Weekend retreat in Edgewood

House sitting for Cari, Glenn, and Anni...

This is Jesse...

This is their awesome, relaxing back deck...
This is the front porch. Sisco posed so nicely for me...
This is the cute little path they built, complete with a fountain/watering hole for the dogs...
This morning I took a wandering drive towards those mountains, following dirt roads to their end. This is the view Cari and Glenn get to see every morning when they drive down towards Rt. 40 to go to UNM. The picture doesn't do it justice at all. I plan to bring people up this way when they come to visit me just because the drive is gorgeous, and you really can see forever, it seems.

This is the front porch, complete with my two new buddies: Riley, the yellow lab, and Sisco, the lab/husky mix...Riley is the sweetest and follows me everywhere. I feel very safe here alone with these two guys keeping watch...

This is the sunset Mel and I saw the other day. She took this shot while I drove. It was magnificent. THIS is the New Mexico I came here for. THIS is the inspiring horizon that harmonizes with my soul, that resonates and satisfies my need to feel free. Its so peaceful and quiet here, far from the highway, far from malls and shopping, far from any hustle or bustle, a place to really slow life down and enjoy it to the fullest.

a weekend and a half...

It was a weekend and a half...figuratively and literally...and so much has happened. I'm now homeless which allowed for some major family bonding, and the beginning of some serious hobo vagabonding. Eleven free slurpees, three poolsides, one seaside, and more from oz...
The fortune teller machine card printed, "You may be traveling down a yellow brick road..."

what if i lose happy

So its times like these when i hope no one really reads this. yes i know people do, but when my thoughts keep me awake, and there is no one in particular to talk to, writing here means the world is there listening to me, instead of just my computer or notebook of paper. and when i say world, i don't even mean all the particular individuals that compose the world. i mean it in the sense of mother earth, or simply the living breathing organism that is the internet, more just the collective rather than some sort of scary 'i hope someone, anyone reads this'...just the world as a whole...a personification.

i'm just wondering about happy. i am and have been for quite some time now. i think, somewhat irrationally perhaps but at 4am nothing is clearly definable by reason, that i've credited happiness with all of the good things that have happened to me in this time. and we all know that you are a better person to those in your life when you are happy. less likely to argue, get irritated, take things personally, let things bottle up, even take things in TO bottle up. so chicken or egg here. i always thought it was very neat that you are less likely to have problems if you are happy. but maybe, like those unhappy people always told me, they would be happier if they had less problems. and these problems are in our head half the time. for me to be happy, i need to feel healthy, fit, intellectually occupied, stimulated, and productive, be living my own schedule, be living a varied, never monotonous schedule, and have enough alone time. its starting to seem, and never did before, or maybe its just tonight and i'm making generalizations that i shouldn't, that this is a lot of work to maintain. a lot of these things could even be stricken from my control. when i thought it was easy, i scoffed at the unhappy people in my life...'don't they get it? if they just turned on what makes them happy, they wouldn't attract all this negativity or have to be so hard on the ones they love which is in turn making them unhappy.'

i clearly need a more 3D medium, a kind of tangible thought web to follow and organize these thoughts, but i'm also thinking here about where lies the real you. when you are happy and so less argumentative, less grouchy, isn't that just some kind of brain chemical prozac. is it really your reaction to the things people do to you and they way the treat you if your happiness makes you more likely to let things roll off your back? certainly when i'm unhappy, i noticed increased irritability that doesn't feel REAL. being very conscious of these things, i identify it as 'not me, just my bad mood.' but then couldn't the same be said for happy...'not me, just my good mood.' where then do you find your justice for what you really think is right and wrong in how people treat you; where is your guide for whether or not that thing is really making you angry, or whether your anger was simply looking for an outlet? i've always simply used the way i emotionally react as my gauge...people have said to me ' oh that SHOULD make you angry' and instead of becoming angry because most people would, i assess whether or not the thing really bothers me. but if its a little thing that changes depending on mood, where is the truth?

and what happens if i stop being as cool, flexible, laid back, low maintenance as a friend, optimistic?
do you stop attracting positivity or does it stop attracting you?
and who will be left of the fair weather friends?

Ah-un

"You approach Shinto shrines...and the entrances are usually guarded by a pair of stone lion-dogs...komu-inu, "Korean dogs"...One lion-dog has a mouth that is always open, the other has a mouth that is always closed. The open mouthed lion-dog is named Ah, the other is named Un, or more properly, nn. "Ah" is the first sound you make when you are born, "nn" the last sound you make when you die. "Ah" is the breath inhaled that begins life, "nn" the exhale of release, the breath that allows life to escape. Between the two lies all of existence, a universe that turns on a single breath. Ah is also the first symbol in the Japanese alphabet, n the last. And so, between these two lion-dogs, you also have the A and the Z, the Alpha and Omega. In the original Sanskrit, ah-un means, "the end and the beginning of the universe; infinity unleashed."

In Japan, people who are in perfect tune with each other, such as a pianist and a violinist playing in duet, are called ah/un-no-kokyu. Kokyu means "breathing," and the phrase suggests perfect, exquisite harmony: ah/un-no-kokyu, two or more breathing as one. If self-actualization is the ideal to which the Western world aspires, then common breath is the ideal to which Japan-and indeed, much of Asia-aspires. The word harmony in Japanese has the same cachet that the word freedom has in the West...

On a less esoteric level, ah-un also refers to old married couples (or even old friends) who have been together for so long that they no longer have to finish their sentences. One begins with "Ah..." and the other agrees with "Nn..." (which is the Japanese equivalent of "uh-huh") and the entire meaning is understood."

-Hitching Rides with Buddha, Will Ferguson

the way...

people spend their lives consumed by the "next step," the future, their blueprint for how their life is supposed to go or was supposed to be...I only ask, for what?

..."I felt numb as I said farewell to my team in Arizona and boarded a jet, heading back to Berkeley, and Socrates...I looked aimlessly at the clouds below, drained of ambition. All these years I had been sustained by an illusion - happiness through victory - and now that illusion was burned to ashes. I was no happier, no more fulfilled, for all my achievements.
Finally I saw through the clouds. I saw that I had never learned how to enjoy life, only how to achieve. All my life I had been busy seeking happiness, not finding it...
'Wake up! If you knew for certain that you had a terminal illness - if you had little time left to live - you would waste precious little of it! Well, I'm telling you, Dan - you DO have a terminal illness: It's called birth. You don't have more than a few years left. No one does! So be happy now, without reason - or you will never be at all...'
...be content with this knowledge: There is no need to search; achievement leads to nowhere. It makes no difference at all, so just be happy now! Love is the only reality of the world, because it is all One, you see. And the only laws are paradox, humor, and change. There is no problem, never was, and never will be. Release your struggle, let go of your mind, throw away your concerns, and relax into the world. No need to resist life; just do your best. Open your eyes and see that you are far more than you imagine. You are the world, you are the universe; you are yourself and everyone else, too!...Wake up, regain your humor. Don't worry, you are already free!"

Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior

OpenstandingHonesty

Watch as the idealist locutioneers prove it can be done
*************************************************
"You have to unburden yourself of all the theories, hypothesizes, philosophies, and ideologies that you have learned. The process of achieving the truth is a process of unlearning, it is a process of unconditioning...
When one can just watch without any judgment interfering, without any old ideas coming in, then truth is revealed. And the miracle is that it does not come from somewhere else to you, it does not descend from above; it is found within you -- it is your intrinsic nature. It is really a great revelation to know truth, because you are it and you have never lost it -- even for a single moment. You have always been it...
"Just create more and more understanding. That's what lovers miss: They have enough love, but understanding, none, none at all...Love cannot live without understanding. Alone, love is very foolish; with understanding, love can live a long life, a great life -- of many joys shared, of many beautiful moments shared, of great poetic experiences. But that only happens through understanding.
"...love accepts you. It makes no demands on you. Love does not say, "Be this, be that." Love simply says, "Be yourself. You are good as you are. You are beautiful as you are." Love accepts you. Suddenly you start dropping your ideals, "shoulds," personalities. You drop your old skin...love makes people young...Love can be the right situation in which to drop all conditioning. Love is an unconditioning. It simply takes away old patterns and does not give you new ones. If it gives you new ones, it is not love, but politics."
-Osho, excerpts from Everyday Osho

"Risk is there. If you become true, nobody knows whether this relationship will be capable of understanding truth, authenticity; whether this relationship will be strong enough to stand in the storm. There is risk, and because of it, people remain very guarded. They say things which should be said; they do things which should be done. Love becomes more or less like a duty...For the miracle to happen you will have to do something, and that is start being true, at the risk that maybe the relationship is not strong enough and may not be able to bear it. The truth may be too much, unbearable, but then that relationship is not worthwhile. So that test has to be passed. Once you are true, everything else becomes possible..So don't be afraid, go into it. If the relationship survives truth, it will be beautiful. If it dies, then too it is good because one false relationship has ended, and now you will be more capable of moving into another relationship -- truer, more solid, more concerning the essence."

-Osho, "Being in Love..."

********************************************
still rewriting this dictionary...

i finished a book!!

...here are the last couple pages...
(read and insert my 'i told you so...' where applicable)
!!!!!!!!!!!!

"People can be happy in almost any situation. External conditions determine well-being much less than we usually think. Extensive studies have shown that the enjoyment of life is neither a question of age nor of gender. It doesn't depend on your IQ, or on how many children you have, or on the size of your bank account. A craftsman in Bangladesh has different but not fewer opportunities for enjoyment than an office worker in Boston. Both--all of us--have to use the opportunities at hand...
...And neuroscience has shown something else: happiness is more than simply the absence of unhappiness. We have dedicated circuits in our heads for positive feelings, enabling pleasure and enjoyment to thwart negative emotions such as sadness and fear...Our ability to make our lives happier rests on these two basic principles: we can strengthen the circuits for the positive feelings with conscious practice, and we can seek out situations that give us pleasure and enjoyment...
-The well-being of body and the well-being of mind are inseparably linked...Exercise and sex have proven the surest means of raising our spirits.
-Activity makes us happier than doing nothing...Our controls over thoughts, intentions, and feelings are closely connected in the brain, so we worry easily when the brain lacks anything else to keep busy. On the other hand, the brain's expectation system releases a sense of anticipation as soon as we set a goal, and we experience triumph when we reach it. Thus, activity almost always leads to positive feelings.
-An alert mind increases a sense of well-being even when it's only observing. Concentrated perception is often accompanied by feelings of elation...This capacity for enjoyment through attentiveness is something we can learn.
-By giving into negative emotions like anger and sadness, not only do we fail to appease them, but we actually reinforce them...
-Variety gives pleasure...When we change our pleasures more frequently, we avoid taking something for granted. And in learning to value the unexpected and to see from new perspectives, we stoke our vitality.
-When in doubt, it's better to have control over our decisions than to have our wishes fulfilled. The control over our own fate is for most of us an absolute condition for happiness and satisfaction. Helplessness is one of the least bearable of all feelings...When a wish is fulfilled only at the price of dependence (going into debt, for example), one usually does better by choosing freedom.
But what is most important of all for well-being is our relationship to other people. It is no exaggeration to equate happiness with friendship and love. The attention we pay to those close to us redounds to our happiness..
The choice has to be yours.
Therefore, the most important task in the search for happiness is to know yourself. We will all discover our own answers. We are six billion people, and there are six billion paths to happiness."
-The Science of Happiness (Stefan Klein, PhD)

AMEN. (ps I don't have a PhD and I've been saying all this all along!)

a reply: insistence on the proof

love is not a fantasy. love exists.

When it exists in reality, it is a world of beautiful truth, a world that admits it knows no 'forever' and cannot and does not fathom 'always.' It is the world of two becoming, never one, but TWO happier individuals, a world of real love, of falling in love, and of appreciating love and its potentially fleeting composition which lends to its beauty. Its not to be worshipped, but respected, admired, and cultivated, only to the extent that it is never a chore or an obligation. It is patient with pains that don’t need or want to heal,and there to help in whatever way it can or is asked to. It can captivate, but is never the pinnacle of all things, only the rungs on the ladder to freedom and happiness. It most certainly can inspire, but should not be a sole source of inspiration.

What the wise see as love is the sometimes synchronistic tendency of two individuals’ thoughts, smiles, emotions, hormones, and intellect. It should never attempt to join these individuals as one, because what should have brought the two together in the first place was the admiration for the other’s wholeness, not the admiration for the other’s admiration. Real love understands that its okay to never completely know, understand, think, or feel as one, and this ensures an attainable reality with lack of expectations that will inevitably be incredibly satisfying for both individuals. There will always be wonder and novelty in rediscovering the other, and watching from the sidelines as the other makes their own discoveries to share if they wish. Real love knows that this love should not become everything in the other's life, and understands that it is not possible find or be all the things that one needs in another person. Completeness should come from within one’s self, not from being with or possessing the parts of another.

Love should never become a tangled web of obligation and expectation where consolation is found by the pacification of long term fears with short term joys. Desires and demands must be dropped, and attachment will not have the roots to grow. Only then will the truth shine through allowing moments of beauty that overshadow any fantasy that could have been imagined (but fantasizing should be dropped as its simply expectation’s easy cousin).

If there is ANY greediness revealed, it should only be a hankering for the other’s happiness to be found wherever it occurs naturally, without claiming credit. Love should never be pursued, only found in the flow of one’s own life, allowing the other to share where they fit. Time has no bearing, as there is only now, and the present IS the present, the best gift to receive. Shared interests and activities should only enhance and should diverge when the flow of energy diverts those things to other people and places, like the two people themselves. When the beauty is overshadowed by efforts, struggles, bargains, and fights, the two should admit their purpose in each other’s lives has been served and move on with their individual lives once again. If others observe the love, that is fine, but its not something to be shown off or worn like a medal of conquest. Real love should be impossible to pin down, and undesirable once fenced in, a product of the appreciation of its free spirit, intangibility, and inability to be defined or put in any sort of box, impossible to be collected in any sort of way, and an expression of an honest overflowing of happiness.

Only then is love right, and only for as long as these qualities can be felt...

Love is "...not its meaning, but its feeling; not its permanence, but its moment; not its fulfillment of our expectation, but its truth; not its “fantasy”, but its reality.”

...only then will love become so much more...

bears repeating...

"If they are dependent on each other, clinging, possessive, if they don't allow each other to be alone, if they don't allow each other space enough to grow, they are enemies, not lovers; they are destructive to each other, they are not helping each other to find their souls, their beings. What kind of love is this? It may be just fear of being alone; hence they are clinging to each other. But real love knows no fear. Real love is capable of being alone, utterly alone, and out of that aloneness grows a togetherness.

Kahlil Gibran says: Two lovers are like two pillars of a temple - they support the same roof, but they stand separate; together as far as supporting the same roof is concerned, but utterly separate as far as their own being is concerned. Be pillars of a temple, supporting the same temple of love, the same roof of love, yet rooted in your own being, not distracted from there. And then you will know both the beauty, the purity, the cleanliness, the health, the wholeness of aloneness, and you will also know the joy, the dance, the music of being together.

There is a beauty when somebody is playing a solo instrument - a solo flute player - there is tremendous beauty in that. And there is also beauty in an orchestra. And love knows both together: it knows how to be a solo flute player and it also knows how to be in rhythm, harmony with the other..."

somewhere over the rainbow...

you may find joules




What does it "mine"?
"Dopamine helps control our alertness and attention. It stimulate curiosity, the ability to learn, imagination, creativity, and sexual drive...the brain releases this transmitter whenever we desire something or someone...(my desire, in a biological sense, reawakened?)...Under its influence we feel motivated, optimistic, and full of self-confidence...enables us to feel euphoria...feel a surge of happiness, a joyful and excited...it makes us aware of particularly interesting situations...to remember good experiences - dopamine supports learning. (!!)...dopamine encourages the creation of new connections in the brain. Desire and understanding are very closely linked. Desire makes us smart, and without it, learning is difficult...
...The union of curiosity and desire that dopamine creates in the brain is also the root of creativity...Jean-Paul Sartre wrote his last books in an artificially induced surge of creativity. Facing encroaching blindness, the aging French philosopher took amphetamines, drugs that raise the dopamine level, in an attempt to win the race against time...
...in a milder form, these feelings stimulate creativity. They enable us to see connections that are otherwise hidden and to combine things that have never been brought together...Mood, then, influences mental ability...happiness and reason are not mutually exclusive...Students who can laugh and are comfortable in class learn more easily."

The Science of Happiness
Stefan Klein, PhD

herenow prayer

Now I lay me down to dream,
I thank the universe for what i've seen
If I should die before I wake,
a smile is all I'll need to take.
and if I wake to greet the day,
with gratefulness and wonder i will say,
thank you for the peace of heart and mind
I'm so amazingly lucky to continue to find.

"We can't cure the world of sorrows but we can choose to live in joy." -Joseph Campebll

...from oz...

Do not hold onto your goal too tightly. If the Wizard accidentally takes off in his hot air balloon without you, the universe may be trying to show you something better. When Dorothy lets go and connects with her inner essence, she ultimately realizes she has all the love she needs within her own heart to be at home with herself...To acquire anything you desire, simply give up your attachment to the outcome.

Just in case

anyone is wondering
where i am...
i'm out enjoying
the evitabling
of an
unspeakability
in all of its
jawdroppingness.
and in my own wondermazement
of it,
i'm floored

Super Jazzy Sunday

Absurd and absurdly amazing day...

My favorite admit of my (short) admissions career, a fellow jazz enthusiast, and I were able to catch up and experience the celestine adventure of a garage sale treasure discovery: jazz and trumpet music books. So wonderful to see a motivated and turned on student who has endless potential and excitement to learn. And then to hear him giggle over some awesome big band jazz!

During a magical musical moment, the yin hands me this fortune: "Your problems become your stepping stone. capture the moment." and its so true if only amended to say "capture AND RELEASE the moment." Difficult to do with such incredulous musical moments, and the wisdom of an Octogenarian coinciding with blissful discoveries of my own.

Jimmy Heath performed at the William Paterson Jazz Room this lovely cloudless 73 degree Oct 21st. He spouted off such wisdom as:

"I relate to the students....I find myself learning from THEM. You never stop learning and as soon as you think you know everything, your journey has ended...as long as you have that thirst, you are going to develop..."

Musical profoundity: "Charlie Parker reinterpreted the language of jazz, changed the vocabulary." Something we all should do but, instead of jazz, sub in "life."

The man is tiny, all of 4 ft 11 inches most likely, and quite the comedian:
"When you hear someone playing your music, it touches your heart- and it may touch your pocketbook!"

"I got outta high school and said 'I'm gunna play jazz'... I wasn't big enough to play football, basketball, baseball...I'm the size of a jocket, and I'm AFRAID of horses!"
Imagine this said with absolutely perfect comic delivery and timing.

And all of this musical wonderfulness sandwiched between
the most speechless of days
Again, bliss is all I could possibly say to even begin to explain the very something
that has no explanation.

more than ever imagined..

"If two persons are really respectful - and love is always respectful, it reveres the other...then slowly, slowly you will understand each other more and more and you will become aware of the other's rhythm and your rhythm. And soon you will find that out of love, out of respect, your rhythms are coming closer and closer. When you feel loving, she feels loving; this settles. This settles on its own, it is a synchronicity.
...Stupid people do just the opposite. They never leave each other alone - they are constantly with each other, tiring and boring each other, never leaving any space for the other to be (and to grow!!).
Love gives freedom and love helps the other to be himself or herself.

You love, but your love gives freedom - and, when you give freedom to the other, you are free. Only in freedom does your soul grow. You will feel very, very happy

Love is a very paradoxical phenomenon. ...In another way it gives you individuality; uniqueness. It helps you to drop your small selves but it also helps you to attain to the supreme self. Then there is no problem: Love and meditation are two wings, and they balance each other. And between the two (love and meditation) you grow; between the two you become whole.

Osho: Love, Freedom, Aloneness

seems apt

Him: oh yea
so the name of this album
'on letting go'
seems apt.

Me: for?

Him: i dunno, me?
personal philosophy!

Me: me? him? life right now?

Him: oh yea

Me: synchronicity

Him: wait wait
it doesn't SEEM apt
it IS!!!

Me: wavelength jiving
i just picture us all grooving out there on the same wavelength

Him: 3rd overtone.
best wavelength ever

Flowing back to the Met

"There is a music that is uncreated, that is just there as an undercurrent in our being; it is the music of inner harmony. There is also a music in the outer sphere -- the harmony of the stars, the planets; the whole of existence is like an orchestra. Except for human beings, nothing is out of tune; everything is in tremendous harmony. That's why trees have so much grace, and the animals and the birds. Only humanity has become ugly, and the reason is that we have tried to improve ourselves; we have tried to become something.

The moment desire to become arises, one becomes ugly, one falls out of tune, because existence knows only being; becoming is a fever in the mind. Human beings are never contented. That discontent creates ugliness, because people are full of complaints, only complaints and nothing else. People want this, they want that, and they are never fulfilled; even if they get, they want more. The "more" persists -- the mind goes on asking for more and more. Becoming is the disease of man.

The moment one drops becoming, suddenly a music is heard. And when that music starts overpouring, starts flowing all over you and then beyond you to other people, it becomes a sharing. This is the grace of the Buddhas. They are full of inner music, harmony, and the harmony goes on overflowing; it reaches other people also."

-Osho

meditation

"Meditation is not something that you do. It is, only when your doer has gone and you are totally relaxed and not doing anything, in a deep state of let-go, rest - there is meditation. Then meditation flowers. It is the flowering of your being. It has nothing to do with becoming. It is not an achievement, it is not an improvement; it is just being that which you already are."
-Osho

Many people view meditation as a solution, a way to BRING happiness or relief or peace of mind, when rather it is supposed to come AFTER those things. Its backwards to be seeking meditation and almost impossible to really achieve it when you are burdened by all the things that are making you seek meditation as your solution. The real approach is actually to change your problems, issues, burdens, or at least your view on them, and find your own happiness, and when you experience that inner joy and peace, a meditative state follows naturally. You find it in all the spaces in between, in all the moments where you are only in that moment in that second, only breathing, wanting nothing more.

Rooted

"And when a person meditates he starts flowering...When you are silent, rooted in your being, centered, your talents automatically start functioning. You start functioning the way existence always wanted you to function...You become spontaneous. You start doing your thing -- and now you don't bother whether it pays or not, whether it makes you more respectable or not. It makes you happy, and that's enough. It makes you tremendously joyful, and that is more than enough."

-Osho, "Joy"

all around you

"I believe this is something all of us can do: Try to be happy within
the context of the life we are actually living. Happiness is not a
situation to be longed for or a convergence of lucky happenstance.
Through the power of our own minds, we can help ourselves. This I
believe."
-Wayne Coyne

"the first thing to be understood about happiness is that it cannot be practiced. It has only to be allowed, because it is not something you create...what you create cannot be bigger than you...it has to be received as a gift in tremendous trust, in total surrender. In a state of let-go true happiness happens. "

"Happiness happens when you fit with your life, when you fit so harmoniously that whatsoever you are doing is your joy...If you love the work you are doing, if you love the way you are living...A celebrating attitude comes first. A life-affirming philosophy comes first. Enjoy! If you cannot enjoy your work, change. Don't wait! Because all the time that you are waiting you are waiting for Godot and Godot is never going to come. One simply waits and wastes one's life. For whom, for what are you waiting?...You have to decide for yourself, you have to take your life in your own hands."

osho, "joy"

"Why do so many people look so dull, bored, just passing the days somehow? Passing tremendously valuable time which they will not be able to recover-and passing with such dullness, as if only waiting for death. What has happened to so many people? Why don't they have the same freshness as the trees? Why doesn't man have the same song as the birds?"

osho, "intelligence"