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