freedom fighter

Honestly, its not HARD to make the best of this job
From the flexibility to grab a workout midday (when I actually have energy)
to the honest, rewarding assignment of simply talking to high schoolers about plans for college...
From getting to drive around experiencing different parts of the tri state area,
finding all the new spots for day trips on my work hours,
getting paid to listen to my IPOD for hours
to finding inner peace sitting outside a panera
catching the wireless on my pro
From the potential for a fully reimbursed graduate degree
to the best pension plan you can get...
It was a good day...

jamie cullum...

so hail a taxi cab and come around here
and i will meet you right outside.
i got some DVDs and a couple of beers,
if you want to,
we can stay up all night.
it's nothing fancy, just a little couch and me
and conversation for your mind.
so let's explore all the possibilities
of the things that we both talked about last time.


take a trip to my yard
don't you know the grass is greener on the other side?
take a trip to my yard
don't you know the love that you've been dreaming of is mine?

i'll be your neighbour at the other end of town
and the benefits you soon will find.
so let's enjoy the fact that we're on our own
and we will answer to nobody else this time.
tonight might be nothing but the moon and me
any time that we take the script and flip it baby
take a trip to my yard


take a trip to my yard
don't you know the grass is greener on the otherside?
take a trip to my yard
don't you know the love that you've been dreaming of is mine?

Global Drum Project

more experiences without words...
perfect vermont day
perfect peter travel companion
perfect pint of long trail
perfect percussion

i guess the word could be perfect?
but it was so much more
"i can tell you much more, so much more"


aka: http://sayitaintpete.blogspot.com/2007/10/letter-from-utopia.html

lonely vs alone

"You have to come to terms with your loneliness, so much that the loneliness is transformed into aloneness. Only then will you be capable of moving into a deep, enriching relationship...Loneliness is a state of mind where you are constantly missing the other. Aloneness is a state of mind where you are constantly delighted in yourself. Loneliness is miserable. Aloneness is blissful. Loneliness is always worried, missing something, hankering for something, desiring something. Aloneness is a deep fulfillment, not going out, tremendously content, happy, celebrating. In loneliness, you are off center. In aloneness, you are centered and rooted...Loneliness is a dependence, aloneness is sheer independence...
Nobody is here to fulfill anyone else's expectations, everybody is just here to be himself, to be herself...When you move according to your loneliness you will fall into a relationship with somebody who is in the same plight, because nobody who is really living his aloneness will be attracted to you...One who is on the peak of aloneness can only be attracted toward someone who is also alone...
First become authentically happy that if nobody comes it doesn't matter. You are full, overflowing...The person who has lived in his aloneness will always be attracted to another person who is also living his aloneness beautifully...When two masters meet -- masters of their beings, of their aloneness -- happiness is not just added, it is multiplied...tremendous phenomenon of celebrating...they don't exploit, they share...
Whenever two lonely persons meet, they look at each other, because they are constantly in search of ways and means to exploit the other -- how to use the other, how to be happy through the other. But two persons who are deeply contented within themselves are not trying to use each other. Rather, they become fellow travelers...The goal is high...far away. Their common interest joins them together."
Osho, "Joy"

why being alone, apart is essential

"When you have moved into a deep relationship with somebody, a great need arises to be alone. You start feeling spent, exhausted, tired -- joyously tired, happily tired, but each excitement is exhausting. It was tremendously beautiful to relate, but now you would like to move into aloneness, so that you can again gather yourself together, so that you can again become overflowing, so that again you become rooted in your own being.
...Love arises out of aloneness. Aloneness makes you overfull. Love receives your gifts. Love empties you so that you can become full again. Whenever you are emptied by love, aloneness is there to nourish you, to integrate you. And this is a rhythm...
Love is a spontaneous phenomenon. Whenever it happens, it happens, and whenever it doesn't happen it doesn't happen...
When I want to be alone that does not mean that I am rejecting you. In fact, it is because of your love that you have made it possible for me to be alone...so that he can again gather together his being, so that again he has energy to share. And this rhythm is like day and night, summer and winter; it goes on changing..."
Osho, "Intelligence"

wondermazement

I'm not sure what is more amazing about all this: the fact that I am de-defining and rethinking the constructs society tries to force upon you, or the idea that I'm actually able to live according to my new definitions, many of which I had already created and had abandoned as idealistic dreaming.
We live in a society, with already defined norms; this society that almost seems to tell us how to conduct our lives should we choose to participate in one of its institutions - education (read a lot, memorize, take the test, succeed, finish your education -ha! you never finish!), family, marriage.
My problem and hesitation in "relationships," for example, is to be blamed on society's definition and experience; all that "should"...what it is "supposed" to mean, be, and what role it needs to take in your life. But I get to make "relationship" whatever I want in my own life. Just like marriage, and education, if I assign my own meaning, role, significance, priority, understanding to the concept, then in my reality, that is what it is. I have that freedom.

In all seriousness and in general, don't make your choice to want or not want, like or dislike something based on what that thing's popular perception and definition has always been. Deconstruct, undefine, and redefine when ready. You decide what the experiences in your life are able to become, to signify, and to impact.

The extra wonderful part is having someone in my life who understands this idea of dedefinition as well as they understand (and often agree with!) what it is I'd like to avoid and also to live out. A person who, like me, questions and critically thinks the institutions as well as more abstract concepts in general. Their ability to think on all these different levels will continue to stimulate my thinking joyfully.

Still a little bit of your song in my ear
Still a little bit of your words I long to hear...
It's not hard to grow
When you know that you just don't know
-Damien Rice, Cannonball

mirror...

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-4w6h9eA8erTSjhX.bWOKOe_BRiw-?cq=1

One can be in deep love and yet be alone. In fact, one can be alone only when one is in deep love. The depth of love creates an ocean around you, a deep ocean, and you become an island, utterly alone. Yes, the ocean goes on throwing its waves on your shore, but the more the ocean crashes with its waves on your shore, the more integrated you are, the more rooted, the more centered you are.

Love has value only because it gives you aloneness. It gives you space enough to be on your own.

But you have an idea of love; that idea is creating trouble - not love itself, but the idea. The idea is that, in love, lovers disappear into each other, dissolve into each other. Yes, there are moments of dissolution - but this is the beauty of life and all that is existential: that when lovers dissolve into each other, the same are the moments when they become very conscious, very alert. That dissolution is not a kind of drunkenness, that dissolution is not unconscious. It brings great consciousness, it releases great awareness. On the one hand they are dissolved - on the other hand for the first time they see their utter beauty in being alone... And they are grateful to each other. It is because of the other that they have been able to see their own selves; the other has become a mirror in which they are reflected. Lovers are mirrors to each other. Love makes you aware of your original face.

Hence, it looks very contradictory, paradoxical, when stated in such a way: "Love brings aloneness." You were thinking all along that love brings togetherness. I am not saying that it does not bring togetherness, but unless you are alone you cannot be together. Who is going to be together? Two persons are needed to be together, two independent persons are needed to be together. A togetherness will be rich, infinitely rich, if both the persons are utterly independent. If they are dependent on each other, it is not a togetherness - it is a slavery, it is a bondage.

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...

cliches vs authenticity in action

from: http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-4w6h9eA8erTSjhX.bWOKOe_BRiw-?cq=1&p=2290

"Gurdjieff used to say that man is a machine. It is true. Unless you become a Buddha, you are a machine. What does the word 'Buddha' mean? 'Buddha' means one who is awakened, aware.
Become aware. The man of awareness has no character. You will be surprised: I say the man of awareness is characterless - not in the sense that you give to the word 'characterless', but in a totally different sense he is characterless. Because he has no past to dominate him, no structure, no pattern. He is pure freedom. He is innocent. He responds to the moment, with no ready-made responses, because if a response is ready-made it is not a response at all: it is a reaction. He mirrors the moment as it is, and in that mirroring, he acts.

The unconscious person reacts; the conscious person acts.

And if you can act consciously, TOTALLY in the moment, you don't create any karma, you don't create any structures. You always remain free; you always go on moving beyond the past. You go on slipping out of the past like a snake slips out of the old skin.

Then life has tremendous beauty - because then there is power. And it is not YOUR power, so there is no question of any ego trip. Ego comes from the past; it is part of the law of necessity. Ego is your character, good or bad, but ego is the prison that keeps you in bondage. Ego arises out of your whole past.

Just think for a moment: if you have no past, who are you? Suddenly the whole edifice of the ego collapses. The man of power is not really powerful in his own right: he is just a vehicle for the power of God. He has no claims. He simply functions as a representative of the whole. He is utter freedom, utter joy. He knows no boundaries, he is infinite. Space and time are no more relevant to him. He is beyond space, beyond time.

That is the meaning of being enlightened. Disappearing as a character, disappearing as a person, disappearing as an ego... and becoming one with the whole"

words, or the lack thereof

"When there is so much to say, it is always difficult to say it. Only small things can be said, only trivia can be said, only the mundane can be said. Whenever you feel something overwhelming, it is impossible to say it, because words are too narrow to contain anything essential.
Words are utilitarian. They are good for day to day, mundane activities. They start falling short as you move beyond ordinary life. In love, they are not useful...All that is great goes beyond language, and when you find that nothing can be expressed, then you have arrived.
Then life is full of great beauty, great love, great joy, great celebration."
-Osho

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

Updated entry

Osho read Celestine...haha I'm sure Redfield read Osho? Amazing, either way...

http://ceefar83.blogspot.com/2007/09/testing-how-this-will-work-pretty.html

Freedom

"If tomorrow is fixed, then there can be security, but you have no freedom. Then you are just like a robot. You have to fulfill certain things that are already predestined. But tomorrow is beautiful because tomorrow is total freedom. Nobody knows what is going to happen. Whether you will be breathing, whether you will be alive at all, nobody knows. Hence there is beauty, because everything is in a chaos, everything is a challenge, and everything exists as a possibility.

Don't ask for consolations. If you go on asking, you will remain insecure. Accept insecurity, and insecurity will disappear. This is not a paradox, it is a simple truth -- paradoxical, but absolutely true. Up to now you have existed, so why be worried about tomorrow? If you could exist today, if you could exist yesterday, tomorrow will take care of itself too.

Don't think of the morrow, and move freely. A chaos at ease -- that's how a person should be. When you carry a revolution within you, every moment brings a new world, a new life...every moment becomes a new birth."

-Osho

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

Purpose of Education...

"Transfer of knowledge, according to Makiguchi is not and can never be the purpose of education. The purpose of education is, rather, to guide the learning process and to put the responsibility of learning into the student's own hands...Teachers, he insisted, must leave fact-finding to books and assume a supporting role to the students own learning experience. Teachers must choose between force-feeding students and guiding them in their own efforts at self-enlightenment. Teachers must decide if they are to be organizers of information or arousers of students' natural interest and curiosity. What teachers decide about this, Makiguchi believed, would be the single most important factor in reforming the educational system and, beyond that, in changing the entire conception of the how of education."

...from "Education for Creative Living" by Makiguchi...

Library...

"He was troubled by the domination of education by examinations, a domination that has only strengthened in the years since his death, and by the emphasis of teachers on memorization of facts, what Paulo Freire disparagingly calls "banking education." Such education is not only irrelevant and boring but ultimately miseducative, Makiguchi agreed, and destructive to the individual and to the society, both of which must be forward looking; education must connect to life as it is lived and enrich it."
Robert Bullough, Jr., on Makiguchi, from "Education for Creative Living"

Wonderful Morning

Pure Light Within You

"The last words of Gautama the Buddha on the earth were: Be a light unto yourself. Do not follow others, do not imitate, because imitation, following, creates stupidity. You are born with a tremendous possibility of intelligence. You are born with a light within you. Listen to the still, small voice within, and that will guide you. Nobody else can guide you, nobody else can become a model for your life, because you are unique. There has never been anyone who was exactly like you, and nobody is ever again going to be exactly like you. This is your glory, your grandeur -- that you are utterly irreplaceable, that you are just yourself and nobody else."
-Osho

"don't get freaked out by the pure light within you
no, don't let it freak you out
just go with it
because if you don't go with it
it will just take you where it wants to be
which is cool too, if you have the time"
-chris robinson

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 confirmation

"That's why when you are alone, sitting silently, not with anybody--in a tremendous celibate state, just alone--one becomes replenished, rejuvenated. Thats why meditation makes you younger, makes you livelier. You start sharing something with existence. Your energy is frozen no more, it starts flowing...In meditation you become simple: The future is your concern no more. That's what meditation is all about: dropping the concern with past and future, being herenow...And whenever it happens, whenever only this moment exists -- watching a sunrise, or looking at a white cloud floating in the sky...whenever you forget all about past and future and the present moment takes possession of you, when you are utterly possessed by this moment, you will feel rejuvenated."
Osho, "Intelligence"