Love, Crystal, and Choice

We are a seesaw of forward and reverse. Tumbling snowballs of massively interconnected cascades of interactions. And somehow from within the fury, we are able to create enough stillness to convince ourselves what we are. We each, a human body, find ourselves having an experience, and decide how to cope with it. The appetites are there to show us the momentum required to keep alive on basic levels. But consciousness stacks higher than that. At it's peaks, needs trickle into wants like the fine feathered forms at the edge of a crystal. And time serves to bridge the gap between wanting and having. And so our lives become the navigation of courses determined by our wants so that we can have an experience with the things we have. We negotiate obstacles and reinforce motives, leaving ripples of consequence radiating out from our every choice. And either we make it to the next day or we don't.

If we do, we will begin to appreciate ourselves as the center point of larger and wider ripples, as we hold our ground through months and years. And as much past time as it takes to make us realize we can start looking forward, we expend our energies doing whatever is asked of us unless we decide against them.

The beauty is there, in the simple reflexive pattern of a butterfly wing. All things exist as a vibration, an infinitely cycling alternation between polar opposites. And for every thing that cycles with an opposite, there exists and infinity of generations of families that descend from the cycle. So the fractal appears in our minds. We appreciate where what we are fits in.

Cycles compose our framework and, of course, our connections to it. Learning and maturing is a process where the consciousness becomes more articulate with how it it interprets signals from the sense organs. It becomes able to consider what it sees and hears in broader and broader contexts. And in terms of larger periods of time. And as this happens, the work of planning take deeper roots into the realm of meaning. Boredom occurs when cycles of behavior no longer fit rhythmically with motivation. And boredom makes us consider change.

Planning offers us the comfort of conviction. With conviction we can believe that we should stay alive and move forward. And this belief, in however strong a form it occurs, bolsters the level to which we will use what we have to manifest it.

And so we can define ourselves as an awareness of a part of larger system that knows of its own role. In however detailed a way we can perceive the framework, we are able to act on every aspect that becomes apparent. Like the parts of a broccoli stalk as they get smaller but more numerous farther away from the base, our options become more specific and therefore more varied. But the base is the path by which the stuff that becomes the tips gets there. The route must exist from the roots to the tip.

And our roots are anchored in love. That is to say, love for life, being alive, valuing being here over its opposite. To be here requires work. We must tend the nature of our own tumbling, overcome pain, and elaborate joy into meaning. So it's from this base that we draw the details of how we do that tending. The feeling of wanting to live, and its related conviction, force the energies that lead to its manifestation into smaller and smaller bundles. And those bundles flow through us as cycles of our behavior. Our sensations influence or convictions, and our convictions drive our choices. And so we are able to choose as sentient beings, who can communicate and move and be aware of themselves and how their choices make impact. And so it seems then that love as we see it is a feeling that makes us want something, is the root of our existence into the rest of the framework. Because our natures require us to make choices in order to survive, in order to connect roots with flowers, we need to feel love for the ground in which we root and the sky to which we climb.

For the pirouette of cycles that define matter, two set the axes. Size and motion. Size is an assessment of grouping. All cycles are interrelated, and therefore to point at a thing requires including all the cycles which define it, while simultaneously excluding all that don't. Everything is always everything, but a thing is only a thing when its a thing. Motion describes how a thing of size influences its space. Heat is the elemental form of motion.

We characterize states of matter by the characteristics of of molecular activity. Solids cling together and vibrate against their electrochemical bonds. Liquids break free molecularly and flow across each other like rings of dancers switching partners on every beat. Crystals in of molecular elements pattern themselves against the connective natures of their molecules. Plant structures pattern themselves against the connective natures of their cells. Animal structures pattern themselves against the connective nature of theirs. And social groups pattern themselves against the connective nature of their members. The central thread is identical.

Entropy is not so much a function of disorder as it is a reduction of simplicity. Order is still there, just more finely embedded in an individual. Farther from the branches, the tips exist in a less obvious grouping. Particularly when the tips are ideas, ideals and behaviors, deeply intermingled in fashion, architecture, political structures, and ritual. What are the branches that feed us? Why would we think they can be ignored?

Our definitions suit our purposes. We say an animal is alive, but a rock is not because it suits us. We think we're alive, that we think, that we feel, and we draw parallels and use those as substantiation. An animal moves and makes sounds, seems to convey expression, and relation and therefore is obviously alive. To many, plants seem less so, though still we believe in their life. Minerals are alive only to those who see the common denominator - the branching flow of elements into greater and greater detail. And the universe itself, the balls of hot gas and the space between them. These are alive only to the dreamers and hippies.

It was the European scientific tradition of recent times that purported a dead clockwork universe. That somehow things doing what they're doing out of rote mechanistic necessity was something other than living things enacting their nature. Other traditions saw the life in celestial bodies and common forms and characterized their natures as spirits with detail, personality, and subtlety. Our modern societies have nearly eradicated these peoples and their ideas. But still the truth of their understanding lingers, despite the growing adversary of fear which reinforces our tenacity for true primate group agreement. Monkeys which fall out of line get eaten. That is to say, going against the group means you're going it alone, and there is of course some safety in numbers.

Except when the numbers are guiding bad decisions. All natural forms have a growth pattern and a decay pattern, as their cyclic nature would imply and balance is enabled through modulating the rise and fall of each individual. Modern society, driven by greater and greater strength of the few has enabled impossibly permanent growth patterns while eliminating the breakdown step. Plastic for example, is a material that never existed in the universe. It is made quickly and lingers for an extraordinary amount of time, poisoning everything around it with its irregular nature. Corporations, as well, are immortal. As are wealth and legacy, determined by laws which don't resonate with the demeanor of the environment in which they exist.

Yet cycles cannot be stopped. Only pushed in various ways. And as the smaller cycles twist and warble, the larger cycles in which they spin continue to slug along, eventually bringing all the foam back into placid clear calm. So the determination of our choices ought to reflect our orientation in this process. Do we want to contribute to the stable core of life, or disappear briefly into the froth of its warbling progress? The universe is immortal, and living as it lives offers our contributions the same lifespan. Deciding another way will only seem useful within the short-sightedness of those who see it that way.

Diatribe for the Half-Ass

Fucking hippies! I’m fed up with the lack of respect those of us with choices apply toward them. So many suffer impossible inescapable predicaments of health, economics, and social order. But the savvy free that pick at their stables of richness haven’t the sense to bow their heads in gratitude and offer silent thanks with the rigor of their methods.

I’m talking about the “it’s all good” lingering hugs smiling eyes sage burning flower children of the 21st century who fancy in the hodge-podge regalia of absurdity that frees them from their more-likely-than-not privileged origins. These are the folks who spin their minds around pointless realizations of reality and the universe. Those who rape and sodomize sacred traditions with a weekend workshop and a lifetime of Sanskrit namedropping. These are the folks who dwell and nit-pick on the self-righteous scheme that serves their leaky identities while actually contributing nothing. These are the folks who feel their own peace of mind, but do nothing to offer it to those who can’t have it so easily.

It’s always a surprise to me that people choose to read my blog. Most of it is me prodding the ether with my internal heat or momentary pulse of creativity. I never claim that it’s truth or endorse its value as a readable pastime. But perhaps this time there will be an effect. I can only hope.

Listen. Think about what’s going on. Consider how you fit in. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Go deeper than the first twinkling idea that keeps you mesmerized like an optimized monkey. Get the heart of the matter. Understand other peoples’ experience. I assure you it’s not like yours. Suffering exists everywhere. So does truth. Neither one requires a transatlantic flight to find.

Accept that vibration means oscillation and that oscillation means a little of this and a little of that. You’ll never be permanently stable or full of joy. You could be content with what you get. You could aim your efforts at balance. And if you choose to do so, you will no doubt discover that other people are a great part of that balance. And you will strive to respect them.

Once in a while you will meet someone special. Someone learned, experienced, kind and generous. Someone who is willing to teach you their ways. Not someone rubber stamped with the legacy money of an academic marketing firm. But someone with practical know-how - the goods. And when you do, by all means offer them the respect they deserve.

I am lucky to have a phenomenal set of teachers whom I currently study herbal medicine with. Essentially all of them got to where they are by scraping and clawing and pushing against relentless impediment. And still they offer their services with a smile. Yet I’m embarrassed to say how many times I’m the only one who shows up, even though the registry is full of commitment. People wander in 30, 40, 90 minutes late. Or many never show up at all. Of course there are circumstances, emergencies, demands that can’t be averted. But I know for a fact that this is not the primary issue. The issue is a looseness of will. A feeling that softness of the heart means softness of the mind. Fuck that shit and send it back to where it came from.

We are the people who get it. Who feel love and have the fantastically good fortune of being able to do something about it. Wake up goddamn it! Do the right thing, get there on time, take the generosity of those who aim to help you, be grateful, and cut the hippie crap.

Thank you.

Salvia, Pyrethrins, Crush

I have a crush. It’s been blooming for 3 days now. I don’t know the person. I’ve seen her twice. Spoke briefly each time.

The first time went something like this:
Me: “Do carry the Mexican Salvia?”
Her: “ We’ll have that in tomorrow.”

She was wearing a cute hat, the variety I would associate with rice farmers in Vietnam. Her voice was kind and clear, and her eyes beamed along with her dimpled smile. Descartes called the eyes the window to the soul. For me, they’re an imperative. I can’t speak to people wearing dark glasses. I feel like I’m missing on so much expression, like they’re hiding something. The subtle movement of the brow, the flicker of the lids, the level of the gleam. So much is offered there. For me, it was all it took.

This turned out to be her standard MO, as per today’s conversation:
Me: “Do you have any insecticidal soap with pyrethrins?”
Her: “ The one in the bright green bottle on the top shelf there has pyrethrins.”

Ah, we’re destined for a deep love no doubt. Isn’t it the mundane where the real connection happens? This is no seduction. This is Life 101, and here I am living it, buying potted starts and earth-safe insecticide. If it’s not obvious, this hapless stranger in the wily machinations of my deluded drama works in the garden department at a hardware store.

Now it’s true that I was interested in both the Salvia and the soap. But I admit that I might not have made the extra walk today if I didn’t think I might have a second chance at whatever. Clearly I was not on the offensive. It was more like reconnaissance. Or maybe browsing. And I guess that’s really where I stumble. People with service jobs are just doing their job. I can’t get myself to show up to someone’s workplace and steer their attention toward my life, and my interests.

Instead I ask real questions that have no chance of leading them to think of what I have in my mind: that something about the way they are makes me want to ask for more, whatever that means, however it may be. Is that deceptive? Only to myself perhaps.

Okay so I did compliment her hat. Well actually I said I liked it. Which is not necessarily a compliment unless there’s an assumption that I have good taste. She thanked me, so perhaps she thinks I do. After all, she’s the one wearing it, so my taste must be at least as good as hers, unless it’s a work requirement, but I didn’t see anyone else wearing one. What kind of hardware store makes people wear Vietnamese rice farmer hats anyway? Breathe.

She’s probably married, engaged, in love with a decent person who keeps her photo in a small gilded picture frame at his workplace. I wonder if he's a rice farmer. Maybe she’s into women. Maybe she’s into solitude. But the eyes, the glow. I’m not lonely. I’m intrigued.

Well, I’ll need a pot for my Salvia at some point. And probably run out of the soap with pyrethrins. I wonder if I'm out of 5/8" wood screws. And there’s always the possibility of exchanging the dimmer I bought on the first visit for one that matches my other faceplates. Perhaps I should have joined their frequent shopper program as the cashier suggested today when I was leaving.

This is going to be a costly affair.

I live here

It is Sunday night, 7:30 PM. I would have been nervously awaiting my ride, scheduled to be here at 11. My hallway would have been stacked with blue Rubbermaid crates filled neatly with socks and t-shirts, dried fruit, batteries, dust masks, and all variety of other supplies to be carted out the open stretches of Nevada. Instead unpacked clutter lies about, frozen in a state of abrupt reversal. I would have been going to the Burning Man festival in Black Rock City, nearly 7 hours from here. But I’m not. And I’m so relieved.

This year would have been my fourth visit. My first was brief - just a few days - before I had to return home and catch a flight. The next two were the full week. This year, I even had a decent tent. But my feelings have changed since I purchased my ticket in January.

For me Burning Man has provided an environment where irreverence and impropriety prevail. To see adults behaving absurdly, differently, empowered in their own identities, has been rattling. The headspace of dutiful repression appears as a choice in the context of rampant cultural discord. This is a useful thing. Shame becomes much easier to flush away as the taboo becomes the familiar and the awkwardness is dispelled by an economy where everything is free.

But what value is freedom of choice without a context in which to choose? What basis do I have to decide what I want, if and when I am free? I am a proponent of going with what is. That seems like a good starting place to me. The purpose of our experience is up for universal debate. But the experience of our experience is a given. As I open my consideration to broaden what it is I can sense and feel, it becomes apparent that comfort in the longest term requires a dutiful awareness of how short-term actions fit the program. That is, chasing the next step without a clear goal does not release the tightness of fear of mortality. We fear our death, our injury, the pain of what might happen, and we indulge in the escape of self-admiration and general apathy and their false sense of safety. But fitting with the program means the program takes care of that. Something sent me here, this little biological blip riding the pulse of my biography. My cycles tug and swirl to and from other cycles. If I let feeling flow, I recognize the value of my basic needs, lack of pain, comfort of warmth and shelter from the elements. I’m further eased by presence of food and water and the company of an ecosystem in which I can sustain these resources.

Thus, the idea that thousands of humans - some of the most well off on the planet - burn their extra resources to haul excessive amounts of supplies and gear to a location whose nature is entirely inhospitable seems counter to any long term valuable system of method. It may be that the value of the experiences of those involved makes this use of resources worthwhile. For me, it is not.

People all around us are actually suffering, trapped in situations of pain and scarcity driven by distribution of resources that occurs unfairly. It seems to me to be a given that resources that come from the common pool should benefit the common pool. That is only possible if common needs are assessed.

Burning Man is expensive to attend. It costs resources from the real world to make that world work. And the haves and have-nots maintain their positions. It's clear that some folks have cash flow and some don't, even in a gift economy. So what does it prove to build a new innovative equitable commmunity whose potential to work falters against the basic trend of life - to seek and retain resources sustainably - and whose accessibility requires real world wealth? For all that attend, how many wish they could but can't due to cost, health issues, work requirements, and other inescapable obligations? Not to say that none can play while some work. But isn't play more fun when the game is transferrable? When the skills make us better? Isn't play just what animals do to learn and practice behavioral value? Isn't that why it makes us laugh?

I see The Green Man as a disingenuous attack on the environment passing itself off as something different. To suggest that the event can acknowledge the issues relating to pollution and the destruction of natural capital while polluting and destroying that capital makes no sense. The amount of wood alone that gets burned! And the fuel of so many trucks, and RVs, and flights. And the waste generated. And the time and attention that could be placed on existing problems. What a fuck you to the rest of society that those with access to comfort and ease would leave it behind to amuse themselves with a wasteful conquering of inhospitable land. That given the chance to build art and community we would leave the stable present and choose to put our efforts into one smoldering pop of amusement. How can we give up on everything that lasts?

The creativity that is exhibited on the playa is profound. I'm in awe of the coordination and skill with which so much art, culture, performance, and style gets demonstrated. True their are drunk idiots in rubber chicken hats walking around. But there are also marvelous works of steel and fire and paint and sand. These are truly valuable contributions. Yet still, I advocate art as a force of healing to be applied to the wound, not some place distant. To fix society we must stay in tune with society, accept its principles, its restrictions, and push hard with our art and our will to promote strength and joy.

This year I felt dread as I learned of the heavy winds and dust storms that I was meant to face. A present reminder of what I was facing, and with just 3 days to go I questioned my motives. I picked up vinegar and lemon juice and lotion to counter the elements. And as I mulled over the distaste brewing in me, I wondered why I would leave the comfort of my apartment to access an environment where I could act more freely. An environment that is bad for my health, and in which no other form of life chooses to exist.

Isn’t the reason that I have resigned that it’s not available here? Doesn’t leaving society to setup a new society establish the underlying separation of Burning Man from the rest of the world? Is there really any value in having something in isolation that makes no sense in context? It’s the human context that is after all where all of the rest of us live all of the rest of the time.

I have friends going to the event this year, and I truly hope they have life-affirming experiences and pursue their intentions as they see fit. But I also hope that a recognition of the dominance of our own biology stays present in their festivities. I hope the realities of health and suffering and the interdependency of living systems - the ideals of the ecologically aware - shine through their experiences. I hope that people leave the event feeling more aware of their sensations, more grateful for their ease, and more energized to facilitate those conditions for the rest of us who did not attend. And perhaps some value will bleed beyond the harm.

Mia Mia Mia

And so it happened that I noticed an SF show, while checking in with Mia Doi Todd on MySpace. She'd been lurking in my top friends for some time, though I hadn't listened to or thought about her music in months.

The Make Out Room on 22nd is a kitschy bar known for its dance DJs. I'd never seen a live performance there. Bart Davenport had a sweet voice and charming stage presence, though still I managed to distract myself at the bar.

Once again, just as at the last show, I swirled around in my stool and was looking straight into smiling eyes. I - naturally - quickly looked away only to lose that gaze to the stage. Luck resumed with a chair opening up at a front row table, and the show began.

Mia pumped her harmonium with her foot while fingerpicking artfully on a nylon string guitar accompanied by a bookish fellow in orange-button-up on congas, cajon, and other hand percussion. The setup was exceptional. Warm and rich tones, good balance between rhythm and melody. Mia is a good song writer, intellectual yet open hearted, I tried not to stare.

I thanked her and her accompanist more than once, but still yearned to dig in with my will. How could I ask a stranger to join me for something personal? But music, with her. What a communion. Aren't people looking for that? I certainly stand by what I could offer, and yet I don't know her, she's on stage, and this is the kind of mentality that drives people mad. But is it? I mean, continuity is the path of existence, and shouldn't people find ways to interact, and pass along their ways, and wares, and arts?

And so I left quickly, annoyed by my own arrogance or peculiar sense of ambition. I don't know what it's like to be immersed in music as a profession. To create and get by with it. To accept it as your identity and be accepted by a public who offers presence and attention.

Perhaps in that state, musicians abound, and opportunities for collaboration or concert are neverending. But from where I sit, the music swells in me and stretches to grab the next pool of support like droplets combining as they drip along glass. Mia Doi Todd, won't you sing with me. I'll wrap your voice in the sing song clicks of my fingertips and pull at your melodies with the gentle harmony of timidity.

Or maybe I'll just show up for another show the next time you're around. Thanks in advance for the entertainment.

Gibberish

The act of externalizing requires internalizing as I see it, at least as it relates to expression. An authentic message exists before it is sent. And so writing to others, is especially in this context, my truest act of self-exploration.

Today I am heartbroken. Sad at the loss of someone close to me. The inability to find a way to interact in a situation when contact is everything. It’s only through my contact with my environment that I feel my existence. And only through contact with other points of consciousness that I feel its context.

I have good intentions but years of ingrained behaviors. I participate, but still yearn for the chance to step out, put down the load of understanding, and hold still, as it were, in a system whose entire nature is based on motion.

I have made choices which go against my nature. I have seen the value of coordination in the existence of all structure - their nature a coordination of their parts. I see this in structure both physical, emotional, social, political, astrological...

I know that joy is not a defensible position. I know that ease is not the state in which we are to constantly operate. I accept that oscillation between states is the universality of the universe. That my life and my choices are granular instantiations of the basic oscillations that led to me. My lifestyle is a polyrhythm of my matter and my soul, and my ability to cooperate with others - people in this case - is the difference between locking into groove with the band and banging out notes on my own.

Synergy. When you notice it, you’re already there. In an experience that is only credible as an experience, awareness is place. To know of what is, is to be among those things. To realize injustice is to have it there in your world, salient and addressable.

So there you stumble on knowledge, hoping for one thing, finding another, gaining one solution only to realize it opens into an entire realm of unnoticed problems. Hallways that are really doors, but only when you notice their locks.

I am heartbroken, sad and teary. Feeling the loss of structure in my social order. Feeling the burden of choice that I am closer to the beat of a pulse that thumps on me as I jostle against it.

Today is a day to see past the smoke. If an end means a new beginning, then what really must happen is change. The motivations to clarify what wasn’t working, to conflict with peaceful denial, means that I now must not deny the reality I’ve uncovered. Underneath the instability was error. Error that can be dealt with.

Shame is a poor resource for the open hearted. Sensitivity demands respect. Certain things simply cannot be accepted in detail. Too much information is too much.

Every time a thing branches, old branches become roots for new ones. New branches become petals for old branches, and new petals form roots for other petals. This is the reality of what I face. At what point do you address the branch, or the root? How grounded does a thing need to be to take flight? How far can a thing fly without losing touch with the ground?

Gibberish is a distraction and yet verbalizing is the state of internalizing thought. WIthin the chaos is a pattern - more than one - infinity. Today’s pattern is sadness, heartache, a desire to exhaust the smoking pattern of loss.

Tomorrow will be something else. Better or worse. I am your unnoticed pattern. I am your hope and my activity. Now go and act with discretion.

The Corporation

Watch the film. Take a deep breath. Then call me.