi - Meditation or knowledge of the Absolute
Dhiyo - Buddhi, intellect
Yonah - Our actions
Prachodayat - Inspire

From the site of a teacher I have studied with- Discovery Yoga

Eon Flux

Relinquishing all views,

He preached the wonderful Universe,

Using compassionate means;

I bow to him: Gautama

The order of these four lines would thus have followed the four philosophies, i.e., (1) views, (2) Universe, (3) practical everyday conduct, (4) action itself/the ineffable. – both from Mike’s blog.
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Tea, feeling run down and tired, disheartened. Much to do…

Zazen.

Practice. Explorations of in flux. Breathe, body, sound…

Excellent coaching…singing going great!

Endless shopping spree for just the right thing to wear on Friday. Got it! Whew.

Workout.
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The Road To Graceland

by Robert Fripp

Music is a process of uniting the world of qualities and the world of existences, of blending the world of silence and the world of sound.

In this sense, music is a way of transformation.

What we do is inseparable from how and why we do what we do.

So, the transformation of sound is inseparable from a transformation of self.

For example, we attract silence by being silent.

In our culture, this generally requires practice.

Practice is a way of transforming the quality of our functioning, that is, a transformation of what we do.

We move from making unnecessary efforts, the exertions of force, to making necessary efforts: the direction of effortlessness.

In this the prime maxim is: honor necessity, honor sufficiency.

II

When we consider our functioning as a musician, that is, what we do in order to be a musician, we find we are considering more than just the operation of our hands.

The musician has three instruments: the hands, the head and the heart, and each has its own discipline.

So, the musician has three disciplines: the disciplines of the hands, the head and the heart.

Ultimately, these are one discipline: discipline.

Discipline is the capacity to make a commitment in time.

If the musician is able to make a commitment in time, to guarantee that they will honor this commitment regardless of convenience, comfort, situation and inclination of the moment, they are on the way to becoming
effectual.

An effectual musician is a trained, responsive and reliable instrument at the service of music.

III

So, practice addresses:

1. The nature of our functioning; that is, of our hands, head and heart.

2. The co-ordination of our functioning; that is our hands with head, our
hands with heart, our heart with head, and in a perfect world, all three
together in a rare, unlikely, but possible harmony.

3. The quality of our functioning.

IV

It is absurd to believe that practising our instrument is separate from the rest of our life.

If we change our practice, we change our lives.

Practice is not just what we do with our hands, nor just how we do what we do, nor why we do what we do.

Practice is how we are.

V

A practice of any value will be three things:

1. A way of developing a relationship with the instrument;

2. A way of developing a relationship with music;

3. A way of developing a relationship with ourselves.

So, the techniques of our musical craft are in three fields: of playing the instrument, of music and of being a person.

I cannot play guitar without having a relationship with myself, or with music.

I cannot, as a guitarist, play music without having a relationship with myself and my guitar.

And, by applying myself to the guitar and to music, I discover myself within the application.

VI

A technique simulates what it represents, and prepares a space for the technique to become what it represents.

For example, the manner in which I live my life is my way of practising to be alive.

There is no distance between how I live my life and how I practice being alive.

VII

Once a quality is within our experience, we recognise its return and may allow its action to take place upon us.

But how and why it is present, or comes to visit, is rather harder to describe.

If this quality is present with us, description becomes easier: we describe the world in which we live.

If we live in the way of craft, the craft lives in us; as we describe this way, the craft reveals itself through us.

Any true way will be able to describe itself through its craftspeople.

VIII

The quality we bring to one small part of our life is the quality we bring to all the small parts of our life.

All the small parts of our life is our life.

If we are able to make one small act of quality, it will spread throughout the larger act of living.

This is in the nature of a quality - a quality is ungovernable by size and by the rules of quantity: a quality is ungovernable my number.

So, one small act of quality is as big as one big act of quality.

An act of quality carries intention, commitment and presence, and is never accidental.

IX

Once we have an experience of making an effort of this kind, we may apply this quality of effort in the other areas of our life.

The rule is: better to be present with a bad note than absent from a good note.

When our note is true, we are surprised to find that it sounds very much like silence, only a little louder.

X

If music is quality organised in sound, the musician has three approaches towards it: through sound, through organisation, or through quality.

The apprentice will approach the sound, the craftsperson will approach the organisation of sound, and the master musician approaches music through its quality.

That is, the master musician works from silence, organises the silence, and places sound between the silence.

XI

Where we are going is how we get there.
If where we are going is how we get there, we are where we are going.
If we are where we are going, we have nowhere to go.
If we have nowhere to go, may we be where we are.

XII

Music is a benevolent presence constantly and readily available to all.
May we trust the inexpressible benevolence of the creative impulse.

Abbess Zenkei Blanche Hartman

I pay homage to Gautama

To him who out of compassion

Taught the true Dharma

As the relinquishing of all views. - Nagarjuna

"Right here is the peak of the mystic mountain." "Just this is it." How will you bring forth this Buddha that you are and manifest it in the world? You must approach everything with beginner's mind, with an open mind, the mind that is questioning and looking and listening and hearing and seeing and feeling and smelling without prejudgment, without preconception, without fixed views. Open. Ready to see what is right here. Open. Ready to see "What is this?" and ready to let it flower, ready to let it bloom in the world. When I first had zazen instruction, Katagiri Roshi said, "We sit to settle the self on the self and let the flower of the life force bloom." That's intimacy: to settle the self on the self. Then this Buddha can bloom in all it's particularity, as you being totally you. Suzuki Roshi used to say, "When you are you, Zen is Zen." But what is this? Who is this? Will the authentic "you" please come forward and bloom? How will we open up this authentic "you" in the midst of all the accumulated fixed views that we carry about? We just have to notice them and let them go, and let them go, and let them go, and let them go, and let them go. Dongshan (J.: Tozan) visited his teacher Yunyan (J.: Ungan) and his teacher said, "What have you been studying?" "I haven't even been studying." "Well, what have you been practicing?" "I haven't even been practicing the four noble truths." "Are you joyful yet?" Joy is one of the stages of a bodhisattva. Dongshan said, "It would not be right to say that I'm not joyful ...it's as if I've found a pearl in a pile of shit." And that's what it's like, you know. There's all this stuff that we drag around with us, but the pearl is right there. What we need to do is free the pearl and let it gleam.

In her poem "When Death Comes," Mary Oliver has a few lines that say, "When it's over, I want to say I have been a bride married to amazement, I've been a bridegroom taking the world into my arms." This is beginner's mind: "I've been a bride married to amazement." Just how amazing the world is, how amazing our life is. How amazing that the sun comes up in the morning, or that the wisteria blooms in the spring. "A bride married to amazement, a bridegroom taking the world into my arms." Can you live your life with that kind of wholeheartedness, with that kind of thoroughness? This is the beginner's mind that Suzuki Roshi is pointing to, is encouraging us to cultivate. He is encouraging us to see where we are stuck with fixed views, and see if we can, as Uchiyama Roshi says, "open the hand of thought" and let the fixed view go. This is our effort. This is our work. Just to be here, ready to meet whatever is next without expectation or prejudice or preconceptions. Just "What is it?" "What is this, I wonder?"

So please, cultivate your beginner's mind. Be willing to not be an expert. Be willing to not know. Not knowing is nearest. Not knowing is most intimate. Fayan was going on pilgrimage. Dizang said, "Where are you going?" Fayan said, "Around on pilgrimage." Dizang said, "What is the purpose of pilgrimage?" Fayan said: "I don't know." Dizang said, "Not knowing is most intimate." - From this great article by Abbess Zenkei Blanche Hartman.

A whirlwind day dealing with D’s near dead Sony Vaio, and his purchase of a new one. Yay!

Veggie Soup in Crockpot:
Butternut Squash
Potatoes
Lima beans
Peas
Carrots
Spinach
Kale
Onion
Thyme
Marjoram
Olive Oil
Veggie stock

Me and the Big Universe

Tea, run at M Park. D @ Volleyball. Practice. Zazen.

Amazing beautiful day.

A reminder:

The Universe always keeps Its end of the bargain. Riding the waves of energy in my life reveal this so splendidly…It’s as though the Universe has finally shown up- but! It is me that is actually and finally participating in the Co-Creation of my life. I am waking up, and the Universe has simply been doing Its thing all along- waiting patiently for me.

Nice chat with MB today…Life is not so much what you make of it, methink…Life is how you look at it, and then you’ll see It looking back at you…

D and I opting for time at home tonite…rest from a physically active day, and down-time for a busy week ahead…

Spokes of the Wheel

Tea, re-thinking house arrangement. It always feels right to re-arrange things once in a while. Shake up energy.

Another crazy glorious Texas Winter Day.

Surprise visit by Ms Jenny Pet sitter extraordinary as she walked one of her 'clients' who lives nearby.

Overcooked split pea in the crockpot. Doggone-it.

Workout. Practice. Zazen. Practice.

Business plan and bio work, brainstorming for a meeting with A about new opera company.

Feeling very I am in the right place on the right path doing the right thing, big time. Relief. Funny that I should/should have distrusted the Universe in Its ability to do Its thing, if I, indeed, commit to do mine. Hmmmm....

The phrase Beyond Intention came up on Mike's blog today. Beyond intention, inherent in all things, immanent, in the very fiber of the very un-ground of all being. In being who I am does that spring from intention? I think not. It is the uncovering of Isness. A re-discovery of what already is there. The acorn is the oak, the uncarved marble is the dynamic sculpture.

Like MB has said: Let the song sing you...

Listening: Peter Gabriel: Up

Meeting with A. Interesting exchange. Focused on what needs attention right now. New company is one spoke on my wheel. Have some writing and fleshing out of ideas to do, mission statement, business plan…refusing to get caught up in the standard concerns of the ‘singing profession’. I am more intersted in staying focused on making music, learning new rep, improving my musicianship, focus on networking, etc…riding the wave…

Mia Bella evening dine with my love- yum!

At the still point of the turning world

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;

Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,

But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity. – TS Elliot

Today is Imolc (or Candlemas). It is a festival of lights marking the first milking of the ewes and honoring Bridget, Goddess of fire and smiths, of poets and healers. She is a symbol of birth and growth…The light of the New Year brought forth at the Winter Solstice grows and the days begin to lengthen again…

Split pea soup all day in the most magnifiscent crock pot!

I like the image MB gave me yesterday of breath simply being and I am stepping into the stream of it like into a jump rope game or, I think, onto a conveyor belt or escalator or, or like the little wave on the ocean who doesn’t know he’s water- oh! I am of it and in it an on it…I eat it and drink it and dream it and am it….

I had a headache last nite that I woke up with today and is still with me. Ugh.

Great coaching again today. I am pretty much singing the heck out of everything. Cool beans. Headache gone. That often happens if I sing…if I have a headache it will go away with the symathetic vibrations or something. I am feeling better.

Mr Possum Feets did eat all the over-ripeez that were left out.

Run at M Park with D. Lusicious day!

Lovely garden firepit evening with peppermint tea….mmmm…..starry orion night. Keeping the fires in celebration of Imolc.

The freakin’ plasma is up and all is well. It looks big but not as ridiculous as I thought…

More fruits left out for Mr Possum Feets!

Fruits & Peppermint

Tea, practice. Warm stormy looking day.

Kurt Vonnegut rocks. That’s all I have to say about that.

The house is still a shambles from the process of wall mounting the Plasma Behemoth. Ugh.

Vox lesson! Fabulous. Always learning more about my voice and myself…

Workout.

Zazen.

Overripe fruits left out for Mr Possum Feets. We shall see if he has partaken upon the morning!

Glorious peppermint licorice tea!

Zen & the Art of Wall Mounting a Plasma TV

Tea, practice, GORGEOUS day! I can barely contain myself!

The repalcement TV came today. Jeeze is that thing big. We couldn’t get the size we’d had before Rita blew it up- or I should say we blew it up watching Rita. Isn’t that a hoot? We watched a hurricane that hit us on TV. Pathetic. The size and opulence of these plasmas is embarassing. We don’t’ even watch that much TV. But it looks so cool. How lame am I? So much for Zen, eh? Back to the zafu! Back to the zafu! Speaking of opulence, we started tentatively looking at new homes in the Heights. Jiminy Crickets, could they be building them bigger? Almost 4000 sq feet standard. Gak. Who needs that much room? Not us 2. When it is time, right house will appear for us.

Coaching rocked today. I love Mozart!

Power walk with D at M Park. Delight!

Practice.

Evening…ahhh…

Yesterday's Wondrous Ordinary Day

Another glorious Texas winter day today. I wish this house didn’t have a roof.

Tea, practice, tea, practice, tea, zazen, putsing in the garden, practice, practice, workout. Dave and I both working away at what we do. Awed by the intoxication of the mundane.

For 24 hours I’ve been simmering black beans in the crockpot. In case you didn’t know, black beans take FORVER to cook no matter how long they’ve been soaked. But they are like buttah, now!

“…Buddhism is just the real world, which can open just relying upon the practice. Without practicing Zazen there is no Buddhism. At the same time, however, if there were the practice of Zazen, we can easily open the the World of Buddhism at once, and this is the benevolence of Gautama Buddha. Therefore Master Dogen proclaimed…"This Rule of the Universe is abundantly present in each human being, but if we do not practice it, it does not manifest, and if we do not experience it, it cannot be realized. When we let go, it has already filled the hands; how could it be defined as one or many? When we speak, it fills the mouth; it has no restriction in any direction." - Gudo NISHIJIMA

Possum Spot

I love Sundays
IloveIloveIloveIlovey Sundays
And especially today’s I can’t believe I am up so darn early to see this unusual fog morning
With my love still slumbering quietly away from impatient daybreak cats
And I am visiting the possum spot
The curved white stone ridge of a garden bed

Backing up to the ch-chainy chain-liked (I meant linked) fence we share with Harry & Allan

Filled with I don’t know whatallwhat plants- but for sure crepe a myrtle (that doesn’t bloomy bloom bloom so well in the shade back here) and that really really coolcool sitting on its sideways side big terra cotta pot brimming with begonias
Where we left out last night a he enjoyed it! Red red grapefruit
And he even ate a few grape tomatoes (or just squooshed them with his little possumy feets)
Though I imagine a night Christmas possum

(cuz he wuz the Christmas eve late night we spotted him possum)

Like himself likes the yummy overripenness sweetest sweet sweety-pie fruits we leave for him best
Especially bananas
Those are gone on a foggy morning like today
Peel and all

At the Corner of Fourth and Walnut

Watchful musical
Whooshing - the potter crafts
ever so beautiful imperfect
warbled edges
earth and water
spinning unspinning
holding and emptying
fire

then coolness

from clay to tea

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I’m certainly no philosopher, have no interest in being a conversationalist, nor a debater, and have even less interest in making a point about anything, proving my point, nor defending my stance, but I have been reading so much tripe (and not so much tripe) about enlightenment lately, I just have to say: There is no such thing as enlightenment. There. That is my .02 cents. And if that parrots’ Brad Warner’s words, than so be it. It also happens to be my experience. All the words that are enlisted to explicate enlightenment are of no use. You either have the experience of being in the world lock-stock-and-barrel, or you don’t. And it does take practice to develop awareness, and to not walk around asleep all the time. Justin’s Ordinary Extraordinary blog has a nice entry today: ‘So we end up with a picture of all these creatures walking around an entirely physical universe, but with little subjective bubble-worlds in their heads (or above them or somewhere else or nowhere at all).’

It is utterly ridiculous that the non-dualitic teachings of Buddhism would set up a have-and have-not situation. I suppose there-in lies the lovely paradox and the power of the philosophy: we are all enlightened and yet we are not because we don’t know we are! Hee! Hee!

I’ll let someone else who knows what they are doing express this far, far better. My pal G sent me the excerpt from Thomas Merton, and it about says it all:

"In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream. Not that I question the reality of my vocation, or of my monastic life: but the conception of "separation from the world" that we have in the monastery too easily presents itself as a complete illusion .... [W]e are in the same world as everybody else, the world of the bomb, the world of race hatred, the world of technology, the world of mass media, big business, revolution, and all the rest .... This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud .... To think that for sixteen or seventeen years I have been taking seriously this pure illusion that is implicit in so much of our monastic thinking .... I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun."

-Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander 1966
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Have discovered the delight of kale. Who woulda thunk?
Navy bean soup all day in the crockpot.
………………………………

Oblique Strategy of the week: What to increase? What to reduce? What to maintain?

…………………………………………………………………..
Practice. Still taking it easy vocally, but things seem to be generally fine.

Coaching went really great today. No vox problems and some movement fun. Herr R loved the lyrics I showed him for our budding opera idea. Found out Ms RA just bought a house that has a room with fab acoustics large enough for chamber concerts! Hooray!

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Power Walk at M Park w/D. Brisk and dusky- There are some wondrous early spring trees blooming!

................................
Pale, pale, scarce and palest gradients of azure
Almost purpling deep line of clouds dropping

Her curtain just shy of the city trees
Cottony dreadlocks twirled entwining the very very only only only !

Tiny slenderlings of indigo-ing down
Increments creeping from one barely blueness to the next
And where they break before the leaves, all illuminated light and and and ! White pinkpink peeks and dazzles
Last moments sighing over the day
Sleepy Sun has kept longer hours than I