Perhaps Tomorrow

I awake with a quiver inside
A whisper of attentive vibration
I am too tired and busy to listen
A whisper of preventative insight
I roll and turn away in search of peace and rest
A whisper of orientation and direction
I rouse myself with obligations and habit
A whisper of fresher possibilities
I remember that I forget to remember
A whisper of a deeper connection
I listen as best I have known
A clamor of thought
Perhaps tomorrow
Perhaps tomorrow

What the means means

The means is the end.
The means is the end.
The means is the end.
The means.

Where is the deficiency?

Is it always over there
Is it always in them
Is it ever right here
Do you scream at the emptiness and bombard with echo
Do you create a void to fill another
Are you aware enough to triangulate
Do you think to know
Do you know to think
How does it feel in between already and eventually
Conservation depletion
Quenched at the source
Catch it happening
Under your nose
Spectral analysis
Full of yourself

Every Day

I feel invisible threads disolve
and discover ones I didn't know.
I revel in beautiful weakness
and bring a new flow to bare on
previously concealed rough edges.
I am my shackles to undo.
I say what I believe to be
and know it is untrue.
I do what I emote is right
yet absolutely wrong.
I push and pull what I have built
or resisted building strong.
I hold, I grip, I turn away
yet bare to watch myself.
I face, release, I watch and play
It happens all at once.
Simultaneacrimoniagitarious;
The centre and eternity;
The now and evermore before.
I'm quite and rightly certain
what will happen is in store;
Is profecized in legacy
and predicted by the next
The former previous to come
is never always now.

Stuck in My Head

You slip out of your depth and out of your mind,
With your fear flowing out from behind

Back to the Future

Just had a nice conversation with an older gentleman who was born and raised in the area. He had numerous stories about how things used to be. He reminded me of my uncle who used to share stories about Port Hope Ontario. It has gotten me thinking once again about the fact that on many fronts true progress will be going backwards. Back to strong local communities; back to local sustainability; back to community loyalty. Not necessarily back to exactly how things were but definately back to some of the values that have been lost over time.

True Cost Accounting

People do not see what I see. My self evident is not. Is it necessary and sufficient? How big is your little picture? I have seen that form perform; encore? Correlation indication? Require to inspire? Only if paid in full concurrency.

Core Values?

Diversity of cultures, ideas, perspectives, genetics, species, ecosystems. Variety and dynamism (Uniformity and variability in space and time).
Intimacy with ourselves, others, nature; with the source of what we use and those affected by our actions. Closeness and familiarity (proximity and frequency of connections)
Awareness of thoughts, feelings, experiences, creations, capabilities, limitations; in ourselves and others; now and throughout history. Breadth, depth, and concurrency (scope and simultaneity of consideration).
Honesty to oneself and to others. The whole truth. Sincerity and transparency (Communication and availability of information).
Cooperation of mind and body, of people, of groups of people, of humanity and nature. Harmony, acceptance, collectivity (nature and purpose of interactive behavior).
Equality of all living things great and small. Balance and universality (Availability and accessibility of resources).
Beauty as the intangible awareness of quality. Aesthetic quality and the sublime experience. (The objective and subjective perception of balance and proportion of core values).

I am Rubber you are Glue

I have a tendency to use a wide range of language to express myself. I use old expressions and cliches in such ways as to laugh at the absurdity of them. I have recently found myself surrounded by people who don't see things the same way as I do. It is refreshing to be challenged on some of these things. I will try to express my feelings on the matter here.

Words can never be inherently good or bad; only intention and interpretation involve this dualistic value system. People have such difficulty distinguishing between interpretation, intension, and actuality. What I mean, what I say, and what you hear are rarely the same.

Comedy helps remind us that these differences exist. The absurd is often used to disarm rather than reinforce. The butt of many a great piece of humour is the individual who takes everything too seriously. Political correctness is not the answer. Laughter is the answer. You are in control of your reaction.

Personally I feel that the moraly self righteous are a far greater threat to this world than any words could ever be.

Meditation Clarification

It has come to my attention that there exist some common misconceptions of the art of meditation. One is that meditation is all about not thinking or not feeling and another is that it is an escape to a blissful place. I will attempt here to give my perspective and hopefully clarify the issue.

Meditation to me is a process of progressively facing a truer reality. This process is a personal training regimen to allow the transcendence of the shackles of craving, aversion, and ignorance. Meditation is not confined to sitting quietly: any act of living with awareness and a focus on increasing awareness is meditation. Meditation is simply living true.

The image that meditation is about not thinking is flawed. My meditation involves the process of observing my thought and my reaction to it. Only through this awareness of my mind can I understand that I am not my thoughts and must not allow myself to be enslaved by them; my mind is but a tool for my consciousness.

Thus the quieting of the mind is not so much a goal of the process but a result. Experiencing my thought as it is encourages my mind to begin submitting to my consciousness and to the acknowledgment that its control of the show has been an illusion hard fought to maintain.

Once my mind has begun to become silent the process can begin to focus on my body. As with the observation of my thought, the gradual increasing awareness of my bodies sensations (which thought is simply a special instance of) or feelings and my reaction to them allows me to understand that I am not my body and must not allow myself to be enslaved by its conditioned responses; my body is but a tool for my consciousness.

Thus the image of dulling of emotional responses as a result of meditation is inaccurate. The process of meditation is focused on sharpening emotional response moving away from blunt generalized reactions and moving towards detailed specific experiences of life.

The problem with the blissful escape image is that it does not capture the difficulties of the journey. Coming face to face with a truer version of yourself hurts. The process of transcendence hurts. The come down from excess hurts. As in nature, rebirth is fueled by decay and destruction. The process continues. Once you have accepted a new perception of yourself you realize that there is a deeper truer self to confront.

The results of the journey are a broader, higher, and deeper understanding; an acknowledgement of a connection to something greater than one's own conception of being; and an increased interest in how things are rather than how they seem.

Earth Day

Just got back from driving a big blue bus across the province and back. I met lots of great people and felt that I was treated like a very welcome authority and celebrity. So much so that I didn't feel worthy. I got to talk to the media, share myself with the public, and hear countless stories from people who are trying to make a difference in the world by making small changes in their own lives.

Phase Change

Do you know that overwhelming feeling of experiencing that which will elude understanding for some time; who's spoken silence will only be heard from another phase; when the significance of the moment outstretches your imagination. The stirring torrent of mystery that you feel lapping at your insides. Fear and anticipation. The trembling struggle at the fringe. Connections transcending preconceived possibilities. Solidity giving way to a fluttering of chaos; the turbulent dynamic transition to a new consistency. Transient. Elusive. Suddenly empty.

The Juggler

Are you active or reactive? How can you explain the value of planning to a knee jerk personality? Does an outline have to restrict spontaneity? Does the ability to juggle twenty-five balls at once demand that you do? Do you treat the people around you as only means to your ends? Do you interpret the suggestion of a potentially better way as criticism of your way? Do you file your email into folders or just have thousands of them sitting in your inbox?

Wind Energy

How often do you remind yourself that you don't know what you are? How attached are you to the idea that you do?

I seem to be allowing myself to get caught up in tornados of chaos and finding it difficult at times to remain at the calm center of my storm. Frequent visits help me to keep tabs on its location as it does not remain in one place for very long.

I sometimes try to stop the wind rather than flow with it. I deplete my reserves in the resistance rather than recharging through generation. Energy can be transformed. Energy can be transmitted. Energy can transmit. Energy can transform.

We've got us surrounded.

Bucky Equilibrium

Updated this and this. Any feedback?

Energy Renewal

So I've been at the new job for a week now. My new title is Renewable Energy Program Coordinator. My plate is full but there are lots of great people around to help. Check out some of the new links over on the side. I hope everyone is doing well.

The Horror, the Horror, the Horror

Something that I have uncovered in my experience of this life is that pain and fear are one and the same. They are reactions to the unknown, felt at boundaries of experience that have never been crossed. Some of these reactions are inborn, some learned, but all may be overcome. Some passionately jump blindly into the unknown: others justify never crossing the boundary at all. As with all things in life, pains and fears should be respected, but never obeyed.

On the Road

Back to the drive. Just one last leg until I reach my destination, for now at least. My father warns of big snow: I should probably check that out. Getting packed has been an experience yet again. I'm just getting over a little new moon flu; it was nice to be sick, very cleansing. Well, enough jibber jabber. I'll try to keep in touch.

In Love Again

Two years ago I had what those of you in consensus reality might refer to as a religious experience. It was brought on by a self imposed abstinence from a number of personal habits, long hours of introspective manual labour, and a strong desire to understand the beliefs of someone I felt very passionately towards. It was an epiphany of love turned inwards and ironically towards everyone and everything.

I spent a whole year trying to understand this moment of clarity. I built this understanding on the foundation of my understanding of christianity, a belief system I had disregarded for an agnostic stance early in my childhood. I refined this understanding through comparative religious, philosophical, and poetic studies. The more I read the further I got from the actual experience that started the whole journey in the first place.

I began searching for the key to how I felt shortly after the experience. I wanted back what I had briefly glimpsed and lost. I knew this was the only goal of any true value. I tried abstinence, I changed eating habits, I exercised, I hid from the world. I searched everywhere outside of myself. I knew deep down that it was love that set me free but I had no idea how. I had lost faith when I lost the woman I loved. I didn't know how to get back there by myself.

I eventually became interested in meditation as I had had good experiences with prayer after the experience. Not prayer to a god off somewhere in the distance but prayer to that part of myself that was beyond my comprehension and connected to the universe in a way I can only begin to understand. I remembered a connection with myself that I hoped I could make again. It was then that I came across Vipassana on the internet and signed up for a ten day course the next day. I had never met anyone who had taken a course but I knew that it was what I was meant to do.

My first course, which began exactly one year after my first moment of clarity, gave me another glimpse. It allowed me to experience much of what I had been reading about over the previous year and solidified my understanding by extending its foundation beyond my intellect. It gave me a technique to use to continue to deepen my understanding. It changed my life not by indoctrinating me with a particular belief system but by giving me an environment and a method to experience myself.

As with my first experience, as time passed my focus was on an intellectual understanding of the experience and the connection I had made with myself weakened. I spent another year continuing to struggle with myself but I had broken free and was on the path to find out. I understood my experiences enough that I knew my answers were not intellectual ones anymore.

I tried to meditate and I tried to maintain awareness forgetting that these are not things you force yourself to do but things you allow yourself to do. Letting go is not accomplished by willing but by unwilling. Over the year I was reminded of this over and over and over again. I learned lesson after lesson. I faced many pains from the past. I got sucked into many old black holes of despair. Each time I clawed myself out I was a little bit stronger.

The last one was the original one; self respect. I picked myself up, brushed myself off, and decided to go back for another ten day course. My goal this time was not to understand but to reconnect. This last time through, one year after the first course and two years after the original experience, was hard. I hit a wall that I knew I needed to walk through but that would require a toll. I crumbled and begged like a child; I acknowledged the past; I promised to always treat myself with the respect I know that I deserve. I loved myself again. This wasn't a verbal dialog, this was communication at a purer level. This was genuine unconditional love.

From that point on I have been connected again. The release I experienced and continue to experience from this connection is unexplainable. I meditate two hours a day and that connection continues to grow stronger. I remain aware of the connection as continuously as possible. We're working things out. I'm working things out. Things are working themselves out.

I'm in love again.

Can you tell which eggs came from happy chickens?