Monday, July 06, 2009


We
must become
alone, so utterly alone,
that we withdraw into our
innermost self. It is a way of bitter
suffering. But then our solitude is overcome
and we are no longer alone, for we find that our
innermost self is the spirit, that it is God, the
indivisible. And suddenly we find ourselves
in the midst of the world, yet undisturbed
by its multiplicity, for in our innermost
soul we know ourselves to be

Hermann Hesse




...meditators
showed significantly
larger volumes of the hippocampus
and areas within the orbito-frontal cortex,
the thalamus and the inferior temporal
gyrus — all regions known
for regulating
emotions.

"We
know that
people who consistently
meditate have a singular ability to
cultivate positive emotions, retain emotional
stability and engage in mindful behavior," said Eileen
Luders, lead author and a postdoctoral research fellow at
the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging. "The observed
differences in brain anatomy might give us
a clue why meditators have
these exceptional
abilities."



won't you, please?
It takes all of a minute.
Here is the backstory,
in all it's awful
detail.



Saturday, July 04, 2009


Today,
the one and only
birth day of my one and
only daughter: Sofia. Let us all
take a moment to bless her: angel of grace,
phenomenally brilliant young woman, humorist,
possessed of the most beautiful voice
I have ever heard. Every
good wish, now,
forever, once
upon a
time.

Friday, July 03, 2009


Sensual
pleasure occupies
only a very small and
fiery place in the illimitable
desert of love, glowing so brightly
that at first nothing else is to be seen.
Around this inconstant campfire is danger,
is the unknown. When we arise from a
short embrace or even a long night,
comes again the necessity of
living near each other,
for each other.



Who's
that in the
picture? If you're
eating your breakfast,
don't read on, because that's you.
And me, and our friends and families.
It's our financial past, present, and future,
and that of this nation's -- and in fact, the world's --
economies. While it isn't immediately apparent
from the photograph that someone is
making money off what is
happening to us,
they are.

That
someone
is Goldman Sachs.
Matt Taibbi, who is about
as far from being a dupe or an idiot
or a knucklehead as one can be, has written
a brilliant piece for Rolling Stone called The Great
American Bubble Machine. And you oughta read
it. But not while you're eating, because it
tastes awful and will turn your
stomach. Here's just a
scent:

"The
first thing
you need to know
about Goldman Sachs is
that it's everywhere. The world's
most powerful investment bank is a great
vampire squid wrapped around the face
of humanity, relentlessly jamming its
blood funnel into anything
that smells like
money.

"Any
attempt to
construct a narrative
around all the former Goldmanites
in influential positions quickly becomes
an absurd and pointless exercise, like trying
to make a list of everything. What you need to know
is the big picture: If America is circling the drain, Goldman
Sachs has found a way to be that drain — an extremely
unfortunate loophole in the system of Western
democratic capitalism, which never foresaw
that in a society governed passively by
free markets and free elections,
organized greed always
defeats disorganized
democracy.

"They
achieve this
using the same
playbook over and
over again. The formula
is relatively simple: Goldman
positions itself in the middle of a
speculative bubble, selling investments
they know are crap. Then they hoover up vast
sums from the middle and lower floors of society
with the aid of a crippled and corrupt state that allows
it to rewrite the rules in exchange for the relative pennies
the bank throws at political patronage. Finally, when it all goes
bust, leaving millions of ordinary citizens broke and starving, they
begin the entire process over again, riding in to rescue us all by
lending us back our own money at interest, selling themselves
as men above greed, just a bunch of really smart guys
keeping the wheels greased. They've been pulling
this same stunt over and over since the 1920s —
and now they're preparing to do it again,
creating what may be the biggest
and most audacious
bubble
yet."




On
the off
chance that you're
still laboring under the
vague hope that Barry Magic
has any intention or desire to save
us from this sort of thing, smoke this.
As I've suggested before, the man in the
glasses with the pretty smile might well
ought to be stood up against a wall,
given his last cigarette or baby's
heart to eat, and then well
ventilated. But Barack
Obama has got
his back.
In a big
way.


Thursday, July 02, 2009


While
the rest of us
Americans scurry
about with a Blackberry
in one hand and a to-go cup
of coffee in the other in a feverish
attempt to pack more achievement into every
minute, it's the New Orleans way to build one's days
around friends, family, music, cooking, processions, and
art. For more than two centuries New Orleanians
have been guardians of tradition and masters
of living in the moment -- a lost art. Their
preference for having more time than
money was at the heart of what
made that city so much
fun to visit and
so hard to
leave.


World-power
means nothing.
Only the unsayable,
jeweled inner life
matters.



Images
of erect phalli
had a talismanic quality
in ancient Rome. They derived
from the deity Priapus, god of fertility
and protector of gardens and fields and livestock.
As a talisman, it served a variety of purposes…
We see this in tintinnabula (fig. 1), a sort of
phallic wind chime. Bells were believed to
be protective as well, so a phallus hung
with bells would have been a
charm of significant good
fortune.

Christina Voss,
Priapic Art in Pompeii
(tickle bells to enlarge)

Do
underground
oceans vent through
the tiger stripes on Saturn's
moon Enceladus? Long features
dubbed tiger stripes are known to be
spewing ice from the moon's icy interior
into space, creating a cloud of fine ice particles
over the moon's South Pole and creating Saturn's
mysterious E-ring. Evidence for this has come from the
robot Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn. Pictured
above, a high resolution image of Enceladus is shown
from a close flyby. The unusual surface features
dubbed tiger stripes are visible
in false-color
blue.

Why
Enceladus is
active remains a mystery,
as the neighboring moon Mimas,
approximately the same size, appears quite
dead. Most recently, an analysis of dust captured
by Cassini found evidence for sodium as expected in a
deep salty ocean. Conversely however, recent Earth-based
observations of ice ejected by Enceladus into Saturn's
E-Ring showed no evidence of the expected sodium.
Such research is particularly interesting
since such an ocean would be a
candidate to contain

There
is a combination
of eroticism and tenderness,
and it melts you and arouses you,
and that’s what was happening.
You get a hard-on and melt,
both at the same

Sunday, June 28, 2009


The rising sun not beet,
or blood,
but sea-rose red.

I amplified my heartbeat
one thousand times,
the animals at first confused
then decided I was another
thunder being.

While talking directly to god
my attention waxed and waned.
I have a lot on my mind.

I worked out
to make myself as strong
as water.

After all these years
of holding the world together
I let it roll down the hill
into the river.

One tree leads
to another,
walking on
this undescribed earth.

I have dreamed
myself back
to where
I already am.

On a cold day
bear, coyote, cranes.
On a rainy night
a wolf with yellow eyes.
On a windy day
eleven kestrels looking
down at me.
On a hot afternoon
the ravens floated over
where I sunk
myself in the river.

Way out there
in unknown country
I walked at night
to scare myself.

Who is this other,
the secret sharer,
who directs the hand
that twists the heart,
the voice calling out to me
between feather and stone
the hour before dawn?

Somehow
I have turned into
an old brown man
in a green coat.

Having fulfilled
my obligations
my heart moves lightly
to this downward dance.

Jim Harrison



Will Oldham,
Musician and actor unlike any other.
Try this, if you're inclined.
It's very fine.

Saturday, June 27, 2009


Advice doesn't help lovers!
They'e not the kind of mountain stream
you can build a dam across.

An intellectual doesn't know
what the drunk is feeling!

Don't try to figure
what those lost inside love
will do next!

Someone in charge would give up all his power,
if he caught one whiff of the wine-musk
from the room where the lovers
are doing who-knows-what!

One of them tries to dig a hole through a mountain.
One flees from academic honors.
One laughs at famous mustaches!

Life freezes if it doesn't get a taste
of this almond cake.
The stars come up spinning
every night, bewildered in love.
They'd grow tired
with that revolving, if they weren't.
They'd say,
"How long do we have to do this!"

God picks up the reed-flute world and blows.
Each note is a need coming through one of us,
a passion, a longing-pain.
Remember the lips
where the wind-breath originated,
and let your note be clear.
Don't try to end it.
Be your note.
I'll show you how it's enough.

Go up on the roof at night
in this city of the soul.

Let everyone climb on their roofs
and sing their notes!

Sing loud!

Jelaladin Rumi

Thursday, June 25, 2009

As I was
telling Suzuki Roshi
what a disaster my life had become, he began to chuckle.
I found myself laughing along with him.
There was a pause. I asked him what I should do. "Sit zazen," he replied. "Life without zazen is like winding your clock without setting it. It runs, but it doesn't tell time."

Tuesday, June 23, 2009


Men
who love
wisdom should
acquaint themselves
with a great many
particulars.


Monday, June 22, 2009


The
true god
has no face.
The true Tao has
no name. But we cannot
identify with that until we are of
a very high level of insight. Until then,
the gods with faces and the Tao with
names are still more worthy
of veneration and study
than the illusions
of the world.

With
long and
sincere training,
it is possible to see the
face of god. Holiness is not
about scientific objectivity. It is
about a deep and clear recognition of
the true nature of life. Your attitude toward
your god will be different than anyone else's
god -- divinity is a reflection of your own
understanding. If your experience
differs from others, that does
not invalidate your sense
of godliness. You will
have no doubts
after you have
seen.

Knowing
god is the source
of compassion in our lives.
We realize that our separation from
others is artificial. We are neither separate
from other people not from Tao. It is only our own
egotism that leads us to define ourselves as individuals.
In fact, a direct experience of god is a direct experience
of the utter universality of life. If we allow it to
change our way of thinking, we will
understand our essential
oneness with all
things.

How
does god look?
Once you see god, you will
see that same face on
every person you
meet.




Saturday, June 20, 2009


To know is
nothing at all.
To imagine is
everything.

Anatole France


Aching of Life

There must be something better,
But I’m satisfied just as I am.

Monkeys sport deep in the forest,
Fish shoot up the mountain stream.

If there’s change, there’s also repose –-
Which soon must suffer change.

Along the solar orbit of the night,
I feel life’s constant aching:

Smack in the middle of the day,
I found moonlight between a woman’s legs.

Shinkichi Takahashi