Casi Cielo Salon

Is this going to be good? Is this going to be perfect? - steven pressfield

In an interview with Steven Pressfield (author of The Legend of Bagger Vance and The War of Art) he shares advice he gave to a writer when he became stuck about 1/4 way through his screenplay:

"One of the first things I told him to do was to banish the self-censor. I could tell he was frozen, worrying, "Is this going to be good? Is this going to be perfect? So I told him, "Take the next five days and write for two hours everyday. I don’t care what else is in your life--banish it. When you write for those two hours, start on minute one and don’t think for one second all the way through until minute 120. Just write, don’t self censor. Don’t do anything." That really seemed to get him moving and gave him permission to not be paralyzed with seeking perfection."

The search for perfection occludes seeing the perfection that is already present. It's the mind's parlor trick to distance ours self from the infinite indivisible.... to separate ourselves from the whole (as if that were possible, but it can feel as if we have succeeded in our secession from the Union....)

The search for enlightenment occludes seeing enlightenment is here.

We spend so much of our energy seeking our image of perfection and our image of wholeness. What if instead of chasing after an image of perfection or attempting to fix our image of brokenness and other imaginary pursuits, we just allow what's unfolding its expression?

Screw "perfection."  Accept whatever happens, however you are as perfect and immaculate and whole as is now--not sometime in the future when you have purified something or other. 

I met an independent filmmaker on the bus back from UCLA's symposium on transmedia and Hollywood. He told me he gets so absorbed in his work, that his grandmother chides him, "You're frozen in time." She insists he is not living in the present. So he bristles at commands or demands to "be present." I looked at him quizzically, "What makes you think you aren't present when you are writing, or directing, or editing. Sure, you are present... you're doing that thing you do in the present." Actually anything that is that self-absorbing is pretty much losing yourself to your Self in the present. In the midst of being absorbed in a first take of a film, it's pretty difficult to be caught up in the regrets of the past or the anticipated hopes for a future.

So, again, I say screw "perfect". You are perfect just as you are. The Interpreter, the Censor, may have other opinions as it's pretty miffed it's not the Author of the whole she-bang, and keeps marking up the margins of the Book with annotation that say stuff like, "This sucks" or "I was stupid here" or "Gee, that was wrong." Sure, It's always going to be blathering a running commentary as if it were Judge and Jury of the world... so what? Ignore yourself.

So I shall grant you permission to forego delusions of perfectionism.... and just do it.  Plus I give you permission to NOT do it (sometimes that is truest inclination and urge too, and it's just fine to Be... yep, you're granted permission to goof off and enjoy the process of Being too).

"The Infinite doesn't judge, it simply expresses." - Almine

p.s. Steve's new book, Do the Work, is available for free for the Kindle until May 20, 2011.

ART CREDITS: Burma Cyclone in the Art of War series by Kelly Anne Thomas'  Picasso Dreams blog

bravery regarding the fathomless of our own being - sakyong miphram rinpoche

"Deception is not a sign that we have karmic difficulties. Rather, it indicates a lack of honesty and insight. Constantly seeking a high in a desperate search for love or some fantastic new experience; we lack bravery regarding our lives. Trying to avoid boredom, pain, hard work, aging, and other traits of samsara and impermanence, we lack bravery regarding the reality of the world. Tricking ourselves into thinking we are having various meditation experiences because we are unable to sit with the simplicity of our mind, we lack bravery regarding the fathomlessness of our own being." - Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

Sometimes, it is hard to believe that day to day life--so-called "mundane" life--is where bravery truly resides...

It is where the rubber meets the road. It's far too easy being Zen in the monastery or Advaita in the ashram.

"In reality, life is perpetual motion. We cannot apply the slow-motion feature, or push the “Save” button and deal with it later. Life is always coming at us, or more accurately, we are always heading into life. Being hesitant, not approaching life engaged in forwardness, has a ripple effect. Life buckles behind us and builds up pressure, forcing us to move forward." - Bravery Without Deception essay, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

Using any techniques we've already described, or anything you've invented on the spot--describe something ordinary and brave you did today... preferably using sensory, concrete details rather than abstracts.

p.s. I had not heard of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche until very recently. His father was well-known Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. (I really loved Trugpa's book, "True Perception: The Path of Dharma Art" ), so I watched his video bio to get more backstory: "He is the ruler of Shambhala, a borderless kingdom of meditation practictioners committed to realizing enlightenment and social harmony through daily life." Yep, that spaceless space of Shambhala is ordinary, natural.

ART CREDITS: One in the exquisite collection PaPaYa! cards.

To be able to stand not knowing long enough to let something alive take shape! -- lynda barry

This week I devoted to more clearing out old beliefs, and their associated blocks. This ends up, in the end, being a collective clearing.

For instance,  you ever feel that it's "nice" to get feedback, kudos, approval and acknowledgement for your self-expression? Has this "nicety" become an ogre of a requirement?

What happens if no one responds to your expression? Does it matter to you? What if no one even shrugs at the song you share, the drawing you painted, the poem you wrote, the thing you said? Or worse, they say something critical? Or, what if they expect output on a regular schedule, and it starts feeling like an onerous chore? What do they want? Maybe this what they want?

Lynda Barry shared in her illustrated, graphic memoir What It Is, that as a child she really enjoyed the beingness of drawing.  Expressing was its own reward, and it was also an exploration into the unknown moment-by-moment as she didn't know in advance where the pencil and lines might take her.

"When I was little, I noticed that making lines on paper gave me a certain floating feeling. It made me feel like I was both there and not there. Before the two questions ["Is this good? Does this suck?], pictures and stories happened in a way that didn't involve much thinking. One line led to another until they somehow finished. I never felt like I was trying, and the drawing itself didn't matter too me much afterward."

Lynda Barry's floating feeling is basically the sublime bliss of beingness (i.e. when you're present).

I once volunteered at a urban youth art program. The least contrived, most gleeful pupils were the three-year-olds. Completely unabashed, they just dug into their drawing without a care in the world. What other people? What other approval? They didn't need to show it to their parents, or us.  They were off on the next drawing before anyone had a chance to critique their first drawing. Totally in the moment with the crayons and paper and such.  Results and outcomes are futuristic concerns that don't enter three-year-olds spontaneity.

Those three-year-olds painted to paint.

Now. Just like Lynda as a child. Like you.

But that slowly changed, Lynda shares:

"But those two questions [Is this good? Does it suck?] find everybody. Mine came in the guise of the two most popular girls in my 1st grade class. They liked me more after I made that picture. My teacher liked me more too. . . .

It turns out there are also drawings which make people dislike you. Drawings that make people think you are dirty or stupid or lame. One by one most kids I knew quit drawing and never drew again. It left behind too much evidence. Why did I keep drawing?

Because I figured out how to make the good kind. As for the bad drawings, I tried my best not to ever make them, but some clawed their way up to the surface of my paper anyway. There were so many ways for a picture to be bad.

. . . For the next 30 years I chased after only good drawing. While I drew, my main feelings were doubt and worry, and when I finished, my only feelings were relief and regret. I never drew for fun anymore--and I'd forgotten about that strange floating feeling making lines on paper used to give me. I'd forgotten how stories used to bubble up out of the lines and surprise me. It was why I started drawing--to meet those lines and stories."

Do you express for your own enjoyment of the moment? Are you secretly waiting for someone to judge it--good, bad, indifferent?

I've realized, I too, had lost the joy of creating for its own sake.

Got accustomed to feedback. Thrived on it. The last couple of years, I was in a relationship with a mutual muse. In the beginning, I wrote to write and imagine and crystallize. Then, I shifted: I wrote for him. And then, I didn't write at all since it felt more and more like an expectation, or a commitment....an obligation. Yech.

That is not the idea of this Salon. This is about present presence. If it's a commitment. If it's obligatory. Or if you expect someone to pat you on the back....Step back....

These are all signs that it's time to step back and answer for yourself, What's missing? Why? Ignore the others. What do you WANT to do and be for joy? How do you want to express yourself--especially when no one is watching?

Expression is natural. Don't be confined by what other people label as self-expression--it may not be poetry or drawing. Everyone expresses their individuated part of Wholeness uniquely. 

Is it fun--and natural--for you? Lynda had to sit with that swirl of questions about why she was being dominated by the "Is this good? Does this suck?" Where had she lost her enthusiam for the act of expressing itself? 

She says her emergence was helped by trust in the process of drawing, and she had to ignore the strong voice that chided, "And what the *&^%$# is that s'posta be?"

Lynda: "I don't know yet."

Voice: "Then why the **&^% are you wasting time drawing it?!" Rule #1: If you don't know what it is, it sucks."

Yep that is often our self-talk: "Blah blah that sucks blah blah. You better know what you are doing in advance and it better be likeable." AND, it's not based whatsoever on the present experience just as it is.

Eventually, Lynda had a breakthrough:

 . . . "To be able to stand not knowing long enough to let something alive take shape! Without the two questions so much is possible. To all the kids who quit drawing, come back!"

If no one was watching, what would you create today?

ART CREDITS: Cy Twombly's earlier works--which I adore--if you are in their physical proximity, they are raw and powerful... just like the presence in 3-year-old's drawings.  (Have to be honest and admit I don't enjoy his latest works near as much.... as if self-consciousness and museum polish has crept into his vibe.) Tiznet, 1953. (Agree with DearHeatherMarie: "It is so primitive, childish and wonderfully crude that I want to climb a mountain and yodel, naked. But I won’t. Instead, Cy’s work will be my muse for this week…"); Wider Shores of Love, 1985; and, Ferragusto IV, 1961

The etegami motto is “heta de ii, heta ga ii” roughly translated: It’s fine to be clumsy. In fact, the best etegami are clumsy!

Continuing on an etegami theme, Japanese blogger, Keiko, says:

"Kunio Koike, he is Etegami master, says “It is fine to be clumsy, clumsy one is the good one." This is the main point which etegami became popular in Japan. There are no rules exactly how to draw etegami, it's totally free and just drawing on a paper whatever you want." - Keiko, What is Etegami?, Hana ichirin blog

So an Etegami master himself (as of 2009 he was the president of Japanese Etegami Society, too) says that's the point it's perfectly fine to--

--be perfectly clumsy!

Go ahead and be free. Explore. Play. Can't do it wrong. There are no mistakes. Perfectionism is the only thing that gets in the way of perceiving the Perfection that is (nothing gets in the way, as all inclusive). Perfection already here, now, unborn, undying, eternal... not perfectionism. It's hard to believe that, I know. Find out for yourself.

I like how Dokushan Debbie (her artwork in yesterday's etegami post too) continues in the very same vein in her blog:

As I was in an experimental mood, I drew this etegami with a Pelikan-brand fountain pen filled with blue-black ink. I waited for the ink to dry completely before adding the gansai paint, but (as I feared it would) the fountain pen ink smeared as soon as it got wet. That's okay, though. Like I'm always saying, the best etegami is that which you don't have complete control over. - Deborah Davidson

Drop the two following questions from  life--and see, it's perfect. From Lynda Barry's illustrated 'graphic' memoir, What It Is:

"TWO QUESTIONS

• Is this good?
• Does this suck?

I'm not sure when these two questions became the only two questions I had about my work, or when making pictures and stories turned into something called 'my work'---I just know I'd stopped enjoying it and instead began to dread it.

When I was little, I noticed that making lines on paper gave me a certain feeling. It made me feel like I was both there and not there. The lines made a picture and the picture made a story. I wasn't the only kid it happened to. Every kid I knew could do it.

Before the two questions, pictures and stories happened in a way that didn't involve much thinking. One line led to another until they somehow finished. I never felt like I was trying, and the drawing itself didn't matter too much to me afterward."

Okay, we're flexing from etegami in strictest sense: Try making another picture + text of your present moment, perhaps your surroundings, during your day, but start it by sketching/doodling whatever it is you are observing first to chill out (or child out, as I like to say). The sketching itself, like Lynda Barry relates, can loosen you up--one line after another... très Zen. If you have access to kid's watercolor paints--even better! (If you are in the private Salon, send both along, or just the text.)

Bonus: The Nihon Sun article on the Japanese folk art of etegami gives more of an overview, and says, "Etegami are meant to be sent, rather than hoarded or displayed in frames." So they are gifts....

ART CREDITS: Eleven arms. Five arms. Ten arms. Perfect. Nine, too--Debbie has her 9-armed sea star etegami on sale for $19.99.

“To know the pine, go to the pine. To know the bamboo, go to the bamboo.” - basho

Etegami literally means picture letter in Japanese.

I don't recall how I found this lovely blog, Dosanko Debbie's Etegami Notebook, but it was some point after the March 11th Japan earthquake and tsunami.

They remind me of clear crispness of haiku accompanying a 'watercolored' image. Traditionally,

"They are usually done on postcards so that they can be easily mailed off to one's friends. Though etegami has few hard-and-fast rules, traditional tools and materials include writing brushes, sumi ink for the outline, blocks of water-soluble, mineral-based pigments called gansai, and absorbent washi postcards. They often depict some ordinary item from everyday life, especially items that bring a particular season to mind." - Dosanko Debbie

Adding haiku (or even just one line of text that distills a moment) can be part of the etegami. Debbie's etegami to the right takes Robert Haas' translation of a famous Basho haiku. More on haiku:

“This actual moment! That bedraggled crow! This moonlit evening, that cold rain on your skull! There you stand, inhabiting your body with animal clarity, wide-open senses, and no preconception or abstract idea can touch the experience itself. Buddhists call this tattva, thusness. “No ideas but in things,” William Carlos Williams famously wrote, setting ten thousand poems free from abstraction. He could have been reading Basho: “To know the pine, go to the pine. To know the bamboo, go to the bamboo.”

…Haiku’s simplicity of spirit is what so quickly allies it to Zen Buddhism. I like to think the current popularity of Zen in America is due in part to a tenacious belief that we remain a no-nonsense people, a people who talk straight and try to keep life simple – this and a mounting restlessness with our overabundance of things… This Thoreau-like hunger for unadorned living, and the belief that the richest insights can only be acquired through close-to-the-bone experience, carries on in the spirit of modern poets.” - from “Rucksack Poetry: How Haiku Found a Home in America”, Winter 2004, Tricycle, (in The Best Buddhist Writing 2005 anthology)

Start an etegami with a moment. What is the most immediate, or vivid, concrete image? (Doesn't have to be watercolored for this exercise.) Then add the first words that come to you. The artist Lynda Barry considers images 'alive', and I'll just quote one sentence from the intriguing What It Is picture book from her page titled "What Is An Image?"-- "At the center of everything we call 'the arts,' and children call 'play,' is something which seems alive."

ART CREDITS: Both etegami above, the bamboo fan and the two halves of melon, are Deborah Davidson of Dosanko Debbie Etegami Notebook's creations.

it had been ordinary to sing... bursting into song - lynda barry

"By the 6th Grade I stopped doing ordinary things in front of people. It had been ordinary to sing, kids are singing all the time when they are little, but then something happens.

It's not that we stop singing. I still sang. I just made sure I was alone when I did it, and I made sure I never did it accidentally. that thing we call bursting into song.

I believe this happens to most of us. We are still singing, but secretly and all alone." - Lynda Barry, What It Is

Sometimes, I don't feel like sharing. Oh, I am still writing--or "singing"--yet, secretly and alone.

There's nothing wrong with that (per se). But many people don't sing secretly or alone at all. They cease the ordinary, everyday little joys somewhere along the way to maturity as if maturity means stifling our self. Go indulge yourself in something extraordinarily ordinary and natural and child-like--today.

p.s.  Lynda Barry's work is a great example of daily journaling too--a collage of handwritten pages on legal paper + doodles + sketches + cut out words and images from magazines and whatnot lying around, etc.  Enjoy.

Bonus: Almine shares a story of the restoration of a student's lost singing voice--for both "healer" and "healed" (they're the same difference in Wholeness).

ART CREDITS: a page from Lynda Barry's book, "What it Is",  a collaged mixed-media memoir. More excerpts here at NYMag.com.

memory is an interesting playmate - elizabeth bunsen

What if a memory occurs to you in the present?

How might you incorporate that without losing presence?

I don't wish to make memory an enemy--that's not the point. In witnessing my own experience, I agree with this statement:

"Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry—all forms of fear—are cause by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past,  and not enough presence." - Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

Having a memory isn't an  issue at all. Enjoy yourself.

Now, does said memory cause you any remorse? If so, there is often an opinion (usually hurtful if you feel regret) around the memory that you're holding onto and dragging into the present moment. Often these held emotions obscure (and can block) current inspiration and clarity. This emotional release is a large topic; I recommend techniques like The Work (free resources there) and Trauma Release as being  helpful.

"To be free of time is to be free of the psychological need of past for your identity and future for your fulfillment." - Eckhart Tolle

A memory with presence, sans carried-over attachment, is simply rendered in this example, titled Solar Evidence, over at the Be...Dream...Play blog. In fact, I recommend the Be...Dream...Play blog as an interesting example of capturing the everyday, so-called "mundane" moments by incorporating short word-sketches, mixed-media journal pages, and photography.

The emotions she shares seem to the reader arising from the immediate, present moment and just like she says, she uses memory as a playmate (and not an anchor). Go check it out. (I also like how Elizabeth weaves words and photos in that example.)

ART CREDITS: Both are Elizabeth Bunsen's blog photos. First is from the entry I recommended on memory, titled Solar Evidence. Second is "wabi-sabi" found art on snow, titled Rain and Coffee.

looking beyond the labels of things and discovering the remarkable world around you. - Freeman Patterson

Seeing, in the finest and broadest sense, means using your senses, your intellect, and your emotions. It means encountering your subject matter with your whole being. It means looking beyond the labels of things and discovering the remarkable world around you. - Freeman Patterson

"It's an ugly day--you're going out walking?" my Mom asks incredulously.

Ugly? The sky is overcast, that's about it. 

In fact, I'm aware that many people would consider the walk I embarked on yesterday and the day before and the day before that around the neighborhood to be ugly, boring, mundane, meh. Devoid of spicy content, stark, or at least if there were any redeeming beauty it'd be understated. I could point out the prettier parts of that journey: the matte glow of quartzy peaks (not glossy finish like other gems) backdropping the skyline at sunset, the white plum blossoms fluffy light as snow... but those treats are far and in between and for the most part, the reaction would be a shrug.

Not getting caught up in the labels "good/bad", "right/wrong", "negative/positive", "better/worse", "attraction/aversion" is sufficiently Zen enough practice. However, lately I have also noticed the subtle external pressure to assert the plum tree's beauty, and downplay the straggly Mormon tea. The fascination and, dare I say it, agape I've sensed over broken tile and chunks of amber glass and the chain link pattern and the tin foil wrapped around a yucca is impossible for me to convey. But you need not my translation of that seeing, Awareness peers through the same eyes as you or I. And it's available at each moment.

The "beauty/ugly" dichotomy comes up more in art--so perhaps in our writing or snapshots or sketches or films, but it originates in our observations and interpretations. We're not going to write about what we don't even see (or acknowledge as part of existence).

"I am not interested in shooting new things--I am interested to see things new." - Ernest Haas

The pull to only affirm the beautiful (or even find that label relevant) got harder to pull off mentally when I started one practice in the past month or so.

It can be a difficult practice to begin. Basically, I would apply a question to anything that showed up in my life, or already was part of it--instead of immediately looking to change it, fix it, evade it, figure it out, dismiss it, embrace it, criticize it or whatever the impulse might be--and in the last year, I'd say the tendency has been towards idea, "That shouldn't be [happening]," or "This is working out the wrong way."

"We see what we conclude about the world." - Adyashanti, March 9, 2011 video satsang

I changed my mind and gave the Universe the benefit of the doubt. I asked: What if a vaster Intelligence, not separate from myself, did know exactly what it was doing (i.e. ahem, I am not in charge or control of It) and everything is unfolding just as it should?

Perhaps I didn't comprehend Reality's point of view--but did that make it wrong? Maybe not. I relaxed more around the question.

I'd apply it to everything as it was occuring and even went so far as using it with a recurring memory affecting me in present-tense: What are three reasons I can come up with (not necessarily anything Truth would give as any answer, since I don't know) that this should have happened as it did? (And yes, there is always the Byron Katie answer, which might go something like: "Because it did happen that way, and I am no longer interested in fighting against reality." But I was trying to stretch further.)

Eventually 'reality' felt like 'totality' and in the last week it has been difficult to distinguish things or events or scenarios or beings as "ugly" or "beautiful." Even to say that it's all beautiful, doesn't quite feel truthful--it's not necessary. As I said, I am quite aware of the cultural expectations of things and events and how the majority perception and compartmentalization, but as I look at things those labels have become irrelevant.

"Seeing the smallest dewdrop, you can stand in awe of perfection." - John Shaw

 p.s. I like the synchronicity of Freeman Patterson quote, finding out he has a Masters in Divinity, and also the symbolism--a free man, a free being. Oh, yes, actually you can feel euphoric rush on actually seeing little brown grasses through the eyes of Awareness... touch the "primordial ground where distinction never gazed" --Meister Eckhart:

"...I often tell about one December morning, back about 1993, when I looked out on the field behind my house. The grasses had been tall and very brown, but had been smashed down by snow, and when the snow had melted, they appeared to be all woven together, integrated. And then a smattering of snow had come again - so now there were medium, neutral brown grasses all woven together covered with tiny flakes of white and little pin pricks of black shadows here and there. When I looked at it all, I ran for the camera and the tripod and spent about 45 minutes shooting this tapestry – all the while carefully avoiding any line or shape that might function as a centre of interest. As I did, I kept getting higher, and higher, and higher. I was in a state of euphoria by the time I was finished. So I made some tea, went back out and sat on the deck and looked at this field and asked myself what’s going on here. Obviously something significant was going on because you don’t get into a state of euphoria over shooting some brown grasses with a little snow on them." - Freeman Patterson

ART CREDITS: Route 66, by Ernest Haas; last two photographs by Freeman Patterson via this great inteview by Chris Maher and Larry Berman.

the tao of photography... creative, unconstricted seeing

I had a hunch to look at photography books since more so than writing (or, at least current day writing instruction), photography is all about being present.

"We look at the world and see what we have learned to believe is there. We have been conditioned to expect.... But, as photographers, we must learn to relax our beliefs." - Aaron Siskind

What if you see life just as it is rather than as it should be?

See through the eyes of a liberated photographer?

Write and breathe and eat and dance and see wholly? (If you catch yourself in constricted awareness, that's fine too--no need to judge and discriminate against yourself. Every moment is fresh. Next.)

From The Tao of Photography: Seeing Beyond Seeing which weaves in a lot from The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu:

"In photography, the unliberated photographer is usually described as a mindless imitator. Such imitators can be observed daily at tourist sites all around the world:

Arriving at the rim of this famous landmark, they shuffle about, searching for a sign that says "shoot here." With one pre-set image labeled GRAND CANYON in their minds, blinding them to what lies below, they search for the one and only "right" spot to stand. - Joel Meyerowitz

Constricted by preset images, such photographers mechanically attempt to reproduce a rigid, preestablished vision, thereby forestalling the possibility of new discoveries. Their awareness is saturated with expectations that block the possibility of seeing the unexpected.

We regard the unliberated life in the Chuang-tzu and the unliberated practice of photography as representative of the state of constricted awareness. The awareness of the man afraid of his own shadow is constricted by an unquestioned belief about its threatening nature. The unliberated photographer's awareness is constricted by expectations about "how things ought to look". . . .

The Chuang-tzu maintains that the root of the unliberated life is the discriminatory mind, a frame of mind that creates endless discriminations where none existed before. . . . Maintaining this sense of separation, the perceiver constantly evaluates phenomena by means of subjective judgments of approval and disapproval. The continual act of discrimination induces a sense of separateness between the subject and the object.

By constantly making such judgments, the perceiver soon becomes subservient to the discriminatory mind--that is, a judgmental frame of mind constantly rejecting what is disliked and attempting to possess or prolong what is liked. However, since both what is liked and what is disliked are inseparable elements of the whole fabric of nature [of life], to favor one element and reject another creates disharmony [and imbalance] where none existed before. Partiality creates disharmony.

In the practice of photography, constricted awareness can impoversish a photographer's vision and art. Imprisoned by biases of the discriminatory mind, the photographer with constricted awareness is unable to appreciate the boundless visual richness of the world that lies beyond the filters and projections imposed by mental constructs. Only when the photographer can become free of the discriminatory mind can creative, unconstricting seeing occur."

p.s. Sorry about not posting yesterday--I was having major display monitor issues with the Windows Vista desktop (still am, I'm with my laptop this second in a cafe with WiFi). Eventually, I surrendered to the situation just as it was and just as it was unfolding.  Ultimately, it'd be the discriminatory mind that would fight against what happens as it happens.  I don't always connect the dots immediately, yet I've realized that Life knows pretty much what it's doing in its infinite wisdom.

ART CREDITS: Grand Canyon by Joel Meyerowitz; Bahia 170 by Aaron Siskind

To walk quietly till the miracle in everything speaks is poetry, whether we write it down or not. - mark nepo

I haven't been writing as much as I thought I would in the last few days. I have been enthralled with the nuances the eyes and ears and senses and pre-senses are alert to in the present moment--from the crack of asphalt to the pattern of silver and grey tiles in the bathroom to the panoply of textured trash in the desert.

Alas, the current of the current moment had been 'escaping' me for a couple of years, and now that I am here, now, it's such a sublime and full-time experience I have just only cared to bask with it.

Yesterday, I read an e-mail that Mark Nepo sent to Oprah (she asked him about poetry):

"After years of looking, I can only say that searching for small things worn by the deep is the art of poetry. But listening to what they say is the poem.

. . . To walk quietly till the miracle in everything speaks is poetry, whether we write it down or not."

It's not so much walking quietly, as granting the Universe the benefit of the doubt, stilling your preconceptions and foregone conclusions about what you are about to sense... that's "listening to what they say." Then the miracle in everything isn't obscured by any interpretive overlay, and is radically simple, plain and obvious.

from STUDY OF THE OBJECT

The most beautiful is the object
which does not exist

it does not serve to carry water
or to preserve the ashes of a hero

it was not cradled by Antigone
nor was a rat drowned in it

seen
from every side
which means
hardly anticipated

the hairs
of all its tines
join
in one stream of light

neither
blindness
nor
death
can take away the object
which does not exist

~ Zbigniew Herbert (1924-1998), Polish poet

ART CREDITS: Nobody's Fool, by Shinique Smith