Fractal Time

LISTEN TO THIS...only available for 24 more hours!!!

http://www.healingwiththemasters.com/audio.htm

Gregg Braden - Fractal Time, Cycles, 2012 & Your Heart Contribution

An owl's coo in the morning

I know that...

every word props itself up on an immense architecture of contingency.

* * * * * * * * * *

I am pretty sure that a big fluffy couch in the middle of a vast forest would be...yummy.  Spring, spring, you are so close!

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I opened my mailbox yesterday to find the most wonderful surprise!  Thank you, thank you!  Something I was not expecting at all...something that will make these next few months, and all warm months, quite magical.  

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I went to my favorite little coffee shop yesterday to do some work.  It was weird, I was really ON.  Usually when I go to a coffee shop to work or write I will kind of zone out in an A.D.D-esque cloud for about 30 minutes and then start to think about maybe working.  But not yesterday.  I sat right down and pumped out 3 hours of work...BAM!  Love when that happens.  I saved my document, stood up, stretched, got a coffee, returned to my little table and poured some poetry onto a page.  It felt like a warm bath full of bubbles...it's been a few weeks since I've done any creative writing.  Mmm, what a treat.  Maybe I'll share the poems, maybe I won't.  We'll see.  Voyons.  

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I like:

http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/page/2/

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By the way, I know I have "comma over-use syndrome"...but there's a reason.

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Because I have scaled a tree, I know that beyond language is a huge plain, with dark flowers and little mazy footpaths.

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An orange, consumed

By the man who ate it,

Invaded his skin

To the flesh beneath.

* * * * * * * * * *

An orange did love the man who ate it

Whose garden are you blossom to, to whom do you belong?

Whose velvet down,  whose feather are you, whose rejoicing song?

Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations.

An incredible dream seeped in last night.  I still remember it so vividly ...feel it as if it were real.  I was hanging out with a 12 year-old version of myself.  But it wasn't like a funny, weird, "oh my god, haha! this is me when I was 12!" dream.  It was quite profound.  I didn't communicate much with myself, but more followed my younger self around as a somewhat silent voyeur.  The 12 yr old me knew I was there though.  Ok, this is going to get confusing, so let's call little Julia LJ (creative, I know). 

Anyway, at first I was just watching LJ on a spring day.  She (I) was alone in the woods sitting on a pile of dirt, moss and leaves, carving words into the firm ground with a tree branch.  It felt so good being there again.  I mean, this is something I always did...and being there, watching myself do it, well, I don't really know how to describe it, but it was powerful.  In a way, I felt very motherly toward LJ.  I was bursting with pride, or something like it, as I watched LJ drink in the smells and sounds of nature, experimenting with countless word ensembles in the earth: "the zephyr hugs me like an old, worn blanket", "a puddle, my soul is absorbed by this dirt as it becomes the trees' life force" (things were actual things that the real, non-dream LJ would write).  It was pleasant, comforting, wonderful.

Then LJ left the forest, hung out with her brothers for a while.  During the entirety of the dream we would have little bit of contact here and there.  She would be in the middle of doing something, whether it be relaxing with her (my) brothers, riding her bike, or just sitting somewhere outside, and randomly speak.  She'd say things that made me want to scoop her up and cradle her in my arms, like: "I wish I were pretty" "what if no one ever falls in love with me?" "what if i'm never good enough?" "how do i learn how to love myself?"...these really started coming toward the end of the dream, then suddenly i was looking her right in the eye and her young face (my young face) just broke into a wail and LJ cried out "it just hurts so much" as she opened her arms and looked up to the sky.  It was then that I actually held her, my former self, and said "I know, I know".

It pretty much ended there but I really cannot describe how powerful this dream was.  Maybe it was my subconscious' way of wishing I could go back in time and warn my former self about some things.  Or maybe it was just a way of connecting with myself on an even more intimate level, because in many ways, present day Julia still has those same questions/anxieties.  

I don't know...it was a gift though, that dream.

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More to share, more to share!

A designer who specializes in hand-engraving lines of poetry on jewelry...um, YES PLEASE!

Check out Jeanine Payer:  

http://www.jeaninepayer.com/

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I mentioned this already, but to read more about "Poem In Your Pocket Day", go to:

http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/406

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Want to read this:

The Book of Dead Philosophers, by Simon Critchley

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307390438?ie=UTF8&tag=artandlies-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0307390438

"Socrates perverted the youth of Athens and had to drink hemlock. Abela

rd suffered castration for his illicit romance with Heloise. Descartes was present both at the Battle of the White Mountain and the subsequent massacres of Bohemian Protestants and might have been a spy for the Jesuits. Locke had to flee into political exile. Bertrand Russell went to prison for opposition to the First World War, while his pupil and later nemesis Wittgenstein served in the Austrian army and wrote his Tractatus on the Eastern Front. Nietzsche and Althusser went mad; the latter strangled his wife, while the former's sister strangled his reputation. Sartre was a Communist, Heidegger a Nazi. Camus played football and died in a car crash. Not a few of them were preternaturally amorous."

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I had some training yesterday on HTML.  I feel like such a computer geek.  And I love it.  Oh ya, you know, just ehhhh, let me handle any of your HTML needs ;)

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Candy will always rise above social and economic tumult...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/nyregion/24candy.html?_r

=1

As will writing groups...

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_top_stories/20090324_In_times_of_trouble__fiction_thrives.html?viewAll=y

Candy is the new escargot, writing groups are the new...uh...well writing groups have always been awesome

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Ok, this is a nearly 2 hour lecture by Prof. Richard Sapolsky on the neurobiology of primate sexuality...seriously, you're going to want to watch it.  It's great once you get past the little handout dilemma at the beginning.  

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2732704984000303543&hl=en

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Love commingled with hate is more powerful than love. Or hate. 

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in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten...

Mm Hmm

What can I say?  I like dem dere venn diagrams, yah (insert thick midwest accent).  But really...this diagram is accurate.

Nerdy McNerdster, here

A post during work, I know I know. It's my lunch break though...so it's ok.

I just HAVE to share something I am newly hooked on. I've always been abnormally interested in words. What they sound like, what they look like, how they feel when partnered with other words, and beyond. SO, my discovery of the online etymological dictionary was, well, very exciting. The link is:

www.etymonline.com

CHECK IT OUT!

Also, if interested, read Alastair Harper's article on "Why Books Won't Change Your Life" (this is how I found out about the etymological dictionary)...witty:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/mar/23/life-changing-books

Ok, back to work!

I'm hanging the memories out to dry...

After Love

Afterwards, the compromise.
Bodies resume their boundaries.

These legs, for instance, mine.
Your arms take you back in.

Spoons of our fingers, lips
admit their ownership.

The bedding yawns, a door
blows aimlessly ajar

and overhead, a plane
singsongs, coming down.

Nothing is changed, except
there was a moment when

the wolf, the mongering wolf
who stands outside the self

lay lightly down, and slept.


--Maxine Kumin



[thanks to Jessie for this]

Solitude: a sweet absence of looks

“There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels for someone, for someone, pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echos.”

Light as a Feather

Still searching for the perfect little delicate gold feather necklace...

How goodness heightens beauty!

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Doing exactly what I want to be doing on this Saturday morning...

Woke up slowly, coffee coffee, radiolab podcast, read a soulful email from someone I miss very much, caught up on correspondence (as they say), contemplated some stuff, slippers, more coffee, another podcast....yes.

Now to venture outside into the sun sun sunshine!

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Another ethiopian food experience last night.  Soho.  Still love.

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You know, I was thinking this morning, around 3am as I snuggled into my fresh sheets...maybe the best thing is to realize that sometimes people come into your life to serve a very specific purpose.  And maybe it's healthier to completely let go at some point and realize that it has happened, (whether it was beautiful or ugly, enlightening or dull, blissful or painful) and that's that.  Maybe with some relationships it's better to stick a period there and jettison the ellipses.  Or perhaps some people you should bracket and stick in your pocket forever, or plant in the park and let them grow on their own.  Some things are just meant to be a glimpse.  And that's all they should have ever been.  Trying to carry out an unnatural continuation can be harmful.  

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But it's also OK to break the rules once in a while.  Why have rules, if not to break them?

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Oh yes, April 30th is officially "Poetry in your Pocket" day!  I know it's a little early to alert you...but I'm very excited.  I am looking for the perfect short verse to write on a little piece of paper and photocopy a million times.  I will go around all day giving people the little slip of paper.  Poetry that they can stick in their pocket.  I'm excited.

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Into the sun I go!

So, basically...

Inhale...

...exhale

repeat...

Elemental Odes

I think I forgot to breathe today. And yesterday. And the day before :-/

I've been extremely busy and, well, dare I say...stressed? BUT, I cannot complain because I am busy and stressed with wonderful things and soon the tension will deflate a bit. Just need to get my feet on the ground. I'm a lucky girl.

Yesterday I was walking home late at night, caught up in my own little bubble of Julia-ness. There are different Julia-ness bubbles. They range from glittery, to dull, from alert to aloof, from ecstatic to depressed, indifferent to hyper-focused, etc. This was a non-stop think bubble. Thinking about everything I had to do, how to do it, what resources to use, who I was meeting up with later, what events to attend, where I was going to fit in a couple hours of sleep, how I was going to read 4 books in a week, etc. etc. My version of...stress. BUT, literally within ten minutes I walked by a series of disabled people. Two women having a conversation in sign language. A man with metal crutches. An older woman roaming the streets, having a very high-energy conversation with an invisible companion/enemy. A guy about my age with a fake leg. A little kid with glasses and a hearing aid. OK, sometimes we just need to put things into perspective, eh?

I have a fully functioning body, my mind is sharp, I have an incredible family/support system, wonderful friends, great job, I live in the city. Um, yes. This was my little "get over it, Julia" message.

but I could still go for a hug....

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Not just any hug. A hug that allows me, invites me, to completely sink and melt onto and into the other person. A hug that says, "it's ok, just let go, forget everything, even if just for a minute". A hug that lets me be liquid and sturdy brick at the same time. A hug that smells like a camp fire and warm rain tumbling onto open dirt.

That's all.

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Reminds me of a Thom Gunn poem. I shall share:

["I shall share" sounds funny if you say it out-loud 10 times fast...not that I just did that or anything]

This is the 2nd half of the poem...

I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug,
Suddenly, from behind,
In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed:
Your instep to my heel,
My shoulder-blades against your chest.
It was not sex, but I could feel
The whole strength of your body set,
Or braced, to mine,
And locking me to you
As if we were still twenty-two
When our grand passion had not yet
Become familial.
My quick sleep had deleted all
Of intervening time and place.
I only knew
The stay of your secure firm dry embrace.

--Thom Gunn, THE HUG

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ABout ten times now I have visited a bookstore solely to peep into one book. I guess by "peep", I mean sit down in a cozy corner and get lost for hours in the surrealistic, etherial beauty of the neighboring words.

Something about this poet. He knows. And I feel his every phrase, every sentiment.

I finally splurged ($20) and bought the book on Sunday. Definitely on my "top 10 best NY purchases" list. I'd say it hovers around spots 3 and 4.

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A few people and events in my life have shown me why poetry exists. Some things can only survive in verse. They will escape, disintegrate, perish, if forced into any other form. And, for me, some things will only survive internally. Can only be spoken to one's own heart. I find, with my deepest, most intense verse, the words will only thrive within the fertile soil of my soul. That sounds a little odd, I know. But sometimes transcribing them onto paper is just another form of death...some things are meant to remain inside, forever coursing through our blood stream, where they can literally flow through our hearts, our brains, limbs, bellies, legs, and toes.

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Have you ever missed somebody so much that your body seems to enter a sort of shock state? Where silent wailing is the only option? And what about when you know you can never see that person again, but the only thing that will stop the pain is seeing the person? And how many kinds of death are there? And can you ever really lose someone? And will every wrong turn naturally find its way to right? And what about magnets? And...well, refer to the image at the top of this post. Words escape me...for now

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Ange is 22 today! I always like when it's his birthday because for 3 1/2 months, our ages hold hands. He's 22, I'm 23. Then when I turn 24, I hold hands with Justin's age, 25. But only for 2 weeks, as his birthday is 2 weeks after mine. But still, a cool time! It somewhat satisfies the wish I had as a child: that we were triplets. Lucky for, well, all of us (parents included), we are not.

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Writing this has actually loosened me up. Thank you. I just realized that for the first time in days, my breaths have been long and deep, as opposed to sharp and staccato.

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I will leave you tonight with this:

Oh, the flight from the mirroring water,

a thousand bodies aimed at a beautiful stillness

like the transparent permanence of the lake.

Suddenly, all was racing over the water,

movement, sound, towers of the full moon,

and then, wild wings, which out of the whirlwind

turned into order, flight, realized vastness,

and then absence, a white shivering in the void.

Still True

I dipped my face in magic and a piece stuck.

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EXCITED! [more to come...]

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Now officially in love with Ethiopian food. What's better than eating with your hands?!

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In the stillness
of that silent hour, I sat
upright in my sleep and felt you
in my breath. Eyes open,
nothing moving
but the chaos
of the ceaselessly tangoing
molecules

This is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

--William Carlos Williams

Have I ever told you that I can breathe under water?

Fragments...oh, fragments of fragments

Just a sprinkling of various observations tonight, as I still have a lot to do within the next few hours.  I have been keeping a ripped (now very crumpled) sheet of lined paper in my purse...available for when I see or feel something extraordinary, or bizarre, or funny, or sad, or just...there.

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I was walking around Chelsea the other evening...maybe 7pm, after I had met up with the lovely ms. krysta.  We were catching up on each other's lives and for some reason I tilt my head down and to the right.  Beside the curb, there was a florescent green puddle.  I kid you not.  Just a random green puddle, in the midst of an otherwise gray, damp street.  No indication as to the source.  

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There is a woman who lives up the street from me.  If I were to guess, I'd say she's about 73.  In her 70s, at least.  I moved to Manhattan in August, when the air was still so thick you could lap up the heat with your tongue, or grab handfuls of it and stick it in your pocket.  I immediately found my favorite spot to get coffee and started trekking out each morning in my pajama shorts and flip-flops at 7am to grab my cup o' joe before getting ready for work.  This woman, let's call her Marianna (I have decided that's her name), would always be standing out on her stoop...looking around.  Looking for what?, I wondered.  Always in the same attire: White, shoulder-length, frizzy hair, skin with a history, a white terry cloth robe with big orange spots on it, and light blue fuzzy slippers.  These misty, muggy mornings, I would slow my pace as I neared her stoop, hoping that I would be able to catch her eye and start a conversation...get a little window into this woman's life.  But, to no avail.  Her eyes were always fixed somewhere far beyond...beyond where any human eye could actually see.  Searching.

As Fall and Winter blanketed the city, I stopped going out for coffee at 7am regularly, and when I did, Marianna was not on the stoop (understandably so).  Today though!  It is finally getting warmer and I was walking home from work around 6:15 and much to my delight, Marianna was on her stoop once again.  This time in a light-weight sky blue robe, same slippers, same hair, same gaze.  

There are so many things I imagine her being...and so many things I imagine she was.  And she's still looking.

One of my goals this summer:  Befriend Marianna.

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For three days now, there has been an old leather couch sitting in the foyer of my courtyard.  Two wounds are patched with duct tape, but cream fluff still oozes out.  I am formulating its story in my head.  Its long list of past owners, or its one faithful owner that has just outgrown it.  Hm.

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Among the three books I actually have to read for work this week (beautiful), I picked up a fourth, entitled: "Do Polar Bears Get Lonely?" [subtitle: and answers to 100 weird and wacky questions about how the world works].  Interesting stuff.  The words "weird" and "wacky" in the subtitle almost irritated me enough to not grab the book, but I'm glad I overcame my detest for "goofy" words (ugh, "goofy" is another one that gets me...or "silly") because I am learning a lot of useFUL information (not useLESS, Mr. Serhant!)

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Ahora bien,

si poco a poco...

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What's your story?

Delicious.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

This photo makes me think of so many things.  My immediate associations are: sunshine, flowers, lemon drops, jellyfish, meringue, warm mist, rusty smell, etc.  I found it a few days ago and stuck it in my "cool images" folder (now overflowing with goodies I'll be sharing as the days dance on) and re-found it this morning as I was sifting through everything.  Today my first thought was, "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs"!  That was one of my favorite books as a little one.  Even now I can close my eyes and see the images of streets flooded with spaghetti, sauce, and meatballs.  

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Now, not to bring up the dream theme again, but, um..I'm going to.  ONLY because my dreams have been very realistic lately and not too feel-good.  Last night's, for example, was absolutely frightening and I woke up around 5am panting with fear.  Great.  Tonight will be about breaking the eery dream cycle and creating a delightful one.

So, to backtrack a bit...

Wednesday night:

This dream actually wasn't bad, but was 1st on my list of "extra realistic dreams" (in general I'm a very lucid dreamer, so to have an "extra realistic" dream literally feels like reality...like I lived the dream).  

The dream:  I was with a friend from high school.  We hadn't seen each other for a while and she immediately shared two significant pieces of news.  1. She had recently been in a big plane crash  2.  She was in love.  She began to describe the plane crash, and as she did, it's as if I were watching a film of the event.  

"Everybody was screaming, holding hands, it was bumpy..."  basically everything you'd imagine, but in my visual creation, the sky was brown and there were random objects soaring through the clouds (red bicycle, ice cream cones, mittens, etc.)...

Everybody on the plane survived, but all were hospitalized.  Prior to the plane crash, my friend said she had been seeing a man for about three months.  She wasn't really into, but didn't not like him.  Kind of a bland, neutral, reaction to his existence and their budding relationship.  After the crash, though, she opened her eyes and he was there, beside her hospital bed.  Her feelings for him escalated.  

Then the dream gets a little blurry for a while.  Next thing I remember is my friend saying that after the crash she would have horrible nightmares recounting the scenario.  Every night she would bolt up in bed, drenched in sweat, whimpering with the memory.  Her boyfriend (now she called him her boyfriend) would be next to her, take her in his arms, and quell her anxiety.

So she's telling me all of this and eventually I say, "so when did you fall in love with him?".  She explained that everyday after the crash they had spent their nights together.  After about 2 weeks, her boyfriend (for some reason I want to call him Brett), had to go on a business trip.  "So he was gone for a week, but every morning around 3am, he would call me."  He knew that's when she usually woke up with the nightmare and that she would feel guilty calling him for comfort.  "That's when I realized I love him".

Ok, therein lies dream numero uno.

Thursday Night:

This was a dream that didn't feel so hot.  I'm not going to go into depth, but basically, I was strolling the streets of Budapest with two friends.  One girl I consider to be a "best friend", the other we had kind of picked up in the midst of our journies...a new friend.  Long story short, my good friend turns to me in the midst of a conversation we're having and starts spouting out piercing words: "I hate the way you____, and that you____, and I hate how you______..."  and on and on.  I don't remember specifics, but I remember really feeling her hate and feeling how hurt I was by her distaste for me that had clearly been brewing for a while.  Then she linked arms with anonymous girl and walked away, leaving me in the middle of the street (a marketplace, actually), with my tears.  I woke up genuinely feeling as though my good friend had just betrayed me.  I actually emailed her right away just to be sure we were still on good terms (we are).

Friday:

I think it was another weird(ish) dream...but I don't really remember.

Saturday (last night):

OK, the other two were a little boring and "why should I care?"...but last night's dream/nightmare was AWFUL.  First, you know how if you have a dream in a familiar place, say, your childhood home, it will generally look like your house, but something will be off.  For example, "I had this dream, and we were home, but instead of stairs we had water slides, and instead of lamps we had gum ball machines".  You follow?

So, last night's dream took place in my apartment.  But it was, 100%, my apartment.  Nothing, absolutely nothing, was different.  My dream image of my little abode was perfectly accurate.  

Here's what happened:

I woke up to the sound of someone opening my bedroom window (there is one by the fire escape).  The figure was dark and I couldn't make out any features, but I could tell it was a man...a very large man.  I watched as he slid his hand through the rails of my window guard (I'm blanking on the real name of those things) and unlatched it from the inside.  At this point I was thinking "Ok, I can either jump out of bed, scream, tell him to back off, etc. etc., or lie still and pretend to be sleeping."  Because of the sheer size of this man, I opted for option numero dos.

He somehow managed to fit his body through the window and entered my bedroom.  I tried to maintain a regular breathing pattern and keep my eyes looking like they were shut (of course, it was dark in there, so that was fairly simple).  I noticed he had a clear plastic container full of liquid.  He shuffled over to my kitchen and found my empty gallon of water.  He released a stifled, gross, little "muwhaa" as he poured the clear liquid into the plastic gallon I had on my countertop.  Poison.  This man was trying to poison me!  But why?  Why would anyone want to poison me?  

After a couple of minutes, he forced his body out the window and left.  It gets a little sketchy here, my memory of the dream, but I recall a few minutes later another man came in with a knife and bugged my apartment...or something.  He installed something.  I was still pretending to sleep.

I woke up the next morning (this is still the dream), and called Justin, my brother.  Terrified, I explained everything.  I was down by the river, as I was fairly certain my apartment was bugged.  Justin responded "Well, I mean...were you maybe too nice to some guy at MOMA?".  This felt even worse!  Basically, my brother was implying that maybe I deserved this treatment because I had led some guy on at the MOMA.  

[for the record, Justin would never actually respond that way]

And the dream continued a little...the point is:  It was painfully realistic and I felt as though I were being hunted and nothing, not even family, provided a sense of safety.

I woke up from this nightmare around 5am, a little sweaty, heart beating fast.  There were a few seconds where I genuinely thought the dream was a reality because my apartment perfectly resembled the one in the dream.  Scaaaaaaary.

I've considered analyzing this dream, but I think I'd rather let it slip away. 

Anyway, tonight the beautiful dreams start up once again!

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Clocks spring ahead!  This means that it'll still be light at 7pm...maybe even 8pm!  Everyday, more and more, I can feel spring and summer.  Mmmm.  

I love walking around on a summer night in sandals and a tank top, taking in the smells and the perfect temperature.  Listening to the music of nature and people.  Last night was a little like that.

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You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

..in my world of fantasy, won't you

Taste the sparkles...

Let's swing into the night

Hello, Hello,

Le Ballon bleu!

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I am in a coffee shop right now. Well, technically it's a tea shop. I've been noticing lately that I apologize for things that I don't need to. For example, the seating is fairly limited here and one woman was using a chair as a "purse holder"...AKA: wasting a chair on her purse, so I went over and asked if somebody was using the chair and she glanced up from her computer, gave a not-so-subtle "Ugggghhhhh" and grabbed her purse and tossed it onto the floor. "Oh, thanks..." I said, "sorry". But I am not sorry! The same thing happens if somebody blatantly runs into me on the street. I will be the one to say sorry. Doesn't make sense.

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Ok, back to something I briefly mentioned a couple days ago--

I was waiting for a friend the other day and turned to my phone for mild entertainment. I started playing that dumb "brick-breaker" game (which I secretly love...). As my little paddle dashed back and forth on the screen, sending the ball back up to bounce against the walls, ceiling, and bricks, I glanced over to the right side of the screen. I was on a difficult level and wanted to check how many lives I had. Four. Ok, shoulders relaxed a little, it was ok if I made a mistake and ate up one life because I would have three others.

This is what led me to wonder what I would do in real life if I knew I had three more tries. If I could, say, "mess up" and know that I would just be plopped right back where I was. How would I live my life differently? My initial thought was "well, I wouldn't". It's not like I would suddenly start dashing into traffic without looking both ways, or experiment with sketchy drugs, or..I don't know, attempt to climb Mt. Everest (because, let's face it, that wouldn't turn out so well). But I am fully aware of how lame and, most likely, false this first reaction was. So I have begun to make a list of things I would do if I knew a mess up wouldn't mean "game over". Here's what I have so far...

1. A Great White shark dive (one day I'll write about my deep fascination and fear of sharks)
2. Hang Glide (which I would probably try sans the extra lives, anyway)
3. Take part in a streetluge race
4. Hang out with wild tigers
5. Bungee jump
6. Solo white water rafting excursion
7. Take a month to explore the Amazon Rainforest, alone

...that's all I have for now, but I'm sure the list will expand!

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Truth, truth, truth.  It's something we need not seek, because it's all there is.

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If You Forget Me

I want you to know one thing.

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I think it is impossible not to smile while...

-walking behind a dog with a cute waddle

-seeing a sweet father with his child

-riding a bike

-skipping

-swinging

-hearing/seeing/experiencing a child's curiosity

-whizzing across the water on a motor boat, or jetskiing

-thinking of people you love in moments of laughter

-...list to be continued!

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Gracious, gracious Universe

...but until then,

The arches of her feet are like voices of children calling in the grove of lemon trees...

...J'aime!

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I have these eye drops. They are called "Eye-C: a natural eye wash for all complaints". I like that for any complaint, these eye drops claim to be the remedy! Magic in a .5 FL ounce bottle.

Next time a friend comes to me with a complaint, I shall prescribe these drops. I can just see it:

Friend-- "Ugh! I am so sick of people on the subway cramming in, shoving their way through the crowd, and just being total a-holes!!"

Me-- "I know what you mean...here." [hands over bottle of eye drops]

Anyway, I was having issues with my right eye last summer. It was ceaselessly weeping. A holistic healthcare woman recommended these drops. I asked her how long I would be needing them and she said my eye would tell me. "With these drops," she explained, "the more it stings, the more you need them."

...an interesting concept

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I want to find this tree:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ianton/3170652852/in/photostream/



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French has no word for "home"

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"I dream of lost vocabularies that might express some of what we no longer can...What we feel most has no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses and birds."

-Jack Gilbert, from The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart

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Even in the midst of this bright snow, I am smelling the warmth and joy of spring

I can feel the spaces

A Leonard Cohen poem a friend recently shared with me:

Titles

I had the title Poet
and maybe I was one
for a while
Also the title Singer
was kindly accorded me
even though
I could barely carry a tune
For many years
I was known as a Monk
I shaved my head and wore robes
and got up very early
I hated everyone
and no one found me out
My reputation
as a Ladies’ Man was a joke
It caused me to laugh bitterly
through the ten thousand nights
I spent alone
From a third-storey window
above the Parc du Portugal
I’ve watched the snow
come down all day
As usual
there’s no one here
There never is
Mercifully
the inner conversation
is cancelled
by the white noise of winter
“I am neither the mind,
The intellect,
nor the silent voice within…”
is also cancelled
and now Gentle Reader
in what name
in whose name
do you come
to idle with me
in these luxurious
and dwindling realms
of Aimless Privacy?

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It's simpler than people think. This thing/concept/notion we toil over. Open. Accept. Give. Receive.

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The dark has its own light.
A son has many fathers.
Stand by a slow stream:
Hear the sigh of what is.
Be a pleased rock
On a plain day.
Waking's
kissing.
Yes.

-Roethke, from The Waking

And it's ironic too, 'cuz what we tend to do is act on what they say, and then it is that way...

I like...







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i walked all morning to lift my heart
cause the world keeps dancing with the paper man
i love you never talk in dreams
i always hear your happiness is real

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Do you see what I see?

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sometimes i feel so confused
i'm under the illusion that i have to choose
i love you always know the way
the way back home always is the same
oh make some big jumps, big jumps you afraid to break some bones
come on make some big jumps, big jumps life is your saulte
you hold your head up, your head up high like you think i do

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How differently would you live if you knew that after one death it wasn't "game over"? If you had, say, three lives? And after a death you could pick up where you left off...

[will get back to this idea soon]

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tick tock, this clockwork will stop
you're the key for winding up my heart

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So long ago, or like it just happened. Forever, but so quickly. Curious how looking back on experiences, or even examining current emotions, everything is composed of sets of dualities.

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hey there, sunshine in my heart
i know life is long but it goes so fast
i love you never feeling old
you never bought the rubbish that they sold

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Vin Chaud!

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come on make some big jumps, big jumps