090327btcbanner.jpg (10006 bytes)


November 23, 2000
 

Space

My friend went away and he left me a garden, a beautiful land of colors and endless surprises. But along with the gift, he left me a job. To take care of it. To clean it. To water it. To make sure that it continued to be alive, recurrently surging out for something that can't be named.

I started out lightly. I put seeds on the bird feeder. I watered, making sure the plants got a "full drink of water" as my friend had instructed. Then one day I started to weed out the little green plants that jump out of every area of uncovered earth. Almost without realizing it, I was on my knees and pulling out little weeds from the root... and I couldn't stop.

As the days passed and I worked more and more, the beautiful sunflower that had dominated the center of the garden started to fade. I watched it decay slowly, the leaves developing holes, the trunk drooping, the main head slowly slumping down. Still I couldn't bring myself to rip it out. "Maybe it will get better... maybe there's something I can do." But the sunflower continued to die way.

One day, in the midst of weeding out the little green plants, I stepped up to the sunflower, grabbed it with both hands and yanked it right out the earth. It broke in a couple of places, it struggled to stay but I pulled hard enough that it finally gave in. I took it to the compost pile, then I came back to smooth out the hole it had left behind. Then I continued to weed.

Today a new sunflower, as big and as beautiful as the last one, stands in the middle of the garden, its golden face to the sun and its leaves green and proud and full of life. I cherish it and love it, even more now because I see its death in every brilliant color.



October 31, 2000

My Old Friend at Midnight

Last night I saw my old friend
He was a kid again
like he used to be
when we ran around
and laughed
and a soda
was the solution to all problems.

He asked me for a song
and I couldn't remember
so I started singing
and a new song came out
and as long as I sang
the song kept on going
and my old friend smiled.

Somewhere beneath
the violence
the anger
the hatred
my old friend still lives
he still smiles
he still runs around
and he wants me
to sing him a song.



October 7, 2000
 

Performance

We played again last night, to a mostly empty restaurant in a side street of the city. People came in and went out, people walked by and saw us from the street, and they smiled or waived and even a mouse came out to listen. And as before we played our music and tried to come together in a somehow harmonious whole. But this time, there was a difference...

A week before I spoke to my friend Doug and a sentence he said to me during our conversation kept on ringing through me as I moved back and forth between the different devices under my control:

"You have to become an Invocant."

Before such a high challenge any secondary worries would shrink and fade until they became invisible. "Are they liking it?", "Is it sounding good?", "Is it loud enough?", "Why are there so few people?"... all these little dwarfish creatures that kept on popping out of my brain were summarily disposed of by the one overriding and truly important question:

"Am I being an Invocant?"

And somewhere in the midst of all the little questions disappearing even the big question vanished... and then there was only presence, attention... and music.



September 30, 2000
 

Keep it Going!

My friend scattered sunflower seeds over the fence of our backyard. They were meant as food for the birds, a tasty little morsel in the midst of a long journey. Inevitably, some of the seeds fell off the fence as the birds ran through them. They fell on the dark soil beneath the fence. A few months later many beautiful sunflowers are spread all over the yard, flowing out from the ground like perfect reminders of what is possible.

I go through the remains of my past... notes to myself, business cards, toys, bits of music, tapes, a bag of dice, a tarot deck. I pick and choose, throwing away bag after bag of undesirable stuff. But here and there, I can see the seeds, the promises of new beginnings, an eternal archetype of light waiting to make a new appearance, a long forgotten melody about to explode into endless variations, a friendship about to be renewed.

The name of the game is "keep it going". The work never ends. The sunflowers are about to drop a new cargo of seeds on fertile soil.



September 19, 2000
 

In the face of constant
change

To imagine a changeless world, a reality where nothing is disturbed and everything remains as it was and always will be, where leaves never fall off a tree or clouds never cover the sky and people don't leave and new ones never appear, is to imagine an endless landscape of ice, a form fixed in space and time, firm in its finality and closed to alteration. Such a world might sometimes seem the worse nightmare... and sometimes the ideal dream.

 


 

September 7, 2000

 

Wheel of Karma

I have heard this forever... literally. I, you and everyone else, we are all on this endless spinning cycle, a wheel from which we try to escape but we cannot, an infinite sequence of reactions that brings us back again and again to the same place, over and over. Every once in a while (but not too often) we become aware of it, but then we fall into the cycle once again and get twirled a couple of hundred times before we manage to remember again.

The other day I saw something. The wheel had wheels within wheels within wheels. And the little ones made up the larger ones. So the really small ones should be within sight. There must be a scale at which this loop becomes visible and somehow graspable to us. And I saw a sequence of small events, moods, machine spaces... about seven in all. Each one deeply familiar. Each one a chamber which I have visited so many times, always with the impression that it was the first time that I had seen it or the last time that I would ever be there. And I saw that the sequence was a loop that fed back into itself.

I am still struggling with this vision. Could it be that this infinite wheel has been before my eyes all along, but I have refused to see it? Could it be that the true wheel of karma does not lie in some other world, beyond human understanding, but just beneath your eyesight, hiding among the smiles of achievement and the tears of disappointment? Could it be hiding right among my discarded notes and my plan for the weekend?



September 3, 2000
 

Dancing

I had peeked into the forbidden, into the empty gray places where we are not welcome, the cloudy deserts of banishment where we are sternly asked not to go. And coming back, I felt confused, undecided, restless. All my purposes seemed less important than they needed to be and too important for me to handle. And I sat alone, lost, for several hours, contemplating the bizarre nature of ultimate questions, the ones that can be asked over and over and always yield new and more frightening answers. I finally left and roamed the city... a whole night of walking and driving, barely touching the world and just barely allowing it to touch me. Eyes wide open and heart in an unpredictable sequence of changing beats....

Beats.

And I came into the place of dancing. Extremely loud music blared from the speakers, endless knots of electronic melody dropped into a recurring deep driving bass beat kept afloat by sparks if crisp rhythmic figurations. And the people were drunk and high and happy, swirling among themselves, in the bright darkness of the club. I stayed back for a while, looking into the smiling faces, and the movements, and then I stepped in.

Melody

My body reacted, my heart found new strength to attempt to break my ribs, my hands stuck to the sides of my body... but the beat continued and a new melody emerged from the deep caves of the speakers. And my eyes watered, and my body let go and I danced. Allowing the sound to flow through me and into me, to move me where I couldn't move, to push me into purpose where there wasn't any. And the gray spaces made sense right then, just for a moment. Purpose in the form of vibration and love in the infinitely heavy pounding of the beat.

And I danced.



August 26, 2000

Death in the Family

We were finishing the first round of rehearsal, it was about 9pm. My mom had come back from El Salvador the night before and we had a performance coming up next week. We had been debating as to the best way that we could approach performing this time... should we have singing? How distorted should we get? How relaxed? I took a break and walked downstairs to say hello to my wife. She asked me if the guys were gone and I said no.

"Your mom told me not to tell you... not until they left... but I'm going to tell you anyway..."

"What?"

"She had some messages in her voice mail... a lot of them... they came in while she was gone... your grandfather Roberto died..."

My first reaction was disbelief, followed by concern for my mom. I rushed upstairs to her room and knocked. She told me to come in.

"What happened?"

"There were like 30 messages in the machine. He has been dead for about two weeks... they still have him at the morgue..."

"How?"

"He was in the hospital... something to do with his heart... he went home and then was rushed back... he died on the way..."

I was still in a suspended state of disbelief, it didn't seem real. I didn't get along with him. In fact we hadn't spoken for more than two years. And yet he seemed like a fixed part of reality, an element of my life which would always be there. I looked at my  mom.

"How are you? Are you... ok?"

She nodded.

"Yes, I'm ok. I don't want to tell your grandmother yet, until we confirm it and we know more of what to do..."

It was my turn to nod... and I heard the guys calling me back. I walked back in a dream, looking around at my friends, joking, arguing, telling stories. And I felt my body trembling softly, the ghost of impermanence flowing through me, reminding me of the preciousness of these moments, of the wonder that vibrates in every second of our lives, and of... music.

So I sat down at my place and we jumped into a new session, my grandfather finding a new life in my fingers.

"Now I am experiencing the Clear Light of Objective Reality..."


 

August 13, 2000


Imminent Danger

I'm driving to the movie store. I'm trying to read the bumper sticker on the car in front but I can't. The sun has set too low. I have to make several left hand turns to get into the parking lot. It's dangerous because if you don't watch out you can hit someone. Or worse yet, someone might hit you.
    And then I'm in the parking lot. It's still very dangerous. People can run into each other. Not a pleasant situation, I can assure you.
    Then I walk inside and start walking the aisles. It's busy. Saturday night. Date night. A young couple with pale faces stand arguing in the "drama" aisle over which movie is better. Which movie is more serious? A portly couple with a stroller are walking away from each other along the comedy aisle. Then they come back towards the center. And they walk back away. They come back again. It's funny because it's true. "That movie stinks," protests the husband. "You are a big fat idiot, Ralph!" She walks back down the aisle looking for where she got it. "And YOU-you're so stupid. . ."  I walk to the nearest wall, hoping to avoid them.
    The "New Releases" are always full of wrestling movies and soft porn: "Seductress of the Night: A man's hidden desires come to life when he meets the woman of his dreams. She's got a body that could KILL. But what he doesn't know is just how far she'll go to... kill." "The Private Dick: He's a private eye with a practice the size of Texas. Until SHE came in, pleading with him to take on her case. Now this private dick has got a new Jane in town." "Wrestle Mania: Now you can bring the excitement and the terror of  real live wrestling into the privacy of your own living room. Crank up the volume and FEEL the thunder!" I look away rapidly.
    I'm scanning the walls, looking for a suitable rental. These  are good. These are good if they have them. Those are revolting... yuck! I find a good one. Then I find another one. I see some others but I know I can only do two at most. That's best. Otherwise I might have to return them without watching them... Save the others for next time.
    I double back in case I missed something. I'm clutching my movies beneath tightly folded arms over my chest, kind of agitated. I don't want anyone to see these. To find me out. I'm standing still. Look out. Looking over at the check out counter, wondering how I'm ever going to get over there.



April 9, 2000
 

Purpose

The question is: what distinguishes a "piece of music" from "random noise". Such answers as "melody", "harmony", "beauty" and "consistent rhythm" are so easily questioned and broken down that they become meaningless. And yet, when we listen closely, there is something that we all notice as different, something that we request from what we call "music" which we don't find in what we call "noise".

About seven years ago, I stood up in a dark room and danced. Suddenly, the distinction between the particles that formed my body, the ones that shaped the floor and walls, and the ones that constantly shifted in the substance we call "air" was gone. Not only that, but they were all notes, basic little building blocks of great unheard symphonies. And far from being inanimate and dead, they were alive and singing.

I had been lying down for a long time, feeling separate, alienated, alone. Until I heard the choruses, the interlocking rhythms, the recurring patterns, the flowing chords resolving in the bridge of light falling through the window, on its way from the moon. And I was not contributing. I was rejecting the music and contracting into a fever of dark silence.

Until I danced. And what had been pointless noise all around me, shapes without reason, became the most glorious music I had ever heard. The difference was clear and the questions were forgotten... for a while.



March 30, 2000
 

Memories in the Walls

We walked through a narrow corridor between the tables next to the windows and the inner wall leading nowhere. The place was empty except for us and the manager of the little club who was tonight serving as our tour guide. He pointed out the advantages of the place, the many strategically placed speakers, the flexibility of the arrangement of the tables, the speed of the bartenders.

I could only understand about half of what he said. He seemed to have been drinking or doing some other kind of narcotic substance. I focused on his mannerisms, his strangely familiar smile (eyes tightly squeezed, lips pulled close together and outwards), his red eyes, his constantly moving skinny hands.

What kind of things have happened in a place like this? How many unconscious acts have left their echoes behind in these walls? The smells of alcohol, disinfectant and paint combine with something else, a kind of cloud of karmic vibrations that gyrates around and around within the narrow confines of the night club.

"We would be glad to have you guys come and play here! This is a good club... small and a bit old fashioned, but good!"

What is then our Work role in a place like this? Can the echoes be forced to retreat? Can the cloud be dissolved? Or are such goals too heavy and unreachable for a little band of dreamer musicians like ourselves?

"Thanks for showing us the place. We'll talk to you soon."

We leave and the air becomes lighter as soon as we cross the doors. But somewhere in that dark, smelly, strange little place there is an opportunity to do something we have never done before.


March 8, 2000
 

Choices and Motion

I have noticed an enemy within me.

It takes the form of a little old man with glasses, hovering over a little old desk, leaning back and forth in his little old chair, furrowing his little old face. He looks around and around the room continuously. Searching for a new thing to do but unsure of what that thing should be. There are so many possible projects... it is a bit overwhelming. "We will have to think this over carefully..."

When he finally decides what to do, he sits and worries over how to do it. "We could approach it from this direction... but then again, this other one is so interesting... but is it profound enough?" His wrinkled hands move softly over piles of notes and graphs... all referring to the myriad possible paths to follow. Then, just as he is about to decide which way to go, one of the pens runs out of ink.

He nearly cries. Stands up and starts looking for ink. There is no ink in the room. So he will have to leave the house, go out and buy ink and return.

"But... there are other pens in the room... there are lots of pens!", I say.

"NO! I have to use this one pen... it is the perfect pen!"

And he listens no further. He is already worrying over where to go to buy the ink. This will have to be thought through very carefully...


March 2, 2000
 

Escape

Today it hits me that, ever since my eyes first opened, I have been in a mad rush to escape, to find any way to avoid, to open any doorway to get away from... what?

What is it that runs madly at my back, that is ever so close and which I barely avoid with a constant flux of movement and thought. What is back there just at the edge of my attention, seemingly flickering at the edge of my eyes, just beyond the reaches of my perception?

Whatever it is, it is the source of all my fear and from that fear stem all my actions, all my decisions, all my impulsive mechanical moves that drive me farther and farther away from my Work.

The curious thing is that, even knowing that it's there, that it is at my heels and that I have no knowledge of its nature or its true intentions, I still hide from it, endlessly.

When will I stop running?

 

 

February 26, 2000

Teotihuacan

About seven years ago I visited Teotihuacan, the City of the Gods, with my Dad. Another one of those regulation stops in a tourist tour of Mexico. When we arrived there were great crowds of tourists from all over the world taking picture after picture (in fact, it sometimes seemed like they were so busy taking pictures that they never stopped to look at the ruins) as well as great crowds of school children on field trips. There were many peddlers ("Get your little clay pyramid here!", "Snow cones in the shaped of the sun pyramid!", "Tacos! Tacos!") and the droning voices of tourist guides as they crossed paths through the ruins.

But there was something else as well. Something that had somehow survived the millennia. Hidden in the open. Breathing through cracks of mud and feeding from scraps of attention and memory. Reaching out invisibly to the visitors. Calling out in fractured frequencies.

This something shook my Dad and it shook me. We both were suddenly alone in the midst of the crowd, wandering at what had been hidden in these great constructions of stone... and hidden so well that it still wasn't completely broken (not by the Conquistadores, not by the Colonial governments, not by the Republic of Mexico, not by the tourist and explorers from all over the planet).

We stayed there the whole afternoon, walking among the ruins and talking...and talking and talking. There was something here that needed to be expressed and we were both making our best attempt at trying to find the right words for what this something was.

Seven years later, I asked my Dad to write an article that could somehow summarize our long conversations. This is definitely not a definitive statement, nor anything even close, but we both hope that it might give a glimpse of what lies in the valleys south of Mexico City.

Click here for the article.

 

 

February 16, 2000

Cause and Effect

Let get right down it, shall we? Magic has a bad image in the west because of its seeming ignorance of the "laws" of cause and effect. No? Shake this bone three times while chanting the ancient incantation of Anuki and then jump rope seven times and... voila! A chariot will appear with the God of will and prosperity on it, surrounded by two lovely maidens and five hungry beasts, and he will rain gifts on you and your people forever and ever! Right?

Of course, then you try it. You go out of your way to get just the right bone, you travel far to first find the incantation and then farther still to recover its original pronunciation and then locate just the right rope. With extreme care, you plan out all the right moves, the right time of day and the right day of the year. You focus all your attention on the ritual and finish exhausted and... voila! ....

Nothing happens.

"Magic is no good! Magic is crap!" You start saying it softly but then it gains strength until it becomes a loud scream and then a little voice that will be with you the rest of your life... "yes, there was a time I believed in magic and such but I realized the error of my ways..."

And so you go on to live a productive life, safe within the boundaries of Western cause and effect. Maybe once in a while you wander "Did I miss something? Was there something I didn't do? Maybe there was more to it than I realized..." but you dismiss such questions as a waste of time and forget al about Anuki and the incantations.

But... what if there was something that you did miss? What could it be?

 

 

February 8, 2000
 

Identification

My attention flows from place to place, from that spot on the window to the little article in the newspaper that I forgot to read yesterday to what that person said to me on the street yesterday (what were they thinking? what should I have said?) and then suddenly it comes to rest on one purpose, one final and complete purpose which must be fulfilled to the exclusion of anything and everything else. Nothing else matters, nothing can touch the fire that pushes me forward in my quest. And so conversations are broken, papers are left to wait, email goes unanswered while I delve deeper and deeper into the one point of light that makes all else fade away into darkness. Attention firmly entangled, separate from all things around it, a veil of forgetfulness covering all other commitments, all other promises.

And then the purpose is fulfilled and my attention goes back to its free flight, its endless wandering... awaiting the next space of complete identification.

The waiting period won't be long.

 

 

February 1, 2000

Where have we been? HUH???

Well...
It's a long story, but I will try to take a couple of short cuts and tell it to you. About a year ago, a big karmic Work storm hit our little group, the winds came flashing from every direction, there was cruel lightning and the waves threatened to crush our little boat in their wake. Some of us left, others stayed but in a state of panic. The remainder noticed the little black door at the bottom of the ship.

"Hey! Where does this go?"

"Oh no! We were told never to open that door!"

A look of concern mixed in with curiosity.

"Yeah... but where does it go???"

A shrug of the shoulders, a whispered mention of the ancient arts of shape shifting and dimensional travel and...

Off we went!

So what was there beneath the black door at the bottom of the ship? You can view the first results here:

http://www.deconstructionist.com/blacknote/

Now the door is open. And there is a lot more to come. Stay tuned.

 


Up ]


This Site is a member of the Ring of Fnords:
the only Discordian CyberCabal on the WWW.
You can navigate through the ring by using the following buttons:

[ Previous Site | Home (Join the ring) | Next Site | Next 5 Sites | Random Site ]

 


Send comments, questions and reactions to jcmg@earthlink.net

Bardo Workshops ] Radio Free Clear Light ] Bardo Doorways ] Bardo News and Views ] The Electric Fields of Life ] Contact The Bardo Training Center of San Francisco ] What is Bardo Training 1 ] Bardo Bookstore ] Many Pathways to the Bardo ] Bardo Poetry ] Talks & Workshops ]