The Path Appears As We Walk

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Coming to the fore; knowledge and wisdom, health and wellness, and a grounded secure manifestation.

Official at times, can’t seem to shake it. Organizational life on neurodecolonization feels right. The path appears as we walk it, with the values locally enchanting our surroundings, ancestors guiding the work as we go. Seeking wisdom, connecting ultimate teamwork for the journey.

Rejuvinative vision, knowledge and wisdom, health and wellness, and grounded secure manifestation. With headway and adaptability around convergence, longterm rejuvenation brokers connection, vision in successful decolonization servitor, thoughtforms. Dreamt up in grand facilitating supportive systems manifesting connecting that ultimate teamwork, ultimate connection and health of natural all good growth.

WRITING TO REMEMBER

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Do you wish you could WRITE? Do you wish you had a better MEMORY? Do you want to make STORIES but are too confused about how to even start? THIS IS AN INTENSIVE WRITING CLASS! It is not a social situation at all! In fact, you can be completely anonymous in this class! You don’t have to be cool! Your clothes can be square! You don’t have to read aloud or talk to anyone if you don’t want to! You don’t even have to make eye contact! And YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A WRITER to be a part of it! THIS CLASS WORKS ESPECIALLY WELL FOR ‘NON-WRITERS’ like bartenders, janitors, office workers, hairdressers, musicians, and ANYONE who has given up on “being a writer” but still wonders what it might be like to write. OPEN to ALL people! Lynda teaches a specific way of working that she learned from her teacher, Marilyn Frasca, in the late 1970’s and has used ever since. She says it will work for anyone who has any kind of curiosity about writing or remembering — especially people who have always wanted to write, but have no idea how to even begin. It is not jive! It is FOR REAL! (It is also pretty fun too, but not necessarily in a social way!) Can you dig that? If so, we can dig YOU!

Aspiration

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Aspiration is one of the five strengths that allow us to practice our
bodhisattva discipline of helping others throughout our whole life.
Because you have experienced joy and celebration in your practice, it
does not feel like a burden to you. Therefore, your aspire further and
further. You would like to attain enlightenment. You would like to free
yourself from neurosis. You would also like to serve all sentient beings
throughout all times, all situations, at any moment. You are willing to
become a rock or a bridge or a highway. You are willing to serve any
worthy cause that will help the rest of the world. It is also general
instruction on becoming a very pliable person, so that the rest of the
world can use you as a working basis for their enjoyment of sanity.

Condensed from pages 74 to 75 in /Training the Mind and Cultivating
Loving Kindness

Teachings by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, taken from works published by
Shambhala Publications,  the Archive of his unpublished work in the
Shambhala Archives, plus other published sources.
TO SUBSCRIBE, unsubscribe, see the quotes online or read the Ocean of
Dharma blog, visit the website at http://oceanofdharma.com

Snob on A Bus

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I have never taken public transportation in my life. I have taken a train here and there, and a party bus….but never the METRO! I recently got rid of my car to “go green”, well, and because the lease was too expensive. So I have a beachcruiser … and the bus system. These are my life learnings (or woes, or wtf moments) from the Los Angeles Public Transportation. It is one hell of a ride!
http://snobonabus.blogspot.com/
article on the snob . . .
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bus-snob27-2010feb27,0,1062483,full.story

Alan Moore on writing and magick

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Klint Finley

via http://mutateweb.com/archives/2005/02/16/alan-moore-on-writing-and-magick/

New Alan Moore interview:

AM: I’ll give a brief recap in case we feel we missed anything. Magic and language are practically the same thing, they would at least have been regarded as such in our distant past. I think it is wisest and safest to treat them as if they are the same thing. This stuff that you are dealing with – words, language, writing – this is dangerous, it is magical, treat it as if it was radioactive. Don’t doubt that for a moment. As far as I know, the last figures I heard quoted, nine out of every ten writers will have mental problems at some point during their life. Sixty percent of that ninety percent – which I think works out at roughly fifty percent of all writers – will have their lives altered and affected – seriously affected – by those mental problems. I think what that translates to is – nine out of ten crack up, five out of ten go mad. It’s like, miners get black lung, writers go bonkers. This is a real occupational hazard. There’s plenty of ways to go bonkers, some of them a lot quieter, some more insidious than others – drink, heroin, there’s lots of other sorts of things – but this is dangerous – we’re dealing with the unreal. You’re dealing right on the borderline of fact and fiction, which is where our entire world happens. We’re living in a world of fact and we’ve got our heads full of fiction, the characters that we’ve invented for ourselves – we’re all writers, we all invent characters for ourselves, roles in this little play that we’re running in our head that we call our lives. With a writer, you’re dealing with the actual stuff of existence, you’re playing the God game. All the things that you will have to consider before you write a story are exactly the things God had to consider before he created the universe – plot, characters (laughter) and what’s it mean, what’s it about, what’s the theme here . . . motifs. A lot of them suns, they’ll do, we’ll put them everywhere – hey, snakes! These are easy . . . (laughter).

http://www.enginecomics.co.uk/interviews/jan05/alanmoore.htm

Write Magick

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Manipulating the field of perception . . . Shamanic trance postures, sending the unstruck note via written word into your blood stream . . .  Scrying the dark side of the brain . . . coaxing whispers from the spaces between the emptiness neurons . . . Buddhism

Brion Gysin, William Burroughs, Ray Bradbury. . .

“i think i was programed from birth to adore reading. With both of my grandmothers being librarians, there was never a lack of literature in my home. As I got older and began to develop my own personal appreciation of art, I found certain novels that pushed through me, and changed who I was as a person. Although I am always searching for a new bound copy of my dreams, it seems like I always go back to the same stories. These are the books that have changed who I am. These are the stories that diagram my life, these are the novels that i can recite every word from every page, the books that are like sex and drugs and raw emotion and life.”

Read this thread here . . . http://afropunk.ning.com/forum/topics/books-that-changed-your-life

Jack Kerouac’s Essentials of Spontaneous Prose

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Via http://www.languageisavirus.com/

SET-UP
The object is set before the mind, either in reality. as in sketching (before a landscape or teacup or old face) or is set in the memory wherein it becomes the sketching from memory of a definite image-object.

PROCEDURE
Time being of the essence in the purity of speech, sketching language is undisturbed flow from the mind of personal secret idea-words, blowing (as per jazz musician) on subject of image.

METHOD
No periods separating sentence-structures already arbitrarily riddled by false colons and timid usually needless commas-but the vigorous space dash separating rhetorical breathing (as jazz musician drawing breath between outblown phrases)–“measured pauses which are the essentials of our speech”–“divisions of the sounds we hear”-“time and how to note it down.” (William Carlos Williams)

SCOPING
Not “selectivity’ of expression but following free deviation (association) of mind into limitless blow-on-subject seas of thought, swimming in sea of English with no discipline other than rhythms of rhetorical exhalation and expostulated statement, like a fist coming down on a table with each complete utterance, bang! (the space dash)-Blow as deep as you want-write as deeply, fish as far down as you want, satisfy yourself first, then reader cannot fail to receive telepathic shock and meaning-excitement by same laws operating in his own human mind.

LAG IN PROCEDURE
No pause to think of proper word but the infantile pileup of scatological buildup words till satisfaction is gained, which will turn out to be a great appending rhythm to a thought and be in accordance with Great Law of timing.

TIMING

Nothing is muddy that runs in time and to laws of time-Shakespearian stress of dramatic need to speak now in own unalterable way or forever hold tongue-no revisions (except obvious rational mistakes, such as names or calculated insertions in act of not writing but inserting).

CENTER OF INTEREST
Begin not from preconceived idea of what to say about image but from jewel center of interest in subject of image at moment of writing, and write outwards swimming in sea of language to peripheral release and exhaustion-Do not afterthink except for poetic or P. S. reasons. Never afterthink to “improve” or defray impressions, as, the best writing is always the most painful personal wrung-out tossed from cradle warm protective mind-tap from yourself the song of yourself, blow!-now!-your way is your only way-“good”-or “bad”-always honest (“ludi- crous”), spontaneous, “confessionals’ interesting, because not “crafted.” Craft is craft.

STRUCTURE OF WORK

Modern bizarre structures (science fiction, etc.) arise from language being dead, “different” themes give illusion of “new” life. Follow roughly outlines in outfanning movement over subject, as river rock, so mindflow over jewel-center need (run your mind over it, once) arriving at pivot, where what was dim-formed “beginning” becomes sharp-necessitating “ending” and language shortens in race to wire of time-race of work, following laws of Deep Form, to conclusion, last words, last trickle-Night is The End.

MENTAL STATE

If possible write “without consciousness” in semi-trance (as Yeats’ later “trance writing”) allowing subconscious to admit in own uninhibited interesting necessary and so “modern” language what conscious art would censor, and write excitedly, swiftly, with writing-or-typing-cramps, in accordance (as from center to periphery) with laws of orgasm, Reich’s “beclouding of consciousness.” Come from within, out-to relaxed and said.

Writing A Great Script Fast In A Nutshell

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Follow along with this fast and easy step-by-step process for thinking up a great script or story idea! Learn how to brainstorm for film ideas that fit your skills, interest and production platforms. Take that new film idea and learn how to add a visual theme, plot points, character traits, twists, metaphors/symbols, conflict/obstacles, setups/payoffs, suspense, humor and much more! Based on the book “Developing Digital Short Films” (2004 Peachpit/Pearson) by Sherri Sheridan. This class is perfect for digital filmmakers or animators using DV, 2D and/or 3D. Download the Nutshell Workbook for this free online screenwriting class at http://www.MindsEyeMedia.com or http://www.MyFlik.com. You can also just use some paper or a notebook to follow along with the step-by-step process, but the Workbook has long lists of ideas for each step to help you think up new ideas fast. This 90 minute “Writing A Great Script Fast In A Nutshell” class is part of a 20 hour DVD workshop that takes you through a start to finish screenwriting process in about 20 hours. “Writing A Great Script Fast” the 20 hour DVD workshop is available at the above websites.

re: http://edublogs.org/

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As I said in an earlier  post concerning my setting up a blog at edublogs, I set one up a couple days ago. I was very happy with the options and extras and environment over there. Then I go an email apologizing for a longer than expected down time and for resetting my password and changing my user name.

I can sort of understand the password, but not the user name. For some reason that disturbed me and I have never heard of such a thing. I have a friend who runs an online community and who could easily give a member any name they want. I don’t get why my sign in info has to be changed.

At any rate, I will not be using that blog at http://edublogs.org/

I’m just saying.

a fine smoky tea

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Another pot of tea arrives, as they continue the discussion. Seven pots of tea so far, working on number eight.

ah . . . it is a fine smoky tea.

“So what is it exactly that is getting to you? I hear all the stories you are telling me, but I sense that you aren’t telling me the real, underlining issue, the one thing that is wearing at you so heavily. What is the story that you are avoiding?”

“Well . . . I’m not so sure, I mean . . . what is the real, true nature of this place anyway? What in the hell is it that I am supposed to be doing here? I just don’t get it, it all feels so disjointed and hollow.”

mad-teaparty.jpg

Ask and it will be given to you

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Matthew 7:7
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

So I asked, “in what ways might language be a virus from outer space?”

The first answer to begin unveiling this interconnection arrives via http://www.futurehi.net/archives/000060.html 

Is Humanity Being Hacked?

Sometimes when I am in deep meditation I get the strong feeling of a higher intelligence speaking through me, through human culture, as if we are being hacked, used, programmed by something else. As Mark Pesce has said,

We don’t use memes, they use us.

For example I have entertained/experienced the possiblity that we are already being hacked by the machines we created. The Matrix allegory speaks clearly here, except I’m not so sure that its a bad thing. And of course we hack the machines – a symbiosis. But more curious is that this advancing technology was started by human minds, many of which could have been hacked by something else. By what or by who is the question. It’s no secret that many of the pioneers of the PC revolution were psychedelic explorers, and Terrence Mckenna has gone so far as to postulate that human language itself is an alien artifact planted in us by psychedelic mushrooms. I think it would be arrogant of us to dismiss this lightly and without further investigation.

The Mushroom Speaks from Terrence Mckenna:

“I am old, older than thought in your species, which is itself fifty times older than your history. Though I have been on earth for ages I am from the stars. My home is no one planet, for many worlds scattered through the shining disc of the galaxy have conditions which allow my spores an opportunity for life. The mushroom which you see is the part of my body given to sex thrills and sun bathing, my true body is a fine network of fibers growing through the soil. These networks may cover acres and may have far more connections than the number in a human brain. My mycelial network is nearly immortal, only the sudden toxification of a planet or the explosion of its parent star can wipe me out. By means impossible to explain because of certain misconceptions in your model of reality all my mycelial networks in the galaxy are in hyperlight communication across space and time. The mycelial body is as fragile as a spider’s web but the collective hypermind and memory is a vast historical archive of the career of evolving intelligence on many worlds in our spiral star swarm. Space, you see, is a vast ocean to those hardy life forms that have the ability to reproduce from spores, for spores are covered with the hardest organic substance known. Across the aeons of time and space drift many spore-forming life-forms in suspended animation for millions of years until contact is made with a suitable environment. Few such species are minded, only myself and my recently evolved near relatives have achieved the hyper-communication mode and memory capacity that makes us leading members in the community of galactic intelligence. How the hypercommunication mode operates is a secret which will not be lightly given to man. But the means should be obvious: it is the occurrence of psilocybin and psilocin in the biosynthetic pathways of my living body that opens for me and my symbiots the vision screens to many worlds. You as an individual and man as a species are on the brink of the formation of a symbiotic relationship with my genetic material that will eventually carry humanity and earth into the galactic mainstream of the higher civilizations.

Since it is not easy for you to recognize other varieties of intelligence around you, your most advanced theories of politics and society have advanced only as far as the notion of collectivism. But beyond the cohesion of the members of a species into a single social organism there lie richer and even more baroque evolutionary possibilities. Symbiosis is one of these. Symbiosis is a relation of mutual dependence and positive benefits for both of the species involved. Symbiotic relationships between myself and civilized forms of higher animals have been established many times and in many places throughout the long ages of my development. These relationships have been mutually useful; within my memory is the knowledge of hyperlight drive ships and how to build them. I will trade this knowledge for a free ticket to new worlds around suns younger and more stable than your own. To secure an eternal existence down the long river of cosmic time I again and again offer this agreement to higher beings and thereby have spread throughout the galaxy over the long millennia. A mycelial network has no organs to move the world, no hands; but higher animals with manipulative abilities can become partners with the star knowledge within me and if they act in good faith, return both themselves and their humble mushroom teacher to the million worlds all citizens of our starswarm are heir to.”

Dancing the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

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I wish that I didn’t have to be an ancient, reincarnated, bristle cone, grandfather, guru. I get tired of already knowing everyone and everything. Sometimes I can forget and everything is new and unknown, it’s a different kind of magick when all things are new and unknown. This time I was fortunate enough to cover my memories and remembrances with a thick, heavy blanket of snow, helping to chill the past cycles.

The problem with the forgetting devices that I lay ahead of time is that I remember. This is such a tactile dimension! So many senses to engage with remembrance. Sometimes to forget for a while I wrap myself up in heavy blankets, curl up into a ball and stare off into space or just fall asleep, slipping into a dark, barren and cold winter.

I am from the winter, and my blood line has an interesting mixture of northern and southern tribes, the truly magickal opposites. An alchemy of north and south, fire and ice. Most people think that it’s east and west. Thats just a lateral distraction, deceitful diversions crafted by our “keepers.”

They are our keepers because we let them. We allow it on so many levels. I keep coming back to make sure they don’t get too far out of line.

Where are my robes? Where is my hearth? What are we doing this for? Everything has gotten so detached and disjointed. It is almost not worth returning to anymore. I will keep my word though. We have a long way to go yet.

Too bad we will have to go through so much pain and suffering before its all done. I always wonder why we have to be so thick headed, why does it take so much repetition and circles before we get the idea.

When will all the dreams and symbols become clear, as we gaze proudly and even arrogantly at the past cultures and civilizations, many of which are still living and crying out to us to wake up and see? A dead, sleeping people see everything as dead, lifeless artifacts. Do you remember when we danced around the fire for days? Running through the forest screaming and yelling the songs of our land, dancing with the elk?

We used to swim out beyond the reef together, diving deeper and deeper to see who could hold their breath the longest and to see who could translate into the deeper realms first, anxious to visit with our ancestors and all our brothers and sisters from the inner realms.

It is kind of lonely to have to wait so long and to have to keep repeating ourselves. You ask for teachings and knowledge, we tell you straight out, giving you what you need, but you don’t understand it.

I am going to go wrap myself in a blanket for a while and dream the sun to rise. Maybe we will cross paths again tomorrow.

olmec.jpg

email reminder clump

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Todays email reminders from http://lojongmindtraining.com/ are actually a compilation of several days. I have been away from the computer for a few days and my email has piled up. I considered to stop posting these, but the act of posting these has actually prodded me to at least think about writing more regularly. While away from cyberspace I actually have begun to write more. Now just to get it onto this blog.

Anyway here are the reminders . . .

~*~

Drive All Blames Into One

A lot of people seem to get through this world and actually make quite a comfortable life by being compassionate and open – even seemingly compassionate and open. Yet although we share the same world, we ourselves get hit constantly… For instance, we could be sharing a room with a college mate, eating the same problematic food, sharing the same shitty house, having the same schedule and the same teachers. Our roommate manages to handle everything OK and find his or her freedom. We, on the other hand, are stuck with that memory and filled with resentment all the time. We would like to be revolutionary, to blow up the world. We could say the schoolteacher did it, that everybody hates us and they did it. But WHY do they hate us? That is a very interesting point.
..
Everything is based on our own uptightness. We could blame the organization; we could blame the government; we could blame the food; we could blame the highways; we could blame out own motorcars, out own clothes; we could blame an infinite variety of things. But it is we who are not letting go, not developing enough warmth and sympathy – which makes us problematic. So we cannot blame anybody…This slogan applies whenever we complain about anything, even that our coffee is cold or our bathroom is dirty. It goes very far. Everything is due to our own uptightness, so to speak, which is known as ego holding, ego fixation. Since we are so uptight about ourselves, that makes us very vulnerable at the same time… We get hit, but nobody means to hit us – we are actually inviting the bullets.
..
The text says “drive all blames into one”. the reason you have to do that is because you have been cherishing yourself so much… Although sometimes you might say that you don’t like yourself, even then in your heart of hearts you know that you like yourself so much that you’re willing to throw everybody else down the drain, down the gutter. You are really willing to do that. You are really willing to let somebody else sacrifice his life, give himself away for you. And who are you, anyway?

~*~

When the World is Filled With Evil, Transform All Mishaps Into the Path of Bodhi
You might feel inadequate because you have a sick father and a crazy mother and you have to take care of them, or because you have a distorted life and money problems… A lot of these situations could be regarded as expressions of your own timidity and cowardice. They could all be regarded as expression of your poverty mentality.
..
You should also begin to build up confidence and joy in your own richness… Even if you are abandoned in the middle of the desert and you want a pillow, you can find a piece of rock with moss on it that is quite comfortable to put your head on.

We have found that a lot of people complain that they are involved in intense domestic situations; they relate with everything in their lives purely on the level of pennies, tiny stitches, drops of water, grains of rice. But we do not have to do that – we can expand our vision by means of generosity. We can give something to others. We don’t always have to receive something first in order to give something away… The nature of generosity is to be free from desire, free from attachment, able to let go of anything.

~*~

Begin the Sequence of Sending and Taking With Yourself

So whenever anything happens, the first thing is to take on the pain yourself. Afterward, you give away anything which is left beyond that, anything pleasurable… so you do not hold on to any possible way of entertaining yourself or giving yourself good treatment.
..
So the whole approach here is to open your territory completely, to let go of everything. If you suddenly discover that a hundred hippies want to camp in your living room, let them do so! But then those hippies also have to practice.

The basic idea of the practice is actually very joyful. It is wonderful that human beings can do such a fantastic exchange and that they are willing to invite such undesirable situations into their world. It is wonderful that they are willing to let go of even their smallest corners of secrecy and privacy, so that their holding on to anything is gone completely. That is very brave. We could certainly say that this is the world of the warrior, from the Bodhisattva‘s point of view.

~*~

In All Activities, Train With Slogans
We have been using this technique all the time, throughout our practice. Particularly in Dharmic environments, whenever we have a wall we post the slogans in order to remind ourselves of them.

The point is to catch the first thought… The idea is that in catching the first thought, that first thought should have some words.

In this case, whenever you feel that quality of me-ness, whenever you feel “I” – and maybe “am” as well – then you should think of these two sayings:

[1] May I receive all evils; may my virtues go to others.

[2] Profit and victory to others; loss and defeat to myself.
..
It takes quite a lot of effort because it is a big job. That is why it is called the Mahayana [big vehicle], it is a big deal. You cannot fall asleep when you are driving on this big highway…

~*~

Three Objects, Three Poisons, and Three Seeds of Virtue
Relating to passion, aggression, and ignorance in the main practice of tonglen is very intense, but the main practice is somewhat lighter
..
Whatever aggression our enemy has provided for us – let that aggression be ours and let the enemy thereby be free from any kind of aggression. Whatever passion has been created by our friends, let us take that neurosis into ourselves and let our friends be freed from passion. And the indifference of those who are in the middle or unconcerned, those who are ignorant, deluded, or noncaring, let us bring that neurosis into ourselves, and let those people be free of ignorance.
..
The purpose of that is that when you begin to hold the three poisons as yours, when you possess them fully and completely, when you take charge of them fully, you will find, interestingly enough, that the logic is reversed. If you have no object of aggression, you cannot hold your own aggression purely by yourself. If you have no object of passion, you cannot hold your passion yourself. And in the same way, you cannot hold on to your ignorance either.

By holding the poison, you let go of the object, or the intent, of your poison… if your anger is not directed TOWARD something, the object of aggression falls apart.

Odyssean Inferno

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by D. M.

Grasping the pen in need of something, anything to pull you up and make sense out of life’s struggles, some reason to go on and some place to go on to. Tennyson turned to poetry at an early age, due to an unhappy home life. His writing skills enable him to cope well with the dark moments of life. Tennyson’s choosing the mythic hero Ulysses as the speaker of his poem “Ulysses” is key to its interpretation and help in carrying him through the pain and loss of his close friend.

Andrew McCulloch points out that, “From early childhood, poetry was intensely important to Tennyson as a refuge from his extremely unhappy home life” (McCulloch). This refuge in poetry was sought as Tennyson drafted “Ulysses” while “waiting for an Italian ship with its dark freight to bring Hallam’s body home to England. Images of dark seas, doomed vessels and death pervade the text (Martin 185-186). The same year that Arthur died, 1833, Tennyson’s brother Edward was admitted to a mental asylum. “In 1839, Alfred and Emily were officially engaged. By 1840, they were officially unengaged. Emily’s father had put a stop to the match, supposedly because Alfred was too poor to marry” (MacLeod).

The real reason for the separation is more likely that Tennyson’s opium addict brother Charles drove Emily’s sister to her eventual collapse, strongly affecting feelings toward Alfred Tennyson (MacLeod). Tennyson opposed opium use to the point of commenting on it in his poem “Lotos-Eaters,” but his “gypsy look, long hair, watery wide eyes–along with his artistic temperament, habitual pipe smoking, and trance-like imagery, all lent themselves to his unwelcome characterization as a possible drug user” (Platizky) After their separation, Tennyson threw himself into traveling and studying, becoming proficient in several languages (MacLeod).The earliest surviving complete stanza that exists from Tennyson’s youth was written when he was around the age of eight,

Whateer I see, whereer I move
These whispers rise & fall away;
Something of pain, of loss, of love,
But what, twere hard to say (Martin 22),

This piece already indicates that at a very young age, a profound connection with his emotions has already been established, already acquainted with pain and loss and love. “The emotional crisis of Hallam’s death along with other unfortunate life circumstances encouraged and allowed Tennyson to find a public place and voice for what had, until then, been an essentially personal art” (McCulloch).

Writing about ones emotions, illness and traumas has a beneficial effect on ones health (Positive Psychology Center). Writer and therapist Kate Evans MA, BSc reports, “the rhythms of poetry stimulate the part of the brain which governs emotion. Being forced to put these emotions down on paper brings about a kind of order and control” (Evans). To illustrate an example from “Ulysses,”

Tennyson loved to create sonorous, high-sounding verse, particularly by setting different vowel sounds closely against each other. The style is often intensely slow moving and languorous, and parts of the poem need to be read in a slow or chanting voice: “The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep / Moans round with many voices” (University of Buckingham).

Another poetic device Tennyson uses is the taking on of someone of a different time and who is older in years. He could be “assuming the voice of old men to stress a weary sadness” (qtd. in Davis). Taking on the voice of this ancient hero could act as a bridge to Ulysses’ wisdom, strength and experience. Tennyson may be setting up a relation ship or situation in the poem that is analogous to one that he is experiencing and that he wants to see from a different point of view, identifying his events with the events that are going on in Ulysses’ life. Perhaps this exercise can give him distance, strength and insight into his life situation.
Evans speaks of the benefit of the publishing step of writing, while supporting the previous point,

To move from therapeutic to truly publishable writing, however, can be a big step. The art of adapting for a market, editing and re-working is a difficult one to learn especially when it feels like the words have been squeezed from your soul. It can be a valuable experience. Taking another person’s point of view, for instance, can be a way of getting another perspective on what is going on in your life (Evans).

A poet of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s stature, who has won high titles by his writing, Poet Laureate and baron, is surely well skilled in the publishing step of writing and aware of any benefits that the publishing stage has to offer. The publication of a poem that gives honor and respect to a Homeric hero is in keeping with the traditions of the aristocratic warrior society that Ulysses was a part of and that Tennyson perhaps feels a part of with his circle of friends, A. H. Hallam having been one of them.

Dante’s Inferno Canto 26 was a source that Tennyson used for Ulysses as well as Homers Iliad and Odyssey. Dante, being Roman offers a less than flattering image of Ulysses, but Tennyson takes much from Dante’s account and gives Ulysses a more positive spin. Ulysses is in Dante’s inferno for a number of reasons, his insatiable desire for knowledge and seeking for new and unknown things and places are a few. The Romans had a less than flattering view of Ulysses the “dreadful” as he was the trickster who thought up the device which led to their defeat at Troy (Rosenberg).

In Tennyson’s poem, Ulysses represents strength, experience, leadership (lines 13-15), coming to terms with old age and his abilities, self-awareness (49-53), recognition of his skills and role in society (1-6, 33-43). He has synthesized experience into wisdom and knowledge and thirsts for more (18, 31-32), he desires to go on with life without pause and to be useful (1-5, 22-23,30-32), and he represents the epic quest of life to the point of chasing his own death (57-70). The above all are traits that can be drawn from Tennyson’s “Ulysses.”

Anne Hudson Jones notes that, “most people choose the archetypal myths of battle, journey, and death and rebirth in writing their pathographies” (Jones). A pathography is an accounting of ones illness, a somewhat new genre that is catching on and becoming very popular. The University of Buckingham observes that Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses,”

has been a favourite of explorers and mountaineers, and other people who have pushed themselves to extremes. Ulysses has fought his way through the ten years’ Trojan war, and experienced huge adventures on the way to his island home of Ithaca (University of Buckingham)

One element of the poem that seems to have been overlooked in its possible translations is when Ulysses addresses his mariners. Which mariners is he addressing? It seems from the poem, that he is addressing the companions who battled with him at Troy and accompanied him on his journey home. According to Homer, these mariners all died on their way home. Why would he be speaking to dead mariners? Does Ulysses represent Arthur already dead, on his last voyage west, beyond the Pillars of Hercules (44-70)?
“The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world” (55-57).
Whose voices do the deep moan round with? Are the drowned mariners calling out to Ulysses? Might Arthur be calling his friends to seek a newer world? There are eerie images of night sea journeys into the unknown, “Beyond the utmost bound of human thought,” suggested through out this poem (Rowlson).

What did Tennyson say the poem is about? Asking the author would be the simplest way to gain insight into a poem,

“It was partly his attempt to come to grips with grief, to speak about the need to keep going with the struggle of life. As he said himself: ‘The poem was written soon after Arthur Hallam’s death, and it gave my feeling about the need of going forward and braving the struggle of life.” (University of Buckingham)

The number of interpretations that this short poem has illustrates the great thing about poetry. “A poem may simply be running through ideas or emotions, expressing multiple viewpoints at once, never coming to any particular conclusions. Poetry doesn’t have to mean anything, it can be an exercise in creativity, a coping tool or something that someone just does” (Davis).

Tennyson’s was not an easy life and he likely worked through a lot of his troubles through writing. His choosing of Ulysses was key and relevant to his coping at time in his life. His life circumstances at the time of composing the poem are key to the understanding of why he wrote it.

Bibliography

Adams, Kathleen. “A Brief History of Journal Therapy.” The Center for Journal Therapy. 2006. The Center for Journal Therapy.
11 Nov. 2007 <http://journaltherapy.com/rosen.htm&gt;

Alighieri, Dante. Inferno. New York: Doubleday, 2000.

Allingham, Philip V. “Discussion Questions for Alfred Lord
Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses’ (written, 1833; published, 1842).” Victorian Web. 10 Nov. 2007 <http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/ tennyson/ulyssesq.html>

Davis, Glyn. “Ulysses and the temptation of idleness: thinking about politics through poetry.” Australian Journal of Political Science 33.n1 (March 1998): 73(12). General OneFile. Gale. Santa Fe Community College. 10 Nov. 2007 <http://find.galegroup.com/ips/ start.do?prodId=IPS>

Evans, Kate. “Express yourself.” Community Care (Feb 12, 2004): 28. General OneFile. Gale. Santa Fe Community College.
11 Nov. 2007 <http://find.galegroup.com/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS&gt;

The History Channel Presents – Troy: Unearthing the Legend, Volume 2. DVD. Compilation 2004. A&E Television Networks, 2004.

Harris, Kurt. “Mourning at the Mother’s Breast: on Death and Weaning in Tennyson’s In Memoriam.” PsyArt: A Hyperlink Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts. article 051120. 10 Nov. 2007 <http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/2006_harris01.shtml&gt;

Hughes, Linda K. “Tennyson.” Victorian Poetry 43.3 (Fall 2005): 389(9). General OneFile. Gale. Santa Fe Community College. 10 Nov. 2007 <http://find.galegroup.com/ips/ start.do?prodId=IPS>

Jones, Anne Hudson. “Writing and healing.” The Lancet 368.9554 (Dec 23, 2006): S3(2). General OneFile. Gale. Santa Fe Community College. 11 Nov. 2007 <http://find.galegroup.com/ips/ start.do?prodId=IPS>

Kurshan, Ilana. “SparkNote on Tennyson’s Poetry ‘Analysis and
Themes.’” Spark Notes.10 Nov. 2007
< http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/tennyson/
analysis.html >

Kurshan, Ilana. “SparkNote on Tennyson’s Poetry ‘Crossing the
Bar.’” Spark Notes.10 Nov. 2007 <http://www.sparknotes.com/ poetry/tennyson/section10.rhtml>

Kurshan, Ilana. “SparkNote on Tennyson’s Poetry ‘The Lotos-Eaters.’” Spark Notes. 10 Nov. 2007 <http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/ tennyson/section3.rhtml>

Levi, Peter. Tennyson. London: Macmillan London Limited, 1993.

Literary Arts.” NoHo Arts District.” NoHo Communications Group, Inc. 11 Nov. 2007 <http://www.nohoartsdistrict.com/literary_arts/ how_to_writing_therapy.htm>

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University. 11 Nov. 2007 <http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/ English_Literature/19th_c/Dramatic_Monologue.html>

MacLeod, Kevin. “Alfred, ‘Eccentric’ Lord Tennyson.” Incompetech. 10 Nov. 2007 <http://incompetech.com/authors/tennyson/&gt;

Martin, Robert. Tennyson; The Unquiet Heart. London: Faber& Faber Ltd in conjunction with Oxford University Press,
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McCulloch, Andrew. “Alfred Lord Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses’: Andrew McCulloch considers an ambiguous hero.” The English Review 16.2 (Nov. 2005): 17(4). General OneFile. Gale. Santa Fe Community College. 10 Nov. 2007 <http://find.galegroup.com/ips/ start.do?prodId=IPS>

Platizky, Roger S. “‘Like dull narcotics, numbing pain’: Speculations on Tennyson and Opium.” Victorian Poetry 40, no. 2
(2002): 209-215. Libraries Worldwide: 1103, View Full Text in PDF format (WilsonSelectPlus) 11 Nov. 2007 <http://FirstSearch.oclc.org&gt;

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Company, 1992.

Rouse, W.H.D. The Odyssey. New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd., 1937.

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Woolston, Chris. “Writing for therapy helps erase effects of trauma.” CNN.com. March 16, 2000. Cable News Network. 11 Nov. 2007 <http://archives.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/03/16/
health.writing.wmd/>.

Lists of feelings and needs

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I have been contemplating and studying a couple of lists from a web site on Nonviolent Communication. I am finding that in studying communication, language, psychology and group work, I am coming across some great material that can also be used for writing, character development and the like.

Here are a couple lists . . .

feelings when your needs are satisfied

AFFECTIONATE
compassionate
friendly
loving
open hearted
sympathetic
tender
warmCONFIDENT
empowered
open
proud
safe
secureENGAGED
absorbed
alert
curious
engrossed
enchanted
entranced
fascinated
interested
intrigued
involved
spellbound
stimulatedINSPIRED
amazed
awed
wonder		 EXCITED
amazed
animated
ardent
aroused
astonished
dazzled
eager
energetic
enthusiastic
giddy
invigorated
lively
passionate
surprised
vibrantEXHILARATED
blissful
ecstatic
elated
enthralled
exuberant
radiant
rapturous
thrilledGRATEFUL
appreciative
moved
thankful
touchedHOPEFUL
expectant
encouraged
optimistic		 JOYFUL
amused
delighted
glad
happy
jubilant
pleased
tickledPEACEFUL
calm
clear headed
comfortable
centered
content
equanimous
fulfilled
mellow
quiet
relaxed
relieved
satisfied
serene
still
tranquil
trustingREFRESHED
enlivened
rejuvenated
renewed
rested
restored
revived

feelings when your needs are not satisfied

from: http://cnvc.org/feelings.htm

AFRAID
apprehensive
dread
foreboding
frightened
mistrustful
panicked
petrified
scared
suspicious
terrified
wary
worriedANNOYED
aggravated
dismayed
disgruntled
displeased
exasperated
frustrated
impatient
irritated
irkedANGRY
enraged
furious
incensed
indignant
irate
livid
outraged
resentfulAVERSION
animosity
appalled
contempt
disgusted
dislike
hate
horrified
hostile
repulsed

CONFUSED
ambivalent
baffled
bewildered
dazed
hesitant
lost
mystified
perplexed
puzzled
torn

 DISCONNECTED
alienated
aloof
apathetic
bored
cold
detached
distant
distracted
indifferent
numb
removed
uninterested
withdrawnDISQUIET
agitated
alarmed
discombobulated
disconcerted
disturbed
perturbed
rattled
restless
shocked
startled
surprised
troubled
turbulent
turmoil
uncomfortable
uneasy
unnerved
unsettled
upsetEMBARRASSED
ashamed
chagrined
flustered
guilty
mortified
self-consciousFATIGUE
beat
burnt out
depleted
exhausted
lethargic
listless
sleepy
tired
weary
worn out		 PAIN
agony
anguished
bereaved
devastated
grief
heartbroken
hurt
lonely
miserable
regretful
remorsefulSAD
depressed
dejected
despair
despondent
disappointed
discouraged
disheartened
forlorn
gloomy
heavy hearted
hopeless
melancholy
unhappy
wretchedTENSE
anxious
cranky
distressed
distraught
edgy
fidgety
frazzled
irritable
jittery
nervous
overwhelmed
restless
stressed outVULNERABLE
fragile
guarded
helpless
insecure
leery
reserved
sensitive
shaky

YEARNING
envious
jealous
longing
nostalgic
pining
wistful

needs inventory

from: http://cnvc.org/needs.htm

CONNECTION
acceptance
affection
appreciation
belonging
cooperation
communication
closeness
community
companionship
compassion
consideration
consistency
empathy
inclusion
intimacy
love
mutuality
nurturing
respect/self-respect
safety
security
stability
support
to know and be known
to see and be seen
to understand and
be understood
trust
warmth		 HONESTY
authenticity
integrity
presencePLAY
joy
humorPEACE
beauty
communion
ease
equality
harmony
inspiration
orderPHYSICAL WELL-BEING
air
food
movement/exercise
rest/sleep
sexual expression
safety
shelter
touch
water		 MEANING
awareness
celebration of life
challenge
clarity
competence
consciousness
contribution
creativity
discovery
efficacy
effectiveness
growth
hope
learning
mourning
participation
purpose
self-expression
stimulation
to matter
understandingAUTONOMY
choice
freedom
independence
space
spontaneity

Sending and Taking Should Be Practiced Alternately.

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Todays email reminders from http://lojongmindtraining.com/

Sending and Taking Should Be Practiced Alternately. These Two Should Ride the Breath

Sending and taking is a very important practice of the Boddhisattva path. It is called tonglen in Tibetan: ‘tong’ means ‘sending out’ or ‘letting go’ and ‘len’ means ‘receiving’ or ‘accepting’. ‘Tonglen’ is a very important term; you should remember it. It is the main practice in the development of relative Bodhicitta.
..
The practice of tonglen is actually quite straightforward ; it is an actual sitting meditation practice. You give away your happiness, your pleasure, anything that feels good. All of that goes out with the outbreath. As you breathe in, you breathe in any resentments and problems, anything that feels bad. The whole point is to remove territoriality altogether.

The practice of tonglen is very simple. We do not first have to sort out our doctrinal definitions of goodness and evil. We simply breathe out any old good and breathe in any old bad. At first we may seem to be relating primarily to our IDEAS of good and bad. But as we go on, it becomes more real.

Sometimes we feel terrible that we are breathing in poison which might kill us and at the same time breathing out whatever little goodness we have. It seems to be completely impractical,. But once we begin to break through, we realize that we have even more goodness and we also have more things to breathe in. So the whole process becomes somewhat balanced…But tonglen should not be used as any kind of antidote. You do not do it and then wait for the effect – you just do it and drop it. It doesn’t matter whether it works or not: if it works, you breathe that out; if it does not work, you breathe that in. So you do not possess anything. That is the point.

Usually you would like to hold on to your goodness. you would like to make a fence around yourself and put everything bad outside it: foreigners, your neighbors, or what have you. You don’t want them to come in. You don’t even want your neighbors to walk their dogs on your property because they might make a mess on your lawn. So in ordinary samsaric life. you don’t send and receive at all. You try as much as possible to guard those pleasant little situations you have created for yourself. You try to put them in a vacuum, like fruit in a tin, completely purified and clean. You try to hold on to as much as you can, and anything outside of your territory is regarded as altogether problematic. You don’t want to catch the local influenza or the local diarrhea attack that is going around. You are constantly trying to ward off as much as you can.

..The Mahayana path is trying to show us that we don’t have to secure ourselves. We can afford to extend out a little bit – quite a bit… if you develop the attitude of being willing to part with your precious things, to give away your precious things to others, that can help begin to create a good reality.

How do we actually practice tonglen? First we think about our parents, or our friends, or anybody who has sacrificed his or her life for our benefit. In many cases, we have never even said thank you to them. It is very important to think about that, not in order to develop guilt but just to realize how mean we have been. We always say “I want”, and they did so much for us, without any complaint… If we do not have that, then we are somewhat in trouble, we begin to hate the world – but there is also a measure for that, which is to breathe in our hatred and resentment of the world. If we do not have good parents, a good mother, or a good person who reflected such a kind attitude toward us to think about, then we can think of ourselves.

..

Just relate to the technique: the discursiveness of it doesn’t matter. when you are out, you are out; when you come in, you are in. When you are hot, you are hot; when you are cool, you are cool… Make it very literal and simple. We don’t want to make this into a revolutionary sort of imagery, mind-oriented social work approach or psychological approach. Let’s do it properly.

From Training the Mind & Cultivating Loving-Kindness by Chogyam Trungpa , copyright 1993 by Diana Mukpo.
(Official Chogyam Trungpa Website)
Published by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston.

In Postmeditation, Be a Child of Illusion

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Todays email reminders from http://lojongmindtraining.com/

In Postmeditation, Be a Child of Illusion

Illusion does not mean haziness, confusion, or mirage. Being a child of illusion means that you continue what you have experienced in your sitting practice [resting in the nature of alaya] into postmeditation experience.

You realize that after sitting practice, you do not have to solidify phenomena. Instead, you can continue your practice and develop some kind of ongoing awareness. If things become heavy and solid, you flash mindfulness and awareness into them. In that way you begin to see that everything is pliable and workable. Your attitude is that the phenomenal world is not evil, that ‘they’ are not out to get you or kill you. Everything is workable and soothing.
..
It’s a very strong phrase, ‘child of illusion’. Think of it. Try to be one. You have plenty of opportunities.

From Training the Mind & Cultivating Loving-Kindness by Chogyam Trungpa , copyright 1993 by Diana Mukpo.
(Official Chogyam Trungpa Website)
Published by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston.

Rest in the Nature of Alaya, the Essence

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 Todays email reminders from http://lojongmindtraining.com/

Rest in the Nature of Alaya, the Essence

The first six types of consciousness are the sensory perceptions: …eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind consciousness. The seventh type of consciousness, nuisance mind, is a kind of conglomeration called nyon-yi.

The idea of resting one’s mind in the basic alaya is to free oneself from that sevenfold mind and rest in simplicity and in clear and nondiscrimination mind. You begin to feel that sight, smell, sound, and everything else is just a production of home ground, or headquarters. you recognize them and then come back to headquarters, where those productions begin to manifest. You just rest in the needlessness of those productions.

The whole logic to process is based on taking it for granted that you trust yourself already, to begin with. You have some kind of relaxation with yourself. This is the idea of ultimate Bodhicitta. You don’t have to run away from yourself all the time in order to get something outside. you can just come home and relax. The idea is to return to home-sweet-home.

Author Unknown

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I am including here because it fits in perfectly with the tonglen and lojong postings and is yet more great material that may prod me to writing.
Enjoy!
Jam

Heavenly Father, Help us
remember that the jerk who cut us off in traffic last night is a single mother who worked nine hours that day and is rushing home to cook dinner, help with homework, do the laundry and spend a few precious moments with her children.

Help us to remember that the
pierced, tattooed, disinterested young man who can’t make change correctly is a worried 19-year-old college student, balancing his apprehension over final exams with his fear of not getting his student loans for next semester.

Remind us, Lord, that the scary
looking bum, begging for money in the same spot every day (who really ought to get a job!) is a slave to addictions that we can only imagine in our worst nightmares.

Help us to remember that the old
couple walking annoyingly slow through the store aisles and blocking our shopping progress are savoring this moment, knowing that, based on the biopsy report she got back last week, this will be the last year that they go shopping together.

Heavenly Father, remind us each
day that, of all the gifts you give us, the greatest gift is love. It is not enough to share that love with those we hold dear. Open our hearts not just to those who are close to us, but to all humanity. Let us be slow to judge and quick to forgive, show patience, empathy and love.

– Author Unknown

Daily Reminders; Regard All Dharmas as Dreams

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Another thing about these email reminders is that they are in the order that they are found in the book that they are taken from, just so you know.                   Available from . . . http://lojongmindtraining.com/

Regard All Dharmas as Dreams

You can experience that dreamlike quality by relating with sitting meditation practice. When you are reflecting on the breath, suddenly discursive thoughts begin to arise; you begin to see things, to hear things, and to feel things. But all those perceptions are none other than your own mental creation. In the same way, you can see that your hate for your enemy, your love for your friends, and your attitude toward money, food, and wealth are all part of discursive thought.

Regarding things as dreams does not mean that you have become fuzzy or woolly, that everything has an edge of sleepiness to it. You might actually have a good dream, vivid and graphic… For instance, if you have participated in group meditation practice, your memory of your meditation cushion and the person who sat in front of you is very vivid, as is your memory of your food and the sound of the gong and the bed you slept in. But none of those situations is regarded as completely invincible and solid and tough. Everything is shifty.

Things have a dreamlike quality. But at the same time, the production of your mind is quite vivid… what you perceive is a product of your mind, using your sense organs as channels for the sense perception.

From Training the Mind & Cultivating Loving-Kindness by Chogyam Trungpa , copyright 1993 by Diana Mukpo.
(Official Chogyam Trungpa Website)
Published by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston.

a virus from outer space

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a la: http://www.acjournal.org/holdings/vol6/iss3/responses/attias/virus.html

“Language,” William S. Burroughs reminded us, “is a virus from outer space.” Performance artist Laurie Anderson adds, “That’s why I’d rather hear your name than see your face.” This metaphor captures beautifully both the power and the danger presented by the task of communicating the “flux of wholeness,” as Heather Raikes describes the rheomode. Raikes’ use of the rheomode suggests that technology might be seen not just as a channel for communication and performance, but more radically as the environment in which subjects serve as conduits for experience.

A virus operates autonomously, without human intervention. It attaches itself to a host and feeds off of it, growing and spreading from host to host. Language infects us; its power derives not from its straightforward ability to communicate or persuade but rather from this infectious nature, this power of bits of language to graft itself onto other bits of language, spreading and reproducing, using human beings as hosts.The notion of the meme — coined in 1976 by Richard Dawkins to illustrate the field of memetics — crystallizes this view of the communication process. Georges Bataille similarly argued that communication was best understood from the perspective of contagion. In Bataille any human being is no more than a conduit for communicative process, a channel for ideas which pass through him/her.”If, as it appears to me, a book is communication, then the author is only a link among many readings.”* The author is simply a node on a network, through which ideas pass.

At stake in such a conception is a radical reworking of the notion of the subject in communicative experience. Bataille writes:

a man is only a particle inserted in unstable and entangled wholes. These wholes are composed in personal life in the form of multiple possibilities, starting with a knowledge that is crossed like a threshold – and the existence of the particle can in no way be isolated from this composition…. This extreme instability of connections alone permits one to introduce, as a puerile but convenient illusion, a representation of isolated existence turning in on itself. (“The Labyrinth,” 174).

Subjectivity is an illusion, one that allows us to operate comfortably in this plane of existence, but which nonetheless masks true reality, in which there is no division between subject and object: “There is no longer subject-object, but a ‘yawning gap‘ between the one and the other and, in the gap, the subject, the object are dissolved; there is passage, communication, but not from one to the other: the one and the other have lost their separate existence” (“The Torment,” 89).