Quotes from Merce Cunningham

Regarding Masculine/Feminine in Movement....

"Women have a kind of continuous quality which can go on for a long time. Men so often seems in spurts....up and down/out and in. Both are complimentary to each other."

"Making the dance with someone else remains fascinating because it's like something in nature. It's not artificial."

Full Lotus = Tetrahedron

Sitting in full lotus at the end of yoga practice today, I realized that in this posistion, the body's shape/energy event take on the form of a tetrahedron.

Insight from Mr. Sarcasm

In seeing the preoccupations of people, I feel a scarcity that is not there.

Insight Building Tensegrity Sphere

It doesn't matter where you go. If there is a set amount of sticks, you'll get there. It will connect itself.

The unforeseen issue will take care of itself in time.

Random Raindrops

Nature doesn't fail, doesn't cast blame, doesn't cast shame.

Nature also demands that we breathe.

A raindrop doesn't go into therapy, call a committee or debate  to figure out which direction to fall.

More was learned from the fall inward than by trying to be pure.

Our bodies are designed to be successful. Our minds are tools to discover ever-more principles to enhance this success and to advantage others.

Nature handles death.

Religions use it as a means of leverage.

The dead don't care about us in the ways that we think they do.

Gravity matters.

Politics

Politics get in the way of good ideas.

There Is Only Out and In!

Experiment done in HD by artist Dean Chamberlain 2004




Dean Chamberlain.All rights reserved

Geodesic Aggravation

I work on the weekends selling raw/live dairy at local farmer's markets. As I leave the Hollywood Farmer's Market on Sunday, I proceed south on Ivar toward Sunset Blvd. Once I reach the intersection, I find myself looking to my left to take in the Cinerama Dome, usually in amazement, and see if any new insights come.

Yesterday, the routine was no different. The insight was a surprise. There was this quick aggravation. The dome is currently surrounded by square buildings. Where was this aggravation coming from? I quickly stripped the square buildings away in my imagination to see the Dome that I remembered before the recent building expansion surrounded it. It was just a dome surrounded by a parking lot. It looked strange and annoying in it's simplicity. But once I was inside, I felt so good.

That was a wow! The aggravation was that it broke my known frame of squares, buildings, movie theatres and cubes that I was so used to. Because of this, in some subtle way, I hated it. Once inside, this changed as I felt the building and the space surrounding me. It was as if for the first time I was in a building that not only could breathe, but that invited me to breathe along with it. Aura's do not like square spaces as aura's themselves are not square. My feeling is that the shape of depression is square. For the first time, I was consciously aware of a building's outside and inside.....and being a part of both.

*The next entry was read the evening after the above was posted (9/16)

From "Cosmic Fishing" by E.J. Applewhite

".....As you enter the house the first impression is the absence of the familiar four-square cubical framework of rectangular floors and straight walls. the effect is totally disorienting to our reflexive assumption that rooms should be shaped more or less like shoe boxes.......You cannot enter the house on South Forest without receiving a lesson on how we might organize our environment with spherical and hexagonal economies simply not available in a structure where all the rooms have to be cubes. the dome leads our eye in, out and around - not up and down like a box."

Uniqueness

Our relationships our unique. Our needs are unique. Our connections are unique. What we appreciate in each other is unique.

The Wars of the World Are Fought In the Bedroom!

That's it. That's the start of it. The shot across the bow. The images now come fast and furious. Seeing a woman's eye's and body lit as she shakes the hands of a priest after mass, her husband standing by. When does she direct this energy towards her husband? I am uncomfortable in the presence of men talking about woman. I am uncomfortable seeing a group of woman together for the same reason.

Last Thanksgiving, I had the opportunity to speak with an attorney who represented Osho Bagwan Rajneesh in the 1980's. I asked him what was his take was on the events that had led to his downfall and the demise of the Oregon commune.

"All Osho wanted to do was meditate. He did not like having men run things for him as they were always in competition. So he had women in positions of power. What happened was that they became totalitarian under the guise of "working for the good of the community," with their actions protecting the community becoming more and more extreme"

Rather than take responsibility of action, do women default to their tribe to talk about the latest transgression or act?

Men need to treated as honorable in order to seen as honorable.

Women need to be around men as it calms them into their own bodies. This is not an arrogant statement as the reverse is also true. Men need to be around women for the same reason. This is non-verbal, subtle and nuanced. If one touches the other without words, the energy fields of both will begin to seek out their own harmonies. We are afraid to let go of our own pain because whether we like it or not, this "letting go" will involve "another" and what seems to be a surrender to that one's attractiveness as that is what one see's when pain is taken away.

One thing I have experienced and am sure of......is that "pain" moves.

And a playing "field" within a larger playing "field" is cleared.

You Can't Argue With a Raindrop!

I was in Staples the other night doing some touch-ups on copies of my chapbook, "You Can't Argue With a Raindrop." I was just finishing one project when I thought I heard a voice speaking to me. I looked out and noticed a heavyset black woman near the fax machine looking my way. I replied, "What?"

"What does that mean, "You can't argue with a raindrop?"

"Do you have a set of keys? " I asked.

She nodded and picked up her keys off the grey formica.

"Ok. Throw them in the air and let them fall. "

She did it and immediately began laughing as she caught them in her hand.

"Do it again. Only this time let the keys fall all the way to the ground." I said.

She did it again, still chuckling. The keys fall all the way to the blue carpet.

It's my turn now. " OK. Nature didn't call a committee to decide how to do that. It didn't have to ask for permission or take a vote. It just knows what to do."

Her smile gets wideer and her eyes begin to twinkle.

"I'll buy a copy!" she says.

Haiku Erotic

Lovers speak nonsense.
Today is tomorrow. Yes?
I am not finished.

Structure Works!

I had the pleasure yesterday to perform at a reading in Venice sponsored by the Los Angeles Writers and Poets Collective. Over 30 writers read various pieces of prose and poetry. The format of the reading was to adhere to a tight schedule. Every reader had 2 1/2 minutes to read their piece. The leader of the group playfully admonished that if one was to go over time, they would be squirted with radioactive water from water pistols.

I had arrived late from the Hollywood Farmer's Market. Because of this, I was to be the fifth reader in the sixth and last group.

I had come to the reading with my self-published chap-book, preparing to read one of 2 stories. In the back of my mind, I knew that I hadn't timed them out. I realized once the readings began, "Should I default to a shorter piece?" I began to play with what I had...reading the chosen pieces silently to myself as the performers read theirs to see if mine would fit within their time frame. I flirted with editing with my eyes as I read. I saw two or three paragraphs that I could take out along with some other sentences. It became clear that this was a risk as I could not predict what I would be feeling/experiencing while I was reading in front of an audience. I decided to commit to the short piece. One that I had felt good in writing when I wrote it. So instead of trying to shoehorn a large piece in within a given amount of time. I allowed myself the opportunity to fill my time alloted.

The sixth group was called. The reader who was two in front of me was a woman who went on for six minutes. The woman in front of me, rather than reading, performed two memorized poems. She was heavily plasticized and made up and much "louder" then the venue called for.

After these two, I followed. Spencer Tracy's line became clear. "Hit your mark. Look em' in the eyes and say your lines." So I planted my feet, introduced myself and the piece and read what was written with a good, strong voice. I liked the decisions I had to make once I began, what I was hearing, the vibrations moving out of my body and the two times I heard soft laughter from the audience. I was thankful that I had the space to play. I finished within the alloted time. I thanked the audience and walked back to my seat.

It is interesting to observe what works and what doesn't within the reading format. I may not agree with the content but the context/structure within which the content is presented works. The 2 1/2 minute limit requires brevity and a natural elevated intensity, both on the part of the reader/giver and audience/receiver. And reading from words as written has a much different feel/texture than what one would feel performing them.

So, more than being a part of a master class. I felt as if I was a part of a master structure/orchestration. One that works. One that one can learn from. And THAT is poetic.

I've Got the Self-Pity Blues

Wakin' at 2:00AM,
The first thing I think
Poor me, poor times, poor world/planet
It's all about stink.
Everywhere I turn,
I can find something to rue.
I get a lot attention
cause I feel so blue.

Sing the song with me.
No one can be free.
There's nothing you can choose
So sing my Self-Pity Blues.

It's such a cozy feeling.
And weirdly so appealing.
I get a lot of traction
From a negative reaction.
So it's the world to blame
That I don't have my fame.
I get a lot attention
Cause I feel so blue.

Sing along with me.
No one can be free.
There's nothing you can choose
So sing my Self Pity Blues.

So country singings so right
Don't even put up a fight.
Melodrama what's in.
Religion's got mortal sin.
Got a whip? Yes, I say
Do your penance today.
So dig your grave now. Have no hope.
It's so much better than some soap.

Sing that song with me.
No one can be free.
It's the in thing to choose
So sing my Self-Pity Blues.

So I get to say my bye now
Cause I have to do my cry now
Don't attack my poor sad sack
He wants to focus on his lack.
It's the song that I crave
To be a sorrowful knave.
So won't you give me a shrug
While I imbibe in my drug.

Sing along with me.
No one can be free.
It's the thing that I choose
To song my self pity blues.

All the Right Things For All the Wrong Reasons

I've done all the right things for all the wrong reasons.

I stopped drinking in college when I realized that something wasn't write in the fact that I needed alcohol to get me into a different social space to have a good time. Why couldn't I do that on my own? I stopped dealing cocaine in college as soon as I began because, while I did it because I needed to make money, I was doing my own profits. I left production work because I didn't like to take orders and I stopped becoming a professional actor as I felt it to be an affront to a deeply held sense of worth.

The side effect of this is a social chaos as the orbits of friends and compatriots change either by decisiveness or by evolutionary attrition. I left my 2 best friends from high school because of this. We had all come to Los Angeles to make our mark. I saw their alcohol intake increase and I realized I did not want to go down that road with them. I said to myself, "We need to part." And I cut myself adrift.

You see, I have a hard time looking around something that's obvious in front of me. To do this means that I have to "go blind." I'm not sure if there is any compassion in this, but I mean, can't one argue about having compassion for one's self? My body is innocent. I will fight to protect this body. And I will fight to win.

"We're thinking of expelling you from school."

The school is St. Mary's. Now, Marian themes have run throughout my life. My mother's name is Mary. I had an ongoing series of dreams that I would be working with Madonna and did become her first yoga teacher. I had a profound dream with Mary, mother of Jesus, in which she saved me from the Ticklish People, grotesque looking people who would drive in an old Packard jalopy similar to the on in the old TV series, "My Mother, the Car." To me it seemed to move at the speed of light. They came only at night and would torture me by tickling me to death." Praying wouldn't stop these nightmares. Disciplining myself to think of them twice a day did though every now and then I would slip, think of them once and they would show that night. The weird thing was that before the dream in which I was "saved" I would visit the Ticklish People where they lived. They lived underground and across from a cemetery that was a mile east of the farm and in which no one had been buried in a hundred years. Here underground, I felt at home with them. They lost there grotesqueness, were very sweet and loving, and were highly sexual, warm and welcoming.

Mr. Carido says this as Mr. Singer stands nearby. Dean of Boys and Assistant Dean of Boys. Varsity Football coach and Varsity Baseball coach. Squat Filipino with glasses from the streets of Los Angeles and tall, husky Caucasian from the nearby cowtown of Hanford.

They are the authorities. I am the school spirit commissioner. I have been called in during E period to be faced with the decision about what was to be done with me for having caused a post game on the floor melee/riot after a pivitol varsity basketball game that took place the night before. Saint Mary's had won and events had finally gotten out of control.

The three of us stand in the deans room in the admin building. the door is to my back. The filing cabinet with student records and Carido's desk is to my right. Behind the desk is the large window that looks out onto the senior lawn. To my left are chairs that line the wall. It's administration is non-chic. On Carido's desk lay some student files. A pen. School stationary with a green letterhead of St. Mary's school crest and it's latin term, "Veritas." E period is almost over. It's 12:55 and it's obvious that I won't get back to Miss Lewis' religion class.

Carido's words keep ringing in my ears. I know they don't like me. I have fought a pitched battle with them throughout the year. I am the spirit commissioner of the school. I do my job of building enthusiasm so well that while his authority and order are threatened, there is nothing they can do about it.

Until now. They don't know I'm shaking inside. Or maybe they do know. This school is my life. The position I've been elected to is the penultimate. For four years, I've counted down the years before I graduate because after I graduate I don't know where I'll go. I don't know what I'll do. I've seen where my brothers and sisters have gone. This year, I see where my classmates are going, applying to colleges, getting scholarships. For some reason, I seem to be out of the loop. What I am holding to be true, important and of value doesn't seem to fit the models in front of me.

I burst into tears. It feels like a submission. The pressure is too much. And Frank Carido, Dean of Boys, Football Coach and pseudo-Cholo has pressed the button. With Dave Singer standing at his side. My face is stinging hot with embarrassment. In front of men who preach the word and virtues of toughness, I'm nothing but a crumbling little pussy.

Carido then says, "We're not going to expel you. You're suspended for the next month from attending any school function that takes place on campus."

Mr. Carido did me a favor that day. He showed me that no matter how much of my heart and soul I gave to these people and this institution, they were not going to be on my side. A certain hypocrisy became clear and a door began to close. I subverted their order as much as I could that month because I knew how to. I also knew that they couldn't watch me all the time. And that day when school was let out, the burn of embarrassment had transformed into the burn of anger. The decision I made was so white-hot and clear it scared me. I knew what to do. I drove my 1969 orange VW Bug to the Bijou Theatre, paid my $3.00 and walked into Stockton's only porno house. I walked in the end of one feature. I didn't know the title of the film that was playing. I didn't care. I stayed through the second and stuck around to see the first film all the way through. I sure knew the title of the film by the time I walked out. And the meaning of it's title didn't click for me until 20 year's later.

"Mary, Mary"

We feel Spirit!

We feel spirit. We feel life force. We feel beauty. We feel love and caring. We feel know-how and experience. We feel risk and how to risk for love. For beauty. For the divine. We are verbs…pattern integrities of exquisite design. We love being here now. We cry in the joy of being alive. We are unafraid of power and are well at peace with our own. We are learning what it is like to be alive. We are syntropy

80% Bullshit

“So Ana tells me your 80% bullshit!”

Marshall wasn’t holding back. I had been at his place for two days so far, sleeping in the teepee I had helped erect the day arrived. It was located outside his mobile home which was located in the forest on Orcas Island and surrounded by bowling balls half embedded in the earth. I sure about the bowling balls. I wasn’t sure why I was there. I was aware of what was happening and what had happened on the way here to Marshall's…..the being emptied of money by the time the bus had reached Seattle, the hitchhiking to Anacortes at night and being picked out by archetypes large enough that I knew I was being guided by unseen hands; the Innocents, the Man seeking Redemption, the Carpenter. I had arrived to Marshall’s empty and in a quiet terror. I was to stay with him for four days.

We met by surprising each other. He was in Los Angeles to do a drumming workshop at Ana’s yoga studio. I was at her house picking out some recyclables to take away. We both ran into each other on the walkway turning a corner of the house. Marshall burst into a coyote like grin and his eyes shone the words, “No coincidence.” I knew something was going on. When he saw me at the workshop, the ante was doubled. He and I both knew it. By the end of the weekend I was in tears, him telling me I had died a shaman’s death……a description I could and could not understand.

He was half-Irish, half Nez-Perce Indian. A Viet-nam vet and medic who felt the spirits of soldiers as they died move through him as he held them in his arms. It was to much for him and on his return to the states became a cocaine addict. He pulled himself out of it, got clean and elder of a tribe not originally his own. In Potter-spak, he was a Muggle, a half breed, not a full blood. So his elders told him he was to be one of the one to bridge the gap between the native and wachisu, the whites. He was catching a lot of shit from the full bloods for doing so.

I can’t believe what I am hearing. Even worse, I am stunned by my own behavior compounded by the fact that I cannot stop myself from acting the way I am. He is so present. He literally tells tells me to walk in one direction. I walk in the other. He shakes his head and laughs. I tell him I am a dreamer and that I can read dreams. He shakes his head and laughs. I tell him I am this horrible human being. He shakes his head and laughs.

I continue to throw what I realize to be psychic punches at him. They keep coming back and hitting me in the face. This is not a metaphor. I feel my words bounce of him and hit me. I can not stop. I feel possessed. In this mobile home, surrounded by evergreen trees, Washington state dampness, embedded bowling balls in the ground and a palpable buzzing outside everywhere that I can only describe as energy, here sits Marshall Bliss, smiling that coyote grin, ripping me a new asshole.

“Have you thought of joining the Army?”

Marshall sits in front of me in his worn, blanket covered Barca-lounger. His cat purrs on his lap. A small fire burns in the fireplace near us, fueled by wood that I had split that day and providing enough warmth for the three of us. At his feet are 3-4 flat, round drums he is making by request. The mobile home is dense with stuff for craftmaking….bison hides, beadwork and other accoutrement. It also has a well lived in and practical feel with all weather plastic boots on the floor alongside his cowboy boots, jackets on the rack near the door to my left and a bookshelf full of more craft supplies….leather straps, sticks, paints and smaller hides. Behind me is the kitchen and the windows that opens to the view of the forest, the dirt road driveway, and Marshall’s motorcycle, a second-hand highway patrol Kawasaki 1000 with a bison hide covering the seat. He sits in his lounger. I sit across from him on a wooden stool. It feels bright and warm here. I want to cry. Join the Army? Am I this hopeless? It’s my worst nightmare. Nothing moves. Not even the cat. I can’t look him in the eyes. I don’t know what to say. What can I say? Either way, I am screwed. I’m screwed now. Helpless. Hopeless. And there doesn’t seem to be any way out of this. Am I that bad? He sits there in his grey wool socks, blue jeans, plaid red and black long sleeved Pendleton shirt. His hair is jet-black and braided, the braids dropping over the sides of his head. He is thin, wiry, unmoving and so fucking present. I want to crawl somewhere, anywhere, into the nearest hole/whole. I’ve got another 2 days here and then another 4 til I go back to Los Angeles. I came here to stay here. I cut all ties and then had all the ties cut for me. I wanted his power. Instead, I feel like the ½ dead mouse being batted around by the cat.

I’m here. I’m now. And I’m fucked.

“You’re not as great as you think you are….and you’re not as fucked up as you think you are.”

I panic. There’s a reprieve in that somewhere. I don’t know how to take it. Brain spinning. Palms wet. Palms fucking wet? My palms don’t get wet. I have nothing left to respond with. Nothing left. Maybe that’s it……

When you’ve got nothing left, you’ve got nothing to lose.

Sinatra and the Orange

This morning I woke from a dream that was taking place in Larchmont Village during Christmastime. I had walked into a store on the west side of the street and purchased on large naval orange in a white paper bag. This was to be a thank you gift to Francis Albert Sinatra whom I just recently met.

Since that dream, I've felt a little scattered. Some of that time has been thinking about what I am going to write today, usually monologuing a paragraph or two in my head. A lot of territory has been covered including why do I want to write about things I've already lived/experienced once before, Warner Brother cartoons, how energy fields seek their own harmonies, Les Paul playing guitar at 93, and will a joyful, robust life meet the criteria of modern dramatic narratives.

Presenting Francis Albert Sinatra with an orange interests me. It's also challenging and, above all, fun. i consider him to be a yogi as I've read that in his early years of developing his voice, he practiced his breathing technique swimming at the "Y". He would hold his breath and sing a song to himself swimming the length of the pool underwater. He would also watch Tommy Dorsey play trombone and observe how he would "sneak" breaths as he played, (essentially doing circular breathing) and incorporating this into his singing style.

I like stuff like this. Especially about breathing.

The line, "Don't wait for inspiration." has been on my mind the past week. Someone is telling me, "Don't breathe." Which to me implies, "Don't live."

I stop. I stop writing, thinking of the next step. I write "don't." Then I begin to think, "don't." And I stop. Don't care. Don't love. Don't breathe. Don't advantage others. Live in hell. Live in sin. Find others you can despise. Hate and blame and, above all, don't breathe.

I want to write about my experiencing. I want to write about what I've learned and the know-how gained from these experiences. This is wealth and I am very wealthy. I know what I walk with. i see this wealth around me and in me, in the classes I am involved in and the markets I work at.

And I've known this since I was a child.

Re-Orientation Part 2

Since the original "Re-Orientation" post on Tuesday, a process has continued to play itself out.

After putting this to thought last week, the next thing I came to regarding true wealth is selfishness. Selfishness is usually attributed to those who only care about themselves and/or those with a lot who refuse to share. It became clear to me that self-loathing, self-hatred, self-abuse, us vs. them and all the other shit that goes on in our heads are acts of selfishness also rooted in the mindset of "there is not enough to go around." This is the current and accepted basis of economics as we know it. "Earning a living" implies "Earning the right to live."

I am in the process of realizing a successful yoga studio. These are the issues I am confronting. And while I am in the process of looking for investors, on days like today when I am riding the bus in order to get around, I am continually being confronted with my "worth"

I wake from the dream at 4 in the morning. It finished with me opening envelopes in which there were more bills. I wake. It doesn't take long for a panic to set in and for me to begin heaving tears. I can't do this. I have no one. And if it is done, will people show? The fullisade continues. I can't be this way if I run a business. I can't show people this. Am I fake or am I real. Are these tears real. Will I fail. I feel like Job. I feel like Robert DeNiro as Jake LaMotta bloodying his hands and pounding his head against the cell wall, crying "Why?"

There was a time. It was in the evening I think. About 2 years after separating from my family, where I found myself saying, "If you take the next step, There will be no turning back." The implication was I would be leaving my family and truly setting out on my own. I didn't hesitate to take that step.

I have to call somebody. Joanna, Lisa, Susan. The past loves, processes and mutually healed. The verbs. And in my state, I can only feel what I am holding against them, against you, against everyone around me. As I write this, the words come to mind that I thought the night before, "People who don't receive are selfish." I grab the cel phone and dial Lisa's number. She answers in a higher octave, drifty, just woken-out of sleep voice. It frightens me. This is one of the things I am holding against her. I don't know what to expect."What's going on?" she asks. She knows that if I call at time something is going on. I heave and cry. I don't know where to begin. I sputter out the dream. How I don't feel I can pull the studio off. How I've lost faith in myself. It doesn't come out that way but somehow it comes out.

If Lisa is anything, she is a Capricorn, practical and loves looking at clouds. She goes wide, riffing on the ways of economics and it's absurdity to boot. She talks about how while listening to the money shows on NPR, how economics has to take on the guise of Alfred E. Neuman and say, "What? Me worry."And as she talks and I listen and we share, I find myself re-shifting into the place that I wrote of on Tuesday. That there is enough to go around. My heart softens like it is doing right now. And as we talk Lisa and I are in sync, with a larger thing, for a larger thing, for each other, for ourselves. unknowing of where we are going. We are both verbs receiving and sharing our gifts. The wealth of experience and know-how. The wealth of nature.

Buckminster Fuller once said, "I don't set out to design anything with beauty in mind. But if I design something and it comes out beautiful, I know I've designed it well.

Once again, beauty takes care of itself

Re-Orientation to Wealth

Much of the last week was devoted to this and seemingly borne out of the week I spent in New York seeing many of Buckminster Fuller's associates and kin.

My knowledge, experience and know-how combined with the 96 natural elements is true wealth. To repeat, "energy is neither created nor destroyed," nor can one learn less.

My feeling as I returned from New York and the Buckminster Fuller events was that as I bring this yoga studio (which I want to call more and more "an energy vector") into play, I need to get a clearer sense of what true wealth is.

Tuesday evening this re-orientation was put to thought. What first came through was my work with Ana and how very early on, I made a default decision that I wanted to study with the teachers that she studied and not just her alone. Teacher's training was not in the near future and not wanting to wait, I decided to put myself through my own apprenticeship. Revisiting this in relationship to wealth made me realize that my nature is to reverse this. I share what I know, learned, experienced with those who I am close to and am in close orbit with. It is as if I want them to study with those who I study with, not just to know what I know, but because that is my way of learning, dispersal of ideas and know-how. This is a natural example of "there is enough to go around." Though it was a partially default decision, I had an inking at the time that it was both a wise and intelligent decision to make. Though not clear in the "why," it felt right.

I then thought of my work at the markets selling raw dairy. The next morning I would be working in Santa Monica with Miele, a kindred and vibrant spirit. It is whole food that I know well, having been raised on a farm, knowledgeable about the politics and benefits behind raw milk and living proof of both. Knowledge, experience and know-how.
I feel good in the doing of this. I have a generous nature and am generous of spirit. I have noticed that if I am generous at the market, the sales get better as a whole and the spirits of everyone are lifted in the process. People are being advantaged. This is key. And it is very obvious to me, in my relationships with many of the customers and in how I feel.

Miele's spirit is no different which is why I think we work so well together. The mutual openness, sharing of knowledge and experience and, yes, love, is given as freely as is possible...and is given from very full bundles of energy. To reiterate, this is the wealth of what we know, who we've become and what seems to be a deep, abiding love of Spaceship Earth and all its astronauts.

It became clear to me that this is real wealth. And that where I am at right now is where I am most effective.

This sharing and dispersal of ideas and know-how

Raining In Hollywood, 2/3/2008

* Since we live on a spherical planet and not flat earth, I am practicing substituting the words, "out" and "in" for the words "up" and "down." There are no right angles in nature, nor can there be one on a spherical planet. This practice is being done to align perception more accurately with Universe. It will also show in certain words written in the post and initially sound awkward, then gradually make more sense.*

Sleeping last night was awkward and fitful. I awoke twice.....the first time with a start......the second right before the alarm went off at 5:30AM. The state I came out felt strange. As if I had been dreaming, but with no actual visuals. I had been someplace but with no references of where. The only thing I felt was like I had been under some sort of attack on some other level.

It was raining outside when I woke. Since it was close to when the alarm was to go off, I got out, put on some clothes and went out to put the bra on the Jeep. Within 20 minutes, I was showered, dressed, bundled out and ready to go. I started the Jeep to get it warm, went back in and made a liquid mixture of raw eggs and milk for my breakfast. Back down out onto the street, into the Jeep and off into the rain I go.

I stop at the corner gas station on Pico to gas out. Then I proceed down Pico to Crenshaw south to the 10 FWY. After checking both ways, I run my first red light of the morning, feeling that they are irrelevant at this time of day. I roll onto the 10 FWY in the rain. The traffic is mild, the sky is still dark. As I drive towards downtown, I am a bit grumpy to be driving in the rain. I think of the working on the farm in all sorts of weather. How I was dressed, how wet I got. I had loved getting my hair wet with rain as it would always feel so soft after the follicles dried out. I would look out to the shy sky as the rain fell during the evening. My job was to let the cows into the barn to be milked. One sister would milk 6 cows. These cows would be color coded orange on their spine and haunches. The other sister would milk another six. These would be color coded green. When the green sister finished 2 cows and let them out, I would let in 2 green. When orange sister let one out, I would let in one orange

And so on with 120-150 cows over 2-1/2 Hrs.

So there was a lot of waiting. On the rainy evenings, I would watch the rainfall. I could see this because of the light that was on and attached to the side of the barn, flooding the corral in a way where I could see most of the animals. The sheets of rain fell into the light evening. I could see how the rain seem to curve over the side of the barn on its way to blend with the thick, wet, runny cowshit. I could gage the intensity of the rain, how much was falling, when it started and stopped. It's nice to engage light this way. To use it as a measuring tool. I don't know why I did this. i just knew that I liked the rain.

"This isn't so bad, " I realize as I drive towards downtown Los Angeles.

I pull off the 10 onto Alameda. I run my second light at the intersection of Washington and Alameda. As I arrive at the HUB, the sky is beginning to lighten a bit. The rain has eased in intensity. I open the lock, slide the metal gate open and pull the Jeep in behind the storage unit/office. After covering it,
I go to the lock on the door and using my cel phone as a light source, I open the second lock, unlatch the door, and swing it open.

I don't waste any time. I get the keys to the E-350, start it to get it warmed out, and begin loading the market set-out. Cash box grabbed, paperwork and load sheet double checked, mileage noted, cab loaded and off to Hollywood I go.

It's still raining when I arrive. As I pull onto Ivar, I wait for the red Datsun pickup to move out of the way. I pull into the market space I inhabit, saying "Hi" to the man from Finley Farms whose name I still don't know. I decide to set out minimally, just canopy and table. No product on the table.....I want to set out fast and take in fast.

Once this is done, I go in back and begin to double check the load sheet. There are 3 extra quarts of whole as usual, 10 extra pints of cream and 1 extra quart of kefir. The rain increase outside. I decide that if anyone comes into the stand and bitches, I'm going to ask them to move along. We're here in the rain, 52 weeks out of the year. In a way this is the continuation of a long ongoing natural process.......another example of how humanity can be advantaged and how nature has designed us to succeed. If you can't respect that move on.......because right now I am here and I am wet.

I get out of E-350. Jack Bezian of Bezian Bakery has driven in and sits in his idling van. He always stops by on his way in. "Your wipers are on!' As always his eyes are twinkling. He is comfortable with his cheshire-cat grin and raised eyebrows.

'Don't mess with me today." I counter, doubling the ante as I double my smile intensity back at him.

He backs his head away in a semi-dramatic fashion. We talk a little more. He gives me an update on people who are interested in his workshop and how business was the day before in Pasadena. We joke around a little more.

"Your wipers are on." He triples the ante.....as I haven't turned them off. This will be his ongoing punch line throughout the day. He knows I am easy.

The set-out is done. It is 7:30AM. I look across and see unnamed Finley setting up his stand. Sarah is with him. Sarah is hot....and she can lay a mean guilt trip when she wants to. She's about 5'4, wears glasses, is whippet thin, pale skinned, long brown pig-tailed hair. She is green and wet today, commando capped, zipped-out hooded sweat shirt, green pants and shoes. She has a Middle Eastern look to her, prominent forehead, almond shaped green eyes. She reminds me of a cat, feline in movement, quick and purposeful. Her moods seem the same. She doesn't mince words, doesn't play games and she can give as quickly as she gets. It makes me wonder if she is the only and youngest girl in a family of five brothers, or if she cut her teeth growing out on the east coast. Her shyness is palpable, along with some mysterious shame. I want to cat and mouse more with her. I also love the look of her body and can't wait for spring to roll into play.

There needs to be a mood change here. I began to whistle " Singing in the Rain" as I walk towards the intersection. Jack is there talking with the everlovin' compatriota of Pan, the Goat Lady. Jack seals the wiper punchline and makes it official. The three of us banter. What our farms do to make end runs around city and county codes. Jack always has suggestions for this. Today, his suggestions are on target. Today, I tell Goat Lady how the county will not allow OPDC to sell Kombucha as the tea is not grown on the property. Jack's response.......

"Plant one tea tree on the property. That will solve your problem. Tell Mark. Or depending on the tea that you use, if it has anti-oxident qualities, that will put in a different, or usable category."

I am both exasperated and awed by Jack.

I whistle myself back to the stand. It is still raining. I watch the trumpet man drive through in his BMW. "Damn," I think, "He's here today. He doesn't have to show up." It gets me to thinking.

I look across the way at Finley Farms. No-Name has finished unloading and Sarah has organized the tables in her own purposeful and aesthetic way. I see an abundance of vegetables and colors. They have picked this last night and have driven here in the rain. Their product, unlike mine, is quickly perishable. And it is out there, here now, unhoarded, full of spirit and life on its way to feed energy...to make energy.... to transmit energy. Sarah, No-Name Finley, Goat Lady, Jack Bezian, Trumpet Man, me.....we are here now. In this rain. The snapshot thought takes place. This market, rain or shine, requires cooperation and collaboration. It does so with risk in the face of many unseen forces, one being ignorance, neglect and negation of one's own divinity and spirit.

I vow to thank everyone who comes to the milk stand for coming out today.

The first customer's come. Man and Woman, probably lovers. Professional looking, late 30's. He is wearing a cap. She's got bounce. Wide open eyes with brown bouncy curls. I am still whistling " Singing in the Rain" as they walk in. She has some questions as to which is healthier......Skim or Whole?

"Well, farmers sell skim milk because a market has been made for skim milk it that has been pretty well been found out to be false. If they had their way, they would feed it to the pigs."

They laugh. 'We'll take the whole. You steered us right last week."

I go to get their quart, still whistling. I have a thought on return.

"You know, "Singing in the Rain" takes place in Hollywood. What street do you think Gene Kelly is walking down when he is singing that song. Do you think it's Gower or Melrose?"

They laugh and smile. They throw out some ideas as I bag the quart. As they walk away, I hear him begin to sing, " I'm sinnnnnnging in the rain........"

It continues to rain evenly....not too heavy, not too light. Business is slow and I want to drink something warm. I go to Ruddy Cheeked Coffee Man to have him make me a hot chocolate. I am picky. I bring my own milk. He tells me it will be ready in a while. I go back to the stand, stopping to talk to the Jersey Hill girls, one wearing a St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap circa 1959. Our conversation is brief. I make a note to drop off some product to them on my way back through.

I help Morning Gal Kathy. She want two half gallons and a cream. Tall Man from DeKalb, Illinois gets his pint of cream. After ordering in French in response to my query, "Ques qui sei?" Michael tells me his story of traveling to Paris to study and learning French in the process.

I go back to get my hot chocolate. I drop off 1/2 pint of butter to the Jersey Hill girls and they give me 1/2 lb of there. I have Ruddy halve the amount of chocolate he puts in but concede to having whipped cream foamed on top. As I walk by Jersey Hill, re-whistling SITR, Cardinal Girl responds, "

"Hey, your the second person I heard whistling that today."

Customers come in slowly. I talk with Stacy. She too feels like she was attacked in dreamtime last night. Leo shows out at the same time, Mark the Healer walks in. It's the second week in a row they have arrived at the same time. I introduce them and we begin to talk about how everything is in movement. Mark adds how, at the equator, you would be moving 7,000 miles an hour, while the four of us right now are moving at the speed of a 747. I chime in with my experience with Mike the night before on how, as we worked on the business plan, I said out loud, 'Everything is happening and this seems so static." We all conclude that everything is in movement and politicians stand still.

Leo and Stacy leave. Mark and I continue to discuss politics...and the realization I had in Ireland as to how the language of politics never changes as the politician is invested in his position. Brooke theorizes the shock that would happen if all incumbents were voted out during an election cycle. I mention Hiram Johnson, Governor of California in the early 20th C. and the beauty of the initiative and recall process he instituted when he was in office. The conversation turns to basic fundamentals, Bucky Fuller and how animals are the most efficient producers of proteins.

Jack comes by. "Hey, your wipers are on!" he cackles. The market is still slow. I cross the road and go to flirt with Sarah. I notice that in the rows of fractal cauliflowers, one is turned outside-in.

"Come on, Sarah. Get it right. This one is showing it's butt."

She knowingly grabs the bait.

"That's okay. I like butts!" She smiles in a haughty and naughty way.

"You know, I have a female friend who watches football games only for that reason."

"Aren't they heavily padded?"

"Doesn't matter. They're round and firm and she likes to watch."

I see her blush.

The rains begin to slow. More people begin to show. Miele come with her mother, Dorothy and her daughter Leni. She is wearing a tan fedora and Leni is all in pink. Dorothy is quiet and glowing. I give her a long, warm hug. Ingevar stops by and gives me a recipe on how to cook butternut squash with butter and honey. Weston and I talk about the differences between the World Cup, March Madness and all other organized sports. Swami O'Bryan goes off into a fractal bliss rant with the Unknown Brown Fedora'd Woman. I ring the Portuguese sheep's bell and moo. The Hispanic Nut Boys down the way bang their scoops and moo in reply. David and Kim come to pick out their 2 1/2 gallons. Tina comes by and offers to work for free. Diana seems pained. The 2 gay boys visiting from Manhattan want to know more about cowshare programs. I talk with the older Russian woman who always orders 2 colostrums about how a street is essentially designed for traffic and parking. Having a farmer's market on the street increases its use, value and efficiency. She smiles and agrees. It's nice when others' have understanding. Judy and John and I talk about who are the pessimists in the raw milk world and who are the optimists. I share my experiences with Mark. We agree that optimism is a force multiplier.

"But we also have to be vigilant." adds Judy.

"I agree....." I respond, "and vigilance can be fun!"

We all laugh.

Dagmar shouts her hello's as she sails past. Teresa stops by. She is an older woman, oddly attractive. She kind of talks like a granny with a smoothed-out southern accent - Texas like. Long straight hair, equal parts grey and blonde. About 5'2, nice body, independent spirit, former businesswoman now studying energy healing. She invited me to an event a couple of years back that showed how her teacher worked. I like her because she seems self-made, she is nobody's fool and knows how to lean into a man's energy. She comes at the right time. The stresses are building. She is bright and beaming. I step in front of the counter to give a hug that is well received. The stress dissipates. I continue a conversation with someone else while she comes around the other side of the counter. The conversation has a humorous bend to it. I find that our arms are intertwined. At the moment I crack a joke, I find myself lightly squeezing her ass, lefthand curved downward over her right cheek. It feels good, in a flow and well received. We catch out a bit once the opposite person leaves and make plans for a lunch or dinner. She gives me her e-mail and goes on her way.

I am asked where to purchase goat cream. A tall man shares how well his kefir grains are working. I asked here he got them from. He replies,"a Chinese woman in Hollywood." We agree that the coolness factor of kefir grains are very high, because they are a perfect example of regeneration and abundance......they continue to grow and you have to give them away. Dave the Caricaturist and I have a discussion about how much self-pity is prevalent in art. Newsom and I discuss voting and how I refuse to tell adults whether I am going to vote and who for. This information is only reserved for children who ask as i feel they are the only ones who deserve to know.

They like the theory.

Biker Scott shows. He hangs out. The market is now in its last hour. He likes being on and is passionate about his feeling about food. The milkstand seems to attract these types. Another man joins him and they are soon engrossed in conversation. At some point, Scot, talking with us, uses the word "up." I take up the shamanic duel and go into the " On a spherical planet, there is no such thing as "up" or "down" When I am through, I see Scot turn away and here the other man say, "That's a little to far out there for us."

In retrospect, that makes me insanely happy.

Ed joins the group. The "Take-In Boys" have arrived but today. I don't have much to give away.

I see the Tall, Lumbering Cyclist coming in. He frightens me. We met on my first sailing here at the market. He is tall, toothless, wears coke bottle glasses and sometimes talks with a stutter. He's strange in that I really can't tell what his age is. I spent time talking with him in the beginning until I noticed that his questioning was more of an attack and a positioning. I began to feel trapped by the empathy/pity I felt and soon realized that he reminded me of a repressed priest. I soon asked him to leave.

He showed again three weeks ago. I am curt with him. Now he rides out. I go into the back of the van to getaway from him. As I work inside, I ask Scot and Ed to let me know if there are any customers there. Every now and then, I get out to help someone but stay out of his direct line of vision. He is still standing there, by his bike, standing like the Planters peanut man.

At a point, I go out to the table. He calls me "Kiddo" Asks me, "What's new?"
I keep my answers short and direct. Finishing them in ways where they can't be added onto or taken by response in any direction. He in his own way tries to make a date for next week by asking me if I have any brochures for a friend of his. I tell him I've ordered them but do not know when they will arrive. He asks me about sheep's milk. I tell him no, but there is a woman who sells goats milk at the intersection. I grab an empty cup for impetus to leave the stand. I leave and walk 50 feet to throw it away. As I turn around to go back I see that he has gotten the message and is pedaling away on his bike.

The market comes to an end. Ed helps takes the set-out in. As we compress the canopy, I hear Sarah shout,

"Where's my milk?"

"You got to come and get it honey!"

She sidles across the street, Now she looks gangly, awkward and unsure of her body. Her energy seems unsure, wanting, trying to interpret and understand the messages her body is sending to her. She picks out 2 1/2 gallons, 1 quart kefir, 1 salted cheese, 1 butter.

Everything is loaded. I am in the cab doing the numbers. Jack shows again.
'You're wipers are on!" He gives me a paper with new e-mails. As we talk about his workshop, Rico the Actor walks by. He talks a mile a minutes with his thoughts shifting gears like a rookie driver driving a Peterbilt 18-wheeler. The conversation veer to westerns, specifically the film, Tombstone.

We both talk about the cast and the over-the-top fey portrayal of Doc Holliday by Val Kilmer. Soon Jack leaves. Rico likes being on stage, but he is processing too much information and way too many impersonations are coming out way too fast. It's also the end of the market. My tolerance for being an audience is low. I find myself counting the money as he talks. He gets the message and leaves.

I turn the load sheet in. Hop in the E-350 and head toward Sunset/Sunclipse Blvd. I see Sarah waiting for her ride, belongings and market item on the sidewalk beside her.

"You need a ride?"

"No, someone's coming!"

'You sure?"

I see her nod.

"All right, honey. See you next week!"

Orbital Yeehah - 1:19AM, 1/1/2008

For a close friend and lover........

You taught me that a kiss
Can be played like a delicate instrument.
Finding this was an epiphany.
And as I nibbled, suck and traced your lips with my tongue,
In delight my Adam received the apple from your Eve.
I like that love seems wild.
That the touching of lipmeat
Can be hot, sacred, gentle and profound
And sweet as honey.
The epiphany continues.

On October 11, 1988, I Went Headfirst Into a Cement Curb.

"Universe works.

We are a part of it. We are not intruders.

We concentrate it's themes most exquisitely around us when we valve its energies for our immediate service: controlling the flow of electrons, frequencies, fluids, foods, heat; warding off winds, the fires and the rats. We can either call this building a house or caring for our bodies."

For me, it seems fitting that as the experiment known as Swami O'Bryan's comes into play, I write a bit about the crossroads I seemed to be at where yoga began for me.

A fractured skull can be similarly compared to a seismic jolt. A shifting of terrestrial plates. It happens quickly. The only difference is that this physical form will either live or die. Either way, there is change.

I finished my studies at UCLA in December of 1987. The first six months of 1988, I did production work and became quickly disillusioned. For me the jury is still out as to whether I quit out of pride, having a high opinion of myself or a strong intuition for self-preservation and dignity. At the time, I just did not like being in my position in the production hierarchy, taking orders or feeling lesser than who I thought myself to be.

So I made a plan. I would go back to the town where I was raised and do summer theatre, acting for fun. Once the run of the musical was through. I would travel to Europe for three weeks and then make my way back to Los Angeles.

That was the summer of 1988, I got the role I wanted, Benny Southstreet in "Guys and Dolls," by auditioning with the song, "Pass the Football" from "Wonderful Town." During the run, I realized that I had become a professional actor as I knew what energy and talent was required to make a show work. The trip to Europe was harrowing as much of the time, I was traveling solo with no knowledge of the languages of the countries in which I was traveling. By October, I was back in Los Angeles, living with a friend and his father in a me on the Hollywood Hills above Sunset Plaza West.

I didn't know what I was going to do next. I just knew that I did not want to go back to the farm on which I was raised.

On October 11, riding a racing bike in San Pedro and training for a biathlon, a friend of mine and turned west from Western Ave onto 27th Street heading towards the cliffs overlooking the Pacific. The avenue had a downward grade and as I rode behind my friend I could feel how I was picking up speed. I knew at the beginning of the ride how I wasn't "there"..........how I felt far, far away as we pedaled away from his parents home.

I find myself sitting on the curb, a towel draped over my head. I feel warm. there is a funny taste in my mouth. I catch myself pulling off the towel. I am hot. I don't hear anything. The towel is replaced. I pull it off again. I feel like I have a fever. The towel is suffocating and hot. I feel dirty and sweaty. The towel is placed on my head a third time. I then hear the words, "Leave the towel on. You've fallen and you're really fucked up."

At that moment, the paramedics arrive. To me at that moment, they are angels.My vitals are taken. Neck braced. Strapped onto support board and lifted into the paramedic vehicle. On the way to San Pedro Peninsula, I am asked basic cognitive questions. Some I cannot answer. It is here, I realize that whatever has happened is serious. I think I go to sleep, waking as we arrive at emergency. I find out later that I've had another grand mal seizure, the first one happening as I was lying on the side of the road.

I saw myself lying on the side of the rode six months before. It was as I was traveling north on Highland, just after the Franklin Ave. intersection. I was heading back to the production offices in Burbank and there he was. Bike on its side, male rider separate from the bike, unmoving......still life on asphalt.

My hospital experience can wait for another time. For reasons of brevity, here is what I realized.........

I had some inclination that something like this was going to happen and I prepared myself so that I would survive it.

That if my family was around I was not going to get well.

That I need to figure out why this happened.

What it was like to see someone who was "bright" and "full" and how important this was to healing.

That when it comes to the brain, doctors know how to cut and paste, but healing it is uncharted territory.

"Dialogue with Tensegrity" or "Beauty Takes Care of Itself"

This is the reason why I'd like for you to read what tensegrity actually is. For example, the Eiffel Tower vs. the Washington Monument. While the Tower is not geodesic or and example of Tensegrity, it does help to pove the point. Built in 1885, the Washington Monument in getting to 555 feet five inches in the air, uses more than 81,000 tons of stone. It is stone layered on top of stone. Weight is what holds it up/out and keeps its shape. Built four years later in 1889, the Eiffel Tower is twice as high and is about one-twelfth the weight. It is basically "bones" rather than "stones" (Memory of me riding to the top of the tower in 1986, whooshing up into its thin neck and panicking as I could not feel weight around me. I thought, "It is so light. What is holding me up.") On a patch of ground a chair might cover, the Tower imposes no more weight than would a man sitting in the chair. The Monument's pressure on the same space would be 27 tons. The implication for thousands of years was that "weight equals strength. With new technologies, alloys etc., the Eiffel Tower exampled a different definition of strength and caused a huge uproar in the process. The leading intelligentsia of France organized petitions damning it.

Why am I bringing this out? This is what I was trying to get to when I did the workshop with Angela and Viktor. As Viktor assisted me into the dropover backbend. I realized that, "Bones are light." I rely on (sound of MK patting his arm) muscle.

I rely on weight as......as a reference point to everything (weight=gravity) and all of a sudden........."Bones are light!" They are extremely strong and durable. DUHHHH!"

That is why in the example of the Tensegrity sphere given here, there is literally no weight. But the "tensions" keep everything "up". It will move in the sense of expanding and contracting. The tensions of everything working with each other keeps its form. It's not about "up" or "down." It is about "in" and "out!" It is about expanding and contracting which it will physically do. So that's where I am at with this and that is why I keep throwing it back into that experience with Viktor. Bones are light!. I thought in practice today, how much do bones actually weigh (the thought of marathon/long distance runners..... those who run light and heavy.) How much do our bones weigh? I thought it would be interesting to know this for both you and I. That would be really easy to find out.

Ken Koslow told me when I first mentioned Bucky to him after yoga class, "He was the first architect to ask how much does a building weigh. (Ships are measured in tonnage.) Another thing that Bucky would do is that he would upset his teachers off in grade school by asking if a square is warm. You get what I am saying? It is like Angela saying that anatomy is for cadavers. There is everything else that's happening.

The tensegrity process is happening. From what I understand that is Bucky's description of universe. He gives an example of our solar system. There are gravitational pulls that are in effect. Everything seems to staying together at some specific level, expanding and contracting. Which is what the muscle does around the bone.

The muscle does that around the bone and the muscle effects over the bone and over the nerve ending tissue that sits on the bone. That nerve tissue has an effect on the bone by how much weight the muscles are pushing and pulling. I think that is the hardest thing to.....to......You can probably do the mathematics of your arm opening and closing but you can't necessarily do the mathematics of how much muscle can squeeze around the bone, wring itself out against the bone, its release and then measure how deep the relaxation. You can't necessarily measure that kind of stuff.

For operative language today, let's assume that Bucky has already done that with his synergetic geometry. That is where he was going with it. If you actually look at the book, there are big blocks of geometric information that maybe for you and I, we don't understand the language of it, but we do understand....this is what I want to say right now.....we do understand the shape of the thought he is implying. On some level, we get THAT. And that is why it seems to be so apealing to us right now....or so appealing to me.

And the....if you read the book, there is the geometrical language and then there is this other stuff that pops through. We get THAT. We understand THAT. We don't necessarily have the language to describe it in a mathematical way.

AND here is the thing that we do understand. It is that we do have certain experiences that seem to encompass all. And with experience there does come a certain geometrical knowledge that comes with that if we are talking about "there is enough to go around. I mean, Bucky's big line is the fact that, "I am a terrific bundle of experience. So are you. So am I.

So is everybody else around here. So is everybody on the planet.

Everybody is a terrific bundle of experience. It wouldn't be here if nature did not want it or allow it to be so. There is no waste. There is no waste of thought. Some sort of energy can be regenerative in a specific way....that can be done in a myriad of ways.

Life becomes fun in the process of doing that.

I want to say that yoga does seem to throw you into omnidirectional knowledge. It does wake up the brain in specific ways. It's not a booklearning sort of thing.