the big adventure

excerpts taken from 'an open life'
joseph campbell in conversation with michael toms

you see, symbols are the vehicles of communication between conscious and unconscious systems. and when this connection is broken, people feel rootless. but it's all right here; all you have to do is turn in...

the trinity is another symbol that we see all over, isn't it?

well it comes from various forms and with various interpretations. the number three can be read in many ways, but the traditional western interpretation is father, son and holy ghost. the father is symbolic of, or the personification of, the ultimate divine. for the father to be known, there must be a knower. god can be known only by god, therefore the second person of the blessed trinity is the knower--the son. and when there is a knower and the known, there is a relationship between the two, and this is holy spirit. now this can be translated into sanskrit as sat-chit-ananda. sat meaning being--that's the father; chit is consciousness--this is the son knowing the father; ananda is rapture or bliss--that's the relationship of the father to the son. there's a precise counterpart there. this is a fascinating realization.

eternity is not a continuation of time. eternity is a dimension of here and now. and we have eternal life now. this is what is meant by "the kingdom of the father is spread over the earth and men do not see it." when one thinks of what happens after death, one is still thinking in temporal terms. so, when we're talking about symbolic systems, that is a misplaced concern. do you see? you've got to do something else with it; you've got to spiritualize the symbol.
my favorite definition of religion is "a misinterpretation of mythology." ...

so the apocalypse is something that's with us all the time ?

the moment you see this kingdom of the father spread over the earth, the apocalypse has occurred. its a perpetual potential, and it's also something in a person who has the experience, that shuts on and off. ...

why do you think we tend to a literal interpretation of christ in myth?

i think it's the result of a strong institutional emphasis in our religions in the west, and a fear of the mystical experience. in fact, the experience of the divine within you is regarded and blasphemy. i remember giving a lecture once on this problem of becoming transparent to transcendence, so that your life becomes a transparency through which light shines. i spoke of it as "the god in you, coming out through your life." a couple months later, i met a young woman at another talk who had happened to be present at the first one; and she told me that when i had said "the christ in you asks you to live," a priest sitting next to her had said, "thats blasphemy!" so, in institutional religion, all the spirit is our there somewhere, not in you.
but what's the meaning of the saying, "the kingdom of heaven is within you," if you can't say "it's within me"? then who's in heaven?

and, "i and the father are one"

all of that. jesus was crucified because he said, "i and the father are one." well, the ultimate mystical experience is of one's identity with the divine power. that's the sense of the Chandogya Upanishad saying which says "You are It." that divinity which you see outside, and which you first become aware of because you recognize it outside, is actually your inmost being.

in some sense, we create our own gods.

yes, that's exactly what we do. no matter what the name we give it, the God we have is the one we're capable of having. that's something people don't realize. simply because they're all saying the same name for God, that doesn't mean they have the same relationship to That, or the same concept of what It is. and the concept of god is only a foreground of the experience. well, there you are... as Meister Eckhart said in his sermon "On Riddance," the ultimate riddance, and the most difficult, is the getting rid of your god to go to God. Wow! that's the big adventure. that's what you have to strive for every minute of your life: to get rid of the life that you ave planned in order to have the life that's waiting to be yours. Move. Move. Move into the Transcendent. That's the whole sense of the adventure, I think.

how do i believe in myself more strongly?

recognizing where our true help comes from, and how readily it is granted, inspires us with the inner independence needed to find the right direction for our lives. this is true enthusiasm. meaning the continuous transformations that occur when a person relates correctly to the cosmos. this means relating from modesty, which leads a person to say the inner yes to the help coming from the invisible world, and the inner no to the ego in all its manifestations. transformation occurs without effort and meets no resistance because it takes place in the realm of the atom--the inner realm on consciousness. it cannot be achieved through leverage, force, mental contrivance, or through the intervention of an imagined all-powerful entity. Transformations are the result of the harmonious cooperation of the two aspects of the life force, the light and dark. true enthusiasm is the experience of the harmonious flow of chi energy.

NEW BLOG

i will now be keeping a signpainting / visual sustenance blog just up the e-street.
come see me @ heidiNugz.tumblr.com !

i just keep wanting to paint more and more.

woke up sweating

bullets
in the face of my own being
in the wake of all of this
grasping
resistance
ill-chosen apathy
this being is a guest house
this being is a guest house
this being is a guest house

there are greater things
we're picking out paint swatches
together

airflow in a railroad apartment. hues of yellow and slow mornings/afternoons. it hurts when you think about it, it hurts when you don't. the word sadness doesn't do justice; it's too real to be sad...
the coming and going of spirits in this life is the most common and most earth-shaking thing. the biggest part of my mind is instructing, almost begging to move forward. seems cruel.
this life is short
this apartment is long
both of these things containing my self
are sick, sick too
and must collapse
(if only for tahday)

brian under the brooklyn bridge - summer 2009

yew nork

Uh so it's four AM. Clang cling union pool is closing and jason told the bouncer with the teeth not to get any funny ideas. Like kicking me out. Golden ponies. Jesus Clark rolled in from the commonwealth at 1:30, grabbed simon, myself & a Jameson and we moved my earthly possessions into a charming house on huron street. It was dark and quiet, a couple was asleep on the couch, we felt like ninjas because 20 minutes later we were back on the dance floor. The story of how I got my job is similarly magical, especially to the naked eye. I have yet to interview but I am dehydrating, blending, chopping, tasting the best raw food in my life thus far. Alongside none other than Bell, an old tea house colleague. I couldn't ask for more because if I did I'd be a glutton. I am still spinning at how huge and easy and fun and rediculous this move has been. My whole world has changed, but its like stepping into a new skin that has always been me. I'm on a ride, folks, I'm just showing up and paying attention and telling the truth and trying not to attach myself to the outcome. Smiling and sittin' pretty. Its hard to swallow blessings this huge. But I do because it means this was all given to me. I am a steward of the universal order, also just a fly in the web. I'm a small town girl and this is one, too, believe it or not. Yew Nork is a rich, rich place. I do believe in magic, living it.

I know nothing except you are a burning between my fingers. I light you each time and each time you go out. My body is full of memories of you. I don't want to sleep; you live in my dreams. Why do you bother my like this? At least, you can enter my real world, lay down by my side and we'll dream and burn together...

papa del mar

so the palm i was clutching like sap; the glorified mountain of my girlhood; the footprints in the snow that i so needed to match; the roar of a sea and its depths; the weight of guilt; the terminal fear...
all of it is yours.
we entangled ourselves like soul mates. we lived in a sanctuary of sawdust and pine needles; we needed each other and glorified one another and broke the other's heart...
i met you today in your safe world, buffered with miles of silent forest (how you always liked it), your person knows only perfect ritual: the slow pour, the straight lines, the incessant need to please. sending your grains and offerings out to that satellite world, the one you could never trust.
you might never know this, but it receives you...
it loves you and you will never know this.
i can't help but mourn for you, sawdust soul mate.
i can't help you so i am leaving you here.
to travel the scope of my lightness, a savior from your sea,
and burn with all you ever wanted to be.
i will be your satellite world, i will bear you gifts...
i will receive you and love you
but mourn you no more

on beginning to begin:

"we must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us."
i'm a baby, baby girl and that feels good. she is building from what she has this time, rather than from what she doesn't. releasing, leaning into what is, little eyes opened to the fragility, preciousness of everything, feet holding still for once, hands opening, coyly dancing with the idea of ownership, not forced but invited by something bigger than herself, humbled by that, inspired by this, realizing confusion will inevitably return but nothing is sweeter, nothing is sweeter than bright blessings against a deep black.

i love you to the max

a bone-chilling damp day in san francisco, finally. i opened the window in a second floor apartment to send some smoke and the silver jews out. they're testing this weather for me because it'll be even colder over there. so time freezes for a moment and this is what it tells me
megan is sculpting nature with toddlers; jacquie is being beautifully in canada; dede is in the midst of everything she deserves; mim is resting, tasting it; my mother is calm and warm and alive; i imagine lucas as either a pterodactyl or a shark today; somewhere an empty urban lot doesn't have a clue what's coming; maggie is choosing her battles and passing along the streets of a town nestled up to the blue ridge mountains; two plumbers left the bathroom fan on and have gone to lunch so
focusing on what give me strength, which is blind love, a thick solitude, the disappearing legs and incredible distances they tread, the holiness the ambiguity strange familiarity, the risks and the cards that play themselves
i still don't get it but might as well make something out of it. here's to this frozen moment, resuming retiring and rendering what it will. oh, and it will.
check out max out--->

ya se fue

i didn't push any buttons in the elevator, the man with the grey jacket did. there were no available computers so i climbed a flight of stairs. womb of sound, click-click, ding, a-hem-hem, muted roar of machine and man alike, pages turning, years crashing to an end. big clumsy one this was, big dumb heavy. the city outside (that one with the sirens) keeps letting blue warmth in depsite it being winter and all. i made it outside at the peak of it, thanks to 12 pills of varying levels of vita-eca-mushro-superpower standing between me and my head cold. mission is busy, love it busy like it always is, am part of it today. i'll wake up on the east coast any day now. i'd like it if the silver jews were there for me when i do. in the mean time: falling sunlight and long quiet walks and contimplating the second photograph and the next move and cooking for one and writing real small and greiving and being more alive than i know.

scene ii: the pink carpet

since i sleep in the living room of our christmas beach rental, i get to be around when santa distributes. there she is, sleepy-eyed slender lady snipping apart little japanese confections but avoiding the plate of rum balls and chocolate-covered peanut-butter stuffed pretzles. mom is sitting in one of the plastic patio chair pulled up as close to the lamp as she can get--furiously knitting a purple hat she's been working on since they left virginia. santa/deb just switched off the faux fireplace because she's worried the heat will melt the stocking contents. can you imagine? it's christmas morning and you reach into that faithful red sock only to retrieve little rice crackers heat sealed in crusty plastic with the print so distorted not even bob could tell if it says sesame or plain.
we just finished "it's a wonderful life". i cried. a lot. the kicker for me was, of course, at the end when all his friends came with the money. i have seen this movie countless times but not actually until tonight. how sweet it is to feel who your friends are. the ones who want to see you shine, prosper. the ones who want to hear your stories. maybe even the ones that are glad to be couped up in a beach house or a small town with you. maybe it actually is a wonderful life. i'm trying to kick this bad habit of needing more from the moment than it actually has, or believing the illusion of lack, however you want to look at it. i'm trying to love each game of boggle or cranium, appreciate each hug and meal, make space for different view points, etc. i feel like it shouldn't be this hard. but it is. and i am probably still healing from a lot of things. the river just got deeper, at least i know that for sure.
in the spirit of prayer, because there's been a fair share of that floating around here, i'm asking the source for grace. grace enough to float more and flail less. grace enough to see my family wholly, without needing them to be different for me. grace enough to forgive myself for what feels like failed attempts at life and love over the past couple years.

god bless this beautiful moment 'till it's gone

on faith

I never wanted to stop being a Christian.
Growing up, love was always demonstrated to me as loyalty: unconditional, persistent, eternal. I had a family and community that demanded integrity, so what we were taught at church was translated and grafted into our friendships, jobs and schools. I was excited for whatever Jesus had planned for me, even if it was scrubbing toilets, and especially if it involved living in a foreign country. I felt pretty lucky to be born into a Christian family and privileged to have been shown the right way to live at such an early age. One of the most valuable things to a human psyche is hope. I consider myself blessed to have had a childhood void of violence, poverty, death or any significant trauma. Moreover, I had parents and friends who loved me and supported my path. Community. Loyalty. My little mind and heart had no reason not to believe that everything was going to be okay. Somebody else was in control, I just had to follow and believe. So I did. Because it was right.
It started when I was seventeen and honest to a fault. I honestly loved Jesus Christ; I honestly loved being alive and all consequent experiences; I honestly loved my punk rock friends and I honestly loved my boyfriend. So many things merited my loyalty; it was all so huge and beautiful. Surely Jesus understood the vast beauty of the world he himself created. Surely I wasn't the first Christian who needed more room on her plate. I knew my heart was open and loyal, which was always the bottom line, so why did I feel so torn? It must've been something I wasn't doing. Honesty. Just be honest and integrate all your sides and everything will be okay. I opened up with full abandon, trusting my family and my faith to support me in my exploration of truth. I needed the love that raised me to take me on and guide me. It turned out that my parents loved their religion before their daughter, whose experience of reality was more than any of them could handle. For all the loyalty I had pouring from eyes and heart, It was strange to be so parched on the receiving end.
So I went to bible school. And I asked questions, lots of questions. I still believed and I was daring, begging to be taken on, all of me. I spent countless nights outside my dorm with my blanket, writing, writing, writing. I couldn't back down with the fire inside of me, I couldn't stop being pissed at the church for each of it's shortcomings. The Jesus I followed was a radical, a revolutionary, a lover of all, excluder of none. He was huge and I was determined to find a way for us to get along.
I remember when I stopped believing in hell. To me, god was pure Love, the absence of which was dark enough in and of itself, in my understanding negating the purpose of a place. Furthermore, 'perfect love drives out all fear' and in a world where I was wholly loyal to the former, I had no faith to spend on the latter. It stopped making sense. The bible and it's stories started seeming smaller to me, mere poetic metaphors for the mysteries of life and the pursuit of light. I kept writing and telling the truth. To myself, to my Jesus, to my peers. Most of the Christians around me didn't want to be immersed in real life, they wanted reasons to be above it. We were studying stories of a god who ultimately represented reconciliation, but building strategies to either change people or practice segregation. Still, I believed god was bigger than our student body, than the christian church, possibly even the christian faith, but how big? I wanted to know, I wanted to push the edges, I wanted to see.
I moved back to the states with such an sensitive awareness of our world and its reality. Everything: the poverty, the loneliness, the suffering, the hate, the greed. Of course there was beauty, but it was tainted by sin, by the absence of light. I couldn't handle it. All I saw in the people around me was their hurt, however acute. The worst part was that, according to my faith, there was a chasm between our human condition and the only thing truly needed: pure Love. There didn't seem room for chasms, politics, conditions of salvation. I could feel that Love was the bottom line and I think it was Love that bottomed out Christianity for me.
I proceeded to turn down my awareness as to be able to be with people more wholly and love them as they came. I moved Love from my heart out into my skin and kept that search going one person at a time. I didn't know what I believed. I didn't know if Jesus was more than just a man in history, I didn't know if, I didn't care. Then I met people that were doing things, affecting their environment, teaching each other, indulging in life, exploring meditation and their own ideals, still asking questions but with light in their eyes and less attachment to what form the answer takes. They were promoting their own kind of loyalty: self loyalty. It was a crazy beautiful concept. Could I believe in myself? Could I build my own life, make my own decisions, carry my own weight? What is Love without religion? What is spirit without law? I started building. I moved out of my parents' house, I taught myself how to cook, I began practicing yoga. I woke up to my own body, Its miracles, and nutrition. I explored poetry and philosophy. I started making things, anything. I paid attention to music, I paid attention to ritual, I enrolled in college, I asked questions, I practiced non-judgement. My new community took me in, all of me. They trusted me, they validated me, they demonstrated what felt like unconditional love. I was floored, I was home. Gratitude and beauty radiated from everything around me. I felt like man and god were being reconciled presently, perfectly; I was reborn.
When I moved to Philadelphia the next year I met even more people who were living like this. I fell in love with that city because of it's potential, because it had room for investment, belief, because it's real. I wanted to be part of the Love that was willing to take it on. I wanted to see reconciliation on a social level like I had experienced on a spiritual level. I wanted to see Philly fall in love with itself. I still don't understand what happened, but somewhere in there I got spooked. I think American society in general started to really freak me out. The more I learned about permaculture, the more I felt drawn to nature. I think I blew my love for travel and need for spiritual stimulation out of proportion and my self took the backseat to my own ideals. I was so willing to stretch and shrink everything in order to be more available to the answers that I neglected to see that such distortion wasn't even necessary.
As the story goes on, it gets cloudier for me. I don't think I've really begun to process what the hell happened when I lived in central america. I guess life happened. And I guess it was mine. There is no question that Love has been my first love, yet it's been imperfect because the self love was missing. I chose a man to fall in love with and I lived & travelled with him for five months. He spoke no english, I gave all I had just to see what came of it. I believed so deeply that intention and time beget destiny, transcending culture, transcending reason or practicality. I'm not saying nothing came of it, but sometimes you get to the other side only to find you've got bits of all sorts of things but yourself. You can't even remember what it was you wanted in the first place; the wanting has taken on a momentum of its own.
These days ideals are being challenged and life still proves itself quite huge. That wanting seems both absurd and urgently necessary. One thing that has been clear in my transience and endless search for home & path is How: Not what, but How. Not who, but How. Not where, but How. Can I be far gone in my own head but present with what is in front of me? Can I be honest, can I be productive, can I be loving? Can imperfection function like that of which it is a fraction? (Because it sort of has to...) Can faith be broken and still serve us? (Maybe broken is all it will ever be.) Is faith's purpose even to serve us? What does one believe in when nothing is known? More specifically, can I know something's impermanence and still believe in its eternal significance? How do you act toward water? You can't hold it, you can't breathe it in deep. You may float on it, you may swim in it. You can't live in it but you sure can die in it.
Tonight I went to a surprise birthday gathering for a loving woman named Nancy who lives on the farm next to us. We toasted to her life and what a wonderful life it is. Somehow she got part of the sky and put it in her childrens eyes. Somehow she maintains a marriage, a farm, a business, laughter. Something about small talk and not enough solitude lately got me out of the red celebration and onto the cold street. I let my fists drop to the bottom of my flimsy jacket pockets and tilted my face toward the sky. I walked a few blocks before I decided this would be a search for some rolling tobacco, a vice I let in on nights like this when I have greater battles to win. When I got back, someone had done their job and cleared my wine from its hiding spot. None of the waitresses had any sympathy, I had left the building, I wasn't getting a replacement. This is well and good for restaurant rules, but not fine for a girl who lives in metaphors or a farm camp. I couldn't let it go, I was pissed. I had three sips at most. What's another glass of wine to you? By the time I got in the car I was done for. Sobs muffled any outside sounds and I shook shook shook with Airielle's arm draped across my shoulders. I told her I was lonely. She knew: "it's not even about the wine..."
Sometimes I get really tired when I think about all that has happened since I stepped out from under my mother dogma. I try not to make it about loneliness or homelessness or anything victimizing. I guess what I'm getting at is the pure fucking awe I feel when I stand up next to myself and the life journey of believing in her. Her strength, her gut, her heart, her stories, her voice. It's a lot to love a god in the sky, but what about the one under your skin? Things definitely seem easier when they are far away, separate. But they're not, they never are, they always are. At the same time it feels like such an endless plane with no voices or music. I want to know how to love what I choose and choose what I love. I want to love like a child but I want to be loved as a woman. I want the world I live in to respond to the beliefs I author inside. I need to feel that I'm doing the right thing, even though there is no such thing. I want another glass of wine.

like butter

delicate adjustments on the plane of the heart, intersected, perpendicularly penetrated, bated. never been so wholly aware of the presence i am in myself, of the power, flowerlike fragility, everything in between swollen and wet. finding myself in san francisco for a long holiday weekend. beautiful women, dear friends, chosen family, at least for the moment, at most forever. my roots have grown heavy and i've got one last plane ride before i unpack the brown & orange backpack, holy womb of my baggage in the interim between then & when. the calender betrays me, i hate that it's november, i love that it's november. it doesn't hold enough, that backpack. the trail of things i'm leaving behind me is wide and sacred and deserving of every sunset there is. i'm scared to be a vessle, a woman. i've gotta keep dropping 'em low, though, and trust that it's all just right.

this is EE cummings

let it go-the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise-let it go it
was sworn to
go

let them go-the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers-you must let them go they
were born
to go

let all go-the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things-let all go
dear
so comes love

wake up little eyes

these are some long-lost (to me, anyway) photographs i made a couple years ago
luke and i shot this wedding/bible school reunion (they sure marry early, don't they?) in san diego. my favorite part of that week was getting lost in mexico after the rehearsal dinner. marisa and jón moved to iceland after this and it's been the plan for awhile to visit and maybe catch bjork at the grocery store buying crackers or imported bananas. i love you guys.

my indian summer

this is an obvious one, but i'm just gonna say it: i love farm life.
we sit on a little basin sloping down toward the coast with mountains on three sides and eucalyptus groves in front of us. from the hill my yurt is on (dubbed 'coyote hill' by my friend louis) you can see the ocean and hear the elephant seals. there is a constant occidental breeze to balance out the sweltering sun. the cold nights are a plus too. i am very into the extremes in temperature. it has been non-stop harvesting this week. every time someone asked me what i'll be doing on the farm, i always answered with an i don't know. oh, the labor! i mean it's not that hard, its just constant. my first day was on tuesday and we had to harvest for our 50-something CSA boxes. then twice a week we harvest for farmers markets in palo alto and pacifica respectively. my favorite harvest this week was the potatoes. it was cool enough watching airielle (the farm manager) and sarah (all-around bad ass lady) drive the plow through the beds to upturn the plants; but taking my shoes off, sitting down in a ditch of dry california soil and digging for spuds with my bare hands takes the cake! the work day starts around 8 each morning and we go till about 5:30 with an hour break for lunch. we rotate lunch duty and it is always delicious. sometimes we go down to our neighbors PIE RANCH for lunch. they make fresh chevre. we like them. the fields are nice to spend the day with, harvesting greens in the morning before the sun wilts them and giving the strawberry patch a once-over in the late afternoon. the ol' back has had some fits, but it's nothing a little yoga can't fix. after work, it's straight to the outdoor solar shower where i let all the dust from the day run down the drain. night time is my favorite time on the farm. yesterday after work i started cooking some beans and definitely underestimated the time they needed. so until 1a.m. we were having a bonfire, drinking some quality trader joe's wine, eating pot cookies and just staring at the sky. the beans came out fine and i slept in this morning. got up, and the aforementioned louis and i hitched to santa cruz! i have a feeling this little cycle of life is how it will go for me the rest of the season. i will eventually work the farmers markets. nothing big. but i can say that there is something about having a little canyon all to yourself; having the whole sky as thinking space; hearing coyotes and barn owls and sea lions at night; reading the time from the way your shadow falls under the sun; choosing what you will eat by walking up and down rows of various vegetables; keeping your hands constantly moving all for one reason- growing food. which i haven't even begun to wrap my mind around what that means. i call it my indian summer because of the dust even my pee kicks up and because of how invisible yet crucial i am to the greater society and because the sun is why i am able to do any of this. i also call it my indian summer because it came late but was worth the wait. i haven't felt this good in years. not even just the farm but this general time in my life. maybe she was right when she said it hasn't even begun to begin. each of my san francisco visitors and experiences were a perfect interim between taking a break from life and fully getting back into it. everything finally feels okay and makes sense. everything that has happened brought me to this pinnacle of gratitude and grace. i've been here before and i call it my indian summer because that's all i know right now. it's showing on my skin and the darkness has vanished from under my eyes. it's showing up in how i am experiencing the dynamic of living: community, food, being outside and surrounded by nature. it's good man, it's great! i'm totally into it, i love life, etc!
and now, a poem sent my way by the lovely isabella scott, whom i will pounce on so hard next time i see her:

Gravelly Run

I don't know somehow it seems sufficient
to see and hear whatever coming and going is,
losing the self to the victory
of stones and trees,
of bending sandpit lakes, crescent
round groves of dwarf pine:

for it is not so much to know the self
as to know it as it is known
by galaxy and cedar cone,
as if birth had never found it
and death could never end it:

the swamp's slow water comes
down Gravelly Run fanning the long
stone-held algal
hair and narrowing roils between
the shoulders of the highway bridge:

holly grows on the banks in the woods there,
and the cedars' gothic-clustered
spires could make
green religion in winter bones:

so I look and reflect, but the air's glass
jail seals each thing in its entity:

no use to make any philosophies here:
I see no
god in the holly, hear no song from
the snowbroken weeds: Hegel is not the winter
yellow in the pines: the sunlight has never
heard of trees: surrendered self among
unwelcoming forms: stranger,
hoist your burdens, get on down the road.

A.R. Ammons