This Morning 6/23/12 The Future in Midnight in Paris

The movie, Midnight in Paris, written and directed by Woody Allen, gives us his usual barrage of existential pondering without the slap-in-the-face urgency of Annie Hall or even Purple Rose of Cairo.  Allen seems to have come to terms with himself.  He also has demonstrated his acceptance of the proverbial passing of time by casting, successfully, Owen Wilson to portray a role for which he seems initially unsuited, but eventually comfortably settles into like a stretchy leather shoe.  Both Wilson and Allen win in this regard.  The film works very well from the inside out.

The themes of the film - nostalgia, denial, fulfillment, creativity - are cradled in the Golden Age of 1920's Paris.  Beautiful in its simplicity, the cityscape is brilliantly filmed and contrasted in light and darkness, sun and rain, day and night.  The premise follows Wilson's character, Gil Pender, a successful but underinspired Hollywood writer, and sets him on a journey to become a literary novelist.  Gil's daydreams take him to meet his subconscious through character projections which include Ernest Hemmingway, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and the cadre of famous painters and writers part of the Parisian intelligentsia and art worlds in that time period.  Allen loves using the perfect medium of film to help humans "time travel" our way to awakening.

Thankfully, love takes a backseat in this adventure.  This is Paris, though, so amour must have a seat at the table!  Its presence is so masterfully understated by Allen as writer and by Wilson's deft embodiment of the depth of Pender's spirit, that in the end, we care less about romance than creative fulfillment.  Perhaps this is a glimpse into the elder-age revelations and resolutions falling upon Allen himself, now 76 years old.

The primary question presented is whether being nostalgic implies a dissatisfaction with the present.  A personal life is one thing to examine, but in the context of a cultural "time period," nostalgia is rampant.  We constantly regard the back-then as better than now, especially in the face of the world economy crumbling, human-killing drones, and deadlocked governments.  This time period, however, will someday be nostalgic for the future artists of the world.


We live at the beginning of the Technology Age, the Digital Revolution, the Occupy movement, the Independent Music movement, the dawn of Distance Education, and the edge of Climate Change.


I wonder what they will say about us then.

This Morning 5/22/12 Strength

A poem

how strong we are
when we know things
how strong we are
when we don't cry
how strong we are
when nothing seems wrong

imprisoned by strength as
aphrodisiac
enchanted by strength as
symbolic god
confronted by strength as
a challenge

we say strong heart
we mean loving
we say strong mind
we mean intelligent
we say strong body
we mean superior physicality
we say strong spirit
we mean deeply wise
we say strong willed
we mean steadfast

why is strength so deified?


to be unstrong
is weak
to be unstrong
is small
to be unstrong
is less-than
to be unstrong
is pitiful
to be unstrong
is vulnerable

to know strength
is 
to know unstrength


how else would one know?

This Morning 6/21/12 Rhythm of Stars and Us

I love how the rhythm of the universe resonates with transitional human nature and the soul's organic thrust toward harmony.  The Solstice brings the flex of balance within reach, no longer a strain as much as a kind of effortless placement.

Returning to a haunt which helped breathe life into my musical development, I ran into two 'other' 30-year veterans of this establishment.  We hadn't all been there together for well over two decades.  One of them had once been a boyfriend of yore.  I had been a mere 19 years and he, 27.  In the end, back then, his hormones and addictions got the best of him and the worst of me.  It was par for the times, though.  I never looked back after a few months of feeling hurt.

Last night, he apologized - after 32 years.  His apology, unprovoked, was beautifully articulated for maximum effect while staying true to his own sense of internal integrity.  He just said, "I learned my lesson and never did that again."  With the look of regret at having caused unnecessary pain, he balanced the scales in one sentence, completely and unknowingly in sync with the balance of light and darkness given with that day's celebration of celestial equilibrium.


I love to be surprised, and I particularly love when human nature meets nature and rises to the challenge.

This Morning 6/20/12 Back At It

This is the first day of my morning routine since returning.  It's amazing how the plants have grown!  The mullein is at least as tall as I am.  The wine berries are on the verge of popping.  I have little green tomatoes and peppers peeking open their eyeballs and, of course, the yard has taken off with lots of plantain, dandelion, lamb's quarters, and bluegrass.  Mowing will take about three hours of precious time.  It's such a shame to cut grass around dwellings!

The music is flowing; songs coming and refining themselves.  The Willa Cather approach to prose is beginning to subconsciously apply itself to my songwriting.  B--- has been doing this for years and I always wondered how.  He would have liked Willa!

A snippet of a new one developing, then off to work:

The Tide Rolls Away
copyright 2012 SajaMaka Publishing

I watch the sun sail by
The tide rolls away
Somewhere at the edge of time
The tide rolls away

Let the tide roll away
Bid her well and better days
This world is left for you and I
As the tide rolls away

Treasures wash upon the shore
The tide rolls away
What once was here is now no more
The tide rolls away

Let the tide roll away
Bid her well and better days
This world is left for you and I
As the tide rolls away

White as clouds, Blue as the sky
The tide rolls away
From Marlin fins to Eagle's eye
The tide rolls away

Let the tide roll away
Bid her well and better days
This world is left for you and I
As the tide rolls away

This Morning 6/19/12 Back From There After Then

I have yet to begin to understand in a deep way the experiences I engaged with while on the hill those four days.  What we call the Spirit World is just that - a world where the spirit presents.  How we understand what we have named "spirit" is even more different than what I perceived.

Personal experience has value.  The subjective, in some ways, is all we can count on to identify meaning within a seemingly random combination of biology, matter, and energy in cyclical patterns on a space/time continuum.  Anomalies occur in the patterns and what then can we draw upon from which to create substance?  We must attach personal meaning.

When personal meaning aligns with the personal meaning of others, we find religion or science or connection.  Sometimes we find something close to Truth.

There is nothing so satisfying as finding a Truth.  For me, these junctures of common personal meaning and experience grant an oasis from doubt and fear.

The star nation is a vast place to venture.  There is nothing and everything there.  Space is indeterminable, depth of field imperceptible, and time is endless.  It is simply beyond the imagination except in the context of the personal meaning we attach to it.

Rarely do we have the opportunity to witness the similarity in construction of jawlines between species seemingly unrelated.  The snake, the crocodile, the horse, the dinosaur - all long, parallel jaws.

The medicine of the sunka has shown the relationship between us and them.  Loyal, compassionate, protective; as if one of us in family units.  This teaches us ultimately to be more like them.

There are sometimes no words for these things we witness there.  No words even for prayer.  No words needed for prayer.  Our words sometimes satisfy our ego's sense of importance upon the happenings of this world.  But when the source of the prayer comes from the heart, words are unnecessary.  There is an instant conduit created from here to there.  To what we may call God.  To where we pray.  Instant.  The moment that happens, we feel it.  The prayer thought is different than the prayer itself.  The channel does not close because the thought stops.  So, prayer is instant and constant with the presence of heart in the absence of words.  The words satisfy us, but the prayer is not the words.  


In this way, visions and ideas work together as well.  
The horses help the children.  (I say this for myself.)


To stand on one's own in the face of the Spirit World - we say in the face of the Creator - we say to go there to the altar to die - one must surrender and freely give away the brittle, shallow den that holds our attempts to control, predict and make sense of our lives and others' lives.  The barrage of imaginary outcomes and dialogues we use as protection against the unknown only serve to delay our recovery and rediscovery of something akin to peace of mind, acceptance, compassion, humility, gratitude and love in its most precious existence.  Its rare, precious existence. 


Can we dance together?


Sometimes we can dance together and sometimes we can't.  The metaphor applies.  Finding one who is willing to dance with you in terms which expand rather than contract is precious.  Sometimes we have to let go.  Sometimes the letting go gives both the opportunity to expand.


Remember the fire.  (I say this for myself.)
It speaks.


The faces of the Spirit World are faces we recognize because this is what is familiar to us.  When we look at a stone and see a face and it smiles one second and frowns another, it is showing itself in a way we can recognize.  Does the stone's spirit show itself to a raccoon as a raccoon face?


For now, at this time, I'm finished writing.