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Archive for September, 2011

A New Era (For Me Anyway)

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 25, 2011| Leave a Comment »

If you read my post last week you know that my blog is switching format a little. I’d originally set up my blog hoping to gain interest in my novel (a link for which is located conveniently to the right of the screen). After a year of rambling on about a version of God hopefully a bit more palatable for those disinclined to read Mother Goose as though an exact history of the reality of all existence, I have decided, for the sake of having time to do my real art, to begin writing short stories and posting them here, since, I have come to the inevitable conclusion that either I have time to blather about the divine, or write stories, but not both. Not to the exclusion of observation about the whole of the universe, if anyone wants my two cents on something pertaining to theology, just ask and I’ll be happy to answer in this medium.

In the meantime, my inaugural work in this format will be substantially shorter than what I’ve already written. I have much more in the works, but the first thing to come to mind was short, so that is what I’ll be sharing this week. That, and, it is some coincidence that my new software cannot be set up fully at this time anyway, so, I actually have to write the whole story out again, blessedly short though it is, rather than having the convenience of “cut and paste.”

Bear with me these first few weeks as lately my writing seems to be more expressive of my own mind than something pondering a universal question as I have been accustomed previously.

Without further adieu:

Porch

Loudin sat down by his father’s side and asked him a question. “Dad, what’s the point to living?”

His father thought but briefly as a smile arose to his lips, “My son, not so much you, or your brothers and sisters, but your Mother.”

That said, they sipped sweet-tea on the porch as the sun set, the crickets chirped, and the lightning bugs began to dance to the sweet music of the cicadas.

photograph courtesy Philip Greenspun

photographs courtesy Philip Greenspun

Namaste!

Photograph courtesy of Philip Greenspun

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Transitions . . .

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 18, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I’ve felt myself in a bit of a rut lately; I find I’ve been having a similar conversation again and again. In this conversation I am asked about my writing to which the response is always the same, “I find myself keeping up with my blog consistently, but am hard-pressed to find time to write any stories.”

If you’ve read my “About” page you know that I started this blog originally to facilitate interest in my book. I think it’s a very good exercise for many reasons, amongst them it keeps me writing, but something finally occurred to me. Feeling my rutage, but not quite sure that it was a rut, I decided to give myself a day to find a quiet place away from what I was used to, where I could be alone. And by quiet, I don’t mean physically. I decided I’d like to find a beach I’d never been to some ways away from where I live; preferably a beach with very little people visiting it. My idea was to find a beach I could have to myself for a short period so that my mind could be uncluttered, and thus un-compact itself in such a way that I could be presented from the whole of everything an answer to what was irritating me. And so, I found my isolated beach and asked my question. And so I was pointed to an answer. . .

You see, if you’re serious about asking a question to the whole of all existence, it happily guides you toward the answer. Being aware that a lot of stimulus might confuse me as to what was an answer and what was background noise, I began my journey in a “quiet” space. I put myself into a meditative state so as to be open to a response, and then . . .

First I needed to relax myself, because I haven’t been relaxed lately and just taking a moment purely for myself to unwind under the sun on a blanket on a nice day was the first step to realizing what would be helpful from where I was. To put it another way, the first step toward doing what is most helpful in one’s life is always to begin by doing anything helpful for one’s self, anything health-full for one’s self.

And so, after some time in the sun I felt like putting my shirt back on, at which point I decided to check the time. And so I noticed at that point I had no cell-phone reception, since, my phone is also my “watch.” And that irritated me to start moving to somewhere with reception, because, I didn’t mean to be completely cut off.

I’ll not bore you further with the rest of the details, but, as I was in-transit, I was reminded of a conversation I had a couple nights prior with Natasha Muse. She’s pretty funny . . . Anyway, we had been discussing monotony, and as I thought about our conversation about doing the same thing again and again, I was reminded of the conversation I’ve been having exactly the same recently about not having time to write stories lately, but consistently finding time to write at least 500 words a week for my blog. And then the obvious hit me . . .

So, what I am saying is this: 1) If you ask a sincere question from the whole of everything, A) Ask it under a circumstance that is “quiet,” i.e. under which you can be receptive to an answer beyond background noise that might distract you, and B) You will receive an answer, make no mistake.

2) This blog as it has been is undergoing, as of now, a transition as I begin what I pray is the last leg of a journey leading to, amongst other things, getting back to writing stories. This doesn’t mean there won’t be more posts by me, it just means that a few things are going to change, first and foremost, quite possibly, how often a post goes up.

And when the posts do go up, I’m thinking I’ll be posting fiction.

The conclusion was inevitable provided I be serious. If I’m irritated that I can’t find time to write stories, the time I’m spending writing, since it is quite a bit over time, ought to be devoted to writing stories.

Now, that being said, I think I’ve laid out over the last year a pretty clear conception of the divine that is more helpful to one’s hand and life than many other story books that have been written over the years. And, for the careful reader, I have also provided ample links to texts for continued reading for anyone who is legitimately curious at all about the rather simple workings of the whole of creation. If I receive any questions for clarifications sake, however, on the topic matter about which I have been expounding the last year, I’ll be happy to post for the week in response. My intention as of after this post, however, is that the posts that go up will be my work at my craft as I would intend it to be, rather than wiseacring over the general workings of G-d.

So with that I bid you adieu for the moment. Check back next week and I’ll have a story prepared . . . until then . . .

PEACE! . . . er . . . Peace.

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God In The City . . .

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 11, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I was walking past a laundromat in San Francisco tonight and, glancing through its window, I noticed the paintings on the upper parts of its wall. Different cities were depicted there, as well as certain religious icons like the Buddha. And the pictures, in this laundromat, were vivid, bright, and colorful. And it seemed somehow that there was a blog posting to be derived from that colorosity in an otherwise drab, typical laundromat.

As I was thinking about the entire world, sort of, pictured on the walls in this city laundromat, I thought about the city itself. I considered that something from all over the world, culturally speaking, was assimilated into the city in one form or another. It seemed to me as though the city itself was a city because it strove to adapt itself as a microcosm of the entirety of the world in which is resided. And then I wondered whether the same might be thought of other cities in the world.

Each city has a uniqueness of it’s own due not only to the over-all culture creating it, but the individual circumstances of its creation. While you can find “head shops” in just about any city, at least in the U.S., there’s something a little more rooted in the experience of walking down Haight Street. And other cities have similar peculiarities unique to them. You can find Jazz music in any city more or less, but, you walk through the French Quarter of New Orleans, and you can feel a spirit of Jazz in the streets in a way you simply can’t in any other city on the planet. Each city has it’s own identity, but, each city also stretches beyond its own identity.

Since the monetary prosperity of a city usually revolves heavily on people coming for a short time, leaving their money with the city, and then leaving, it becomes beneficial simply from a maintenance standpoint for a city to be inviting to those from different cultural backgrounds if it is to thrive. That, and, people from different cultural backgrounds, no matter what their background, gravitate to where opportunity is. And thus, the more cultural options are available in any given city, the easier it is to facilitate visitors to the uniqueness of the city. Likewise, if there is a cultural center of being for those not used to a city’s native culture, it is easier to reside in the place of one’s work, which in turn makes it easier to visit for those of that particular culture. The more available a city is made to those of different backgrounds, the easier it is to facilitate workers, the easier it is to increase revenue from travelers.

And so I see a city as centered in its own uniqueness due to the causes of its creation, which, to thrive, naturally incorporates elements of the uniqueness of other such cities. To thrive it naturally incorporates elements from elsewhere in the world, just as to thrive it contributes the good derived from its own uniqueness. Cities thus are naturally reciprocal centers of transmission of thought if they are to flourish.

And as a successful city naturally makes of itself a unique microcosm of the world, so too is it micro-cosmic of some of the more macrocosm aspects of the divine. Which is to say, as above, so below.

The interaction between cities as a representation of the interaction between celestial bodies. The interaction between cities as representative of the interactions within the city. The interaction between cities as representative of the interactions within a person; as representative as the interactions between a person and its environment; as representative as the interactions between the celestial bodies; as representative of the body of the divine. Hence “As above so below” and thus we are created “In the image of the Divine.”

Can anyone say Triamazikamno? Aside from this guy?

And, as always, a pleasure to share food with you!

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Koan . . .

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 4, 2011| Leave a Comment »

What does God think of God?

Follow up question: Does God think of God?

Or at least, if the first question could be classified under the heading of Koan, perhaps then the follow-up question is a good place to begin the train of thought that might lead to a state of mind that is more helpful for one’s subsequent usage . . .

It seems to me that the only way to be able to conceive in terms of divinity is, firstly, to turn off the thoughts one typically associates with one’s “self.” Or at least turn away from those thoughts. And I’m not necessarily just talking about one’s typical identity of person-hood.

For example, a person might identify with “their” country. A person might identify with their “God.” A person might identify with their planet, etc . . .

Now, don’t get me wrong, as long as I can remember my cells have formed strands of DNA classifying me as a human being native to the planet Earth. What I’m saying is merely that in order to get into a “mind-set” a little more in alignment with a state of being capable of perceiving the divine of which all existence has sprung, it seems helpful to me to stop calling the cells commonly attributed to my consciousness “mine; it seems helpful to conceive I might be something transcendent of species; it seems that it might be helpful to consider that as life itself, I need not concern myself with the planet I happen to be tethered to aside from my day to day life.

In point of fact, when attempting to consider the divine, it seems as though trying not to conceive of myself at all might be most beneficial in attempting to conceive the divine.

Let me put it another way . . .

Dear reader, if you ceased to be entirely, what would there be?

And all the rest of existence working, apparently incapable of existing without being so intertwined and interconnected, what would that look like if there was no concern whatsoever with one’s own discomforts of existence? I mean, even if you happen to find a moment of perfect comfort, aren’t you only perceiving the comfort you find yourself embodying, perhaps at most only your immediate comfortable surroundings the only conception of “outside” beyond your person? What happens when comfort is transcended and there’s no you nor your immediate surroundings to consider? When you cease to be, what remains?

Personally, I think it a little funny that one would think that in death finally “God” would reward them with personal physical comfort. I think it a bit odd that so many people perceive that a divinity that created them is so flawed that it must have gotten existence so wrong that only in apparent non-existence, from the perspective of all other existence, is perfection finally realized. I contend that if even for a moment one could transcend their own minds, one could catch a glimpse of why one need not die to realize Heaven.

Of course, consciousness at our level is rather divided, isn’t it? I wonder if we truly have the potential to transcend our separateness in interacting with each other to fulfill what may be a potential unique only to conscious individuals, of sharing realized unity for the sake of enjoying our common existence . . .

Peace

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