Altar / medium

Alchemy / technique

Spirit / inspiration

It seems there is a place in my memory bank for kb. i can't  pick out one index card  to reference, finding the entire file when assessed + opened. A flood is washed over me w/ memories like scalar wave of ferocious intensity.

trying to play 
along 
alone

If it's not killing me, it is helping me. - Shohaku-san

Again i am reminded how well i can cover up my last mistake w/ the next process.

Taking a lit candle into a smaller room creates the illusion of a brighter light. The glow of  illumination becomes stronger in a more limited space; brightening the space for inspection + introspection.

Work that's neither pretty, nor thoughtful. But pretty thoughtful.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. 
(Macbeth - through Shakespeare)

Kind of like:

The moon in the water; 
Broken and broken again, 
Still it is there. 

~ Choshu. 

My eyes are squeezed shut, blinking inwardly. What am i doing? 
Shhh, i'm researching.

Has it become thus - when someone needs to be either a harasser, or a victim to get attention?

Bashō … Later that year he left Edo on the first of four major wanderings. What a wonderful way to separate the chapters of a life. The meander separating chapters is very thin.

At some point, we need to stop looking for invisible scars, + take our freedom. 

i do not know where this stuff comes from. It comes to me + i report. Wether i believe it or not, is of no consequence.

... and we laughed how our perfection

would always be denied. -Joni Mitchell

A human prerequisite is enduring + contending w/ persistent detours of the mind + body.

Heraclean tasks of the modern world.

1. Capture any solution + wrestle it into reality. 

4. Recognize a nihilistic response + remove the physical challenge that is begging to be violated.

5. Bend two wrongs to make a right.

6. Scare a murder of crows away w/ extraordinary music.

7. Focus your aggressive, uncontrollable humor on a mirror forcing it to reveal itself.

11. Save someone in anguish + then ask if this person has the knowledge you seek.

12. Use a gift as a great persuader.

13. (alternate challenge) Create a shore for Michael to row his boat up on to.

)

Remembering Regrets: 

I do not remember changing the oil in my car in my 20s. 

Meaningless forced social interaction.

Rhythm grammer.

Appreciation / care / gratitude.

I believe in the practice, the ebb + flow that is working w/in the heart of kindness, there is an easy give + take.

i need to be aware of the compassionate moment to be kind + helpful.

Because of fear, rejection, pick any human condition on this side of the scale. i look away, steer away — instead of walking into someone's life for that moment of need. 

When asked, How are you?

We simply shrug off the kindness by saying, I’m okay. When it is obvious to both that something is at hand.

Returning to Blake now + again, is re-entering the slipstream. i’m remembering part of the Four Zoas written by Willi Blake, but i need to find it … i am good at drawing, also at drawing blanks. 

What is the price of Experience? do men buy it for a song

Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price

Of all that a man hath, his house, his wife, his children.

Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy,

And in the wither'd field where the farmer plows for bread in vain.

It is an easy thing to triumph in the summer's sun

And in the vintage and to sing on the wagon loaded with corn.

It is an easy thing to talk of patience to the afflicted,

To speak the laws of prudence to the houseless wanderer,

To listen to the hungry raven's cry in wintry season

When the red blood is fill'd with wine and with the marrow of lambs.

It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements,

To hear the dog howl at the wintry door, the ox in the slaughter house moan;

To see a god on every wind and a blessing on every blast;

To hear sounds of love in the thunder storm that destroys our enemies' house;

To rejoice in the blight that covers his field, and the sickness that cuts off his children,

While our olive and vine sing and laugh round our door, and our children bring fruits and flowers.

Then the groan and the dolor are quite forgotten, and the slave grinding at the mill,

And the captive in chains, and the poor in the prison, and the soldier in the field

When the shatter'd bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead.

It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity:

Thus could I sing and thus rejoice: but it is not so with me.

I read this as a confession + an apology. 

It is poetry, it is telescoped, this is only part of the work, there is much more...

 
A simple note in my apologetic conversation remorse way. 
Chopped up + spread over a page w/out much notice.

unable to refuse

you wait

til re-fuse

dead-eye

fire

IDEA: 

There is fascination with the sacred; even when it is someone else’s.

i do believe there is an aesthetic difference in essence art + personality art. The unknown always seems more mysterious than it needs to be. When it is not on my mind, it's not mysterious at all.

Yes, that is the mood of the day. It will, as ever, make for interesting conversation.

Time is short, even though one can seem to get a lifetime of work done in an afternoon. The lifetimes, real or imagined, stack up in the corner of my desk. It is hard to be one person when we each are so many. Funny how that time thingy expands + contracts.