Crossroads Dispatches

buildings (frozen music) will be temporary like concerts

"The ancients and our modern quantum physicists are in agreement; everything in the universe is in a state of vibration which means they are in motion and all objects in motion create sound. This includes every portion of the human body." - Jonathan Goldman psychoacoustics teacher and musician, "The Sound of Science," Common Ground magazine, May 2007

"Now, the need for BEING SPACES is nothing new. Sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined 'The Third Place' in his 1990 book 'The Great Good Place', and described it as a celebration of the places where people can regularly go to take it easy and commune with friends, neighbours, and whoever else shows up." - Trendwatching March '06 report: Being Spaces & Brand Spaces

I read this in the book, Darkness and Scattered Light, and thought of you, fellow bards and druids. And I thought too of what I imagine a clan of artists would move through the cosmos like:

"The architecture of the future, I imagine, will be modeled on the architecture of matter itself, seen not in its aggregate nature as plastic material to be molded into shape, but in its musical structure as a crystal or as an archetypal geometrical form. The acoustical space of the ancient pyramids, cathedrals, and mosques is a celebration of sacred geometry....

What the future cathedrals of Chartres will be, I have no way of knowing, but I imagine someone playing a musical instrument and expressing with it certain images in algebra and topology; as the instrument is played, the physical form of the building is created. Perhaps my fantasy is simply one of a Bach-like God sitting at the keyboard of the universe, but I imagine a future architecture in which you turn on a building the way we now turn on the lights. These buildings will be temporary like concerts, and not enduring like the pyramids; and so when the use of the building is finished, the people can move on. The culture will be similar to the nomadic way of life of the old paleolithic hunters and gatherers; the people will carry their cultures in their souls, and so familiar will they be with earth, wind, and stars that civilization will be unnecessary ."

Art: Aerie © 2007 Timothy Lantz; Eurydice © 2007 Timothy Lantz

p.s. Feeling more in a curatorial and twittering mood of late. (And should you connect dots of Popup plus Being Spaces plus (Still) Made Here reports sans the commerce you may ascertain some parts of what been concocting lately.)

The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property

"The artist appeals to that part of our being...which is a gift and not an acquisition - and, therefore, more permanently enduring." - Joseph Conrad

"At the corner drugstore my neighbors and I can now buy a line of romantic novels written according to a formula developed through market research. An advertising agency polled a group of women readers. What age should the heroine be? (She should be between nineteen and twenty-seven.) Should the man she meets be married or single? (Recently widowed is best.) The hero and heroine are not allowed in bed together until they are married. Each novel is a hundred and ninety-two pages long. Even the name of the series and the design of the cover have been tailored to the demands of the market. (The name Silhouette was preferred over Belladonna, Surrender, Tiffany, and Magnolia; gold curlicues were chosen to frame the cover.) Six new titles appear each month and two hundred thousand copies of each title are printed.

Why do we suspect that Silhouette Romances will not be enduring works of art? What is it about a work of art, even when it is bought and sold in the market, that makes us distinguish it from such pure commodities as these?

It is the assumption of this book that a work of art is a gift, not a commodity. Or, to state the modern case with more precision, that works of art exist simultaneously in two "economies," a market economy and a gift economy. Only one of these is essential, however: a work of art can survive without the market, but where there is no gift there is no art.

There are several distinct senses of "gift" that lie behind these ideas, but common to each of them is the notion that a gift is a thing we do not get by our own efforts. We cannot buy it; we cannot acquire it through an act of will. It is bestowed upon us. Thus we rightly speak of "talent" as a gift, for although a talent can be perfected through an effort of the will, no effort in the world can cause its initial appearance. Mozart, composing on the harpsicord at the age of four, had a gift.

We also speak rightly of intuition or inspiration as a gift. As the artist works, some portion of his creation is bestowed upon him. An idea pops into this head, a tune begins to play, a phrase comes to mind, a color falls in place on the canvas. Usually, in fact, the artist does not find himself engaged or exhilarated by the work, nor does it seem authentic, until this gratuitous element has appeared, so that along with any true creation comes the uncanny sense that "I," the artist, did not make the work. "Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me," says D.H. Lawrence. Not all artists emphasize the "gift" phase of their creations to the degree that Lawrence does, but all artists feel it.

...For some years now I myself have tried to make my way as a poet, a translator, and a sort of "scholar without institution." Inevitably the money question comes up; labors such as mine are notoriously nonremunerative, and the landlord is not interested in your book of translations the day the rent falls due.

...Every culture offers its citizens an image of what it is to be a man or woman of substance. There have been times and places in which a person came into his or her social being through the dispersal of gifts, the "big man" or "big woman" being one through whom the most gifts flowed. The mythology of a market society reverses the picture: getting rather than giving is the mark of a substantial person, and the hero is "self-possessed," "self-made." So long as these assumptions rule, a disquieting sense of triviality, of worthlessness even, will nag the man or woman who labors in the service of a gift and whose products are not adequately described as commodities.

...[U]nlike the sale of a commodity, the giving of a gift tends to establish a relationship between the parties involved. Furthermore, when gifts circulate within a group, their commerce leaves a series of interconnected relationships in its wake, and a kind of decentralized cohesiveness emerges... I began to realize that a description of gift exchange might offer me the language, the way of speaking, through which I could address the situation of creative artists." - Lewis Hyde, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property

p.s. The whole of this remarkable book that was gifted to me by Tara Hunt centers around "to possess is to give." And: "Scarcity appears when wealth cannot flow." These are the ideas that are swirling for me these days: How to stay centered and not abandon your art in a market society, and have abundance continuously moving and circulating in a cohesive community.

Art: The Accolade, by Edmund Blair Leighton; The Charity of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, by Edmund Blair Leighton

fire the grid, making love to your beast as every footfall is your own

I awoke at precisely 4:11 a.m this morning from a nightmare.

All I remember now hours later was there was a beast in it. And I was none too sure the beast was my ally. Though knowing all too well of Jungian shadow work, I'm pretty sure the Beast represents beloved, though shoved away into a deep dark corner, aspects of my own self.

Being an outlier in the New Age community (I'm a skeptic; while I'm open to new information, ultimately rely on my own direct experience and knowing which places me at odds with said 'community' much of time), I'd heard of the Fire The Grid global meditation scheduled for 11:11 a.m. Greenwich time, July 17, 2007.

Which would be exactly 4:11 a.m. Pacific time for me.

I had vacillated whether I was going to participate or not. My own gut instincts told me that this particular channeller's message wasn't resonating for me; although the personal story of her son's recovery from a near-fatal accident emphatically did. That story rang truer than many things I've read in ages.

The rest of the site, I picked up sensations of fear and worry from the material which I don't share about the fate of the planet. The visions I have sensed of the future are so startingly palpably real and beatific they're so much harder to swallow (you ought not because I say so; inquire for yourself) than scenes and memes of doomsday and annihilation we're accustomed to.

Also I didn't sense that anything of significance galactically was happening on July 17th. (July 8th, however, was a different story.)

As the weeks went by, the Fire the Grid meme spread like wildfire. (Someone was doing their marketing homework.) The more websites that referenced Fire The Grid, and the more email I got from newsletters I'm subscribed to and from well-intentioned individuals endorsing the global meditation, the more and more I began to doubt my own (conflicting) instinct.

Who am I to know for myself, eh? Memes know better, right? Memes are gospel, silly. (Have you ever noticed meme screams me, me?)

So last night I was still vacillating whether I would participate at 4:11 a.m. Although weeks earlier I'd been certain I was not. My own personal decision. I wasn't going to tell anyone else whether they ought to or not.

Finally, around midnight, I decided that I was not going to do it, although, this nagging doubt accompanied me to my slumber. As usual, I prayed to my higher self to show me what I didn't know I didn't know as I lay down.

In the move to San Francisco, I ended up giving a lot of philosophy, spiritual and business books away. I realized I am never going to crack many of them open. I want to rely more and more on my own innate instincts, intelligence, power and love to guide.

I'm not sure when we became a self-help society, but the signs are everywhere that this is so. It's intricately tied up with celebrity and expert worship too. Constantly continuously giving our own power away.

There's a part of me feels like maybe the best thing I can do is close the curtain on this blog and simply remind you that you have access to everything you ever need to know

...in the moment you need to know it. Trust your holy self.

That said, there are reasons to share. There are reasons to read. Sometimes it's all a game we're playing in a house of mirrors.

Once I sent the beginning of a poem I was writing to a friend. This is how it started, and then I got snagged not knowing what was next:

if said angel wandered the earth
she gallavanting mistletoe in a sphere of lapis

There was a little more in the email about nebulas and nurseries where stars are born, and he writes back (and this is someone that has had more than his fair share of beastly experiences):

I've found the worst turns to the best because contrast is all really see

live it be humble enough to see it and then tell it in your own words........

glory be to the one ones who know that every footfall is their own

Those words sum up the motivation I have to continue to write - and share. Tell it in your own words: poetry - not gospel.

And so when another friend texting with me this morning says: i love my nightmares... Wonder what it b like 2 make love 2 ur beast?

I understood. And I understood why I rolled over in the crisp covers, and simply went back to sleep at 4:11 a.m.

Bonus: One of the most sane responses to the Fire The Grid meditation I'd read. Stumbled upon at midnight last night when I just meant to read more David Wilcock. Snippet below:

"[W]e feel the key is not in group meditations, but rather in an ongoing practice. The Law of One philosophy only ever gave two techniques that create an ‘exponential increase’ in your spiritual growth in a short time:

1. Seek the love in this moment.
2. Reflect on issues from your past that inform this moment.

Each additional seeking of love in the moment creates an exponential increase. Each additional issue from your past you can bring up and examine for its relevance to this moment creates an exponential increase. 

The world is healed by our own diligent effort in healing ourselves, day by day, consistently. - "Should I Meditate on July 17th?", David Wilcock, Divine Cosmos blog

images Fallen Angel, by Olivia de Berardinis (hmmm, embracing our fallen angel self is making love to the beast, perhaps); Girl Before a Mirror, by Pablo Picasso

simple, seemingly unremarkable things, or 101 reasons to twitter

"We can do no great things, only small things with great love." - Mother Teresa

Because I had the most cloud nine meditation today, because I don't want to carry many books with me to San Francisco (I'm subletting for the Summer of Love), because I think people may wonder what precisely constitutes "bliss" and where do we chase it, and because this is one of my favorite passages in Eckhart Tolle's marvelous book, "A New Earth", because this may be one more nudge to consider joining my circle of friends on Twitter (one use for Twitter is to bring attention to everyday "simple, seemingly unremarkable things" you might have taken for granted, whisk yourself away to the here and now), I'm sharing this:

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." - Annie Dillard (and, ah, bliss: Pilgrim At Tinker Creek)

"...because you are seeking it as if you were looking for an object or an experience, you cannot find it. This is the dilemma of all those who are seeking spiritual realization or enlightenment. Hence, Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, 'Lo, here it is!' or 'There!' for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you."

If you are not spending all of your waking life in discontent, worry, depression, despair, or consumed by other negative states; if you are able to enjoy simple things like listening to the sound of the rain or the wind; if you can see the beauty of clouds moving across the sky or be alone at times without feeling lonely or needing the mental stimulus of entertainment; if you find yourself treating a complete stranger with heartfelt kindness without wanting anything from him or her...it means that a space has opened up, no matter how briefly, in the otherwise incessant stream of thinking that is the human mind. When this happens, there is a sense of well-being, of alive peace, even though it may be subtle. The intensity will vary from a perhaps barely noticeable background sense of contentment to what the ancient sages of India called ananda - the bliss of Being. Because you have been conditioned to pay attention only to form, you are probably not even aware of it except indirectly. For example, there is a common element in the ability to see beauty, to appreciate simple things, to enjoy your own company, or to relate to other people with loving kindness. This common element is a sense of contentment, peace, and aliveness that is the invisible background without which these experiences would not be possible.

Whenever there is beauty, kindness, the recognition of the goodness of simple things in your life, look for the background to that experience within yourself. But don't look for it as if you were looking for something. You cannot pin it down and say, "Now I have it," or grasp it mentally and define it in some way. It is like the cloudless sky. It has no form. It is space; it is stillness, the sweetness of Being and infinitely more than these words, which are only pointers. When you are able to sense it directly within yourself, it deepens. So when you appreciate something simple - a sound, a sight, a touch - when you see beauty, when you feel loving kindness toward another, sense the inner spaciousness that is the souce and background to that experience.

Many poets and sages throughout the ages have observed that true happiness - I call it the joy of Being - is found in simple, seemingly unremarkable things. Most people, in their restless search for something significant to happen to them, continuously miss the insignificant, which may not be insignificant at all. The philosopher Nietzsche, in a rare moment of deep stillness, wrote, "For happiness, how little suffices for happiness!...the least thing precisely, the gentlest thing, the lightest thing, a lizard's rustling, a breath, a wisk, an eye glance - little maketh up the best happiness. Be still."

Why is it the "least thing" that makes up "the best happiness"? Because true happiness is not caused by the thing or event, although this is how it first appears. The thing or event is so subtle, so unobtrusive, that it takes up only a small part of your consciousness - the rest is inner space, consciousness itself unobstructed by form. Inner space consciousness and who you are in your essence are one and the same. In other words, the form of little things leaves room for inner space. And it is from inner space, the unconditioned consciousness itself, that true happiness, the joy of Being, emanates. To become aware of little, quiet things, however, you need to be quiet inside. A high degree of alertness is required. Be still. Look. Listen. Be present.

Here is another way of finding inner space: Become conscious of being conscious. Say or think "I Am" and add nothing to it. Be aware of the stillness that follows the I Am. Sense your presence, the naked, unveiled, unclothed beingness. It is untouched by young or old, rich or poor, good or bad, or any other attributes. It is the spacious womb of all creation, all form." - Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

p.s. We don't have to use Twitter as "advertised." It's hard to explain, it's very experential. Oh, and I'm not done nudging you to join.

Art Credits: Dolce far niente, by John William Godward ("la dolce far niente" means the sweetness of doing nothing, in Italian. And it's not just a saying in Italy, being is an entire art form itself); Autumn Night, by Stiegler (I'm presuming from .jpg filename as could not find original source via this motel - hmmm, artists should always be attributed)

777: the religion of money, or, the river of life

"I have been thinking about balance of the four elements. I am wondering - your life as you describe it in your posts seems to emphasize the air (freedom) and fire (passion) aspects. Are you in touch with your 'roots' (earth element)? Obviously the material aspects of your existence is not significant any more (unimportant?). But where is your basis?" - a reader

I don't know when it happened. When I realized I didn't need a priest to talk to God. When I realized I did not need a guru to come to the Self that's always been.

I just can't recall when I realized there is a direct immediate 24/7 envelopement with Source. Sometimes I may quote April 7, 2006 as a date. Peet's Coffee as a place. But really, when we're not deceiving ourselves, when were we not enlightened?

Do we really need a hierarchy of religion and libraries of special and often esoteric texts to tell us: Be still and know that I am God? Not really. Simply be completely still without any holding onto any of your concepts of God, or you, or me. Come empty, and you will know fullness.

The river of our life is connected to an eternally spring-fed source.

So current I can comprehend.

Currency feels also like another one of those intermediaries. It's still an exploration for me, but.... I want to touch earthy Mother, Mater, matter with my own hands, bake bread with my own hearth without the priestly caste of money to mediate on my behalf. (You may think I live on some other universe; not really, I've just seen into a probable universe.)

I for one am certainly no renunciate, no ascetic. Been there, done that. (I detest the word "sustainable": reeks of scarcity, not the fecundity of nature.)

I'm more of a tantrika, an aesthetic. When I'm honest, I can't say I have any compelling desire to create yards and mountains of crinkly khaki-hued paper strips and metallic disks. Rather I'd create me temples of glittery gold and lapus lazuli tiles, pyramids of rainbowed light, oases of frankincense and shifting shimmering sands and palms and cerulean blue lakes.

I'm a creatrix at heart. I want to go to the heart of the matter. No middlemen, please.

Yesterday, I twittered: Imagine a world where money is extraneous. So we print beatific money as art. Period.

On 07-07-07 there are worldwide concerts being held called "Live Earth." Live Earth: beautiful. Right on the money! Yep, She truly is truly alive.

Yet drowning in a collective, collected (stagnated), sea of doubt - that's not befitting to a grand Creatrix such as She, such as me.

I know where that doubt comes from. I've touched it too. We cannot believe we're really in the channel of the river. When we look around it seems like we must be going upstream because the so-called "mainstream" is going somewhere that other direction.

as seen spraypainted in street outside my house: CONFORM. Hmmm, not very likely. - July 1, 2007 twitter

Does the truth need a defense team? Do we doubt so much that we're really are on track with truth, and our God Self, that we run to others to give ourselves over to us?

"I want to point out here that if the answer is right, it does not need pressure to gain acceptance. The truth has enough presence to be recognized by any that have experience enough to recognize it. Those that have not recognized something that others feel is the truth need to be free to seek the truth in their own way." - Ceann DeRohan, Right Use of Will

So on 07-07-07, in addition to throwing your juice bottle in the recycled bin, consider a willingness to believe in Life....consider a willingness to believe in grace.

Believe that limitless miracles are the natural course of the river.

Believe in yourself.

Let's take the dam we've built down and let Her flow.

p.s. Inspiration for printing my own money from NPR (via Marilyn) and The Diggers. (You'll have to connect dots.) I'm through with the starving artist archetype, are you? Artists are some of the boldest Creatrixes on Gaia.

But you're not inspired by what the U.S. Mint spews out either, eh? Well, check out Eve's one-dollar bill. (We're all going to curate something...stay tuned.)

Bonus: Snippet of the 07-07-07 message on Gillian MacBeth-Louthan "The Quantum Awakening" site:

The choices of the last two years brought you fully into the land of I  DO BELIEVE or the SEA OF DOUBT. Do you believe or do you doubt?

In the next days you will be given a choice -€“ do you believe 100% that you are aligned with what is light, what is Christed, what is good about man, about God, about Life.

You will have to dig deep into this haystack to find the needle that represents the goodness in this time and place. You must become a living blessing to all those that cross your path, to give to them a great new hope for the day.

Do you realize that throughout your day everything you do affects another and as an emissary of light. Ask to be a blessing for everything and everyone from the morning to night. It is by doing this that you will amplify the wattage of creation and put it in into a place that will solidify.

...A clarion call has come forth and asked you to reconfirm your vows with the light, with what is divine, with the future of planet Earth in a place of peace. So many of you have given up on your freedom, on your heart'€™s desires, on what brings you joy that the 100th monkey of doubt has shifted the entire equation of ight and dark. We ask you to dig in your heels (and they are winged heels) as of late and to believe not just for yourself, not just for your planet and your people but for all that exists that depends on the outcome of earth'€™s ascension or dissension.  And this we leave you as a thought in your heart. - Gillian MacBeth-Louthan

Art Credits: Persepolis, by Michael Parkes; Golden Serpent , by Michael Parkes; Drowning, Peacefully, by Solkeera (reminds me too of end of Piscean Age, beginning of Aquarius...); The Riddle, by Michael Parkes (just discovered Michael Parkes via image search for "oasis" - simply adore his work! Love to see his printed money.)

something is being given freely, with no strings attached

I need this post too as a reminder for my Self.

"A miracle worker is not geared toward fighting the world that is, but toward creating the world that could be." - Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love (thanks Nikki Ann)

"The power of myth can snare us into believing that the journey entails sacrifice and effort. [BTW, The Power of Myth aired originally in 1988. Much has happened collectively since.]

The mind quickly passes "follow your bliss" off as a great philosophy but not the literal truth. The eye will jump straight to the next sentence to find out 'how' in it's inability to comprehend those three little words - that we need only follow what makes us happy in each moment.

Maybe the dark night of the soul is unavoidable... I don't really know... by it is definitely of our own making." - Nick Smith, Life 2.0,  in comments to follow your bliss...happy Independence day

My reply, much elaborated since original comment: Yeah, you're right. The idea of the descent in the Hero's Journey is a pretty well-known narrative, for Story, and for Soul. So too in Kabbala, so too in Tarot: the arduous journey given to us from Fool to Universe is fraught with a few days we might not feel like skipping and rejoicing. At least that's the way myth goes.

Utimately that 3D adventure's about recollecting the hidden parts, the shadowy parts, especially the "golden" shadow. We hop out of the see-saw of dark/light, bad/good and burst onto a field of bliss that only knows raw, direct experience without necessitating an overlay labelling to judge the experience as anything, including "good" or "bad."

I don't know if the Abyss (as Kabbala likes to deem "dark night of the soul") was or wasn't avoidable in past; it was definitely there in vivid technicolor epic movie slow frame by excruciating slow frame for me prior 2006. Until I realized 'I' was watching a projected movie!

And it's darkest before dawn they say ;-)

Things have gotten so much brighter, radiant, let's say since.

There is a planetary world soul, and a cosmic soul, and well, that's enough for now. And they've evolved through their Hero's Journey too. I've this felt sense that the classic descent is no longer necessary. We've all been there, in this lifetime and lifetimes past. The prison door is wide open, it is ours to choose to walk through. Even the gathering of our discarded soul fragments and shadows isn't prerequisite to spiritual awakening any more (it happens of its own, there is nothing that is not embraced).

There is much to be learnt in the acts of intentional play and creation, so the journey is far from over when the peace that surpasseth all understanding prevails. There is more unfurling! Journeys of a differing frequency that are not attuned to suffering and efforting, and they expand into an infinite playground of universes upon universes we can hardly imagine - we need to venture there and experience it ourselves.

Too many (me at times) stuck in old patterns of drudgery and efforting, which is keeping us from the way the movement wants to flow now, today, this era, this year, this month, this day, this minute, into greater and greater magic and miracles. We're entranced by looping back into same old, ancient patterns for story, insteading of evolving and inventing fresh ones.

This is a snippet from one of my teachers:

"Even many spiritual seekers still think in terms of effort, of trials and tests. But there is no longer any key needed to open the door. It cannot now be closed.

This change is so simple and fundamental it is easy to overlook. It is not a problem to be solved. There is nothing to be learned, no steps to success. Something is being given freely, with no strings attached. All that is required is for each of us to say "yes."" - and these words published 2002, Sufi master Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee, Working with Oneness (from post: the Initiation beyond our Wildest Dreams, worth re-reading)

While nothing else is required, the 'yes' is required to honor the creator capacity of Will (otherwise, you'd be given something against your own will), you must welcome the wisdom, power, and love of your highest self for yourself.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. [I started with asking what to ask for, also called 'guidance'.] - Matthew 7:7-8

Art: Unio Mystica, by A. Andrew Gonzalez; Galadriel (detail), by John Howe (btw, orbs like this oft how faerie twinkle to peoplings)

follow your bliss...happy Independence day

"[I]f you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be." - Joseph Campbell, interview with Bill Moyer (via Nick Smith's Life 2.0 blog)

Was experiencing a not so stellar day. Have you ever felt like you are  plopped smack into the middle of some mysterious plotline, albeit cliffhanging as it is you're not so sure you want to turn the pages just yet, or ever again. Not another dragon slaying day, pleez. Because you're It, you're the hero/heroine of your story, and the heroine doesn't quite like the world she's thrown into, or the sentences and the punctuation and the incessant advancement of the drama. You'd rather crawl back into bed, thank you. Or howl about the inanity of the storyline and what the other characters are doing. Especially knowing this is the kind of advice Storyteller, aka your Soul, works with:

6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them - in order that the reader may see what they are made of. - Kurt Vonnegut, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction

A friend offered to send me an energy packet remotely tonight (hmmm, whatever that is; he's the intuitive energy worker.)

Thx in meantime eatin strawberries chocolate tea now

These u live on?

Why not? My two great joys in life are chocolate and young men, said potter artist Beatrice Wood...she lived to 105...following my bliss

I should qualify and mention that that's deep dark chocolate and moonlight white tea.

Ah, I feel better already.

The chocolate and strawberries helped - alas no young men handily around -  because stopped for a second being ensnared by the storyworld and its masquerades, and where the other characters' dramas are spinning, and came back to me and my own soul compass (Joy).

"Now, I came to this idea of bliss because in Sanskrit, which is the great spiritual language of the world, there are three terms that represent the brink, the jumping-off place to the ocean of transcendence: sat-chit-ananda. The word "Chit" means consciousness. "Ananda" means bliss or rapture. I thought, "I don't know whether my consciousness is proper consciousness or not; I don't know whether what I know of my being is my proper being or not; but I do know where my rapture is. So let me hang on to rapture, and that will bring me both my consciousness and my being." I think it worked." - Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Update: Sharing this epiphany with friend above.[He generously talked me through my venting this a.m.] sorry keep get ensnare by world drama, okay when focus myself follow my own thread o inspiration even if silly 2 everyone else

He: Thts all u gota do.
Me: 2 simple. guess can't believe so simple

Yes, it's too good to be true. Yes, it's that simple.

p.s. Independence Street, Desire Street and Piety Street are all a couple blocks from each other in New Orleans. What co-incidence! I view following your rapture, or bliss, or as I sometimes like to say follow my sassiness - as being the exact thing as following your desire and Will - which ultimately is the crux of the law of attraction. And that following is like following an electric current, or a magnetic force, a movement pulsing and flowing within the heart of your being that keeps right on waltzing and overflowing out in gushes of fountains and expresses as flinging rose petals and fecund blessings galore in a myriad of profuse ways. (Take a peek at the 3 Cups, or Abundance card, in Tarot; imagine the cups are eternally replenished with immortal waters of life everlasting.)    

Art: The Roses of Heliogabalus, by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

What Is Real?

"I think Silicon Valley will never happen in Europe. People [in Europe] care too much about their family and friends" [Forbes] (via Siona via Valleywag)

"We are on our way back to a city [Dan and Margaret live in Boulder, CO] full of high-achieving software engineers and real-estate brokers who have built a fabulously well-organized community, with excellent schools, thriving businesses, and immaculate parks, but who can’t find the time to sit a spell on the porch, let alone enjoy a second beer." - Dan Baum, last post on the New Yorker blog after a six-month stint in New Orleans (they lived in the Bywater, upper Ninth ward)

The first time I met Dan, he was in line ahead of me at Caffea (btw, the best coffeehouse on the planet, and I travel lots). I mistook him for a ukulele player I'd met at a bacchanalian end-o-the-world party, street fashion show, and improvisational movie filming at Cafe Brasil. But I digress.

I stumbled onto Dan's New Yorker blog again (stumbled may not be right word, it's not like I didn't know of it already) while researching the history of troubadours, Fedeli d'Amore, street performance collectives, and busking. (Why is another story related to this story.) Specifically, "stumbled" again via Google searching for the awesome street jazz band I'd heard in New Orleans called, "Loose Marbles."

From there it was a short skip and jump to Dan's front page. Reading Dan's last dispatch filed from Houston just after they'd left New Orleans, I broke down and cried.

A friend I met in New Orleans texts me this morning to ask me how I'm doing. (BTW, I don't just blurt the default "fine", unless I actually am flying high as kite.)

wish could say better...feelin blue

me 2 a little. i wondr why? u know. at least you have a B&N ther [He's just driven with his mom for two days from the Hamptons to a new town I'll decline to identify that she's checking out for possible relocation.]

ha ha. It is not the strip malls. It is mass delusion here that gets 2 me. Everyone goin 100 miles an hour...off a cliff. Suppose shall make it easier 2 find our clan.

Not 100% sure. Read energy intens w full moon, merc retro, but think [myself] has 2 do with getting harder 4 indigos to just be fine with world as is...may be moving us to DO something

Abundance 2.0 has been on my mind lately. Not only because I've committed to a beyond "The Secret" themed series. Because it has been on my own mind personally. I'm not sure we can even discuss the law of attraction if we're unclear about what we'd truly wish to attract into our lives, and what we desire for our lives to be.

"It’s the American way to focus on the future—we are dreamers and schemers, always chasing the horizon. Looking forward has made us great, but it comes at a price. (Mexican immigrants often describe life in the United States as puro reloj, or “nothing but the clock.”) New Orleanians, on the other hand, are excellent at the lost art of living in the moment. Étienne stopped at our house one afternoon to drop off some papers he wanted me to see. No, he said, he couldn’t stay; someone was waiting for him downtown. But we got to talking, and gradually moved to the chairs on the porch. We had a beer. The shadows lengthened as the day cooled, the jasmine across the street smelled sweet, and a few houses away someone was practicing the saxophone. Margaret brought out a dish of almonds. We all had another beer. It was dark by the time Étienne left. And here’s the true miracle of New Orleans: the person waiting for him downtown no doubt had an equally pleasant couple of hours, and Étienne surely paid no social penalty for being late." - Dan Baum

What is Abundance?, to me, feels intimately related to What is Real?

I wrote this What is Real? post well over two years ago: March 29, 2005. And for some unknown reason it has kept fluttering into my mind this past week, whispering: re-post me, re-post me. (I don't repost.) Unlike a lot of my posts from 2005, it still feels relevant. And after the crying bout, I decided okay, yes, I'm reposting.

So bear with me on this post if it's been 'too' real, but I've dropped my fascination with What is Read? to live the question What is Real?

What Is Real? (originally posted, March 29, 2005)

I'm against the overhead of maintaining a persona, as an individual. - Alan Gutierrez, comments in Hugh's "Greatness" post

I've noticed an interesting phenomena. When I stay on the surface and write from what writer Natalie Goldberg says is that hip, glib place my nervousous about being real pervades the post. I stay on the surface. I definitely get more trackbacks and that's the point, right? But no email. When I'm real, I receive a flurry of personal and very heartfelt email - and barely any public comments, or trackbacks.

A friend asks if I am lonely. "Having an audience, a readership, isn't the same thing as one-on-one real conversation." So true. Emerson once said he would walk a hundred miles through a snowstorm for a good conversation. I'd do the same for a real conversation.

We are aching for the real.

''People aren't looking for the elevated holy man who's got all of the answers,'' he told me one afternoon. ''They want someone to be real with them.'' - Pastor McFarland of the Radiant Church, a megachurch growing faster than weeds, from New York Times, "The Soul of the New Exurb," March 27, 2005

Seth Godin gives his two cents on the marketing efforts of the Radiant megachurch. And Tom Guarriello asks: "My question is, if Seth's right, and all marketers are liars, then what lie is this church telling?  Let's see if we can figure it out."

If you dig below the superficials - the mall complex, the billboard ads, the Krispy Kremes and Starbucks - what this church is ultimately "selling" is realness: "When you ask people how Radiant has changed their lives, they will almost invariably talk about how it helped open their hearts."

Most Christians who say they have been changed by their church attribute it not to their pastors' sermons but to their small groups, where people can share, in the words of Dave Travis, who runs the megachurch consultancy, ''their deepest hopes and hurts.'' This was, after all, the model of Jesus and his disciples: What I've done with you, you now do with other people. - New York Times, "The Soul of the New Exurb", March 27, 2005

I'm no biblical scholar, but I believe the last line refers to the tender act in the last supper where Jesus carefully and lovingly washes each disciples feet before the meal is brought in - a task that one would think would be "beneath" a guru, a master and is usually relegated to servants and hastily performed. Silently he kneels and washes their feet circling one by one around the table. When he is done, he says:

I give you a new commandment: that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you should also love one another. - John 13:34

I'd rather be real than great. I have never gained anything I truly wanted from a pure pursuit of greatness. I'm not saying these two are mutually exclusive, but the focus can lead one astray. Nothing kills relationships - personal and professional - quicker than when I stop being real. It's costly in the tangible cash realm too.

Some time when the river is ice ask me

mistakes I have made. Ask me whether

what I have done is my life. - from William Stafford's poem "Ask Me"

Being real in a customer service relationship may have saved me from totally losing every bit of the three grand I plopped down to reserve rooms and meeting space for the Dwelve "advance". Customers don't usually admit THEY are the idiots. Of course I wasn't real quite early enough... I didn't want to cancel earlier because "EVERYONE" knows you stick to your commitments. Scaling back to an intimate gathering because your heart isn't into doing a big to-do - now, what kind of lame excuse is that? But it was the truth. I knew it six weeks ago. But I couldn't fess up to it until last week. Oh, I've mastered grand failures - but mastery of real - and small - experiments is next. A small experiment is not a timid experiment, but it's not striving for greatness above all else either.

I'd say greatness exists in all of us. Kind of like the way treeness exists in an acorn. Perhaps every acorn doesn't become a tree but the potential to grow is ALWAYS there. - my comment on Hugh's "Greatness" post

Funny thing, being real usually lead to being great - on your own terms. It's questionable if it works the other way around. For a long time I defined "greatness" by other people's measures until one day I read something that stuck with me. It said something to the effect that I should accentuate my weaknesses - in other words, perhaps my "weakness" was actually a differentiator. And a hidden strength. "Different" from what other's categorize as a "strength" doesn't make it a "weakness." Who's the judge?

We use the word original as if it means new, or innovative, or different. But what about thinking of it as "from the origin"...i.e. true to us, being ourselves and NOT trying to be something else. - Johnnie Moore, comment on post "Natural Not Imitative"

I see no point in waiting until I'm 69 to be original. An interview with the former GE CEO Jack Welch shows that his quest for greatness has now been tempered with an ache for realness. Better late than never. Here's what one reviewer thought of his memoir a few years back:

"When confronted with a topic that might have actually made his memoir interesting, Welch runs in the other direction," wrote The New York Times. - "Jack on Jack: His Next Chapter", Newsweek, March 27, 2005

I worked at GE during Neutron Jack's reign and was (thank god in retrospect) laid off. Maybe Mr. Soft and Fuzzy is a still a stretch. But I'm not convinced this smacks of being purely a re-branding effort alone. Personal growth, integrating both yin and yang, and transformation are real too. You would not believe who I was five years ago, however I am certain "real" would be the last word that would pop into your mind.

I know Jerry. He's real. He was a venture capitalist and now teaches a leadership course at Queens College when he's not in zazen. He says:

Last week, in class, we read from Warren Bennis’ On Becoming A Leader. Bennis talks about his belief that all leaders pass through some sort of crucible before emerging more whole, more fully-actualized. And so I told the class about my suicide attempt, my crucible. I don’t think they’ve ever had a teacher admit to having tried to kill themselves.

They were all a little stunned.

But I knew they’d grown to admire me and I knew that by being open I could make myself more real. And ideally I’d decrease the distance between who I am and who they are now so they could feel more confident about becoming who they want to become. - Jerry Colonna, at his Madeleine's blog

Don't be fooled. Leaders and teachers surround us - rarely will they be in the guise of pastors, masters, CEOs and venture capitalists. Real conversations can happen anywhere - between anyone. Treeness exists in every acorn, and realness resides in each of us. Here's a most real and deeply philosophical conversation - and yet it's amongst two children's toys - a hobbyhorse and a stuffed rabbit - in the classic children's story, The Velveteen Rabbit.

"What is real?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are real you don't mind being hurt." - Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

p.s. Funny, I cite a post from a friend (ex-VC, ex-blogger) in this post above. I'd just dropped him a note on Father's Day wishing him a Happy Father's Day and thank you: "I was just thinking about three years ago, I wrote a Father's Day piece on my blog after reading a very heartfelt blog post you wrote about your grandfather. My blog at that time was the self-conscious businessperson trying to dip her toe into weaving more human, more soulful, themes."

Art: Mother and Child (Cherries), by Lord Frederic Leighton; Favorite Poet, by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema; A Coign of Vantage, by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema; Music Lesson, by Lord Frederic Leighton; The Painter's Honeymoon, by Lord Frederic Leighton