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

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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!

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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

Shampoo

Tea and reading.
Starting my day with tea (obviously!) & reading...

Beautiful, glorious sunny cool day.
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Zazen
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Practice. More off-voice work and surprisingly fun and productive movement work.
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Having someone else shampoo your hair is another one of life’s most splendid pleasures! Dee-lish!

Reverse Sky

Sky filled luminescent greys
Bruised afternoon moments
Tied together
One instant borne on the next
Each moment breathing open fissures in the day’s clouds-
Today’s clouds
All light and coldness
Wet and creaming across what I cannot see above
Holding Earth in cupped hands
Molding grey clay opaque
Smooth
Careful watchful keeping this little planet from the Sun
All day
And several

I am sure of it

Jets

Are well above the tender hands of my day
Basking and streaming glossy
In exalted cerulean
Aloft high and fast
Sunward

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Zazen

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In an I have to mode of doing. Uninspired, yet in need of watering my practice, so I am keeping a mental list of I have to stuff to be sure it is accomplished today, and that I least maintain a watering level of involvement in my work..

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Silent practicing. Fairly torturous. Trusting that I am, indeed, getting something out of it. Am working on a lot of fun movement things.
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Workout. Ah…

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I feel that I have duly attended to watering and my I have to-ing.

Oblique Strategy: Reverse

That is a total hoot since I, quite literally, have had to slow down and back-up in many many ways over the last week. I can see now why Eno & Shmidt's Oblique Strategies can sometime be used as an oracle. :)

Presence

What needs to be attended to and that which is head-on in front of me is always in the now if I allow myself to be with it and not on the 10,000 other past-future things monkey-jumping through my mind.

Haiku Kitty

Like my cat who jumps
So surely to the window
Intent on the day

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She sees what I cannot
Her being only doing
No hesitating
Eyes commitment
Spring all

rightness

lightness

speed and wisdom

Her striking swiftness unhurries
She is all here
All now
Only Is
Zen Master Kitty

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I realize I’ve lost balance and didn’t know it. I had not taken the time to honor the intensity of the trip up North, and to allow myself to process that experience. In my attempt to, essentially, nullify the whole thing and return to what I think of as my normal life, I’ve over-done everything. And created yet another set of unbalanced circumstance that have manifested physically.

Yesterday

Keeping a daily journal of noticings over these past few weeks has been powerful and transformational. It puts me squarely in front of my day-to-day minutia, and thus, nose to nose with my reactions to the ever-morphing landscape of life. When I read back over a week’s postings, I feel very disconnected emotionally from most of my writing, almost as though I am reading the thoughts and experiences of a stranger. If I do not identify with these emotional fluctuations in hindsight, why, then do I cling so to them when they are happening?

I am surprisingly inspired when reading over this past week’s posts.

2 Intentions for Journaling:

Reflection: Use some weekend time to re-read my posts.

Acceptance: No editing. I have not, since I began a daily practice of recording my noticings, edited any content. What I find important to write down, stays in print, and I don’t allow myself to delete it later because I don’t like it, am shocked by it, think it’s silly, etc.
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A Little listening practice and a very little singing. My voice is still tired. Must take a day or two off. As soon as I got back from that trip I was like a bat out of hell and just sang way too much :( poop. Lost balance.

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Zazen

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Hmmm….it occurs to me that I may actually be burned out. Hmmm…

Another Day

The sound of the stream is his long, broad tongue;
The mountain, his immaculate body.
These evening's eighty-four thousand verses –
How will I tell them tomorrow? – Dogen Zenji

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Geeze. What a funk I am in.
And I had a hair appointment today and couldn’t make it cuz I forgot the car was in the shop and D in Mexico for the day.

Did a lot of practicing, probably too much. Must break. I think taking that long 10 break put me into a feast or famine mode which I must relax and snap out of.

Zazen
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Oblique Strategy:

Always the first steps

Don’t I know it!

Ugh

Morning:
Lovely tea. Baby Cat is soooooo needy. He wants love, love, love, love, love. I woke up at about 5am and could not get back to sleep. That rarely happens, but ugh, this will be a long day.

Revising and organizing my ever-morphing To the Universe letter.

Afternoon:
Zazen

Coaching with Herr R

Evening:
Very tired. Over-sang. Discouraged. Depleted. Feeling weirdly physically unwell.

Bubble bath. Ok, no go on bubble bath, even after I actually cleaned the tub (good gracious!). The tub does not appear to hold water, and I am just too tired to even care, and have refused my dearest’s assistance in the matter. Plans for a run today scrapped. 6pm: pajamas on.

Cinnamon, ginger and honey tea, made from scratch by boiling fresh ginger and a cinnamon stick. Soothing and splendid...

Swing Wide the Door

Morning:
Tea, reading.

Afternoon:
Short Practice & listening practice.

I love how learning a new song is like unlocking a portal to a new Universe, solving a riddle that opens the gate, placing the last piece to a mysterious puzzle- and a new world opens.
First the aperture is only ajar, and I can barely see light peeking through, and as I am able to swing wider the opening, all manner of treasures and delights are at my disposal: all for me to explore, choose among, taste, touch, wear, languish in, hold, let go…

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Zazen

Vox lesson- most excellent!

Run@Memorial Park with new sneaks. Glorious Day.

On a day like today it is so easy to be all Zen-Blissed out. No emotional challenges. No personal trials. Only beautiful blue sky all windy sunny cloudlessness-ah….I am both me and you, and the sky and wind, and running trail and the water fountain, and the doggies there; and I am at the top of the mountain solitude looking down, I am both what is high and what is low and I can see ‘for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles…’

Being this when I most need it, though, I cannot do- yet.

Evening:
Dave@V-ball

Practice

Zazen

Practice

Well, it sure looks like a heavy practice day, but hasn’t felt like it. I did a lot of listening and some more solving-unlocking of yet another new song. But the neighbor upstairs, who is never, never home, has decided to inhabit her abode this evening, and I can’t very well sing under her without surely driving her nuts. I do hope she is not planning to make a habit of actually living in her apartment.

Veggie Stew in the crockpot.

Watering is Enough

Morning:
Cold, sunny, windy, beautiful. Smells like snow. Tea, cleaning. Reading one of my faves: the comic book Zen Speaks: Shouts of Nothingness by Tsai Chih Chung & translated by Brian Bruya

Afternoon:

Zazen

Practice

Oblique Strategy: Water
Good, cuz that is about all I feel capable of doing today: Trust that:

Watering is Enough

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Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire! IMAX! Yay!

Rainy Day

Morning:
Balmy, gray day…sky pregnant with rain, but not a drop yet. I love the morning light on cloudy storm days.

Feeling a little tired and disheartened.

Though I am not Christian, I was delighted to find an interview with a favorite writer of mine, theologian Matthew Fox, as well as his own 95 Theses he nailed to the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany last May.

Zazen

Afternoon:
Oblique Strategy for today: Change nothing and continue with immaculate consistency

Practice.
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How to artistically and creatively radically invent/re-invent myself? What would that mean? How to operate both within the traditional marketplace of the music industry and yet be radically innovative in my approach to both the creative side of my work as well as the professional aspect of my art?
With blooming skills, how to inventing a niche or myself. What is that niche? Where is it?

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I am noticing how quickly my inner landscape morphs and changes: minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, etc….New awareness of how I identify with my emotional experience and how I am both and neither my emotional life/thoughts…

Deelish La Fendee lunch.

Practice.

Peppermint & licorice tea.

Evening:
D @V-ball. Yoga for me.
Beautiful pitter-pattering rainy nite, windy, balmy, and even a little thundery. Ah….

Reminder: practice pausing.

French translating.

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On an Ordinary Sunday

Morning:
Weird dreams of monks from watching Cadfael last nite.
Pu-erh tea is an acquired taste. I shall try from time to time. Lovely red color. Very earthy…back to Golden Yunnan in Solstice Cat Cup. Ah….delight!

Zazen.

Afternoon:
Run with D @Memorial Park.
White tea. Quiet Sunday.

I still feel fairly run down and like I am in the process of recovering physically, mentally, and emotionally from that grueling trip.

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If I am a little part of the Universe that the Big Universe is employing to experience Itself, than how can I better serve the Universe in Its experience?

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Late lunch miso experiment an success!:

Sweet White Miso Basil Sauce*:
For a small amount of sauce:
Near equal amounts of tahini & sweet white miso (1 large tablespoon each, a little more miso than tahini, I’d say)
Spring water to thin to desired consistency
Couple squirts of lemon juice
Handful of fresh chopped basil
Heat til smooth and melty

Delish on veggies, in wraps, on pasta! Yeah!

*Based on a recipe from the South River Miso Company

Evening:
Hooray! New running shoes!

Quiet eve at home with my Love and kitties, and a delightful glass of La Crema Pino. Earth rocks.

Accepting the Possible

Last Eve:
Returned home last eve. Long, uncomfortable flight. 8 hours from the time we left for the airport until we stepped across our threshold, exhausted.
Veggie dinner at La Fendee and delightful sleep in our own delicious bed.
Kitties a-plenty.

This Morning:
Delightful home, teas, airing out the house on a cool, sunny, glorious Texas winter morning.
Relaxing Saturday. Grateful to be back into our life.

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From R. Fripp Diary:

Begin with the possible & move gradually towards the impossible. If we wish for the impossible to reach back & draw us towards it, we must undertake what is possible for us. So, what is possible?

What is the function of my practice? The question is intended in a very practical way. Not, because this serves my aim as much as, how & why does this practice serve my aim? That is, what is it about the mechanics of this practice that make it more likely that I may achieve my aim?

Life is too short to take on the unnecessary.

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Afternoon:
Cats napping, D at V-ball.
Workout: weights, squats, abs, a little yoga.

Zazen.

Ah….Practice.

Sounded like someone else singing at first, since I haven’t sang in over week. New appreciation for how much control I actually do have in the use of my instrument. It felt a little like riding a bucking bronco initially: indicative of its inherent power. Surpised and pleased. Welcome challenges, always.

It occurs to me that acceptance may germinate from acceptance of each moment. Accepting the greater circumstances of life is not a bite-sized piece. This moment is a bite-sized piece.

Evening:
Delightful Wholefoods shop with D and experiments with sea veggies! New tea purchase: Pu-erh.

Winter stew simmering in crock pot.

Quiet luscious evening with D & kitties. Such relief….

Heaven & Earth

Mid-Morning:
Mum’s surgery went very well yesterday. She is recovering more swiftly than even expected, so all is on track. Relieved. Tired. Stressy. Emotional nite.

Overwhelmingly challenging to face much of this, having gone through too much hospital horror with my own mother. Dave’s Mum is doing fine, and will undoubtedly recover to run us all ragged with her myriad activities and travels. Having watched my own mother whither and die over the short span of 6 months, has carved a deep chasm of grief in my Spirit- one whose rocky folds, precarious ledges, and expansive promontories I have memorized and befriended. Yet, I am never surprised when an unexpected geyser washes over the landscape. Sometimes memories I thought long dissipated spring forth in welcome tears.

I loathe hospitals, doctors, and medical everything. Flight response in high gear. Sleep is transitory.

Heading home on an afternoon flight tomorrow. Joy of Joys! The furries will be waiting all warm and meowy!

Brigham and Women’s is connected to the Boston Children’s Hospital which is what we walk through from our hotel to get to the adult cardiac care area. Despite the original art by famous children’s illustrators hanging in the halls, the fun neon colored lights suspended from the lobby ceiling, big fish tanks, and the fascinating, hilarious and poignant, enormous perpetual motion installation, it is a terribly heart wrenching place. We stepped outside last eve after dinner for some fresh city air, having been stuffed in these buildings all day (did I say how much I hate the stench of hospitals?), and looking up, we noticed a tower in which the windows had been decorated. Checking it out further, we were dismayed to see that the windows had been drawn on from the inside: big hearts, Christmas trees, snowmen and other fun whimsical child scribble…the windows belonged to children’s hospital rooms, and undoubtedly to kids built far more spirited and courageous than I.
Moving and heart-breaking.

The expanse and diversity of human experience is staggering: the Zillion-fold Expression of the Universe is boundless in Its tragedy and exultation.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy…

Starbucks tea tastes like cardboard.

Evening:
Listening practice.

Peppermint

Morning:
Tummy all a-jumble through the nite.

Ok, the #!*-ing water for tea in the lobby smells like coffee, like it was brewed in a coffee pot or kept in a thermos that had been used for coffee. Oh! The Humanity! Must make plans to move to the Continent. Resorted to throwing a tea bag into a bottled water. I feel like a jonesin’ heroin addict.

Off to take Mum to brunch at Café Soleil and then whisking her to Beantown. Café Soleil is actually Café Sano at Living Earth, the baby Wholefoods we found. But we decided Café Soleil is what all the little veggie restaurants ought to be called.

Evening:
Back from Beantwon. Almost 5 hours getting Mum checked it. All is well and on track. VERY tired, stressy. Another headache. At Starbucks for a peppermint tea, a little evening work for D and email.

Let me just say, peppermint tea is yet another one of Life’s wondrous delights. Firstly it is the brewing. Today it is just 2 peppermint tea bags in a steamy Starbuck’s cup. Not the worse, certainly, but if it is brewed from heaps of loose leaf peppermint in boiling spring water and steeped for 15 minutes, it is an ebony, dreamy elixir. Just holding this toasty cup in my hands and inhaling the luscious vapors, not only soothes my stressed and aching forehead, but I breathe in all that is good in the world.

Off to a glass of wine and quiet dinner with D.

Name that Tune

Morning:
Gray. Cold. Tired.
Chai Tea at Starbucks.
Finally a plan: Mum goes in tomorrow with procedure on Wednesday. A relief for everyone, I think. Waiting is always worse than doing, and now the waiting, at least, has a time table. Trip extended.
Sun peeking out. I am feeling colder and colder.

Afternoon:
Tummy all a-jumble. This usually happens when I travel, and I was doing pretty good tummy-wise til today. Another Bad-Idea nap, though it must be needed.

Early Eve:
5pm: pitch like midnite outside. Must find some tea.
Some Radical Ipod Listening Practice and aaaahhhhhhhh: tea. Now I understand why the heavy taxation of tea was the last straw for the Colonists.

In reading Ananzi Boys: the theme of bringing Life forth into Creation with earth, sweat, blood, and Naming:

The Song: The Uni-verse.

It really struck me, this Naming thing. Saying aloud what you want to create gives it Life. Naming the aim. Naming the intention. Before the Naming there may be form, but the Spark of Life comes from speaking aloud, singing Creation into Being. Creation Spirituality has a lovely phrase: that we are Co-Creators with God. I was and am often afraid to say aloud what I want....and that, too, that is changing.

Cultivating Fearlessness

Evening:
Peppermint tea with Mum and her beau Larry. Such bright spirits they are!

Zazen before bed.

Sunday All Over the World

Morning:
I like Sundays. It is my favorite day of the week. Usually. Today: Dreary. Cold. Snow Dusting. Depressed. Tired. Homesick. Morning tea postponed: hotel hot water downstairs in thermos smells like coffee. No go. Dave working,
The ghosts that haunt this area, and all the way to Boston, are thick as thieves.
Tea at Starbucks.

Afternoon:
Sun is out. Downing Rescue Remedy like water.

'Soft flexible mind is the way'
My mind is obviously neither soft, nor flexible…

I am unskilled at applying the principles from my practice to my day to day life:

What is available right now?
Where is the edge?
What is too much?
What is too little?
How much energy do I need?
What are alternate approaches?
How small is a bite-sized piece?
Determine what is a bite-sized piece.
Take bite-sized pieces.

What needs the focus of my energy?

What needs weeding?
What needs watering?
How much can I handle?
Take frequent breaks.

Feeling selfish makes all my work seem transparent, insincere, and like a sham. Ironic that I think some things ought to be easy, and that things ought to change quickly. Nothing changes quickly. Lives do not often have avalanches, at least not ones that have not been building for years, occurring only by surprise due to unawareness. Has it been snowing? Wow! I hadn’t noticed! Circumstances, feelings, actions, reactions, habits- all morph, grow, change, and evolve over time. No quick fixes. No instant gratification. Slow, methodical, smart work yield Big Change. Just like the Universe. Since I am the Universe and It is me- us…all of us, why might I think I’d be organized any differently than a glacier, a forest, an ocean?

Radical listening practice.

Zazen.

More radical listening practice.

Reading down by the fire. Always delightfully surprised at Neil Gaiman’s genius. Am in love with Anansi Boys. Scarily applicable to my life. Isn’t that what makes art good?

More radical listening practice.

Evening:
Dinner (ate too many French fries! Ugh!) and delightful visit with Mum.

You Gotta Serve Somebody…

Last Nite:
Ah…relief…hotel bed and roomy shower. Pea discovered under mattress at Mum’s- I am revealed as a real live Princess! And they didn’t believe me! :o. Hi-speed internet for D's work- welcome respite for him from spending the day at Starbucks.

So, how and/or who do I serve? If where you are going is how you get there, you are already where you are going. My how stuff was going just peachy until faced with an actually, real-life, honest-to-goodness emotional challenge. Isn’t that always the case? Easy to find peace all alone at the top of the mountain, but engage in the world and that is where the practice comes alive. I’m not doin’ so good on the fellow man front right now. Apparently, I still suck at that.

An exhausted Zazen before bed.

Today, Morning:
Delicious sleep. Tea. Sunny cold day. Still waiting on surgery date for Mum- will not know until Monday, likely to be scheduled late Jan-Early Feb. She is doing well physically, is unadmittedly stressed about the immanent procedure, but in freakishly high spirits as usual. She is a remarkable woman.

Feeling less like a struggling fish caught in a net and more like a surfer: found a very cool, small holistic market with veggie café (table service, even!). Resistance is futile. Struggle and rejection yields nothing but more of the same. Find the wave and ride it. Recognizing the unfamiliar wave is the challenge. I was riding a nice long fabulous wave at home that had become quite familiar territory. Flying up here, I paddled out and caught another, and became misguided that I was applying the same surfing principles, when I was repeatedly falling off the board.

Zazen.

Afternoon:
Nap. I never take naps. Today I did. Groggy reminder of why I never take naps.

It Is What it Is

Morning:
Tea at Starbucks. Radical listening practice. Persistent headache. Cold and gray, little snow. Unrestful sleep. Princess and the pea bed: I can feel every spring poking up through the mattress and am certain there is an old, dried up, shriveled green pea under there somewhere and it feels like a boulder. No private time is driving me nuts. Feeling stifled and suffocated. Hours trickle by.

Inspired by Robert Fripp recording session I am watching….he is playing in blues and greens and for dark timbres, he adds some brown :) I like that.

Later Morning:
Still at Starbucks. Radical iPod listening practice continues. Dave working devilishly.

So self involved to think my little life experiences, thoughts, pains, loves, hates, minutia, etc are of such an individual and special nature that no one else has experienced them, that they are outside the realm of human everyday experience, singular to me. It’s laughable when I write that…What I feel is what I feel and that is that. How to not label good and bad? How to suspend judgment when faced with my emotional life, especially when I am in emotional turmoil? I am feeling selfish and resentful, I am not acting that way. So why the self flagellation? Why judge and attempt to censor how I feel or think? It is only the continual stream of morphing and changing thoughts and feelings floating across an ever-changing landscape. Whatever sense of control that is developed is from allowing what is to be, not, methinks, by suppression…

Thursday, January 05, 2006
Hell
Late Afternoon:
It’s freakin 4:10pm at is as dark as midnite in the bumfuck Northern state.
Little sleep on rock hard bed. Tea bag tea (good heavens) in microwaved water (egad) steeped in my Starbucks thermos. At least it was organic tea for cryin’ out loud.

Well, I’m in my own little Concentric Ring of Hell, probably unknown even to Dante: The X-Family-Step-Family Nightmare Ring. Definitely located below The Virtuous Pagans’ ring. I always thought that’d be a nice place to live. X-Family is a more fitting nomer than Step Family because it is more realistic of the actually circumstance. Step Family connotes some sort of normalcy that is supposed to exist- of course that is just an imaginary condition created by our culture and its inability to recognize that when things change they Change- they do not remain in some nostalgic fantasy state. X-Family, I think is actually too weighty: giving the impression that there was much of a family there to begin with and it sounds kinda cool and edgy, like X-Games or Gen-X (moi).

Its always a fucking crisis when I come here. If one doesn’t exist, it is promptly created upon my/our arrival. No point in going on about any of this, it just pisses me off and makes me feel invisible. You know what your mother used to say about if you’ve got nothing good to say….it’s worse: I have only bad things to say. Temporary alcoholism is a delightful solution to the stress- for me that means a glass of wine each evening.

I feel like all of my personal work is down the tubes because I hate being here so much. Selflessness isn’t one of my virtues- it’s not even a personality characteristic. This is simply a trip that gets in the way of the life I imagine(?) I’ve created for myself which exists a good 2000 miles from where I am physically sitting right now.

Lovely talk with Mum…that is the only glimmer of light here. We had tea and chatted about a woman’s right to choose, the nature of the Universe and Being, and the Christian Right missing the whole darn message they are supposed to espouse.

In any case, this is a Journal of Isness. And my Isness today is that this totally sucks. I am on a forced practice sabbatical which I am hating,- but I am trying to take my own advise of never underestimating the power of a break (this break is too long goshdarnit!).

I don’t really accept anything that exists up here, at all. Why does acceptance feel like defeat and resignation? Is that what acceptance is? I don’t know what the fuck acceptance is. I am accepting that this totally sucks and I hate this and I wanna go home and back to my life and my cats and singing and practice and Solstice Cat Cup and kitties and Backyard Possum.

This too shall pass.

Later Evening:
Everytime D kisses me I get butterflies….still.



Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Cat in Yard Make Good Meditation Partner

Ok, you have to say that with a B Movie Japanese accent.

Morning:
Tea in Solstice Cat Cup…listening to my very cool, enormous collection of newly cataloged MP3’s- how much does this rock? Yet more evidence that drudgery pays!

Zazen. I am not my thoughts.

Through repetition the magic is forced to rise

Morning:

This is happening in my life. Big time. I’m feeling like in order to get the Universe to hold up Its end of the bargain, the amount of energy I have to put into my life is, well, intense. Then again, the Universe is an intense thing and an intense place, and clearly not designed for slackers. It won’t ask anything of you that It wouldn’t be prepared to do itself.

Simplicity and Repetition. Repeat. Simplicity and Repetition.

Ok, I know I had this quote posted already, but golly I like it. And, well, posting it again, is simplicity and repetition, is it not? I also made another cool inspiring little bit of art for my desktop with Fripp aphorisms and a Graeme Base pic. Too cool.

The Solstice Possum visited us again last night and partook of the very ripe tomatoes we left out for him! Yeah!

Late Morning/Afternoon:

Practice.

I’ve noticed that if I become emotionally involved in the execution/performance of a piece, it all goes to hell in a handbasket. As soon as I feel that adrenaline rushing, tummy tickling, ‘oh, I am so into this’, I am headed toward trouble fo' sure. Ego jumps out into Look at Me: I’m Acting Mode. Getting in the way. Much about keeping the lid on the intense, low simmer, keeping the power of laser-beam focus, being the battleship.

Afternoon:

Off to coaching with Herr R today and a swing by TALA to pick up info on forming an arts nonprofit. Preparations continue for NE. More CD cataloging.

Coaching rocked. Sang my ass off.

Very tired and rundown feeling. Ugh. Skipping the run for vit C’s, echinacea and zinc suckies. Armed with the neti pot.

Evening:

Packing, laundry, etc. Ick. Too much zinc, methinks- tummy not so good.

Late Zazen, which was more like sitting in a Zazen posture with Baby Cat circling and yowling until I’d pet him. Well, that was Zen today. The Universe wanted to express itself as someone sitting with a cat yowling at them. That someone happened to me moi. Life is good.

Isness

Morning:
Tea in my favorite cup. Impending trip to NE making me fairly continually nauseous. Dread settling in.

Beautiful day.

Glorious!

Sunny, breezy. Intoxicating. The kinda day the Universe makes to shout, ‘All things are possible!’

Tea and cookies with Neil at Empire.

Random Oblique Strategy for today:

Only part, not the whole.

Ah! Always I need this reminder!

Afternoon:
Energizing vox lesson.

Run with Dave…still low energy. Ugh. Tired. Feeling run down. White tea with Ipod music transfer drudgery. Saw a really funny thing today that I think sums up life pretty succinctly: a woman driving a convertible Porche Boxster with the passenger seat filled with toilet paper. That about says it all, folks. We’re all in the same boat here, people.

Evening:
Zazen and practicing. More organizing of what has turned into an entire overhaul of my music library. All CD’s (which were compeltley disorganized in many different places) are getting ripped onto the new enormous hard drive and organized in iTunes for at home and iPod fun. From drudgery to delight!

All is Quiet on New Year’s Day

Morning:
Tea and morning prattling. Zazen.

Afternoon:
A walk through the Houston arboretum. Pine forested. Incredible serpentine, sinister vines. Fallow in winter. Warm day, breezes and sun. Quiet trails. Viney arbors. Noisy trains and highways sometimes very near, sometimes a little farther off. Dry creek beds. Bayou...

Faery woods

Back home and the un-decorating of the Solstice tree. We planted him in the back yard: Auspicious Cypress for the coming year and beyond!

Evening:

Dreary but necessary computer maintenance, backups etc.

Another several visits from Backyard Possum!

New Year's Eve Day

Simplicity and Repetition. Repeat. Simplicity and Repetition. – Zen Guitar Dojo

Late Morning:
Tired. Headachey. Less pain than yesterday. Tea, socks, emails and surfs. New Year’s Eve plans of lovely firepit in the garden and veggie dinner delight with Dave.

Afternoon:
Feeling better as the sun crosses the sky. Winter stew in the new very cool Solstice earthenware crockpot.

Zazen and on to practice. Tea a-plenty. Dave at Vollyball. Kitties napping.

Winter Stew:
Butternut
Squash
Parsnips
Carrots
Mushrooms
Applewood Chicken Sausage
Thyme
Marjoram
Veggie Bouillon broth
half & half
pepper
olive oil
onion powder

cut sausage in slices, brown in olive oil, thyme, marjoram and onion powder. add sausage & veggies to crockpot, add some veggie bouillon broth and pour some half & half over stew. stir. crock on low for several hours.

On to quiet New Year’s Eve.

Her Eminence: The Creatrix

Before figuring out what was going on physiologically, a woman’s Moontime was considered tremendously Powerful. Females are the only beings that can bleed for 7 days continually and not die. The roots of the separation of the sexes during Cycle Time was grounded in this honor for Power. Women gathered together to celebrate their Power, take a much needed break from community life and child-rearing, and reconnect with themselves and each other.

For many, many years I have honored this time as a reminder of my unique femaleness and my ability to create new life- whether literally or figuratively. I have enjoyed the bittersweet feeling of my hormones changing, and surging, and my body ovulating. The pain of the undulations of my uterus is a reminder of the Creative Force present in all life of which my body enjoys a fleeting spark. In the weeks preceding my quite (always been) irregular Moontime, I tend to get increasingly focused, very productive, and wonderfully creative. As usual during this time, I’ve been experiencing that intensity in my continued practice schedule, organizing my studio space, creating a gift set, as well as my own set of Oblique Strategies, the amount of journaling I’ve been doing (including transforming this blog into its own daily practice), and finally adding a long overdue Sitting practice to my life.

A woman’s Blood is her connection to all other women who she shares her life with and who have come before her and who will carry on after her. Her Moontime connects her to to the Spirit of Creation: The Creatrix. Celebrate your Power and swear your Moon Blood on sacred objects. Mark your cycles in your Blood on parchment, or fine decorative papers. Find a beautiful cloth, consecrate it, and allow your Blood to flow upon it during meditation or quiet sitting time. Find a calm, private place outside in your backyard perhaps, and allow your blood to run on the Earth. These are Powerful, Powerful acts. These are acts of respect for yourself, your body, your innate creative nature, respect for women who have given birth, for women who have died in childbirth, for women who have chosen not to birth children but Mother a creative or professional life, for women how have adopted children; respect for your sisters, friends, mothers, grandmothers, aunts, both alive and great-great-great, respect for all women everywhere, ever. Your Moontime is what you share with every woman who has ever lived. It is the essence of what makes you physically female. It is your Birthright to draw on this Power from the Great Mystery of the Cycle of Life.

Slow down, relax, let go, allow, accept, nurture and love yourself. Let the field be fallow…make space for new growth. I think, for me today, this actually means napping and coach potato-ing.

..................................................................................

Morning:
Early morning, feed furries, Meowzie happily out on the prowl, tea in Solstice Cat Cup, beginning of a long 24-48 hours of painful cramps: a reminder to slow, take a break, nurture, and love myself, more journaling, and online contemporary role research.

I had put away Amour viens aider ma faiblesse for maybe a month? Yesterday with Roger it was totally rockin’ (if such things rock- well, they rock for me!) - never,

never underestimate the power of taking a break

Evening:

Day spent slothing about. Very painful and achey and nauseous. Difficult. Vertical movement not optional. Kitty hotpad welcome.

Managed a very brief practice time.

Her Imminence

Morning:
Golden Yunnan in the Solstice Cat Cup. Emails, surfings, fiddling with my blog template. Feeling like that is a pointless waste of time. Mooncycle imminent, a hint today. Finally. Sluggish, uncomfortable. Workouts suspended until Mooncycle comes and goes, too painful. Working Jammies on.

Afternoon:
Oblique Strategy random pick: ‘Not building a wall. Making a brick’. Love it! On display in practice space.
Second long steeping of Golden Yunnan during Zazen, then on to warm-up and Afternoon Practice.

Making some good headway on the Rossini cadenzas. There is actually light at the end of the tunnel! It is amazing what happens when I cease to be afraid or intimidated by something and simply take it on in manageable increments.

3:30pm - Cat to the vet, chin skin condition returning, not bad, but I feel like I must keep on top of it. She said to keep an eye on it, but no treatment at this moment. Good news. Chlorhex is suspected to have caused the bad skin reaction that led to the infection and the hair loss. Beware the Chlorhex scrub cat parents! Vet recommends a couple of drops of Rescue Remedy in kitty water bowl for stress- I think I shall partake of some as well!

Late Afternoon:
Off to coaching with Roger and much singing.
Fantastic coaching today. Gobs of fun singing and learning. Marvelous-ness a-plenty.

Evening:
Wholefoods shop and now on to making homemade tomato-beet-veggie soup. Yum. Achy. Backache. Mooncycle on the morrow. Finally. Am trying Rescue Remedy myself and adding a couple drops to kitty water bowl- we’ll see how that goes.
Evening Sitting.
Break from Evening Practice tonite. Time with Dave, kitties, and the delight of watching an episode of PBS Mystery! Brother Cadfael which I absolutely adore. I have a weak spot for medieval herbalist monks solving crimes. What can I say?

Just watched a video clip of Brad Warner’s punk band ODFX. You’ll find it by going over to the right there and clicking on the Hardcore Zen link. I don’t know what to say about punk except we all could use a good shot of that attitude. I want the music that I write to have that attitude, even if it is much, much more docile sounding, and I want my classical singing to have that attitude as well. It’s the same reason I adore Diamanda Galas. It’s not the music so much that appeals to me, but the Spirit of it that is so real, raw and powerful. Gimme me somma that!

A little wine with dinner...

Craftiness

I've decided to journal everyday with disregard to content, much to my readers’ chagrin, I imagine. But I don’t have a big audience here, so this little enterprise is simply for me. If you stumble in here and find nothing useful, or find it all interminably boring, surf on! I’ve taken to the idea of keeping a Crafty Journal, detailing what I do each day. A noticing practice. So now this blog is morphing into something more along the lines of a Guitar Craft Journal. I am a singer and not a guitarist, nor am I a Crafty and I have not studied with Robert Fripp nor with any of the Crafty Guitarists, but I have long been inspired by the work of Robert Fripp and his musical compatriots as well as his Guitar Craft teachings and philosophies. To learn more about the aims of Journaling, check out the Guitar Craft site (follow the link over there to the left).

Morning:
Arose late. Morning tea in the new Solstice Earthenware Cat Cup. Stellar. Various emails, journaling, surfings etc. Reschedule of coaching session, giving me a welcome extra practice day. Trepidations about approaching New England trip keeping me up at night, made worse by encroaching Moontime. I am a slow goer in the morning, hmmm.

I notice when I release something I have been holding that I did not need, that the Universe steps right in and fills the gap with new and unexpected goodies. Even something as mundane as clearing files and bookmarks from my computer clears space for new energy.

Donning Working Jammies. I at least have to get out of Sleeping Jammies and get into Working Jammies. I cannot stand to be in uncomfortable clothing. I am fine in fabulous, fun Bohemian Diva Garb outside home, but as soon as I walk in the door, it’s tanks and sweats.

Spending working mornings with my husband is always a treat. Since we both work from home (mostly) we are in each other’s company, yet separate and whirring away at our own projects.

For Solstice, my friend Neil gave me a delightful book by Wendy Froud to add to my books of Faeries. It just doesn’t get better than that.

Afternoon:
A long re-steeping of Golden Yunnan during Zazen, then on to practice.
Made my own cool set of Brain Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies. In my practice space today: ‘Fill every beat with something’.
Off to meet for project discussions.

Early Evening:
Fruitful brainstorming session. Dinner of homemade black-eyed peas and brown rice (yum). Dying my hair to rid myself of the Ten Tenacious Greys. Damn them. Emails, 'net research. Peppermint tea making.

Evening:
Dave at volleyball. Zazen. Evening practice. Unexpected phone chat and artsy pep talk with Neil. More practicing.

Process

“The creative process is utterly mysterious.
It is magical, unknowable, indefinable.

The creative process is concrete.
It is know-able, do-able, feel-able, available.

Both these statements are true.
Both these statements are contradictory.

Unless we embrace and hold these two equal truths,
we are not part of a creative process.

That is, we are not part of the creative process.
That is, we are not part of the process of Creating.” – Robert Fripp

Faced with two major recording projects that will flower in 2006 and will provide the score for dance/performance projects, as well as my continued practice schedule, I am continually looking for and often relying on inspiration.

Zone of It

I had an interesting experience of balance the other night at my concert. (And the concert was great. I always worry about things that need no worrying! What needs to be worried about? Nothing! Ha!)

Balance is something in life everyone is telling you to establish- like you could just snap your fingers and have a balanced life. ‘Be emotionally balanced’ is a big one. What is that? Ok, I am getting better at it. I have cultivated circumstances in my life that no longer keep me on an emotional rollercoaster, so I feel more ‘even’, but that took a long time.

I have a lot of concepts of balance running around my head, and it was nice to have a concrete, real experience of it. It occurred to me that balance is a range of possibilities within a zone or framework- like walking on a balance beam, perhaps. A balance beam brings to mind feelings of precariousness (it’s not precarious for a gymnast, it is home. Don’t throw me in the briar patch, B’rer Bear!), but walking was precarious when we started out as babies: I like the image of walking being nothing more than a series of controlled falls forward. And from such an essential, demanding task we flower into movers, runners, dancers, athletes, skaters, snowboarders, skiers (ok, I have the Winter Olympics on my mind, and Sunday OLN skiing leading to Torino!). Walking is the essential springboard. I’m willing to bet, though I am no biomechanics specialist, that walking has all the building blocks for every high level activity we are capable of. I am also intensely inspired by what athletes do and how they train: the conditions they create over long periods of time that lead to excellent performance. I love to ski, and I love to watch pro skiers. I followed the Tour de France and boy, are those guys inspiring!. I had a great pic on my desktop of the peloton swooping around a bend. Whenever someone else is absorbed in training and practice, it inspires my own practice habits.

Singing the other night at the concert gave me the experience of not one place or one thing being right or it, but the Zone of It was a grouping of possibilities in the neighborhood. This created an alive-ness that surprised me. I wasn’t going for some static (dead!), perfect (dead!) place that doesn’t exist, and therefore is unachievable. The Zone of It is an intangible, imperfect, alive, real set of choices and places within a framework. Refreshing!

PS. The Baby Cat's chin is healing nicely from the meds!