Celebrate National Poetry Month

Now is the month for readers, public library patrons, school kids, and poets around the country to intellectually dance and sing the praises of poetry.

Because, in 1996, the Academy of American Poets crowned April National Poetry Month!

I pulled this poem out of a bowl at the public library. The note attached to the bowl said:

"Help yourself to a poem..."

What a great idea. I would encourage you to do the same.

APRIL RAIN SONG

Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk.
The rain makes running pools in the gutter.
The rain plays a little sleep-song on our roof at night-

And I love the rain.

- Langston Hughes

Oh, This Moment

This Moment: I am always struggling with this moment.

Dharma practice means dealing with what is happening in our mind at this moment. Instead of dreaming of conquering future attachment, let’s deal with the craving we have right now. Rather than drowning in fears of the future, let’s be aware of the fear occurring right now and investigate it.

–Thubten Chodron, from Taming the Mind (Snow Lion Publications)

Emotional Closure

Forgiving the Son; Forgiving the Self

Jay McGraw, the author of the self-help book Life Strategies for Teens, had almost no professional credentials he could tap into while writing his book about how to assist teens cope with life’s traumas other than his family ties.

His father is Philip C. McGraw, a.k.a. Dr. Phil.

Despite that fact, I did find some redeeming concepts in the chapter "Life Law Nine: There is Power in Forgiveness."

Here is a passage worth sharing from the book.

“The best thing for you is to forgive. When you forgive a person, you thrive in spite of him or her. You blossom. As the old saying goes, ‘Living well is the best revenge.’ You are the only person who has to know about this forgiveness because this is something that takes place within you and for you.”

McGraw goes on to write that, “What you want is emotional closure. You want to be able to say honestly that you have no unfinished emotional business left with the people you have been focused on. To be really free, you have to forgive.”

When anger, hurt or resentment flow out of human hearts: love, forgiveness, light, hope and optimism flood in to take their place. I'm nurtured with all the emotional vitamins and minerals my body craves. The warmth of sunshine physically floods me with this positive energy, and I like to visualize upbeat life forces charging through my veins when the sun’s rays penetrate my skin.

I feel really free today!

Light Bulbs from Life Law Nine - Paraphrased by LJR

1. Realize that emotional wounds scar like physical wounds.
2. Remember that withdrawing emotionally can affect you physically.
3. To hold on to previous hurt poisons all potential relationships.
4. Forgiveness is a choice that is beneficial to you.

Underpinnings of the Global Economic Crisis

Reflections on the spiritual underpinnings of the global economic crisis
April 3, 2009 - LJR


In Christian Sunday schools across the United States, boys and girls learn a golden rule from the Book of Luke that goes something like this: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Simple and concise, but do most world religions, including Christianity, lack spiritual direction on how to incorporate ethical practices and moral principles into the workplace?

Host of American Public Media’s radio program Speaking of Faith, Krista Tippett, interviewed eight experts working in the fields of religion, science, industry and the arts on the subject of the spiritual underpinnings of the global economic crisis.

Swiss banker, Hindu, and follower of Jesus, Prabhu Guptara, and religious historian, Martin Marty, encouraged listeners to examine Christianity’s role in capitalistic corporate America and to explore the disconnect between Christian morals and the American business model.

Both Guptara and Marty emphasized that many world religions, including Christianity, lack spiritual guidelines for incorporating morality, integrity and ethics into the workplace. In other words, Christianity united with the capitalistic economic system practiced in the United States, will not generate an ideal climate for facilitating a prosperous and healthy social and economic global environment.

Due to the decisions made in large part by businesses in the United States, over 53 million people living in poverty worldwide are experiencing the added pain of coping with the devastating effects of a global recession according to a February 12, 2009 report from the World Bank.

“New estimates for 2009 suggest that lower economic growth rates will trap 46 million more people on less than $1.25 a day than was expected prior to the crisis. An extra 53 million will stay trapped on less than $2 a day. This is on top of the 130-155 million people pushed into poverty in 2008 because of soaring food and fuel prices,” the World Bank report states.

Christian teachings stress the glory and jubilation wealthy businesspeople are supposed to experience in heaven if they provide for less fortunate members of their community here on earth. Yet these teachings seem to be forgotten in corporate offices and daily business decision-making practices in the United States when blue-collar jobs and pensions are cut drastically while corporate executives’ bonuses are paid religiously and without fail.

Valuing companies on the basis of their economic fundamentals without regard for human consequences is taught in nearly every MBA program across the country. It’s a principle that’s solidly hardwired into America’s economic belief system- a belief system that goes unquestioned until a mortgage crisis ensues and confidence levels in Wall Street crumble.

The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the near collapse of investment bank Bear Stearns were a product of greed and excess in the Christian nation of the United States. A worldwide recession is the price the global community must pay for linking their economies to the American business model, a model that operates on promoting self-interest and profit motives as guiding belief structures.

The 2009 annual meeting of the United Nation’s Commission on the Status of Women focused on the global economic downturn and its impact on women worldwide. Some participants at the conference said the financial crisis could undo ten years of progress in a single year.

This is because women in Asia, Africa and Latin America are often the first to be fired during a recession when global demand for textiles and imported goods decreases in countries such as the United States, Europe and Japan. Incidents of domestic abuse and violence against women also increase as financial worries play out brutally on the home front.

The Lord states in the Book of Jeremiah that he will send his destroyers to punish evil rulers and unjust kings because woe is the price leaders will pay if they build their palaces through unrighteous and unjust means.

Thus commands the Lord in Jeremiah 22:3, “Do justice and righteousness, and deliver the one who has been robbed from the power of his oppressor. Also, do not mistreat or do violence to the stranger, the orphan or the widow…”

The Christian God punishes but also forgives, so if this is the case, will God forgive repenting chief financial officers and managers of investment banks for their sins?

According to “The Tibetan Book of the Dead” published by Shambhala Publications, “The concept of sin, for instance, is inevitably associated with original sin, guilt, and punishment, which have no place in most Eastern teachings. Instead, Buddhism looks for the basic cause of sin and suffering, and discovers this to be the belief in a self or ego as the centre of existence. This belief is caused not by innate evil [that simplistic Western dichotomy between good and evil that defines sin] but by unconsciousness, or ignorance of the true nature of existence.”

World religions and spiritual teachings provide powerful tools for deconstructing and critically questioning American business practices rooted in ego, greed, and an unquenchable desire for material possessions. Whether we use these spiritual tools to critique a faulty economic system that got us into this financial mess in the first place or ignore these tools altogether is left to personal choice.

Trapeze Me Sliver Please: I Want to Fly

“A Silver Trapeze” by Alice Schertle

A silver trapeze of my own: I dream of it nightly.
A slim silver bar at the end of a rope I seize
and am lifted, carried, I’m flying above the ground lightly.
A silver trapeze.

Down and around and up on the crest of a breeze
I swoop, I soar through a cloud, hesitate slightly,
then loop the loop like a pinwheel and hang from my knees.

Up through space I race on a bar shining brightly,
touch the tip of a star whenever I please,
kick off from the moon, sweep soundlessly down, holding tightly
a silver trapeze.

Why Does Romance Happen in the Dark?

Why Does Romance Happen in the Dark?

[I am trying to live in reality in romance and in my life! This passage reminds me to be self-aware.]


Why is it that romance happens in a darkly lit nightclub, or at an intimate dinner by candlelight, or at night under the moonlight? It is because, in those situations, you can’t see all her pimples, or his false teeth. But under candlelight, our imagination is free to fantasize that the girl sitting opposite could be a supermodel, or the man has the looks of a movie star. We love to fantasize, and we fantasize to love. At least we should know what we’re doing.

–Ajahn Brahm, from Opening the Door of Your Heart (Lothian Books)
March 19, 2009
Tricycle's Daily Dharma

"Landscape with Flatiron" from After the Quake

That Bewitched and Enchanted Space Between Imagination and Intellect

Presenting ideas through language is something individual writers conjure first in that bewitched and enchanted space between imagination and intellect. The result is a sentence, paragraph or story that becomes a roadmap for leading readers to revelations regarding partially developed thoughts or fully blooming memories churning within.

Haruki Murakami’s short story “Landscape with Flatiron” opened a memory inside of me, an orange and glowing memory of fire builders and bonfires crackling on humid nights in the Field of Dreams on the big island of Hawai’i.

If you search for the Field of Dreams on Google maps, you won’t find it in the middle of the Pacific. It’s a place within a place on an island in a chain of islands.

The Field of Dreams is an open field at the Kalani Oceanside Retreat where volunteers go to talk, relax and gaze into crackling bonfires that have been slowly and precisely built and tended by the men of the landscaping and maintenance departments, burly men with strapping chests and sun-kissed skin. In the sky, the stars perform their nightly dance on twinkling toes as the human beings below spin and twirl to the night’s tropical beat.

In “Landscape with Flatiron,” Murakami explores the social significance of community bonfires, places where people have gathered for centuries to feel the comfort of knowing they were part of something bigger than just themselves. Junko, a young woman in the story, describes standing in front of the fire like this:

“The spread of the flames was soft and gentle, like an expert caress, with nothing rough or hurried about it- their only purpose was to warm people’s hearts. Junko never said much in the presence of the fire. She hardly moved. The flames accepted all things in silence, drank them in, understood, and forgave. A family, a real family, was probably like this, she thought.”

At the same time, Murakami interprets the meaning of fire for human survival when the character, Junko, recalls reading the short story “To Build a Fire” by Jack London.

“As usual, Junko thought about Jack London’s “To Build a Fire.” It was the story of a man traveling alone through the snowy Alaskan interior and his attempts to light a fire. He would freeze to death unless he could make it catch. The sun was going down. Junko hadn’t read much fiction, but that one short story she had read again and again, ever since her teacher had assigned it as an essay topic during the summer vacation of her first year of high school. The scene of the story would always come vividly to mind as she read. She could feel the man’s fear and hope and despair as if they were her own; she could sense the very pounding of his heart as he hovered on the brink of death. Most important of all, though, was the fact that the man was fundamentally longing for death. She knew that for sure. She couldn’t explain how she knew, but she knew it from the start. Death was really what he wanted. He knew that it was the right ending for him. And yet he had to go on fighting with all his might. He had to fight against an overwhelming adversary in order to survive. What most shocked Junko was this deep-rooted contradiction.”

As we all know, human beings are large, walking, talking bundles of contradictory energy, but when we come together around a well-tended fire on a warm island night, the beauty of community nourishes the spirit. The thought of death stands apart momentarily alone and tongue-tied when we humans celebrate our powerful connections to family.

end note: [I am sure a woman could have accepted the job of fire starter smoothly and without a hitch, but during my time at Kalani from December through early March 2009, the celebration of masculinity bubbled forth in front of the inferno.]

Charlatan Comics and the Word of God

No Discipline Neuters Love???

I had no idea I was listening to a Christian radio station because an unknown voice was discussing things his dog shouldn’t eat that the dog seemed to enjoy eating, which I assumed meant poop. I have known other dogs who do that in their spare time. That's why I came to that conclusion. He never said it directly.

Christian radio is something I almost always avoid, but on the 4-minute drive to the library, I heard a man who made me laugh, a better than average comedian.

The charlatan stand-up comic described how he would sit down with his dog, who couldn’t look him in the eye after such an incident had occurred, and offer words of stern discipline on why the particular substance consumed by the dog was not beneficial for his well being.

Comic; pastor; man of God: whoever he was said,

“You destroy and neuter love if there is no discipline.”

Now, I am left thinking about it.

Wild rides in the mind occur at unforeseen moments, like it or not.

The American Media: Where to start...

Addressing subjectivity reveals truth
June 30, 2008

Journalists must disclose potential biases behind their positions

Opinions themselves are not treacherous, but hidden opinions presented as the news offer readers a slanted view of the world. Full disclosure of a journalist’s personal agenda reveals the powerful punch of individual biases that contribute to shaping the news.

Hard news published in credible newspapers is based on the lofty assumption that a reporter’s neutral voice is revealing the truth in each story. But fair and balanced coverage in newspapers and on television has taken a bloody beating from modern-day media barons such as Rupert Murdoch.

Murdoch brazenly uses the media outlets he purchases including the Fox News Channel and The Wall Street Journal as mouthpieces for his own political and social agenda.

The slanted worldview that media moguls like Murdoch present to their audiences pushes gullible news consumers off-balance in their every day decision-making prowess by presenting them with misinformed and biased interpretations of national and global affairs.

In the case of an opinion writer like me, full disclosure is my way of revealing the voice behind the words. Full disclosure gives you- the reader- the knowledge that you require to recognize the origin of many of my positions on the issues.

Full disclosure is necessary because no opinion emerges from the darkness of a void into the light of day in a heartbeat. The code of beliefs we each live by and the boundaries of cultural constructs we map out in our minds were formed over years and years of living in the world.

The social, cultural, geographical, religious and economic circumstances that I have been exposed to throughout my lifetime affect my writing.

As Canadian philosopher Lorraine Code said, “Objectivity requires taking subjectivity into account.”

In his April 18, 2006 blog post “Goose Meet Gander: Answering The Times’ Questions,” Jeff Jarvis discusses the disclosure questionnaire that The New York Times requires freelance journalists to complete before they begin work at the newspaper.

Jarvis writes in that blog entry that if a reader needs information about a journalist to judge the credibility of his or her story, “We don’t need to litter stories in sparse print and airtime with every such disclosure; it could reach an absurd though amusing extreme… But we should not shy away from such disclosure when it is relevant.”

And Jarvis doesn’t shy away from exposing information that might affect his slant on a story including his religious, business, media, financial and political ties. He also answers some of the Times’ questions on the personal disclosure page of his BuzzMachine blog. The questions inquire about current and previous employers, volunteer work, lobbying and any financial ties or connections.

At the 2008 National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis, journalist Bill Moyers condemned media consolidation as the root cause of what he described as “journalism in extreme crises.”

He referred to the mainstream media as accountable to corporate boards and profits but not the public.

“As conglomerates swallow up newspapers, magazines, publishing houses and broadcast outlets, news organizations are folded into entertainment divisions. The news hole in the print media shrinks to make room for ads, celebrities, nonsense and propaganda, and the news we need to know slips from sight,” he told the audience at the conference.

In a world where corporations and media barons control both the content and ideological perspective of the news, Moyers warned the American public against becoming an unconscious and indoctrinated people fed by the mighty armada of power and influence in the dominant and dumbed down media.

For me, being an opinion writer is not about irresponsibly using this space to ignorantly and egotistically broadcast my own agenda to unconscious and indoctrinated readers.

For me, being an opinion writer is a process of using writing to publicly explore my preconceived notions about day-to-day life and engage in some mind-bending discussions with you: the readers.

I openly disclose that I wouldn’t mind possessing the riches that Rupert Murdoch enjoys, but that I wholeheartedly disagree with his personal news agenda.

I want readers to build a bridge of communication with writers that will assist us all in engaging in a robust and informed discussion about national and world affairs.

Full disclosure is the first step to reaching that goal.

Looking for My Path in 2009

[I wrote this editorial when I was in the Teach for America Program during the summer of 2008. I decided not to sign the contract with the Las Vegas Valley school system after completing my training in Watts. My path involves teaching talented and gifted and college bound students. I know that now.]

Education
July 28, 2008

Children in low-income neighborhoods deserve more adequate public school systems

A police helicopter was buzzing above the school grounds, drowning out the instructors’ voices inside of their classrooms at Markham Middle School in Watts, California on July 9.

Markham Middle School is a series of nondescript buildings near the Jordan Downs Housing Project. It’s a public housing project where residents experience the fallout from gang violence and a high crime rate on a level that profoundly affects the future opportunities available to the students who were sitting restlessly at their desks in front of me.

Los Angeles Times writer Sandy Banks described Jordan Downs in a 2006 article entitled “Injunction Has Community Feeling Handcuffed,” describing it as “a notorious public housing project in Watts considered by the Los Angeles Police Department to be so dangerous that officers are allowed to conduct ‘foot beat’ patrols from the safety of their cars and the department is installing outdoor surveillance cameras to monitor crime.”

I faced my students and wondered how their lives were different from mine.

I was a new 2008 Teach for America Corps member sent to Markham to teach summer school for the month of July. I was placed at Markham as part of the organization’s mission to close the educational achievement gap in the U.S.

When I sat down to join my small group of summer school students in our math and literacy class on the third day of school, I asked a student named Noe to tell me about his neighborhood.

Noe looked at me earnestly and said, “Miss, you don’t want to be in Watts at night or you’ll get raped and killed.”

I then asked Noe to advise me on things I should see or do while I was in Watts for the month of July.

“You should see the Watts Towers, Miss. It’s made out of garbage,” he said.

When I saw the Watts Towers for the first time, I wanted to appreciate this series of towers as optimistic expressions of art. In fact I visualized the towers as exuberant monumental pieces of urban art constructed from steel, concrete and found objects such as bed frames and bottles. Noe had told me, however, that the towers were made of garbage. Was I being overly optimistic?

Markham’s high school graduation rate is less than 50 percent, and the discipline problems I faced in my classroom were severe. I taught a group of extremely intelligent students who had created a classroom culture of misbehavior and bad choices that slowed down their learning process.

One of my students spent most of the hour using his hands to ball up his notebook paper and throw the balls across the room. Another student fidgeted restlessly and checked the cell phone in his pocket every few minutes, while another student completely turned around in his chair to chat with his neighbor.

This was not Iowa, the state where I had studied during my middle and high school years. Things were definitely different at Markham.

It was my job to create a space for learning. In the Teach for America literature that I read in order to prepare for my teaching experience, I re-learned what I already knew. An educational achievement gap exists in the U.S. To put it simply, where children grow up determines their life prospects.

According to the government’s National Assessment of Educational Progress 2005, a national assessment of students’ knowledge and skills, 9 year-olds living in low-income communities are three grade levels behind their high-income peers.

Of the 13 million children growing up in poverty, about half won’t graduate from high school. Those who do will perform on average at an eighth grade level according to the same report. Markham students were no exception.

After working with my students for only one week, I knew that the one thing I wanted most for Gilbert, Keynay and Jessica was for them to have an opportunity to learn and a chance to go to college, so that when they were 30 years old, they would be closer to realizing their dreams. And my kids had big dreams.

After reading their journal entries, I discovered that Gilbert wanted to own his own company and work with cars when he was 30. Keynay wanted to be married to a beautiful woman and have a good job, while Jessica wanted to get good grades in all of her classes and graduate from junior high and high school.

If, as the data suggests, only one in 10 students from low-income communities graduates from college, I still believe that a relentless pursuit of academic excellence in the classroom will result in my students at Markham beating the odds.

Evolution of the Species at Burning Man

Evolution, the Year of Science and Burning Man
Current mood: sleepy
Category: Art and Photography

[I am planning to go to Burning Man this year with Ana, Susan and Marina, and our plans began to take shape this afternoon on the road home to Kalani.]

Burning Man Update: The Jack Rabbit Speaks
Volume 13, Issue #12
February 5, 2009


Don't know if you're aware of this, but this month is the 200th anniversary of the birth of one Charles Darwin, and the 150th anniversary of his seminal book "On the Origin of Species" being published. (You could say it had a bit of an impact on things.)

Combined with the fact that 2009 is officially the Year of Science (yes, for reals: http://www.yearofscience2009.org), and that science is poised to retake its rightful place in governmental priorities, and that this year's Burning Man art theme is "Evolution", well ... our minds are about to explode with sciencey goodness!

So break out a beaker, fill it up with your libation of choice (be it a mixture or a solution), warm it up over your trusty Bunsen burner(if you're partial to hot toddies) and offer up a toast to the wonders of logic, reason, and science. And, heck, fanciful whimsy too, while you're at it ... because why not?

Unblock the Mind, Heart, Body and Spirit Flow

Blocked

[I am trying to unblock myself Pema. I wish that you were here to give me some mentoring from the heart! I need it.]

The river flows rapidly down the mountain, and then all of a sudden it gets blocked with big boulders and a lot of trees. The water can't go any farther, even though it has tremendous force and forward energy. It just gets blocked there. That's what happens with us, too; we get blocked like that. Letting go at the end of the out-breath, letting the thoughts go, is like moving one of those boulders away so that the water can keep flowing, so that our energy and our life force can keep evolving and going forward. We don't, out of fear of the unknown, have to put up these blocks, these dams, that basically say no to life and to feeling life.

-Pema Chodron, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Vol. I, #1

Girls Got Balls

Thought Provoking Quotes

From: The Gay Quote Book by Brandon Judell

To hell with the missionary position! (I don’t agree with this message 100 percent, but it has a rebel yell ring to it that shakes the status quo boat. That, I like.)

“I don’t think there is such a thing as a precise sexual orientation. I think we’re all ambiguous sexually.” Tennessee Williams

“Love can read the writing on the remotest star.” Oscar Wilde

“This morning even my pencil’s got your tooth marks.” May Swenson, writer

“Poison kills the body, but moral poison kills the soul.” James Douglas, Editor of the Sunday Express, 1928

“Girls got balls. They’re just a little higher up.” Joan Jett, musician

Learning Nudes

Title: Abdomens & The Chihuahua
Current mood: working
Category: Art and Photography

Non-Conform

The bubbly electronic music playing in the background was accompanied by 40 mile-an-hour winds blowing through the coconut palms and lauhala trees. The gusts and bursts of power from Mother Nature caused the Chihuahua sitting in my lap to twitch nervously from his Batman cape ears to the tip of his rat-like tail. After making ten to twelve attempts to snooze in my lap, he yawned wide-mouthed and decided to investigate the light-blue sweatshirt balled up in the corner of the futon. First, he sniffed the medium weight cotton thoroughly, and then he drug one arm of the sweatshirt into his territory.

Biting and sucking the fabric, he growled when I tried to reclaim my possession. Wrinkling his brow and powering his stick-like hind legs into high gear, the little brown bundle of nervous ticks pulled the sweatshirt to the middle of the futon where he could dominate and make love to it doggy fashion.

I put my sketches and pencils down so that I could address the situation, but once the sweatshirt was out of the little rascal’s jaws, my raincoat became his desired mate. Gently setting his four paws on the wooden floorboards, I returned to my drawing.

When the dog was no longer a problem, I realized that I enjoyed gazing at Neil’s flat muscular stomach. The first part of a man that catches my eye is his abdomen if it’s exposed, and here in Hawaii, exposed male abdomens abound aplenty. If I were to work on a sculpture, Neil’s well-defined abdominal muscles would be the body part that I would chose to isolate, knead and caress- spreading clay erotically through my fingers to replicate an adoration for that part of the male anatomy.

Neil was about five feet six inches tall, mildly hairy from his lower calves to his upper thighs, smooth on his back and topped with brown curly tresses sun kissed yellow. The hair under his arms was not too thick; sexy due to its sparseness and soft texture. Neil held his poses from one minute to twenty- twirling, spinning and yoga posturing until he found a comfortable position to freeze for our interpretations.

The music was changing, picking up tempo, lifting me spiritually higher off the futon’s cushion. The wind spun through the ceiling, rocking the metal supports with creaks and groans while the large-eared Chihuahua temporarily slept peacefully in my lap after I had hidden my excess clothing from his view. I realized that there is no right or wrong way to represent our physical world on paper. As I looked around the studio at various easels, I saw Neil represented in skin tone, passion purple, tingling teal, pencil, watercolor and oil: the consciousness of the artist whose energy brought the drawing to life hovered above each hand.

Step away from the binding constructs of right and wrong, left and right, homo and hetero and into your own being. Slip into the present moment’s teaching and the act of living itself. Step outside cultural conditioning and find your own space: the personal heart, mind, body and spirit comfort zone that gives you bliss.

The dog slept for perhaps two to three minutes in my lap, only to wake, turn his head 180 degrees, reshuffle his protruding bones into a new position and search again for the peace of slumber.

Wind chimes flavored the air with smells of dew kisses and honey.

The model relaxed the pose, stretching his stiff limbs with a sigh.

The Law of Growth

Each day at work in the landscaping department at an eco-resort on the Hilo side of the island of Hawaii, I witness greedy vegetation reach for the sun at the expense of what slouches and festers beneath the surface. As lava rock cracks and ohia trees and sword ferns emerge from the black ground, sensitive plants and morning glory vines root in the fertilizer of fallen leaves and rotting lehua flowers. The cycle of volcanic activity and the reclamation of lava by plant life is an organic process that transforms the landscape from the barren, rocky playground of Pele to lush swaths of variegated green growing at amazing speeds. The lovers Ohia and Lehua continue their love story high in the branches dropping life on the ground below.

I agree with Louise Erdrich, who in her collection of short stories “The Red Convertible,” describes the law of growth like this:

“In the woods, there is no right way to go, of course, no trail to follow but the law of growth. You must leave behind the notion that things are right. Just look around you. Here is the way things are. Twisted, fallen, split at the root. What grows best does so at the expense of what’s beneath.”

Seek Pleasure

Bliss and the Adventurer

Increasing pleasure was the focus of a day-long workshop I attended in January '09 at Kalani Oceanside Retreat in Pahoa, Hawaii. Stewart, the pleasure workshop facilitator, described himself as a serious student of bliss. That's the best job description I have heard to date.

One of the assumptions I embraced from Stewart's teachings was that the universe wants me to be happy because it's a place filled with excitement and joy. These are five points from the workshop that I want to remember in my own personal quest for pleasure.

1. My body is my friend.
2. When in doubt, forgive. Always be in doubt.
3. Say "yes" over and over again as the body accepts this promise of openness to possibility. Yes is an affirmation to the universe.
4. Integrate mind, body, heart and spirit. (The most important point for me!)
5. The following affirmation makes life more pleasurable: "I refuse to endure discomfort and pain, and I give myself permission to experience multiple daily pleasures in pursuit of a life complete with delight and harmony."

Of the eight steps to increasing pleasure that Stewart discussed at the workshop, my personal favorite was adopting the spirit of an adventurer. I have followed the adventurer's path for most of my life, and if I were to lead you on a tour of that path, it would look something like this.

An adventurer accepts risks, including the possibility of feeling pain, showing vulnerability, seeking out intensity and successfully handling challenges. A curiosity and sense of awe for the unfamiliar and unexplored territory define the adventurer's state of mind. Flexibility and openness to exploration and change are personality traits we cultivate. We allow curiosity, imagination and wonder to be our inspiration for action as our imaginations lead us to greater pleasures. We know how to manage expectations of ourselves and others and enjoy variety, contrast and novelty.

My advice is to adopt the attitude of an adventurer if you haven't already and bliss out at least once today and every following day.

Silence and Me: Seeking the Sea

Poem Thirty-One

Silence is the sea, and speech is like the river.
The sea is seeking you: don't seek the river.
Don't turn your head away
from the signs offered by the sea.
Mathnawi IV, 2062-2063

[I have been seeking silence lately because she's a willing partner who leads me through my mind's whirlwind to peace: a welcome relief to sit with her and share burdens only I can shed from my heart. She understands.]

Poem Forty

Don't hide your heart but reveal it,
So that mine might be revealed,
And I might accept what I am capable of.
Mathnawi I, 2682

expand the belly, rib cage and chest

Focus on the breath.
Expand the belly, the rib cage and the chest.

Notice where you feel relaxed and tense in the body. There’s nothing wrong with tension, but expand a feeling of ease into the areas of the body with stored pain, mental and physical.

Focus on the breath.
Expand the belly, the rib cage and the chest.
Open the heart.
Bow the head to show respect to the wisdom of the heart.

I'm practicing yoga again.

June-bugging

“Do what you will with me.”
is a line from Alexis Harte's song by the same name on the CD Junebug.

When I think of trust, playful lust, emotional safety in romantic relationships, respect between lover and loved, and damn pleasing sex, that line says volumes in six words.

People fornicate for hundreds of reasons.

1. They want to forget an ex-lover and banish pain from their hearts.
2. They want bodily pleasures with no strings attached to responsibility for their lover’s state of mind.
3. They’re drunk and a naked opportunity arises in their hands.

But, to give yourself over to another in trust, allowing him to do what he will with your body and mind is earthy, sexy, and oozes the context I am looking for when I am pleased from head to toe.

Therapist and author Mary Pipher, who I wish were my mentor, opened a channel of self-awareness in her book Writing to Change the World. I realized after I read a paragraph in her book that in order to reach the level of trust where I can tell my lover: "Do what you will with me,” I must observe and practice this truth.

“Unacknowledged emotions do not disappear. They fester. Ignoring dark emotions leads to addiction or violence (or regret). In fact, most of the truly rotten behavior in the world comes from running away from feelings.”

Don’t run away. When I don't run, egos will disappear in a state of grace, so I am able to follow the flow and soar.

"...the process is right, and the neurons are snapping, so ideas will burst forth."

Three Day Beard: How would you re-write the song?

I heard the song “It’s a Great Day to be Alive” on my way to school, and thought, “Heck yes! If I were a man, I would grow a Fu Man Chu too.” Getting a new tattoo and cruising for three days on a Harley are avenues to happiness for some. I, however, would re-write the song’s lyrics as follows:

Well I might go get me a new tattoo
or take my old Harley for a three day cruise,
might even grow me a Fu Man Chu...
Oh Aww!

My Revisions:

Well might go get me a plane ticket to paradise
Or take my sweetest buddy on a trek through Peru
Might even grab me a fellow and dance the tango
A fellow who has a Fu Man Chu.

(A visual is provided from Google Images although he is not THE fellow I plan to grab. In fact, I do not know this man.) Does he resemble an archetype of evil criminal genius floating around in the lyrics of a red neck country western song?

I am curious. What words would you use to express the sentiment that it's a great day to be alive? Don't be shy because it's your turn. Let the inner song writer emerge.

Side Note: I was reading about the racial stereotyping of the Fu Man Chu character, but his mustache is one of his defining characteristics. I think it is interesting how a country western singer, Travis Tritt, uses this reference to a style of mustache as something that he wants to grow on his face when he is feeling high on life. Tritt also wants to go unshaven when he's feeling fine. Perhaps for Travis Tritt, altering his facial hair is a sign of shaking off societal conformity and expressing his own inner creativity. As a woman, it is difficult to empathize with growing facial hair on a great day. We usually pluck ours.

My favorite parts of the original song are below.
Artist/Band: Travis Tritt – It’s A Great Day to be Alive

Got a three day beard I don't plan to shave
And it's a goofy thing but I just gotta say
Hey I'm doing alright

Feelin’ pretty good and that's the truth
It's neither drink nor drug induced
No I'm just doin’ alright

Now I look in the mirror and what do I see?
A lone wolf there starin’ back at me
Long in the tooth but harmless as can be
Lord I guess he's doin’ alright

Sometimes it's lonely:
Sometimes it's only me
and the shadows that fill this room
Sometimes I'm fallin’
Desperately callin’
Howlin’ at the moon...
Ahwoo!
Ahwoo!

Well I might go get me a new tattoo
or take my old Harley for a three day cruise,
might even grow me a Fu Man Chu...
Oh Aww!

And it's a great day to be alive.
I know the sun's still shinin’ when I close my eyes.
There are some hard times in the neighborhood.
But why can't every day be just this good?