Manitou Night Life (click to enlarge)

the Grace is missing

Where oh where have I left thee?

Where have your whispers gone?

What silence has crept in when I wasn't looking.

The song remains, while I linger
and my spirit casts about.

Art thou thee in another form?

gf2 testing

Yoga - Sources of your pain

There are five major sources of your pain and they are cumulative, meaning they build upon each other.

These sources of pain are primarily tensions or holdings in your thoughts and manifested in your body.  A newborn child is tension free both in the mind and body.  Everything is malleable.

The conditions of life surrounding the child create tensions within its body allowing it to stand up and move against gravity.  Additionally the mental perceptions of its parents and guardians set up tensions in its brain.

If the child has malformations or incurs significant injuries in its formative years, its body must develop compensating tensions that often put long-term strain on the these compensating muscles, tendons, bones, organs, ...etc.

If the child is subjected to mal-informed or injurious mentalities, then its brain develops compensating mechansims to deal with these unknown and potentially dangerous thoughts.

Yoga addresses five primary pain-causing mental conceptions (KLESHAS) that most, if not all humans are born with.

Each KLESHA is built upon the other and in order to address them you must take them in baby-steps, working through the most external first.

The external  KLESHA is named ABHINIVESHA and stands for your desire to sustain your life, or your "fight for life."  This klesha commiserates with a fear of death.  This fear of death, ABHINIVESHA, is universally held by all creatures.  

From ABHINIVESHA stems the klesha DWESHA.  DWESHA not be adequate explained without discussing its underlying klesha, RAGA.  Dwesha is in essence the equal and opposite response to RAGA. 

RAGA is the desire to repeat a pleasurable experience again and again.  DWESHA is the desire to never repeat the pain experienced from the loss of pleasure.

They are two sides of the same coin and all stem from an underlying attachment to 'feelings' or states of being induced through your senses.  This attachment to your 'sense' of self is the klesha, ASMITA.

ASMITA produces your sense of I-ness.  I am this, I am that, etc.


ASMITA is really the paradox of seer and seen.  Are you the senses of the objects or are you that which senses?

You build attachments to all the things you think are important to your existence, those ideas and concepts which you think define you.  These attachments are capable of giving you pleasure when validated and pain when contradicted.  


The attachments of your defining thoughts (ASMITA) lead to desires to repeat the pleasures of validation (RAGA) or avoid the pains of rejection (DWESHA).

ASMITA stems from the root klesha AVIDYA.  AVIDYA is a psychosis where your perception doesn't match reality.  


Have you ever been walking in the dark and mistaken a shadow as something dangerous lurking in the night?

A stump is mental transformed into a hulking bear and AVIDYA is thus experienced.


Whatever concoctions of ideas brewed up a mistaken identity, a falsehood, are not real and are but a symptom of mental phantoms....perceptions gone awry.

By turning a consistent focus on your kleshas the mental tensions they create can be reduced and potentially eliminated all-together.  They can only be altered and removed through significant focus and open attention.  

Open attention is a must.  You must be able to hold the uncomfortable thought in your mind without allowing emotional responses, such as sorrow or anger.   To do otherwise is to allow your emotional compensations to overshadow your logic.  


You must hold cognitive dissonance until it bothers you no longer.  You must sit with the shadows of yourself to free yourself from fear or judgment.

To start, confront all the attachments you are holding onto so fiercely.  Those attachments that produce your fear of death, your desire to repeat pleasure, your repulsion from pain and how they mix with your perceptions or "senses" of self.

Yoga - Overview

Yoga is not the simplified western exercise practiced primarily as a mode of exercise and tension release. Yoga is a system which expands beyond a simple fad and consumer cycle and to consider it as such is a grievous miscalculation.

Yoga is a Sanskrit term, indicating a practice of physical and mental conditioning capable of producing significant physical and mental changes.

On the physical conditioning side, the postures or ASANA (in Sanskrit), which you see popularized in the west are meant to maintain physical health and train the mind to focus. There is nothing better than rigorous exercise to bring you back to basic survival thinking. To push, stretch and breathe at the edges of your comfort in a cool and collected manner takes a single-minded focus and helps keep joints, tendons and muscles in prime condition.

It is thus in these two ways that ASANA practice provides physical endurance and improved mental focus.

The mental conditioning of yoga requires consistent, focused, and long-term self-analysis. The ancient yogis of lore had nothing but time on their hands and could thus devote entire lifetimes to such development of self-awareness.

During those extended periods of self-analysis, the origins of fear, attraction, repulsion, ignorance and the egoic I-ness were discovered. The nature of the observer and the observed were scrutinized, and the source of cognitive dissonance was sought out.

In the upper system boundaries of yoga, a yogi could develop a clear mental holding of the union & separation paradox from which expanded understanding springs.

In truth, yoga is a science of idiosyncratic self-discovery. Its methods shed light on your attachments to ideas and personae. It questions those attachments and challenges you to rethink them. It disrupts your patterns and analyzes their existence and usefulness in the first place.

The conclusions you draw from yoga are both intimate and universal. The side effects of which can be more love, more patience, more directness, more firmness, more action, less talk, better health, more peace, less discord, deeper character, more compassion, less delusion, more simplicity, and greater stamina to name a few.

The only barrier is your self.

which came first....

feature or manifestation?


Was it the multitude of forms manifested or their features which came before?


....or was it neither?


the nearly synonymous nature of the feature-manifest relationship makes it hard to tell if they exist separately or are two sides of the same coin.

without idea, does or can form exist?



what changes the game is truly the perceiver

it is within the act of perception that a formulated feature takes specific manifestation.  

therefore across the spectrum of perceivers available at any given moment, a singular formulated feature could take a myriad of manifestations.

question is whether formulation must necessarily beget form.

from a vedantist perspective the formulation is eternally existent while all manifestations are time-bound.

it is the mental perception of an eternal feature which breeds form into existence.

so time needs eternity and eternity needs time; both are consequential to the other.  two sides of the same coin.

...so why does the coin exist? 

:)
 

Operational Sensors

Given that the human structure is of bio-electro-chemical construction and perceives through the senses, it seems logical to conceive of our existence simply as operational sensors.

Proper categorization or inclusion of perceived senses 

leads to wisdom.

 

  

Wisdom is eternal and permeates all.

The depth of every boundary is wisdom-set.

lost

wandering aimlessly amongst my thoughts, i realized i was seeking a cause...something to put my heart into, something to throw the weight of my actions behind.

before me lie a plethora of problems facing the world. these problems are not of my direct creation, they don't belong to any single one of us, they belong to the indirect 'all' of us.

whether our fore-parents started the actions and industries which we now continue, matters not.

we, the All, hold momentary control over the shape and direction our lives take; no more, no less. our ancestors had the same and our descendants will also.

living in-the-moment is terribly complex. there are a myriad of competing things in one's life needing attending to. some tasks are simply practical matters, but all actions carry emotional layers or signatures, if you will.

emotional layering occurs when held-knowledge is challenged by new incoming information. knowledge is cumulative and results in the causes behind your actions.

each cause holds certain outcome expectations.

the strength and size of these expectations indirectly determines how much emotional layering will occur with the advent of the outcome. for instance, out-sized expectations are sure to cause emotional trauma if the outcome is drastically different than expected.

the emotional signature is really a signature of some perceived cause amongst a vortex of information. out of your accumulated knowledge you derive reasons for acting and thinking the way you do. you set up expectations over your reasoned outcomes.

expectations result in emotional and sometimes physical pain when not met. unless pain is your goal, it generally clouds the efficacy of your actions and diminishes the probability of your success.

to expect is to trap yourself in the perceived validity of your reason for being. change is woven in the fabric of time, it cannot be denied. your reasons will come under fire, under stress. life external will challenge your 'causes.'

sure you must have a conceived goal behind everything you do, but you must not throw the weight of your emotional expectations behind it. to do so invites eventual knowledge failure through destined change.

we must learn everything but remain always learners. we must never be above learning.

we all arrived in the moment and made something out of it. the cumulative knowledge of the species evolves according to these somethings-made.

given this moment, what would we like to make of it?

delayed gratification

Life really is about delayed versus instant gratification.

Material acquisition is a delicate balance, a fine line to walk within your being.

To have is to hold. How you hold things is important and will lead to happiness or not.

The frenetic pace of our lives tempts us with instant gratification...often short-lived.

I ask you this: is long-term happiness the goal?

Then we must weather our emotional storms and fight the urge to owN, oWN, OWN, OWN! MINE, MINE, MINE, MINE!

Only a fool does not see that the current rate of resource consumption will lead to scarcity, changes in the weather patterns, and if continued, drought, famine, disease and finally death of species.

Being happy is the goal and true happiness comes from letting your desires cool off and gleaning their lessons over time.

Desire has its proper time and place. You are here to find the proper channeling of your desires. May they lead not to destruction or demise.

the risK of expediency - shutter effect

everything has its own proper flow of time. one must be attentive to the juxtaposition of perceived flow versus actualized flow.

rushing decisions or unnecessarily delaying decisions will tamper your perceptions and expose you to endangerment and/or stupidity.

constant rushing or constant unnecessary delaying leads to psychological neurosis of all measures and eventually to maladies of the body.

finding the flow is thus crucial to your survival and maintaining it once found may lead to long-term happiness.

sync up your mind-body-spirit triad and hunt the flow whose home is beyond all doors.

Moving between spheres of chance,

our hearts alight on love's ether.

There lies a joy incomparable. A superior way of being

beset upon by the sublimest discretion

leading the narrowest paths to freedom.

Please keep in mind, loves divine.

is there spirit hovering just below the surface

"Your body is your temple, your one and only temple. You are living in the holy places of the tabernacle of the most high" Midnite, Love the Life You Live

random relatively recent shots

Lovely ladies leaving Victoria, B.C.They grow'm big in the Hoh Rain Forest

Blue Glacier, Mount Olympus, WA
oh my little artichoke! oh my corn sweetems!
dost the bell toll?

beautiful nuptials under Cathedral Peak, Yosemite

lust o' Arjuna

Topically, it occurs to me that our sexuality has not come to terms with its power.

Throughout history humanity has struggled with how to handle lustful urges. Like most things it has always been an issue of control versus freedom. Restrained ways of the past gave birth to revolution in the sixties. And now some believe they can achieve a transcendent mind through sex and sex alone.

Returning to reptilian brain impulses and quieting the integrated higher minds is in direct contradiction to our evolutionary increase in brain size and thought complexity.

The fulfillment of sensory gratification carries psychological and physical consequences.

Conclusions drawn through repetitive behavior induce habituation which can promote greater understanding or introduce confusion.

Sensuality must be liberated from base sexual desire fulfillment; it has been mislabeled too long, usurped by those with only baseless lust in their eyes.

We are all sensual, it is a function of our species which provides us feed back between our inner and outer worlds. Sniff. Touch your toes. Close your eyes. Listen to the music.

Being sensual is matter of exuding confidence and need not result in action.

In the future fit, happy people will exude loads of sensuality but will restrain their passions. This will be their success because history has taught them that respect of proper boundaries yields transcendent awareness.

Set loose from repressive conceptions, sexually liberated individuals will live passionate lives in dedicated relationships. Like a delicate flower love awakens in the soul of lifelong lovers. Sacred communion requires significant time and effort and yields exponential soul growth.


Be not deceived by lust for anything. Awaken through moderation, the harder but higher road.

Communally the higher road less traveled must become a vast highway traversed by we the happy all.

recessionary woes

for progressive refinement of the species it is in the best interest of the universe to present challenges.

challenges force us to confront our holdings.

that which you hold constricts your lungs with thought overwrought

deep challenges must be met with a force beyond confidence
...a shear strength of will committed to confront the lesson to learn from its ebb and flow

rise UP when time calls

join together your spirit and your actions

loving yourself requires an honest assessment of healthy values held and exerted

you love others by respecting their boundaries

love draws relationships t-o-g-e-t-h-e-r...together

free your talk of mindless chatter, learn to communicate deeply and truly

in love's communion there is strength

peak performance : musing on men's group

intrepid warriors keep the faith

frugal times present many lessons

seek the wholeness that is you

become that wholeness through integration
of your student/ teacher states

free your communication of friction
with genuine respect and bridled truth

flow freely between dedicated action and true listening
character develops in its purest form this way

fret not the opinions of naysayers
stay true to higher ideals

empty yourself of expectations
then set some of your own

learn to live in resonance with your surroundings
recognize dissonance immediately

there exist places where men can talk freely
can confront their history and rewrite their futures

a new man emerges unwilling to compromise ideals,
humble enough to learn life's lessons
& bent on finding clear communication
maybe even fostering some himself

heart of water

origination, 2009

the chords of life are played according to water's lesson

life's cohesion depends upon the water present

water's solvent meters toxicity
either self or externally applied

water of life, an ancient code of respect
for a powerful resource

...speaks of sub-quantum waves traveling nothingness,
emanating probabilities across infinity

blessings abound of life-giving qualities,
plucking causal strings the heart of water beckons love

for the love of a Pinot

Arad, Romania

Aging Romanian oak staves
warming up some barrels
crafting the perfect French oak toast
looking south along the Côte de Nuits
remains of the Morey-St-Denis, Burgundy harvest
just in time for a spook
(C. frugilegus, the Rook)

Three years, a mere drop in time

The last three years of my life have been filled with love.

As I write this my feet are floating above the clouds of Romania thousands of miles from my home.

Even as I remain detached from known soils, I am aware of a well deep in my being connecting me to Amalia.

Love is a beautiful, haunting mystery that occupies the vastness of soul. Far too often love's depths are left unexplored and its blessings left unwrapped.

Within the commitments of our marriage, we have opened doors of mystery and tapped into sources of previously unimaginable beauty.
Wisdom wrapped in patience, compassion blossomed through listening and intimacy reached through bridled lust are but a few lessons learned in these few short years.

As a rosebud slowly opens each petal, its beauty and precious scent washes into the world. Three years ago I had but the conception of such beauty within Amalia's being. Each day, as her woman/person hood develops, I recognize that I am blessed to travel life's width and breadth at her side.

Our journey has not been without trials but our commitment to communication even under duress has provided a stable base to work through our disagreements and misunderstandings.
It is my belief that the keys to human community lie within the dedicated commitments of focused relationships. Humans must first face themselves in such relationships before they can fully understand the greater web of communal life.

Amalia's love calls me to a higher plane, a more complete existence. Her love, her being comforts me like the warm rays of an autumn evening sun. Her gentleness and her grace bring peace and stability to those who know her. Her innocence is tempered by a growing inner strength anchored in the knowledge of what is good and what is true.

Amalia Jude, I am blessed and honored to be your husband, friend and lover. Your love humbles me.

Ti amo

...exploded in my mind

love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love lovelove love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love