blank blank fullness

When alone, I often speak into the silence of my home. For me, it's a kind of meditation, a following of my intuition as words begin to flow from... somewhere. I won't necessarily say they flow from me, although I am drawing from thoughts, themes and feelings in that moment of my life. But the spontaneity and the right-feeling words showing up, one after the other on the doorstep of my tongue and out of my mouth, feels like a practice in letting go, receiving, and giving. The whole 'theme', ethos, if you will, of this blog, this space I've set up on the web is about that -- connecting to something that's purely in the moment and going from there, whether or not you think you know, it's right off the top of your mind... the spot that receives experience and goes with it before 'verifying'. Because really, who is there to verify with but your highest self?

Last night I decided to record one such be-spoke meditation. I consider this something of a 'performance' piece. Part art, part poetry, part guided meditation. It's not really about anyone in particular, but I guess it is inspired by certain people, though really, it's universal.

Well, listener, I guess it will become whatever you hear, feel, think, see.... lemme know

  #1 by thetopofmymind

Lust is a convenient lie
Love is an inconvenient truth
Everything's more fun when you sing it
That is, of course, unless you're inhibited and/or do not like the sound of your own voice.

____________________________________________

WORK IN PROCESS:

Originally posted at Moga Yoga



Occasionally we get stuck, bound up by habits of thought and action; a way of interacting with the world that’s comfortable, familiar, enticing, or even destructive. We forget there is a place beyond what we already know.

We sometimes live out lives in this field, never straying very far from what’s given to us, what’s explicitly taught, shown or told.
Our interest surrounds us and we like it this way.

But this year, as I every so often ask for, I’m setting my sights on what I can’t yet see.
And I encourage you to expand your horizons too!

Even if you have no clue as to where they could expand to, even if you’re already booked up to the gills, saying to yourself, “I don’t have time for frivolities, I’ve got bills to pay/ work to do/ too busy/ already interested/ing enough.”

If you’re a grounded, gimme-the-facts-or-go-home type, try poking around some more airy, artsy or spiritual territory. Esoterica can greatly enhance material existence, giving life substance that doesn’t burn down, break apart or leave you empty at the end of the day.

If you’re stuck in the clouds, try coming down to earth and learn about financial planning, goal setting, time management, mingling with social butterflies or in-the-know folk who can connect you to new figures.

If you tend to play it safe, invite the possibility for adventure, spontaneity, and some more fiery characters in your life.

If you’re the shy type, strike up a convo at the deli, store, etc. Do something the old you would never have imagined the new you capable of.

If you tend to only care about yourself, start to focus on listening, I mean REALLY listening to others. Take yourself out of the spotlight and help others.

There’s always more, different, richness in variety. And while part of happiness is being content with what you’ve got, storing your riches in what nurtures you, knowing that chasing after more, more, more won’t bring you the fulfillment we all seem to need — there is real value in peering beyond.

Expansion is your natural birthright. It is the law of the universe, and change is expansion’s partner in life, the other side of the coin that will make your life-force rich and replenised.

Aim for a breakthrough, a new way of seeing and interacting with the world, and your once-dulling kaleidoscope will take on colors, shapes and the light of a viewfinder that’s all of a sudden learning to see anew.

Cheers, here’s to your personal breakthrough!

AM

I got this affliction it's somethin' like a fixin' for contradiction
I won't eat meat but rock fur to the teeth
I like my sleep but there's nothing to please these feet like a night of roamin' the streets dancing to late freaky beats
Paris, London, LA, Rome where ever I go there you are -- this is home
Bare feet dirt drum circles in Mali
Skyscrape NYC heels at Paul and Andre's
Romancin' boys that I meet
When I'm yearnin for the one who knows me
He sets me free for keeps
I can vibe with an asetic's case and the wisdom he'd beseech
While getting caught up in the latest leather sleeves oh Helmut please!
Don't do me like that
Where's my cash
Where's my plane
When's my turn I want to spread the joy insane
The words I feel to wield like a line straight from me to you
The silence I'll claim when small talkin's something I just don't learn to do
Dualistic me laughs in the mirror of unity
I'll meditate to start my day, down dog the time away
And visit magicians when sun sets to pledge for me
Mystic texts on transcendtal sex
And give it all up one day to the next
Teaching souls from 9-5
Walking a thin tightrope line
With the virtues, the values I hold so dear
And the laughing and running I work to steer
From a steady place, it takes years
The quotes the love the time that's all fine
But It won't stick unless I can make it rhyme

Take me to our forest
Where the cedar fills the world with Earth beyond our bodies
Where birch trees stand like soldiers
Protect our games of hide and seek
From souls who have forgotten how to play
And the mist conceals our pasts
Separate trails that brought us here at last
The dew will collect on our shoes
Revealing our progress on stones
Slowly they evaporate in our wake
The way breath betrays silence
We are alive
And your hands are rough from time,
But warm and where my body seeks refuge
Enchanted eyes will have no mind for nostalgia
Our fairytales will have no endings
Nor will they begin to match
The reality of nature in our veins
Like leaves shimmering on a coursing river
Sunlight catches your creases
Insistent from years of wonder
Left a map for my eyes to trace around your face
Beds of moss and years of fallen seasons
We sink into the dirt with no reason to stay clean
Unafraid to lose our modern gleam
My jewels slip off and your instruments are basic
In the best way
Braids come undone as branches comb through this mass alongside your fingers of silk
Skillfully we scratch our facades in the tiniest ways
Revealing smiles and uncertainties as materials test our faith
Our faith in bondage to set us free
Our love of freedom to keep us close
Our need of closeness to stay a part
A part of the magic
The magic of the forest where finally we can sleep
The sleep that fails to interfere with dreams
The dreams that cannot lie
The truth that keeps on dancing
Through the darkest of nights

My heart's been broken, my heart's been stifled, it's been lost amidst foreign languages, habits, and rules. It's been drugged and drunk, slowed and sparked with the touch of another's heart, behind a chest these hearts of ours rest and when they magnetize for real, out comes our best, flying us into the heavens on Earth where we seem to need to be so bad, so good, for the best
It's been stomped on, thrown to the wall, fallen to the floor, shed invisible tears, it's lost its beat every now and then through the years,
it kept going though it may have been deaf to my ears
My heart's felt joyous gratitude and sorrow with loss, regret for times its owner wouldn't let it talk, saddened time and time again when things didn't go as planned, my heart still sticks to it's dreams, even when my hands wander through other scenes...
The ancients told me that my heart is where the true mind lies
though my heart's been off while my mind ran the show, it watched,
undercover spy
Blocked, bruised, banished, ignored and angered, there it goes beatin' away, my heart waits with work to always do
And as time goes on
And as we fade
Our hearts ache on, push on, shine on
Til the final resting day
Wake it up
Give it a hand
Tell your heart
Baby, you understand
Listen to its stories
Move to the rhythm it gives you
Meditate to heal that heart
Piece it back to whole
Don't forget it needs you too
Don't forget you're all
You're all it's got to be
Lovin' you n you n you n you n you............

I have nothing to lose
and that's the worst of it
the emptiness your presence takes on
fills me with regret
of some days that went so wrong
the awkwardness, a thick mist
two bodies made of stone
a camera, the click of something paid and lost
I've let it go
then why does it still wreck like a bad dream
it's never what it seems
moments lost to bad memories
on the spot
down came that house of cards
and I lost all my winnings

The last page of this month's Flaunt magazine.

And when you don't have to be perfect you are free to be your self. Which is essentially, anything and everything at the right times in the right ways, always.

Every once in a while there comes along an artist who restores your faith in (real) music. They capture you with familiarity. They keep you with their novelty. And all of a sudden you're energized, inspired, touched in that unexplainable way that sorta just shook the earth beneath your feet. Totally turned on.

For me, this happy surprise came Friday night at The Bowery Electric during Cantora Records' CMJ showcase.
HAIM hails from LA. They're a band fronted by three sisters with two chaps in the back on drums and keys. They've got a deadly and powerful cocktail of impactful, raspy and emotion-laced vocals; song structures that avoid staid, expected progressions; catchy lyrics (in the good way); the stage banter of someone comfortable in their skin and sense of humor; and mega-solos. Artist comparisons flooded my head as I watched; Fleetwood Mac, The XX, John Mayer, Tracy Chapman, Nirvana; and yet they're incomparable.

These chicks rock
Proof:




The finale

I'm on a piano binge, can't help the love the keys strike in me for a gently drifting melody
This video contains a beautiful nudity to accompany the pace of intimate symphonies

"The art of life is getting the messages."
 
On a deserted Brooklyn street this morning I walked past this:


Someone's unwanted fortunes lay in pieces. Something made me stop. Something about wanting a message. And I love fortune cookies (the fortune part at least).
So I tore open the small bag and gingerly pulled out the 3" x 3/4" strip of random messages


And, because I want to learn Chinese:

I'm just a mortal with a heart
And I let love control me
Because it's the only thing
Worth anything
Worth everything

It was just Fashion Week in New York and I had the opportunity to cover Vivienne Tam's presentation of her new "Fashion Yoga" line for the popular yoga blog, Yoga Dork. It would be like me to take something as benign and nice, nice as an outdoor yoga class presenting yoga clothes and turn it into a deep philosophical question on spirituality, consumerism, authenticity and the like. If you get to really know me, that could get annoying. Especially if you don't like thinking. In which case, it probably won't ever get to that point. But hey - I'm a Libra so, don't worry, I'm mindful of balance (hence get kooky and physically spontaneous).

You know -- what can I say, I go off the top of my mind...

Here's my review. Lots of questions come up and hopefully it gets you interested in looking at yourself and your own choices, whether or not they have anything to do with yoga or fashion (they do). I know I'm still thinking a lot about our present-day structure, it driving behavior and beliefs; how it's built on ideas of the past, adapting to needs of today, planning for an unknown, yet marginally projectable (not really a word) future; the mash ups of tech and spirit, body as our home and our home in this world. To paraphrase some wisdom from my morning session today at Kula Tribeca: "It's never going to be perfect, resolved; the ends will never tie up neatly. Never, ever, ever, ever. And thank God." But is that an excuse for laziness and irresponsible choices? ..... Nyet, Nu, Non, Nein, Não, Manan, Na, Iie. Guess it's got me thinking about honestly responsible choices too...

I also have to give credit to Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche for the term 'spiritual materialism' and my teacher David Micheal Hollander for introducing me to it. Here's the video of Chogyam speaking on the concept, worth watching all the way through:


From Wiki:

In Trungpa's presentation, spiritual materialism can fall into three categories — what he calls the three "Lords of Materialism" (Tibetan: lalo literally "barbarian") — in which a form of materialism is mistaken to bring long term happiness but instead only brings short term entertainment, followed by longer term suffering:

1. Physical materialism is the belief that possessions can bring release from suffering. In Trungpa's view, they may bring temporary happiness but then more suffering in the endless pursuit of creating one's environment to be just right. Or on another level it may cause a misuderstanding like, "I am rich because I have this or that" or "I am a teacher (or whatever) because I have a diploma (or whatever)."
2. Psychological materialism is the belief that a particular philosophy, belief system, or point of view will bring release from suffering. So seeking refuge by strongly identifying with a particular religion,^[5] philosophy, political party or viewpoint, for example, would be psychological materialism. From this the conventional usage of spiritual materialism arises, by identifying oneself as Buddhist or some other label, or by collecting initiations and spiritual accomplishments, one further constructs a solidified view of ego.^[2]
3. Spiritual materialism is the belief that a certain temporary state of mind is a refuge from suffering. An example would be using meditation practices to create a peaceful state of mind, or using drugs or alcohol to remain in a numbed out or a blissful state. According to Trungpa, these states are temporary and merely heighten the suffering when they cease. So attempting to maintain a particular emotional state of mind as a refuge from suffering, or constantly pursuing particular emotional states of mind like being in love, will actually lead to more long term suffering.

That last line moved me deeply last night. I've heard and read variations on this before, but something in the way this reads... buoys me.

I love macro shots, decontextualizing form and feeling

Here's a little series of Mex-Tex (textures in Mexico).

Designer's wet dream