Crossroads Dispatches

the higher, wider, more blazing, beckoning pull

"The only things that concerned the sheep were food and water... They’ve forgotten how to rely on their own instinct, because I lead them to nourishments." - Santiago the shephard boy hero on page 7, The Alchemist

In the bestselling fable, The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho (full audio) opens as the Andalusian shephard Santiago deciding to follow a vague hunch pieced from a night dream with hesitation, and eventually wherever it may lead. 

For beings with a heart pulsing to the tune of the Infinite Eternal and a spark of life burning within them, food and water become insufficient as nourishment. Hunger and thirst isn't only a matter of matter.

As I write this in early February, the sunlight peaceably filters and palm trees sway through and outside the windows in New Orleans. I have the knowledge of the security of future supply of the basics of water, food, and the welcomed stay to caretake rent-free here as long and languidly as I wish.

It has been an unexpected sojourn this past year -- an inward plunge into sublime solitude. Although I wrote of impending adventure, that's not at all what unfolded. There were a few season of pruning and weeding everything second-hand and unoriginal and untrue.

A season of feeding and nurturing the malnourished. Time and space in the sensory rather than the virtual. Chopping carrots, mincing garlic, sauteeing kale, stirring miso, steaming salmon and gathering at the oval dinner table at an old landlord's home with a cancer diagnosis rather than checking Twitter feeds. Reading The Little Prince on the grass in the little neighborhood pocket park with the lumbering live oak and swing rather than reading my email.

Now, you'd think, should be a good time to sit back and simply enjoy the upcoming Mardi Gras festivities. There's no rationale to go anywhere, do anything different. In fact there is the subtle lull of inertia to remain. 

Although I typically have the house all to my self, a houseload of street performers and musicians tumbled in and out the last two months. In the midst of the bustle, I carved out sacred time to be still and listen. In that silence, the raw fragments of surrender cohered and crystallized into the fragrance of the next step. This verse jumped vivid for me, and has riveted my attention:

"Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.

See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland." - Bible (NIV), Isaiah 43:18-19

Comfort aside, I cannot deny the higher, wider, more blazing, beckoning pull. “We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down," said Kurt Vonnegut. The day BEFORE the coalescing crescendo into clarity, viscerally I felt the intensity of ego terror before the cliff of the Unknown: the heart constricted, the throat strangled, the breath short, the air dense and thick, the clenching what-ifs of the finite.

"The comfort zone is supposed to keep your life safe, but what it really does is keep your life small.... A few rare individuals refuse to live limited lives... They have something that gives them the strength to endure pain--a sense of purse.... A sense of purpose doesn't come from thinking about it. It comes from taking action that moves you toward the future. The moment you do this, you activate a force more powerful than the desire to avoid pain. We call this the 'Force of Forward Motion.' Its power is the power of life itself. Everything in life is evolving into the future with a sense of purpose--from a single organism to a species to the entire planet. Dylan Thomas called it "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower."” - The Tools, by Phil Stutz and Barry Michels

Even with the immense discomfort of fear, the green fuse that drives the flower kept on fulfilling life. 

Ten years ago EXACTLY today, February 6, 2014, I commenced this Crossroads Dispatches blog. It's not my first blog. It's not my second either. The first I began on Dave Winer's Rdio platform, the second was called The Bigger Picture on Blogger. I abandoned both. We've had ups and downs, but I think the reason this one struck a chord is the thematic and name "Crossroads Dispatches" speaks to my deep draw for multi-layered meanings and High Romance (I read three versions of the Arthurian legends of the Round Table in 2013) even though at the time of this blog's founding I was ensconced in logic rather than lyricism. (It's easy to forget I was formerly a computer engineer, even when others do not so easily forget.)

My first post and fifth blog post cited this book and quote:

"In Africa, they say there are two hungers, the lesser hunger and the greater hunger. The lesser hunger is for the things that sustain life, the goods and services, and the money to pay for them, which we all need. The greater hunger is for an answer to the question "why?", for some understanding of what that life is for." - Hungry Spirit, Beyond Capitalism: A Quest for Purpose in the Modern World, Charles Handy (via very first Crossroads Dispatches blog post I wrote 10 years ago)

 

Someone once asked Helen Keller a provocative question. She answered, "What would be worse than being born blind? To have sight without vision." Concern for sheer survival alone feels like a tedious ministering to death. Survival needs are not a compelling vision. Perhaps there's a kernel of usefulness in them: "I need a job." -- What if instead of seeking provision from others, we were the creators of provision for others? Imagine opportunities to thrive for ourselves + together, junto, with others. "I need money." -- What if rather than compromise and cage our inspiration for wages, we unleashed our gifts unto the world? etc, etc. Flip the tedium of needs and problems and duty into desires and destinies (destinations) that catapult into captivating and enchanting and fulfillling visions to follow through.

"... don't be satisfied with stories, how things 
have gone with others. Unfold 
your own myth, without complicated explanation, 
so everyone will understand the passage, 
We have opened you.

Start walking toward Shams. Your legs will get heavy 
and tired. Then comes a moment 
of feeling the wings you've grown, 
lifting." - Rumi (via Howardism.org) 

Despite the immense shield of fear, the green fuse keeps sprouting through and as me. I breathe deep and I buy the one-way ticket to San Francisco this past Sunday. I wasn't planning on California in 2014 whatsoever yet that's where all the calls and clews whispered to me. Even Paulo Coelho's most recent Feb 5th post reveals a stepping stone in the path I'm walking which is more unusual, more unnerving, more daring than I'm letting on. Our clues are tailored and unique, yet I'll share it with you: "... behind the icy mask people wear - there is a heart of fire. That is why the warriors risk more than others."

A rush of release follows as the overlay of fear dissolves into its no-thingness revealing the foreground of peace and joy. Since that decision other contorted contractions have emerged in the simple spaciousness as it fathoms and figures out How, yet the Yes remains and shines in the foreground.

"When each day is the same as the next, it’s because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises. In order to find the treasure, you will have to follow the omens. God has prepared a path for everyone to follow. You just have to read the omens that he left you."  - Paulo Coelho

---

This spring I'm planting a seed of vision.

Perhaps you'll join me in the garden. It's free (and freedom) online. Or join face-to-face in a "Innovating to the Heart's Delight" workshop in the San Francisco Bay Area (a work in progress--so don't be surprised if the content completely kaleidoscopes in a few days), or come walk-the-talk journey with us into Spain this summer or Ethiopia this fall. 

It's not solely mine or your own Personal Legend coming into ripeness, but widens inclusive of the whole cosmic pulsing symphony of which you are part. 

"Perhaps you will ask me, "Why are there no other drawing in this book as magnificent and impressive as this drawing of the baobabs?"

The reply is simple. I have tried. But with the others I have not been successful. When I made the drawing of the baobabs I was carried beyond myself by the inspiring force of urgent necessity." - 

“Run my dear,
From anything
That may not strengthen
Your precious budding wings.” 
― Hafez

p.s. This post is slowly easing us into a new tone, a new voice for this blog. Similar themes yet with more of our bold, whimsical, fantastical, imaginative, visionary, slightly futuristic "a new heaven and a new earth" facets revealed.

Art credits: Saharan caravan photo from fan blog, "The Journey of Santiago"; illustration from The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (an online version of The Little Prince book); photo by Ankur Sharma via DeviantArt.com; and lastly, the baobab tree illustration from The Little Prince as well.

Follow Your Satcitananda

"If 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." - Joseph Campbell

There's never a perfect time, which makes now the perfect time.... paraphrasing Sam from The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

Day 1, or one day:

 PILGRIMAGE - the inclination toward a willingness to live in perpetual discovery taken in form of an outer, worldly path or journey towards that which is simultaneously inherently Pathess and without distance; to move in unknown mystery and allow grace to unfold; sense of 'play' invoking gamer lingo -'sandbox' - for MMORPG which are "non-linear and open-ended" (hmmm, life on earth is THE ultimate massively multiplayer role-playing game but we often stick to the linear cause-effect closed-off 1.0 version); focused on active movement and engagement and experimenting and direct experience in and with the world as meditation over sitting still in concentration in a cave in Siberia; epiphanies; following the path with heart (i.e. "Before you embark on any path ask the question: Does this path have a heart? If the answer is no, you will know it, and then you must choose another path. The trouble is nobody asks the question." - The Teachings of Don Juan, by Carlos Castenada)

We have all known grace - sometimes it shows up as: serendipity, exhilarating adventure, synchroncity, coincidence, miracles, 'magic', breath-taking moments, sweeping moments of unexplicable love and compassion, simple joy, 'flow', time stands still moments, blessed moments, instants where you are buoyed and transported by beauty or nature or simply sublime extraordinariness of the ordinary. (Above two paragraphs I wrote in a private email outlining an idea sent 4/13/2006) 

~~~

Last week I learn of a brand new New Orleans tourism advertising campaign launching today, May 6. It appears inspired by a mythic sense of journeying. The Times-Picayune article categorizes the just unveiled website as a "choose your own adventure" geared for the "discoverer" sort of traveler "who like to guide their own vacations and serendipitously find experiences." The new tagline 'Follow Your Nola' and accompanying hashtag #followyournola evokes shades of Joseph Campbell's famed quote, "Follow your bliss."

~~~

The first time I walk into the used bookstore called after the blue cypress, I interrupt the clerk listening to a monologue by a customer eruditely citing Ulysses and Lolita in the same paragraph if she has any of the Memory of Fire series by Eduardo Galeano. I'd already browsed the history section to no avail. She searches her computer, stares at the cover art before saying: "I think I saw that one in the fiction section."

"Fiction?!"

"Fiction."

“Myth is much more important and true than history. History is just journalism and you know how reliable that is.” 
― Joseph Campbell

~~~

Clue: #goldenedge

Clue: From The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Managing Your Business and Your Life, by Geshe Michael Roach:

"Stop being such a cheapskate in your business dealings and your personal life. Give, give, give to others; make sure deals are win-win for both sides. Again, it's not the amount of money involved, it's maintaining--all day long--a truly generous, creative, flowing state of mind that wants to see everybody prosper. Ben Franklin was perhaps the greatest statesman, scientist, and businessperson in America's history--and his response to competition was to invite all his competitors to join a new society called a Chamber of Commerce, dedicated to finding ways to work together to expand markets, and make everybody involved richer."

Clue: From Memory of Fire: Volume 3: Century of the Wind by Eduardo Galeano a compilation of vignettes from the history of the Americas written in present tense:

1928: Aracataca

GARCIA MARQUEZ

The roundup is on for the wounded and hiding strikers. They are hunted like rabbits, with broadsides from a moving train, and in the stations like netted fish. One hundred and twenty are captured in Aracataca in a single night. The soldiers awaken the priest and grab the key to the cemetery. Trembling in his underwear, the priest listens to the shootings begin.

Not far away, a little boy bawls in his crib.

The years will pass and this child will reveal to the world the secrets of a region so attacked by a plague of forgetfulness that it lost the names of things. He will discover documents that tell how the workers were shot in the plaza, and how Big Mamma is the owner of lives and haciendas and of the rain that has fallen and will fall, and how between rain and rain Remedios the Beautiful goes to heaven, and in the air passes a little old plucked angel who is falling into the henhouse. (187 and 464)

Too much email? I'd like to pick up the pace of my writing here, so if receiving these dispatches in your treasured inbox is too much email, consider instead using an RSS reader such as Feedly, visit this site frequently, or join the 1-2 times per month newsletter distilling the highlights of the Crossroads Dispatches journey.

Complete quote via the Joseph Campbell Foundation: "If you 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. Wherever you are -- if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.

* * *

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 "Sat" means being. "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, pp. 113, 120

Art credits: Still from the 1963 film, Jason and the Argonauts; Argo by Lorenzo Costa --tempera paint on wood circa 1530 from Museo Civico di Padova via Wikipedia Commons; photo via Southwest Florida Water Management District

companions on the journey. . . of enchantment

I was re-reminded of my purpose (for want of a better term) while reading this via Time magazine about J.K. Rowling's new online venture, Pottermore:

"When Rowling does what she does best, it's the closest thing to magic available in our mundane, Mugglish world. And I say that as both a Harry Potter fan and the father of a Harry Potter fan." - "Is Pottermore Good for Harry?", TIME, June 23, 2011

Sadly the reporter admits they don't perceive miracle and magic abounding. But hey I've been there too.

Even as recently as a few months ago, the world seemed confining, and confounding. Now, suspending belief and lies, a boundless radiance is present.

BTW, that purpose I'd nearly forgotten... it's called ENCHANTMENT.

Let me back up a bit, okay way back.

When I was starting a freelance consulting business in 1995, I went it alone for a year (this was before the virtual watercooler now known as Twitter existed). It's not that I absolutely needed peers, but there was an undeniable desire to have playmates to chat and bounce ideas with that might understand what I was navigating too.

Most of my buddies had jobs, and couldn't relate (nor care) to the uncertainty and other rewards and challenges of free agents. Also, I was starting an online magazine at the time (long gone now, it was called AwesomeWomen.net) and hired a part-time researcher/writer to help me with that side-gig too. To make a long story short, that's how I became actively engaged with the local Women's Business Center and National Association for Women Business Owners (NAWBO).

For many years, those were my peers--we had diverse businesses, yet fundamentally a common journey that isn't necessarily a mainstream journey forged deep bonds between us.

Another time I created a peer network rather than seeking a ready-made group. About two to three months after surviving one of the largest natural disasters of the last century-- Indian Ocean tsunami, I roped my housemates at the time into co-creating a weekly group that met at our home on Sunday evenings called Daring to Live an Authentic Life. Among the messages (many others as well--outside scope of this post) that I grokked through that experience was one that insisted, "Don't settle." Steve Jobs summed up that message a few months after Daring to Live an Authentic Life group sprouted:

"Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart." - Steve Jobs, commencment speech at Stanford University, June 14, 2005

At that time, I was yearning to have some mutual support in applying spiritual principles and simply being true to myself in a world that seemed (to my perception at that moment in personal history) not to necessarily reinforce a natural, unique direction of being.

"Living is my job and my art." - Michel De Montaigne

That hints at why fairly recently I began forging a virtual roundtable called Encanto.

It's not Hogswarts--as that'd be a bit more of the old-school-lecture do-as-I-say-model. Hogswarts however does provide, in my opinion, a way for Harry to have even more fun (and mischief) with playmates Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger than he may have had in a hermitage. My intent is to lean more towards King Arthur's Roundtable where we're surrounded with fellow peers on a common journey of self-mastery (and I'll dare say self-wizardry).

Blogs, as most websites do, tend (certainly not universal, just tendency) to invite skimming more than diving. Also blogs, being public websites available at a click of a mouse to anyone that can rustle time on a computer anywhere anytime in the world, tend to invite passersby through on their way to another destination. I know loads of people alight on Crossroads Dispatches looking for an image of stardust chess, faerie truffles, a diagram of a medieval alchemical crucibles, an essay on an essayist, or an article on Google's internal product development process--and then, poof! move along on their merry way.

Alas, as much as I'd adore public blogs (as a format), they don't match my wish for depth, intimacy, delving, diving--they aren't designed as a prime vehicle for a circle, or a roundtable, of explorers delving into the magical realms of infinite existence itself.

Encanto's intention is to be a vital, lived, engaged experience rather than a passive, drive-through experience. This Friday, July 1 midnight ends the introductory pricing ($25/month) to the Encanto circle. Then an entirely new chapter in delving into the magic of life begins ($58/month unless I hear a whisper from a griffin that it ought be otherwise). The number of magicians at any one time enchanting and engaging is capped at 25 to sustain its intimate Roundtable look and feel (there may be ebb-and-flow and circulation of members).

As always, the public blog shall continue its own unique expression, and I am honored that you are part of that journey as well, whether this is a stepping-stone from a Google search or you are a long-time confidant.

ART CREDITS: Thought of Judy Chicago's Dinner Party since a roundtable need not be round;  illustration "Knights of the Round Table Summoned to the Quest by the Strange Damsel" by Edward Burne Jones (via The Textile Blog: Edward Burne-Jones 'Quest for the Holy Grail' Tapestries--they're all beautiful); a still of the Hogwarts dining hall from first movie with Harry Potter's companions on the journey--Ron and Hermione

Not what we have But what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance. - Epicurus

"Not what we have But what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance." - Epicurus

Interesting article in the LA Times today on how today's Web 2.0 millionaire entrepreneurs pour their wealth into start-ups and non-profits, rather than consumption.

This is a good a time as any to delve at least through the surface of what I see as a potential Renaissance birthing (potential, as in it's a matter of desire--not imposed).

This deserves more consideration, but here's a start.

WHAT WE BUILD, rather than WHAT WE BUY

"This is not a community that values good looks, visible wealth or having a hot body. Those are not the ways that they distinguish high status from low status," [Alice] Marwick said. "Technology millionaires don't hobnob with celebrities or buy a fancy car. They travel to Thailand or they fund an incubator. These things are just as expensive, but that's the classic hacker ethos that prizes the mind, not materials."

. . . Silicon Valley measures achievement by what entrepreneurs build, not what they buy." - "Silicon Valley status symbols emphasize mind over material", LA Times, by Jessica Guynn, June 18, 2011

Before I spotted the LA Times piece, I sent this (excerpted) to the Encanto fellow wayfarers and members:

"I've been playing a game where each day I pretend I am given a written check of a different denomination--for instance, day 1 I receive a $1000 check. Day 2 I receive a $2000 check, and so on---thus day 20 would be $20,000 and day 52 would be $52,000. It is a tougher game to play than I had imagined.

Most days (I'm only on day 10) I use the money to do some sort of public art installation, publish a journal (with artwork from a collaborator I have in mind), or arrange a retreat, conference or Salon with other folks, or otherwise spend it on things that aren't for me, alone. This is partly due to the fact that I'm a minimalist, and partly because I enjoy producing things much much more than consuming things.

I've made a lot of money in my yuppie past, and found that stuff just never did it for me; back then I was into experiences--that meant marathan-running or eating out at new restaurants or traveling to exotic countries or having front-row seats to the Pioneer Theatre. (Fine, marathon-running is NOT a spectator sport but generally much of what I did for pastimes was to pass time.)

Nowadays experiences don't appeal to me that are sit-down, sightsee, spectator-based either; I prefer to produce, participate, play. I'll be in the parade banging the tambourine along with the others, not watch from the sidelines." - Evelyn Rodriguez

In the LA Times story, Alice Murdock asserts that hacker culture is a masculine culture. I like my culture hackeresque... that's indie, that's self-organizing decentralized bubbling up grassroots rather than hierachical top-down gate-keepered, that's freedom of expression, an expressed culture (yeah, we were that idealistic in 1997)-------------------->

Actually, hacker ethos is a pretty whole-brained, holistic thing. It's sort of Whole Earth catalogy, even.

Recently, venture capitalist Fred Wilson--and, note he's based in New York City--mused about the next 'Net thing (in other words, Web 1.0 was about investing in building block infrastructure, Web 2.0 is about applications) and bouncing off Carlotta Perez' work he forecasts a coming cultural revolution. I would like to agree with him. (What I mean by that is I doubt it's a sure thing unless we want it to be so.)

All I know is, count me in for a cultural Renaissance (adore that word a bit more than revolution).

One reason I left Silicon Valley is I didn't feel an epicurean sensitivity to simple refinement and beauty I desired. I suppose the pendulum swung wee too far yang ever since they decimated the plum orchards for those semiconductor labs.

Looking back, I believe an awakened sublime and sensuous cultivation for the yin was nurtured by savoring Italy three times in a single year (while consulting to Telecom Italia's Internet portal division, Virgilio, and to the ISP division).  I pitched them social networking (using Ryze and Friendster as examples--there were no others yet), and they pitched me conviviality (including face-to-face old-fashioned rapport and authentic networking).

I've never been the same since Italy.

I enjoyed picking ripe tomatoes out in the family I was staying with's garden (outside Turin with Monte Bianco a stone's throw away), drinking handmade vino from their own vineyard, sharing a potluck al fresco feast with friends, and returning to my dreamtime in their mulberry treehouse. Bested any five-star experience I've ever had.

Italian imagination and midsummer night festivity influenced the first Salon I hosted August 2006 to mix and mingle media, food, techie, and arts folks.

Then, after a while all fancy restaurants had this sense of "been there, done that," (plus the sense of doing for me rather than with me). At least for me, I'd come to the point where I wasn't nurtured by consumption. (You may think yin is passive, but it's also the creative numinous, the fertile imagination painting visions in the aether--otherwise known as ideas, etc.) There was something more engaging and enthralling to participating with than being pampered to.

I concur with Andrea:

"One of my favourite movie scenes has always been the alfresco birthday dinner party that Juliette Binoche’s character throws Armande (Judi Dench) in the fairytale-like film, Chocolat. The casual backyard setting, in a quaint French village, features a rough-around-the-edges wire framed canopy, folding wood chairs and a long, linen-covered harvest table. Completely proletariat but utterly timeless and stylish in a way that the French pull off better than anyone. This kind of comfortable and chic setting inspires easy conversation, drinking copious amounts of red wine and gathering with friends well past sunset  — and ends with empty bottles, burned-down candles, live music and dancing into the wee hours. My kind of dinner party!" - Andrea Mills, Canadian House and Home

THE WILL TO DO IT

Nowadays, perhaps because I've lived in five cities since I left San Jose, CA in 2008, I am more inspired by an encompassing, planetary vision of Renaissance, rather pinning it to a specific place be it New York City or London or name-your-tangible-patch-of-land.

Renaissance... it's little like the etherealness of the Internet (which isn't tied to geography) and the etherealness of Shambhala, "a borderless kingdom of meditation practitioners committed to realizing enlightenment and social harmony through daily life." And mostly like the way James Carse describes the attitude of horizons (see Bonus below).

The other day I was thinking how much I enjoyed the Foothill Writers Conference when I participated in 2006, and how much my writing flourished from my attendance there that summer, and checked online to see if I could make it an excuse for visiting the Valley this summer. Lo, and behold, I find that it was cancelled in 2010 due to lack of sponsorship, and that may be its fate this year too. In Los Altos, where the Foothill College, the hosts of the writing workshop, is located: "According to a 2007 estimate, the median household income was $158,745, and the median income for a family was $185,848." Having been there, it's true that the Valley peninsula is a prosperous place (by banking standards) so much so that the lame economy excuse doesn't really explain why arts are left to languish.

"our kids attend schools where art is required every day. as it should be" -- Fred Wilson in the comments to his own post, "To Science and Art"

When John F. Kennedy asked Dr. Wernher von Braun what would it take to build and send a rocket ship to the moon, he replied, "The will to do it."

Last night, I was reading Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion, edited by Diane K. Osbon, and this popped vivid. Oh, so relevant:

"From what I have seen in the history of the arts in New York, when money is poured on something it flowers. With money there has to be a flow. I had a beautiful experience of a man with money when I was a trustee of the Bollinger Foundation, which was founded by Paul Mellon, an enormously wealthy man. He and his wife had been in analysis with Carl Jung when the war came and they had to leave Switzerland. They asked Jung what they could give him in the way of a gift to express their gratitude for what he had done. He suggested they establish a foundation for the interpretation and study of symbols. That's whay they did, and it is an example of a lot of money being put to the right use. The influence of that Bollinger Series on on the literature and science of America has been enormous.

. . . When you put the money in the wrong place, it can be devastating. Where is the money [and its activating of priorities by what it attends to] going and where is it coming from in the economy of a nation, the economy of a city? You can turn a flowering culture into a desiccating culture just by wrong channeling. What factor in your own consciousness are you going to favor in the spending of the money? For instance, I have a seventy-five-dollar book coming out. Some people will say that is expensive, but those same people will spend one-hundred-and-fifty dollars to have dinner in a restaurant with another couple. So, is the money going up here in your mind or is it going down there in your stomach?" - Joseph Campbell (recommend the longer excerpt of Campbell's money musings in, "Money is a Congealed Energy and Releasing it Releases Life Possibilities")

 YIN YANG OF CREATIVE CULTURE AND INNOVATION

"Science and art are seen as two very distinct endeavors and I suppose they are. But I see science and art as the yin yang of creative culture and innovation." - Fred Wilson, "To Science and Art"

This is not meant to be a treastise on art, nor a plea for art. Rather liken it to seeding the inquiry that maybe art is different. Different from technology (and I'm a computer engineering grad, so I'm not making that up), as different as day is from night or female from male or inside from outside. Different. Not implying better or worse. Not hierarchy; rather, harmony. Complementary contraries. Technology often strives for functionality. Not so art: its purpose is, well, different (almost pointless in that it can often precipitate in a primordial pre-thought). Since it's fresh, and resonant, for me, quoting Campbell from last night's book again:

"What I understand art to be, then, is the revealing power of maya: the production in music, in dance, in the visual arts, and in literature of such "divinely superfluous beauty," of objects for esthetic arrest which are of no practical use, but which open up dimensions within. And the projecting power of maya, on the other hand, I take to be desire and loathing, which link you in phenomenal discourse to the object as object. It is as clear and clean as that." - Joseph Campbell, Reflections on the Art of Living, edited by Diane K. Osbon

I don't exactly advocate swinging the pendulum from yang to yin, from active to receptive, from external to internal. The equinimity of equilibrium might be nice for a change (who knows, I've never seen it fully yet).

In Sufi master and author Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee's essay, Invoking the World Soul, quoted below (I've enjoyed hearing him speak several times when I lived in the Bay Area), he is sharing Platonic ideals (and overall newfound appreciation for philosophies and arts of antiquity--Greek and Egyptian that the printing press made easier to share) embraced by  many Renaissance philosophers and artists that diversified and expanded some of the pendulum extremes of the prior Ages and of the times (i.e. the Inquisition was still pretty robust, ask Pico della Mirandola):

"So one can go back, for example, to Plato who understood the cosmos is a single living creature, which contains all living creatures within it.  So from the very origins of our Western civilization there is this deep understanding that the Earth is a living spiritual being.

. . . .In the Renaissance, the world soul animated and formed nature according to divine proportions.  And once again the garden of the world was enchanted with magical power and transcendent meaning — implicit in every part of nature. This was this wonderful relationship in the Renaissance between the imagination and the creative principle in life.  And there was this extraordinary flowering that really came from the divine feminine within the imagination, within life, and it was celebrated.  Once again the garden of the soul was here in this world.  It wasn’t just after you died in heaven, in paradise; it was here in the art that the Renaissance masters created.  And this is why, for some of us, the Renaissance touches the soul now so deeply and why there has been a revival of understanding of what happened in the Renaissance. " - Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Invoking the World Soul

This is corroborated in several Wikipedia entries (my better resources are in storage) of the greatest influencers of Renaissance look and feel, for instance:

Marsilio Ficino "espousing the Neoplatonist view of the world's ensoulment and its integration with the human soul. "[...] There will be some men or other, superstitious and blind, who see life plain in even the lowest animals and the meanest plants, but do not see life in the heavens or the world [...] Now if those little men grant life to the smallest particles of the world, what folly! what envy! neither to know that the Whole, in which 'we live and move and have our being,' is itself alive nor to wish this to be so."" - Wikipedia

I'm coming full circle to the title of the collection of Joseph Campbell writings I am reading, I mean the title itself is worthy of reflection:

Reflections on the ART OF LIVING.

And, considering the kind of culture we are creating is the one we are devoting ourselves to day by day minute by minute, not the culture 'they' are creating as they includes us (remember, we're hackers).

And, I come back to Italian ethos too again,

"I thought -- and now I know -- that Italians claim more time for their lives." - Frances Mayes, Under the Tuscan Sun

p.s. This post was setting a bit of context-setting, however, I'd prefer future ones on new Renaissance to be more off-the-cuff, spontaneous and daring in a improvisational sense so it leans more towards the future than past history (while planted in present, and presence too). If there are any excerpts or article links--they'll be in the footnotes, at the end.

BONUS: Sramana Mitra wrote a great 3-part article on her compelling vision for a Silicon Valley Renaissance, that also values arts and culture. I added my two cents in the comments in part three.

BONUS 2: Really worth reading James Carse on his refreshing view of the Renaissance and metaphorically referring to cultures as horizons: "There is nothing in the horizon itself, however, that limits vision, for the horizon opens onto all that lies beyond itself." An aside, Flickr founding team was very influenced by Infinite and Finite Games, too. Kevin Kelly, in What Technology Wants, praised it for "alter[ing] my thinking about life, the universe, and everything."

Here's wee tidbit (my favorite longer excerpts of "Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility" here):

"Who lives horizontally is never somewhere, but always in passage. [Note to ourself: Thus,  the crossroads...always a new crossroad. Always liminal, infinitely unfolding at the edge...]

Since culture is horizontal it is not constrained by time or space.

To the degree that the Renaissance was a true culture it has not ended. Anyone may enter into its mode of renewing vision. This does not mean that we repeat what was done. To enter a culture is not to do what others do, but to do whatever one does with the others." - James Carse

ART CREDITS: "Once given the marvelous new capabilities..." quote box via 1997 essay (it does still rock conceptually), Create or Be Created: How the Internet Cultural Renaissance is Turning Audience Members into Artists, by William Butler O'Conner; Photo still from one of my favorite movies, Chocolat, via Heirloom Philosophy; photo from backyard birthday party created by Jeremy for Ashley (they're the photography duo, we are the parsons) via 100 Layer Cake; exuberant public art (and very metaphoric!) via Honestly WTF: "Not only was it balls to the wall amazing, it was 110% real! And honestly, who doesn’t love bouncy balls? Danish photographer Peter Funch was there to capture the impressive spectacle and thanks to my new favorite online art store, Lumas, the limited edition prints are available for sale."; btw, my $2000 bcheck went to secure a Solar Blossom, "a pop up art gallery that is powered by solar and is inspired by the Bluebonnet flower" via Treehugger.

what is best in music is not to be found in the notes - Gustav Mahler

"What is best in music is not to be found in the notes." - Gustav Mahler

It's been difficult to write lately, as I didn't wish to be explaining... I yearned to express, but it wasn't happening. There was something that needed to complete and be directly experienced first.

Last night, I was watching what to me was an amazing video. It consolidated a concept I'd been thinking about myself. I kept wondering why some art was able to convey a transpersonal and direct transmission of the divine.

Sometimes I call that "black hole" art.

For instance, one day last September I was feeling pretty down and out. Even an art museum could not cheer me up. Room after room in a fog of color splotches. Yet the moment I entered the room with Van Gogh's Olive Trees in a Mountainous Landscape (with the Alpilles in the Background) all was right with the world again. It's a difficult thing to explain as it is experiential. Right now, looking at a photograph of the painting doesn't have that same knowing that takes one into that felt sense of Absolute. (I reckon it may be because the photographer resists going there.)

So, of late, I've been calling that "quality" as black hole art, as in:

"I have contacted a place of internal gravity within myself beyond my own doing or my own will that is pulling the impulse and energy of the "I Am" thought into Itself." - in a letter to Adyashanti from one of his students

Back in 2003, I was in Berkeley improving my Spanish at a local language school while vaguely hoping the tech economy would pick up again so I could get back to work. Although the truth beyond all the obvious is I was on a pretty hardcore spiritual journey ever since 2001 when the dot-com startup I was at (first employee after the founders, so I was very emotionally invested) imploded followed rather quickly by my divorce and other sundry personal disasters. When I went to the bookstore looking for a good Spanish-English dictionary, I wasn't quite expecting to find a book that would accelerate this 'journey.' But once I opened the book, I couldn't stop reading it. That book led me to an intense study of A Course in Miracles. I read the entire thousand-plus pages over a course of days (it may have taken a week or so, as it's not easy reading) sitting in that studio apartment. I probably ought to have been looking for work, but even then I guess I was starting to realize this is my work.

"It is not Goethe who creates Faust, but Faust which creates Goethe." - Carl Jung

Since then, I have spent more time in my own sort of self-study into the nature of Reality and my own true nature that has taken me on many paths including Buddhism and Advaita, yet I have a lot of respect and appreciation for A Course in Miracles to this day, and also for Ken Wapnick whom I've studied in person several times at the Temecula classroom.

Anyway, that's a long-winded way of saying that I have a thorough appreciation for ACIM and Ken, although I don't really even know where my big blue book is (I suppose it's in storage). The words in the book aren't the point anyhow.

The beautiful part of the video is when Ken shares his own personal journey on how he realized his psychotherapy grad school studies were coalescing with an understanding of why he was so drawn to music, and in particular some of Beethoven's later compositions.

"I wrote from the heart, may it reach the heart of the listener." -- dedication in one of Beethoven's scores

Two aha! moments to pay attention to are when Ken shares how he wished to create a mood in the room, an environment in his therapy practice that was as palpably peaceful as he had experienced at a concert of Beethoven's music the evening before. (Ken was in grad school at the time, and said he couldn't pull it off.)

 

The other aha! is when Ken talks about the felt difference between Schubert and Beethoven's compositions he experienced. Listening to Schubert he could feel the sadness that he would not allow himself to go "there". This sadness I recognize now as the core of the Dark Night of the Soul. And the "there"?...

Part I and Part II of "Music, Melos, and Miracles: The Art of Listening" are twenty minutes in video--I thoroughly believe it is worth it, as it conveys so much of its own.

Plus it explains everything I've failed in past to convey in my art (akin to how Ken says he failed to establish a presence of peace in his early psychotherapy practice), and why I set aside everything--paid work that might have provided living wage, relationships, et al-- to go through this Dark Night of the Soul... and, actually to go "there"--all the way.

"Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purposes through him." - Carl Jung

p.s. A great interview with Jeff Foster on the Dark Night and the end of seeking (and, of course, the seeker as well).

i lower my standards - william stafford

Today is the first day of the Casi Cielo Intensive Salon--an online group encouraging living in the present moment and sharing the art that emerges from Now with other artists. Daily blog posts consisting of contemplative and writing (and sketching) prompts through Easter are public (subscribe to Casi Cielo Salon blog free here via email).

I have plenty of material for this blog, and so the daily tidbits of inspiration will stay separate and over at the Casi Cielo blog. Yep, you can still sign up to participate in the private, shared space with fellow Salonistas, and/or donate. To give you a peek, sample post today is below:

"Contact with the awareness of the Absolute can come about only when the mind is fasting, when the process of conceptualization has utterly ceased. When the mind feasts, Reality disappears. When the mind fasts, Reality enters."  - Ramesh S. Balsekar,  A Net of Jewels

Today is Mardi Gras. Fat Tuesday. I've lived in New Orleans--and in fact, was residing in the Marigny neighborhood during last year's Mardi Gras. Fat Tuesday is a holiday, and traditionally the last big hoorah to indulge before Lent begins. (Although, in New Orleans curbing indulgence isn't in the city DNA.)  Alhough I was marginally raised as Catholic--I quit after my communion, I don't observe Lent either, at least not in any typical sense. 

Me? This year I'm "giving up" memory. I'm giving up rehashing the past for Lent.

Live by the current of inspiration alone.

Perhaps, spurred by the quote by Balsekar above (just serendipitiously sent by a friend this a.m.)  give up believing in my thought gyrations. Reality happens in the present not in the synapses of my brain. Beyond (or more accurately, below) what I think it is, it is.

Today I'm not providing a writing prompt. 

Indulge your intuition. Feed on your inner muse. What does It prompt?

When I Met My Muse

I glanced at her and took my glasses
off--they were still singing. They buzzed
like a locust on the coffee table and then
ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the
sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and
knew that nails up there took a new grip
on whatever they touched. "I am your own
way of looking at things," she said. "When
you allow me to live with you, every
glance at the world around you will be
a sort of salvation." And I took her hand.

-- William Stafford

Most people 'paralyze' the muse with their thought gyrations of perfection. Consider that anything you write is okay, and that you can not write it wrong. Trust in simply showing up... each day for 40 days (minus Sundays). When poet William Stafford was asked how his daily practice of writing one poem a day could possibly produce quality poetry of high standards, he replied:  "I lower my standards."

"William Stafford woke up every morning, seven days a week, at 4 a.m., made himself a cup of instant coffee and a piece of dry toast, and stretched out on his family's living room couch. There, notebook on lap, he wrote until the sun came up. He wrote a poem a day, a process he describes in the short lyric "Just Thinking": "Got up on a cool morning. Leaned out a window. / No cloud, no wind. . . . Let the bucket of memory down into the well, / bring it up. Cool, cool minutes. No one / stirring. No plans. Just being there." Stafford was a late bloomer whose first major collection of poems, Traveling Through the Dark, was published when he was forty-eight. It won the National Book Award in 1963. He went on to publish more than sixty-five volumes of poetry and prose." -- "The Poets Laureate Anthology" edited by Elizabeth Hun Schmidt

ART CREDITS: Sure takes a lot of showing up every day to a blank page to get this vortex of words. Book sculpture and architecture by artist Matej Kren.

live in the &

even lotus blossoms
bend a bit...
oh floating world!
-Issa, 1819

While listening to this archived Ken Bechtel radio show about Living from the Both/And (rather than Either/Or) last night (it's a treat I recommend) AND nibbling on a sliver of my favorite organic dark chocolate, Green and Blacks (with tea!), I noticed on the packaging their trademarked tagline. I stole it for the title of this post:

Live in the &.

Plum blossoms, delicate pink, have started to bloom here.

I'm re-reminded that the heroine of a narrative that's been weaving in my mind's eye since the '08 Beijing Olympics is named after the plum blossom. It's time to write, again.

behind me
laughter at my rags...
plum blossoms
-Issa, 1804

And, just to have company, I'm starting a Salon for folks that want to delve into present awareness, ordinary rapture AND write--check out the Casi Cielo Salon. An Intensive version of the Salon starts March 8th, that includes a private, intimate, sharing, gathering space for inspiration in action.

In both/anding fashion, during the Intensive Salon (March 8th-April 24th) public inspirational cues will be available for all similar to (but not same) as the 40 days of Everyday Inspiration in 2007.

Here's a little background on the Why's:

"The best time of my life (thus far...) was a period in 2006 where I kept a journal for forty days and wrote  in the present tense and of the present moment. It was subtitled "40 days of Ordinary Rapture."

I was 'stuck' in the further suburbs of San Jose, CA without a functioning car. Although I had a roof over my head, I was having trouble putting food on the table. I was whining to a local friend, "I am getting tired of tea and toast everyday."

She put me to a challenge. What if every time I ate a piece of bread to view it with fresh eyes and senses as if, "You have never tasted a morsel of bread before that moment."

So the journal became a way to record my daily ritual of tea and toast at dawn and tea and toast in the twilight. I was also "playing" with Jesus' intent of forty days of fasting in the desert, and this sentence: "Man does not eat by bread alone, but by every word from the mouth of God."

There are no adventures of ice-climbing across New Zealand or marrying a rock star in that journal.  Yet I saw magnolia trees in my neighborhood for the first time. Before I just drove by them on the way to something else without a second glance.

The scent of roses blooming was richer, and one day I understood their voice. I strolled to the local park and felt the glee of children at play. As I walked everything shimmered as if in an enchanted fairy tale; and yet, nothing changed externally.

Soon, I could afford more than Earl Gray with bergamot and sourdough. I enjoyed white peaches that dripped with sensuousness from the farmer's market. I fell in love.

There was none of my typical ennui. A subtle and sublime joy suffused my daily life, just as it was. I suppose one can call it mindfulness, but it was more like Wholeness."

The most important question a person can ask is, "Is the Universe a friendly place?" - Albert Einstein

"Einstein said that the most important question that a human being could ask is, Is the universe friendly?" I pause to let that question sink in. Whether for my benefit or his, I'm not sure.

"I don't know what the answer to that question is," I continue, "yet I'm going to live as if the answer is Yes."

He looks up from his perch on the tawny Indian motif rug. He stops petting our golden lab, Taz.

"I can see how that might work for you," he replies, "but I can't do that." That's the turning point instant when I knew that the separation he instigated was going to be a divorce.

"This is a journey to be taken, not studied." - Jed McKenna

Fast forward from that scene in summer 2002 to autumn 2003: I'm on the phone with someone coordinating an upcoming Miguel Ruiz workshop. "Great news," she says. "You're no longer on the waiting list. Do you still want to go to Teotihuacan with us?"

I stammer, "Yes!" It's only 15 days away. I have no plane ticket to Mexico. Not to mention, I have no way lined up to pay for said airline fare, nor the additional roughly $1500 for the workshop fees.

"I'll be sending you the details in the mail. There's not much there. Don Miguel doesn't tell participants what's involved in the workshop, nor outline any itinerary. The whole point is to be learn to be comfortable going into the Unknown," she explains. Perhaps appropriate for a place on Earth that the Toltec shamans call, "the place where men become Gods."

"There doesn't have to be a someone on the journey for the journey to continue." - Adyashanti

It had never occurred to me that there was no synopsis of the workshop on Miguel's website. I'd just read Beyond Fear (which interestingly enough is not listed on Don Miguel's home page collection of books right now...), and immediately searched for his website, saw the workshop--and knew inside that this was what I wanted. I jumped at the chance too as I had hunch that Miguel himself would not be leading any more of these excursions, which has proved to be true as he's handed the baton to his sons in the ensuing years.

All that excitement... all to find out that I was too late. The workshop was sold out. I was placed on a long waiting list, and promptly forgot about it--until the phone call from out of the blue (see above).

"There are two emotions that inform and animate the human animal; fear and a gratitude-love-awe mix that might best be called agape. As fear goes out, agape comes in. More accurately, a pure white light of consciousness hits the prism of self and splits outward to become the universe as we experience it. If the prism of self is gray and murky with ignorance, choked with fear, contaminated with ego, then so becomes the universe that radiates out from it. It's that simple. As the prism becomes free of such flaws, then the whole universe changes with it. It resolves into clarity, becomes brighter, more playful and magical. Because we are the lens through which it is projected, we are participants in its shape and motion; co-creators of our own universe."- Jed McKenna, Spiritual Warfare

INVITATION: Having observed online behavior for twenty years (not an exaggeration, just been part of the Internet from early on), I think blogs are best suited for skimming. For those eager to take a plunge a couple of octaves richer, I'm sharing a new private newsletter called, Encanto. (It's more of an interior, vertical journey than may be implied.) There will be 12-20 issues per month. I'm being purposefully vague as your own radar can discern for you your decision whether to embark with us.

UPDATE 01-27-10: I've a new hunch (sharing soon) on how to share this new project, and still keep it in public view on the Web, rather than a private newsletter.

p.s. Of course, I did go on Miguel's trip, after all. In fact, I ended up extending the journey for another six weeks and wended my way through Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras solo (well, I started solo... as these type of journeys do gather up fellow voyagers along the way).

p.p.s. Maybe I'm just being chicken-shit and should have posted the photo into this post. Link may or may not be "safe" for workplaces. Depends. Anyhow, beautiful artwork I found titled "Duet-Incanto" (you'll have to click to fourth photo in the lineup--the azure and flesh one) by Kim Joon.

art credits: NY artist Erika Somogyi's watercolor and gouache The Mirror, The Hourglass, and the Prism via Vigorously Lazy blog (wow you ought to check out Erika Somogyi's other works too); ancient Teotihuacan mural / graffiti art via James O. Jacobs; artwork from the game Sanitarium

your work: when you hold back, it holds back; when you hesitate, it stands there staring, hands in its pockets. But when you commit, it comes on like blazes.

“To require perfection is to invite paralysis. The pattern is predictable: as you see error in what you have done, you steer your work toward what you imagine you can do perfectly. You cling ever more tightly to what you already know you can do – away from risk and exploration, and possibly further from the work of your heart. You find reasons to procrastinate, since to not work is to not make mistakes.”

“To the critic, art is a noun. To the artist, art is a verb.”

"Look at your work and it tells you how it is when you hold back or when you embrace. When you are lazy, your art is lazy; when you hold back, it holds back; when you hesitate, it stands there staring, hands in its pockets. But when you commit, it comes on like blazes.”

Those three quotes are from Art and Fear: The Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, by David Bayles and Ted Orlund. Now read them again. This time substitute "love" wherever the words "work" or "art" appear.

Now read it again one last time, substitute "life" wherever the words "work" or "art" appear.

Intriguing, ain't it?

I haven't touched a business book in a few years. Partly due to burn-out since I used to review business books as a hobby, and since surviving the Indian Ocean tsunami they just felt a little bit, well, cold (no offense intended to business book authors) compared to so many other things I could be doing with my lifetime. After one survives a disaster, reading "Execution: The Art of Getting Things Done" drops a few notches on the "to do before I die" list.

In October I decided I wanted to shake some things up a bit, by attempting to break my routines (being a Gemini a "routine" is anything I've done for more than a year ;)).

I was desiring to break through a personal plateau.

For instance, I decided if I walked into a bookstore (now that act of walking in is a definite decades-long habit--why not a knitting shop instead?) I'd at least be open to "new" topics or ones I was purposefully averting. So I my eyes fell upon, "Who's Got Your Back," by Keith Ferrazzi. I had recently heard it mentioned in one of those ubiquitous "how to get rich" newsletters I decided to subscribe during the same timeframe so I wasn't averting money (part of the shaking things up process). Keith Ferrazzi charges CEOs $250,000 to coach them to better relationships in their networks, often peer networks (in case alarm bells of "too warm and fuzzy" are sounding, although close connections are their own reward in my book).

"Once when I was in Italy visiting my extended family near Milan, one of my great-aunts took me to a local churchyard where many of my relatives are buried. The church itself is one of those Renaissance cathedrals with a soaring dome. Looking up from the pews, it's hard to imagine how it was built. But outside, when you trace with your eyes up and down the exterior, you can see how the vaulted dome rests on firm columns, which in turn are supported by substantial foundations. It's all out in the open, for anyone to see.

To me, the courage to reveal your vulnerabilities reminds me of the structure that supports that dome. No one would ever attempt to build a church from the top down.

. . .The key to building that kind of foundation, leading to respect, empathy, and trust, is to do so gradually, through increasing degrees of intimacy and self-disclosure." - Keith Ferrazzi, "Who's Got Your Back: The Breakthrough Program to Build Deep, Trusting Relationships That Create Success--and Won't Let You Fail"

Ferrazzi intertwines vulnerability and candor with successful risk-taking--which is basically what courage is. In The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace, which I also read recently, M. Scott Peck shares how vulnerability and commitment lead to bonafide community (not a superficial one where it everyone gets along because they avoid everything of any consequence) or a clique.

I don't typically follow Internet meme flurries, yet I was drawn to this video presented by Dr. Brené Brown (Dr. Brown's blog, Ordinary Courage) making the rounds lately (I took notes over in my Footnotes blog):
 
Dr. Brown is firmly rooted in her Ph.D. academic researcher credentials and identity and in the very beginning she shares how uncomfortable she feels with the TED organizer's suggestion to change her title from "researcher" to "storyteller" so it doesn't sound dull in the event program. 

Dr. Brown exclaims, "You're going to call me a "storyteller"? Why not a magic pixie!" I laughed particularly because it echoes my journey. I clung to the identity of computer engineer for so long as it gave me a wide berth from the sticky stuff of people patter. (Machines made much more logical sense.) Then I dipped my toes into soft stuff by route of marketing. Then I started to call myself a writer (eh, close enough to "storyteller").

Not that any stamp of identity is necessary, but if you were to pin me down nowadays "magic pixie" is fairly spot on because what I care about are the enchanting possibilities that most people label "impossible." It's a work-in-progress, however go ahead and peek as I crystallize the vision (that's not the end-product, rather it's a public doodle of its coming into being), please see http://soundwhole.posterous.com--I'd love your feedback.

p.s. There's still time to accept my inviation to be my miracle partner, http://bit.ly/miraclepartner

p.p.s. Wonderful example of aiming for perfection compared to aiming for execution from Art and Fear, "Throw More Pots."

art credits: mural by Jesse Reno; unknown source for the trapeze artists

I blessed the trees, the birds, the dogs, the cats, I blessed the flowers, the pomegranates, the thorny cactus, I blessed men and women everywhere

"The task of genius is to keep the miracle alive, to live always in the miracle, to make the miracle more and more miraculous, to swear allegiance to nothing, but live only miraculously, think only miraculously, die miraculously." — Henry Miller

In Paris, Henry Miller, nearly penniless, was helped along by fellow writers Alfred Perlés and Anaïs Nin. Admittedly, it's exceedingly difficult to be down sauntering Paris as Henry says: "I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive."

That's why it's often a tricky question: What are you grateful for? How would Henry answer it?

What am I grateful for makes it sound as if I am literally counting and sorting it all out among piles of "good," "bad", and "ugly." Certainly nothing particurly went "right" according to expectations this year. In fact, being candid and blunt, I might say 2010's tied with 2001 as the worst year since I've kept historical records ;)

What are you grateful for? may be the wrong question.

Cannot one ooze gratitude for... no reason?

Yesterday I recalled times when have felt intense emotion--let's say guilt, let's say terror--arising and, simultaneously, I'd sense absolute peace "under" it. (Felt under.... as in an undercurrent.) "That's interesting," I observed, "I can be in absolute turmoil plus feel completely "All is well". Both." So that's why I say there's no need to find something definitive to pin the illusive sensation of gratitude on. (Check it out: right this minute despite outward appearances all-pervading peace is right smack floating under here, and there, and always has and is.)

Sometimes I call that peace, Life. So I'm simply grateful of Life, perhaps. What Hildegard of Birgen coined viriditas.

Viriditas: Blooming Life Force

"For the Christian mystic Hildegard of Birgen (1098-1179), green wasn't merely a color. Her blazing celestial visions burst with viriditas, a word translated loosely as Latin for "greenness" or "greening," a word she used eccentrically to represent all of life's goodness. Viriditas was fresh, budding, and vital. It was springtime and the Garden of Eden." - Encyclopedia of the Exquisite: An Anecdotal History of the Elegant, by Jessica Kerwin Jenkins

And, perhaps, grateful of Quintessence.

Quintessence: The Fifth Element

"The fifth element, thought to be the living substance, latent in all things. The alchemists' quest wasn't a hungry hunt for gold, as it's commonly understood. They were after quintessence, the fifth element, one beyond air, water, earth and fire, an elusive link between spirit and matter that permeated all life. Some believed that stars were made of quintessence, as was the human soul. It was luminous, but invisible." - Encyclopedia of the Exquisite: An Anecdotal History of the Elegant, by Jessica Kerwin Jenkins

Instead of making lists of "thank you's" or "I'm grateful for this ____" which can feel contrived to me, what naturally appeals is to bless everything and everyone I come across (silently, but hey if you're feeling exuberant go shout it to the mountain) and this passage written after Henry Miller moves to the fog shrouded yin evoking Big Sur coast of California often comes to mind:

Living in Big Sur obviously had a profound effect on Miller, inspiring him to write: "Peace and solitude! I have had a taste of it, even here in America." The Big Sur landscape gave him "such a feeling of contentment, such a feeling of gratitude was mine that instinctively my hand went up in benediction. Blessings! Blessings on you, one and all! I blessed the trees, the birds, the dogs, the cats, I blessed the flowers, the pomegranates, the thorny cactus, I blessed men and women everywhere, no matter on what side of the fence they happened to be."

p.s. When Henry was in his ecstatic blessing mode, he was still struggling to make ends meet. Again, not grateful for any particular reason than the pervasive, palpable, luminous, invisible, quintessential joie de vivre, the joy of life. Henry thrived at Big Sur, and, later, book royalties started pouring in.

p.p.s. I am also grateful for Encyclopedia of the Exquisite: An Anecdotal History of the Elegant, by Jessica Kerwin Jenkins (blog) because she also includes in her little gem chapters on Miracles, Felines, Giochi d'Acqua, Dark Tower, Boudoir, Trapeze, Blancmange, Wanderers, Alfresco, Aerostation, Sequins, Tea, Swing, Pillowbook, Origami, Lightning and Obsidian among other beauties.

art credits: Wheel of Life Mandala by Hildegard of Birgen (yes, she also music composer and illustrator--would love to have her onboard for a transmedia project, but I digress), Mary Magdalene by Frederick Sandys; exquisite collage Near Three Rivers-Martinique by Jerald Melberg