Thursday, December 17, 2009

Fractals, Time, Circular Thought, Galactic Cosmos: An Exercise in Tantric Consciousness


Abstraction A: Fractals


This is a visual mapping of a fractal set. It is also clearly a mandala. Let us think about this. The seed syllable of the deity is the originating point of the essence of the mandala. If the seed syllable could be imagined as the starting point of the fractal, the endless repetition of the starting point becomes the emanation of the principle deity outward from the center. From this pattern of emanation arises the structure of the mandala palace, in which the deity abides. In this way, this image and the images of fractals below are visual representations of the mathematics of cosmic vibration, the cosmic ratios of space. This provides an argument in favor of Tantric metaphysics which argue that the mandala is inherent in the fabric of the cosmos, that paintings of mandalas are not created images, but revealed. It also supports the necessity of accurate proportions in the portrayal of mandalas. Fractals are not approximate, they are precise patterns based on exact calculations, as are mandalas.










Abstraction B: Circular Thought (Finding the Center)





Crop circles are geometrical patterns constructed in fields of crops. their origin is mysterious. some say they are made by extraterrestrials, or inter-dimensional beings, or they're fixed energy patterns known to the ancients but long forgotten, or that they're just hoaxes, created by crafty human hands and nothing more. where they come from, however, is not what's important. rather, it is how the human mind attempts to make sense of mystery and symbol, and how human minds necessarily ascribe meaning to symbols.


How do we make the vastness of the universe tangible? By creating it in space, visually. the universe is evolving in my mind. I am going to learn how to speak the language everyone understands. subtle sense faculties.


what would 17th century philosopher benedict de spinoza say about crop circles? that they are nothing more and nothing less than a phenomena of nature, the causes of which surpass our faculty of understanding. he completely refutes any possibility of miracles. (which hume borrowed without recognition in 'of miracles'.) now, spinoza's conception of nature is as all encompassing as and identical to God. god is nature. fact. the power of god surpasses our conceptual faculties, therefore the power of nature surpasses our conceptual faculties. that is why there are natural marvels of mysterious origin throughout the planet. crop circles are only one example. the fabric of the universe is a vibrating frequency of light which shifts in an out of different patterns, creating and undoing ceaselessly. order into chaos. order out of chaos. it is merely shifting patterns. galaxies are nothing less than this. their basic patterns are the elements, which give off a color, which is an energy frequency. these energy frequencies encounter each other and create change and balance. change is a balancing act.


crop circles are an encounter with the unexplained. when human beings encounter the unexplained, their minds, confronted with their own ignorance, instantly attempt to explain it. that is the marvel of human intellect: to recognize the limits of your consciousness, and have reason reveal that this too is part of the pattern.


every moment is an experiment in consciousness. every experience is an experiment in emptiness. every moment must count. every moment is right now. everything is always happening all at once. without everything nothing could be. everything is real. but nothing can be without everything else. one thing necessitates all things. from one. a circle is one, but it is infinitely expanding. a circle can always get bigger. the depth of human thought expands with our knowledge of the cosmos. as i sit here i ponder a nebula. because that nebula exists in the same universe as i do, as i sit here on this chair in this room on this floor in this building on this block in this city in this country on this continent on this circle. the circle we walk in everyday. no matter where we walk, we are always walking in a circle. from the moment we rise to our feet to the moment we rest on our backs, we never stop moving in a circle. sure it's not a perfect circle. that's hardly the point. it is meant figuratively. our orbit around the sun is an elliptical path, so it is like this: we are moving on a circular trajectory the center of which is always being moved. the pattern is always being slightly offset by some force. it's being pushed, challenged. despite the push, the pattern never falters. it is consistent. the zero-point of the continuum establishes balance with the ceaseless re-centering of this trajectory.


it is a fact that the conceptual mind experiences material reality in three dimensions. but within those three dimensions there are infinite dimensions. it's fractals, simply put.


this image of fractal patterning appears to me to be a field of buddha fields, all intersecting and merging, not unlike the collision of galaxies. the point is not where it is but the fact that the circle is always centered. always. the point is not that the center exist out there, but that it exist in the mind. that is how visualization mediation produces realization. by creating an enlightened space the entire architecture of which is united with your mind, you become the center of the universe. you are the singular zero-point, the placeless center from which the universe is created in every moment. there are no dead ends. everyone deserves a beautiful life. and buddha helped give it to others. sometimes i feel like a pratyeka buddha. like i have experience true, all encompassing enlightenment. i have experienced the depth of emptiness. i discovered a gem in indra's net on the platform of a subway in brooklyn new york, on all saints' eve. it was a circle. an empty circle. on an earring. i recently lost a similar earring, found it a month later, then lost the other one a few days after that. and another earring a few days after that. one two one one. one two one one. one two one one. one two one one. one two one one. 5.


this is the reality of my conceptual process, which is circular. time is not linear. the universe is not linear. even light bends. my mind is made of light, so it bends with the light. plants bend with the light. crop circles possess their power as the center of bent light. that light is energy, and the pattern, whatever its source, even produced in a ritual manner by humans (hoax circles), is in that respect entirely analogous to a mandala. mandalas are not defined by the image so much as its function. certainly the pattern is important, but only with regard to how it coalesces the existing light in a visually approximate way. the ground is only the point of departure. there are dimensions radiating outward from every point in space. and their are infinite points in space. and every point is a center. finding the center is a matter of knowing where a circle begins. and it begins at the center and moves outward in a circular motion. like a fractal. like some crop circles. like mandalas. like stupas. like an orbit. the center is constantly moving and constantly remains the same.


crop circles could be anywhere. they're hardly different from any other pattern found in nature. there are faces, figures, shapes, everything stamped on the surface of this planet. just because we don't see it doesn't mean its not there. padmasambhava understood this. that is how he conquered the volatile natural forces of tibet. knowledge is limitlessly attainable in every moment. there are no good and bad. tantra allows all, because all is full of emptiness. with nothing there is the possibility of everything. in the empty space of a field appears a circle. it is mysterious, and we contemplate it. in the empty space of a piece of paper, words appear. we discover our own mysteries. and we discover our own truths. truth is freedom. mysteries free our minds from the confines of conventional thinking.



Abstraction C: Time Does Not Exist


time is circular. a wall clock is round, a circle. around and around it goes. the line from the center to the periphery is the present moment. everything falls within its trajectory at the exact same moment. time is infinite clocks all measuring the same infinite moment. and yet the mind is always happening in the moment, the eternal present, the perfect center. it is as the dalai lama said: we are all the center of the universe in our minds. but what does it mean to stand in the center of ones mind, the cosmic clock? time does not exist linearly, but in circles, always moving around. yet the measurement of time begins in the center. when you stand in the center of the clock, time exists only in the centrality of the moment where you stand in relation to it. in that way, you are the center of time, the determining factor in the experience of the moment.


Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Finals. Bitch. I got this.

Monday, December 14, 2009

I know I'm smart enough to pull this off. Get ready.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Two in a Pair

I was sitting in the courtyard at school, in the Northwest corner. I was smoking with a few friends, when I abruptly look at the ground over my left shoulder. Sitting on top of the dirt was an earring I had misplaced perhaps a month ago. I exclaimed, "Oh my God!" and picked it out of the dirt. I brushed the dirt off and marveled at my discovery. Since noticing it was missing, I was of the conviction that it was surely somewhere in my room. It never occurred to me that it might have been lost at school. Needless to say, I was surprised to see it in the courtyard. However, I am quite happy that the universe was kind enough to return it to me. My ears missed the earrings and the other earring missed its sister.

Dream Upon Waking

Mecca and Babylon were competing soccer teams having a match. Mecca wore red, and Babylon wore Blue. But this was no ordinary soccer match. They were playing with two balls, which were also the prize. One was the sun, the other was the moon.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Where "I" ends, everything begins.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

yesterday morning i had a dream

Today I went to a museum. There, I saw a vajra and vajra bell, separated from me by glass. When we left it snowed lightly. No cars dropped out of the sky, of course... but still.

Friday, November 27, 2009

I dreamt this morning. After waking up at 4am, and falling back to sleep shortly after 5am. I don't remember much, but I remember the feeling of spontaneous magic, serendipitous coincidences, and cosmic energy. It was a feeling I had been longing for and asked for before drifting off to sleep again....


It was snowing. LMc and I were in an antique shop. In a display case by the register there was a large vajra or vajra bell. I held my hand over it and felt an incredibly strong current of energy passing into my hand through the glass. That caught the shop owner's eye and she and I spoke for a while about energies. I took a job application and she introduced me to her other employees. Then, as I was drinking something, the shop owner, a middle-aged woman with long light brown hair put a pill in her mouth and remarked that she and her employees had to go to their AA meeting. So LMc and I went up to a roof deck and watched the snow falling. But after a while, we got in a car. I was sitting alone in the back seat. The snow was falling in blankets, and the wind was whipping the giant flakes through the air. We drove down a road well lit by the moon. Suddenly the gusts of wind picked up, and cars literally were dropping out of the air onto the road, six or seven of them. One was your car, but it was empty of passengers. Then a ferrari or lamborghini the same color as your car stopped directly opposite my window. I looked out and there you were, sitting in the passenger seat beside some friend. I was so stunned to see you there I immediately jumped out of the car, as did you. You introduced me to your friend, in his car. I shook his hand, then he put my hand in yours. I woke up shortly thereafter.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Dream Life

I feel your lips on mine as I lay alone in bed. A feeling I've never felt yet remember intimately. Good night, I miss you. Yet I hold my tongue while you are in retreat. Good night, see you sometime soon. See you tonight.

One Time, All Time, One Moment, This Moment

One time, I dropped acid that bathed me in light. I have no doubt about the visions that subsequently I was invited to have. My hand discovered its natural ability to reveal truth. My pen is my sword is my magic wand. Its fire is purple and green. Its air is orange and red. Its earth is brown and black. And its water is blue and gold. It embodies the irreversible rotation of the mandala of earth around the sun. A straight line is just a circle viewed from zero degrees. I see things, beautiful things, everywhere, and they only belong to me through the transitoriness of the succession of moments. There is nothing to fear because there is nothing to lose. My identity only exists through a shattered mirror, reflected in the pieces of other consciousnesses looking outward. Practice looking through the mirror inside one self. It is called clear light, and it is undifferentiated. The unity of one is the unity of all. I have siddhi, but I don't know how to use it. Oh, but I do. Through my pen. The pen that is held in a hand that begrudgingly rests. It is bursting with creative energy. It wants nothing more for ever than to be put to use. When my brain stops working at what to say and gives the hand freedom to say whatever the paper reveals, that is my pwer. My magical power of pen and ink to reveal what is already always present and ever obvious.

***

I spend too much time unsuccessfully telling my thoughts what to think. They don't decide what they do, they just do it. By attempting to ignore a thought, it only becomes all the more obvious. I'm listening to my thoughts and feelings and expressing them, and I feel incredibly calm, and content, and energetic. Sometimes the weight of cosmic responsibility collapses on me. I must turn that collapse into expansiveness. I am trying to, from within to without, the opposition of macro- and microcosms is increasingly meaningless from day to day. The transition from day to day has become increasingly arbitrary as I train my mind to be present in the singularity of momentariness. Words are just approximations of what feelings sound like. Art is just approximately what the experience of feeling and the feeling of experience look like. My mind has been shackled, but now my writing hand remembers how to be honest and channel all that dark energy into illuminating words, symbols on the paper. The last few years I forgot how to write for myself. I was writing with suspicion, and always the secrets and doubt remained, keeping the truth from myself for fear of discovery by others. It remained, pent up inside, piling up until there was no room left for new feelings. It's about time I cleared things out, internally and externally. Not being secure enough to even express myself in the one way that has always come most naturally... that would make anyone depressed. This feels amazing. I can quite literally feel pent up energy in my neck unknotting through the practice of writing these words. It is a warming, relaxing of tension around my ears where my skull meets my neck. It is an unusual sensation, but it feels good since the discomfort is just the tension draining out of my muscles. Now it is passing through my shoulders, unknotting the tangles between my shoulder blades. I never would have put together that not writing was cause the physical embodiment of my stress. I always assumed it was not exercising. But if I think about it metaphorically, I haven't been exercising my mind or my heart because I haven't been writing. I feel more balanced and relaxed in this moment than I have in years, and as I write this another knot of energy in my right shoulder unwinds itself and passes down my arm into my hand. I'm quite pleased to feel the tension in my back relaxing but I feel that it is happening slowly, and there is a lot of built up tension in there. About two years worth of pent up energy and emotional strain. Why do I always deny myself the pleasure of writing from my heart? In writing and art even pain becomes beautiful through creative expression. Pain is constructive, positive through its capacity to reveal beauty. That is the utility of art, to present ways of seeing beauty that are not always apparent. I had somehow narrowed my expressiveness to such a small portion of how I experience this reality that I forgot how real all those other feelings and experiences are. I am positive that I will sleep restfully tonight, and will dream easily. It is so much easier to just write what I'm thinking instead of thinking in circles about what I am thinking. Better to get all the thoughts out so there will be room for new ones to come in. I feel as thought a drain has finally been unclogged and I am no longer sitting in a tub of tepid, filthy water. All the unclean particles have been washed off, so I can drain and wash the tub so it will be clean for the next time I need to wash my brain out. All of these unexpressed thoughts have been obscuring my vision so much I could hardly distinguish what all the words on all the papers I wrote were supposed to mean. I'm saying what I mean now. My heart is in someone else's care. I am terrified by being out of control of it, and at the same time it is liberating to not have to mind it myself. I know it is safe; I just don't know how much attention, how much love is being shared with it. I sometimes feel that its caregiver resents his responsibility and neglects it, but that he also realizes its vulnerability, paying it enough tenderness so as not to inadvertently injure it. It's simply too vulnerable to be transported around. I suppose the place where my heart is right now is its true home, in the place and with the person that facilitated its coming into being, its reincarnation, when its wounds were filled with gold and closed with golden stitches, and forever watched over by my third eye, a wide-open sparkling green iris... and finally sealed with a reverse S, the mirror image of my Self. I can't bear to ask for it back, because it isn't worth the risk of harm. But I know he feels its beat. My magic is real to those who know how to recognize it, and I feel he does even when my thoughts doubt him. And I must ultimately obey my feelings, because they are true no matter how I might rationalize them. My heart is out of my hands, and I must obey them, obey his touch.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Uncertainty = Possibility

Potential and very approximate course of action after graduation

Move home for 2-3 months, save money, spend time with ailing grandparents.
Move to Dharamsala for 3-4 months, study Buddhism, Tibetan language, and volunteer as and English teacher.
Apply to Peace Corp.
Get in to Peace Corp, spend two years helping people
Apply to graduate school
Probably Naropa Univ for MDiv in Buddhist Studies
Graduate after 3 years.
Help people.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Reflection on Beauty

I grant myself the conceit that although I do not need external validation of my appearance, nonetheless, it is a good feeling when I pass a man on the street in my neighborhood and he takes it as his personal responsibility to tell me, "Oh my god, you're beautiful. You really are gorgeous," and continue to shout similar comments at me as I walk on. I don't consider myself to have show-stopping good looks, but I realize that it really just depends who is in the audience.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Why this Monday sucked

I misplaced my camera sometime around noon and didn't even realize it until 5pm. Luckily, I lost it at school and someone turned it in. Also, I forgot to unplug my charger in the reading room because I was in such a hurry to get out at 10pm. I had just paid $86 for it less than two weeks ago. As of 11:20, it was inconclusive whether it was lost or found, because the security guard at the desk couldn't be bothered to walk 20 feet to see if it was still plugged into the wall. I am banking on the fact that there were so few people in there when I left that no one took it and one of the librarians found it and turned it in. Please let this be true. I can't afford another stupid $86 charger. I'm not speaking figuratively either, in the sense that it would be a financial pain in the ass to replace it. I literally do not have enough money in my bank account, which was another wonderful discovery I enjoyed today.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Love

I am hopelessly in love with everyone.

Some weeks ago I entrusted a magical clay model of my heart which I had crafted to a dear friend. But now, I feel that my heart is beyond my control, being in the care of someone else. There are times when the feeling of vulnerability that inevitably arises from such a scenario becomes such a source of anxiety that I wish for my heart back. But it is so fragile, so soft and easily bruised and scarred, that I don't trust myself to take it back into my possession. To keep it in one place, where I can't injure it, seems more secure. For the sake of my heart, I leave it in his care. And at night when I drift to sleep, I feel it beating in the same room as his heart, and I know it is in gentle hands.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Duality

All concepts, good/bad, right/wrong, exist only in opposition together and only through the conceptual faculty of the mind.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Walking On a Sprained Ankle Yet Feeling No Pain

Here I stand, waiting for the subway again. I'm going to the place where my things (why things?) are. But you are all I can think/feel of. You are mine, you are me, which makes a "we". I try, how I try, not to long for you. But I miss you. Every moment we're apart. Every moment when I'm not in the presence of your warmth. Every moment, every present moment, you're with me. My love, all my love, comes from and goes to you.

The loneliness you feel, say no more. Mi amor. I feel every acute emotion you feel. "I" feel "you". My darling, my dearest, I know how essential this distance is. I know why I am why you pull away and pull me near. The distance is what keeps you dear. Never have I ever known a feeling much truer than this. I am with you and without you now. My darling, my dearest. My baby, my most cherished soul. All the things I think to say are true to only you. My darling, my dearest, myself.

Man-made Mountains of Mass Construction

The folly of thinking the future will ever be found.

Free Associations of Body/Speech/Mind

Phase 1
Day in, day out. Dayan, day off. Off sides offline off the map; the map of Imperial China. Made in China. Made in the 80s. Eight teas, please. Please do not lean on doors. Doors of perception. Rejection. Conception. Conceptualization. Imitation. Fascination. Fascist regimes. Diet regimen. Rudimentary. Commentary. Common place. Place of business. Mind your own. Mind your I. I am no eye. Eyes on the prize. Prized peach. Peach cobbler. Cobblestones. Stone-cold fox. Fox-fur collar. Collard greens. Green Peace. Piece of me. Me and you. You and I. I don't know what to say, when you give me that look. Look at me looking at you. You see fire in its elementary form. Igniting feelings. Knowing for certain without reference to concepts. What is said cannot drown out what is not. Say it because you really mean it. Be mean to me if need be. Need me because you love me, don't love me because you need me.

Phase 2
Inspired by a sire who arouses my desire.

Phase 3
He who doesn't even have to touch me to stoke my fire. It is entirely not up to me to just be me. I can find no "me" without your "me" beside me. I love the love that grows from love. You're thawing the frost that so many dark winters had formed on my heart.

Phase 4
Selfless love is the greatest accomplishment one could ever aspire to achieve.

Phase 5
Once you decenter your self, the center arises naturally everywhere.

Phase 6
There is no space between us, even when we're apart.

Phase 7
"Swing on the spiral of our divinity," the prophet says. I've swung back to earth and brought divinity with me.

Phase 8
Pieces are falling into place just in time for the veil to completely unravel.

Phase 9
Sometimes I hear you say things with your heart and mind
"There's no love in fear," the prophet says. Without a self, there is nothing to fear, so all becomes love.
directly to my heart and mind, because the space between us is as empty as a mirage.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

_18_0666


_18_0666
Originally uploaded by Vulgar Wheats

The temple at Tashi Jong Monastery

_22_0670


_22_0670
Originally uploaded by Vulgar Wheats

Child monks learning to read and spell at the Tashi Jong Monastery

_31_0679


_31_0679
Originally uploaded by Vulgar Wheats

A lone elephant on the road to Bir

_34_0682


_34_0682
Originally uploaded by Vulgar Wheats

On the road to Bir

_30_0793


_30_0793
Originally uploaded by Vulgar Wheats

Old meets new

_32_0795


_32_0795
Originally uploaded by Vulgar Wheats

Early morning on Jogiwara Road

Reaction paper #3, Mandala: Tantric Visions


I have been attempting to cultivate an awareness of mandala into my daily experience. It is my way of informally participating in the mandala experience. There are two dimensions to cultivating such awareness: mental and physical. Both of these can be internally or externally manifested, and they are all closely linked to one another.

Internally, mental awareness of the mandala involves literally keeping the idea of mandala in mind. That could mean visualizing it to the best of one’s ability, or as I have been doing, visualizing the circumference of my mind as a mandala, locating the five Buddha families in the different directions, and attempting to assign dimensions of my psychological faculties in accordance with the characteristics of the five families. I oriented the mandala in such a way as to place Akshobya at the back of my mind, Ratnasambhava in the south, or above my left ear, Amitabha in the west, or at my third eye, and Amoghasiddhi at the north, or above my right ear, and of course, Vairocana in the center of my mind, radiating white light. It is a meditative exercise I engage in usually while unoccupied on the subway. Also there is a clearly physical dimension to this mental exercise, transposing the cosmic model of the mandala onto the microcosm of thought space. Another mental exercise I practice is visualizing mandala on surfaces around me. This likewise synthesizes the mental and the physical, and helps me in realizing the no-ground of emptiness, and the everywhereness of the cosmic architecture of mandala, in external phenomena and the internal fabric of thought.

The more explicitly physical or external ways of realizing mandala have been occurring as I explore possibilities for my creative project. I have been seeing mandalas everywhere in mundane physical objects, such as bowls, mirrors, plates, spiderwebs, fireworks, water ripples, and in more esoteric physical phenomena such as crop circles and megalithic structures such as Stonehenge. Some of these things are mysterious, their esoteric meaning having been closed by the doors of time, while others were never constructed with the intent to be read esoterically. Still, attempting to read these structures reveals the pervasiveness of circular imagery in the mundane as well as the exotic. It speaks to a collective experience of spatial harmony that not only supports the Vajrayana understanding of the essence of mind, tathagatagarba, but modern psychological understandings as well. I think that through these exercises in attempting to experience mandala in my everyday life, to perform mandala in an informally routine way, both internally and externally, has cultivated a new way of experiencing conventional reality that was not so readily accessible to me prior to this course. It has become so natural to me that I draw fundamental mandalas on my notes, create them out of clay, and even notice that my multi-colored pen is arranged almost perfectly according to the five family configuration, the one exception being that in place of yellow, there is black. And sometimes I even visualize myself as always standing at the summit of a mountain (Mt. Meru, perhaps?), regardless of my actual physical surroundings. I find externalizing the internal and internalizing the external is blurring the boundaries of both, creating a more fluid ground (or is it no-ground?) upon which I experience reality/emptiness/Dharma. And the vocabulary of mandala and Vajrayana lends me the language through which to express that experience, to the extent that it can be conveyed conceptually.


Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Secret Lines

As I sat in class today, the overwhelming urge to weave a map of the universe arose. I had no choice but to retrieve my loom and thread it with the fibers of flaming feathers. The fundamental nature of my heart has been awakening, a love of all things, an appreciation of the beauty of all phenomena. From that awakening has spawned a drive towards selflessness, a need to give to others; a need to give love, all my love, unconditionally. Whenever I weave this fabric, I stretch the limits of my self. Mapping the universe, I map the route to my heart. In forgetting myself, I remember all those without whom "I" am nothing. All I hope is to teach all those I love how to read my map, so they can likewise follow the secret lines to the hidden treasures of their hearts.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Passion Pit

Not only is this video great, but the song is beautiful, and deserving of any dancer's booty shaking.

Padmasambhava, the Lotus Born

This painting is tantric in its indulgent sensuality. Even though Padmasambhava is sitting alone on his lotus throne, this aura of mystical energy is exuded through the vibrancy of the color tone. As a vibration of light, there is a tonal quality, a low frequency mantra that one can quite clearly feel. Although the colors in the background are quite subdued blue and red, they remain vibrantly clear. The landscape appears energetic, verging on tempestuous. The clouds appear to be moving swiftly and the water is churning. The trees almost look like fire, and there is a circle of smoke encircling a mountain. It has the feel of charnel grounds. It seems like this is a sublime rendering of the mastery of samsara. The elements of air, earth, fire and water create a 3 dimensional mandala, in the center of which Padmasambhava sits upon a lotus cushion. He has one face and two hands. He is sitting in a relaxed posed. He is crowned, and his long hair falls over his shoulders. In his right hand he holds a vajra. There is a sublime symmetry that is more a feeling than something one sees. The symmetry of it hits the observer along points in ones body. It is a current of energy, a vibration of light that is sound. A banner is hanging from his staff, a sign of victory. The gold adorning his robe erupts with vibrancy from the surface of the image, mirroring the light of the observers mind and returning it on the same current. It is very easy to imagine tantric art in terms of energy wavelengths. There is a palpable presence to the images that is evoked purposefully by a master, or sublime artist, in Thinley Norbu's words. The creativity of the artist is to render something sublime with coarse materials. This painting seems to be a representation of a danger inherent not on in Tantra, but in the rendering of the painting. It evokes both the dangerous potential of Tantra and the sublime beauty of it. Even the air, which feels empty, is simultaneously full. There is a saturation of energy, catalyzed by ritual empowerment that crystallizes in the materials of the painting, its vajra body.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

If only compassion were currency.
tool. depeche mode. smashing pumpkins. espanol.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Briefly

I have a new thesis topic and advisor. New thesis: "The Place of Sacred Space in Constructing Tibetan Identity in Diaspora".

I'm loving my Buddhism classes ("Mandala: Visions of Tantric Buddhism" and "Buddhist Ethics"), except at this point they are all review. I'm trying to wait patiently until we get to the meat.

This past week I finally worked out the kinks and officially registered my independent study "Reading Classical Literary Tibetan" with my thesis advisor.

I'm still intent on returning to Mcleodganj in the spring.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Pieces, and the Places Where They Fall

So, I moved to the Bronx. It's ideally non-ideal. I'm renting a spare room in my friend's apartment, and he's only asked me to pay $200 a month. That is inexpensive enough that I can save up to return to Dharamsala following graduation. It's also so far removed from my usual social scene that I simply won't participate in it this semester, which is helpful for cutting attachments before leaving the city for good.

I ran into the Dean and Associate Dean of my college at school last week, and had the opportunity to talk to both of them together regarding changing my senior thesis topic so that I can continue with what I started in my final paper for the Dharamsala program. They were both very supportive, especially after I told them how much I appreciated the program and my plans to return. For once someone finally said there's no point in writing my senior work just to do it; that it should be relevant to my future research interests. So they're going to help me find an advisor, and lifted a registration hold on one of the classes I will need to take this semester in order to change my specialization from Literature and Religion to Buddhist Studies. Now all I have to do is wait and see if the professor they have in mind as an advisor will agree to work with me. Oh, I do have to write a new proposal, but it shouldn't be too difficult considering I already have an 8 page paper to work with and an abundance of sources from this summer. I plan on busting it out this weekend.

Also, I've been going to Cafe Himalaya up to three times a week for momos and milk tea. It is a little taste of Tibet in New York.

Otherwise, I have been doing some preliminary research into volunteer opportunities in Dharamsala. Right now it seems Volunteer Tibet is my strongest option, with numerous volunteer positions for English teachers and tutors in Dharamsala and other regions, including Sikkim and Kathmandu.

My tentative plan is to be back in Dharamsala by February or March.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Country Totals

United States (US)
99
India (IN)
26
United Kingdom (GB)
7
Canada (CA)
6
Sweden (SE)
4
Malaysia (MY)
4
Indonesia (ID)
4
Philippines (PH)
3
Germany (DE)
3
Switzerland (CH)
2
Russian Federation (RU)
2
Japan (JP)
2
Brazil (BR)
2
Australia (AU)
2
Netherlands (NL)
1
Puerto Rico (PR)
1
Finland (FI)
1
Mexico (MX)
1
Greece (GR)
1
Turkey (TR)
1
Italy (IT)
1
Romania (RO)
1
Spain (ES)
1
Iran, Islamic Republic of (IR)
1

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

The rain was okay, and I bought some peaches at the Farmer's Market

Some days I can manage to keep my chin up and troop along, pretending to be back in step with this routine that has the suggestion of a way I remember living once. But some days, I just don't see the point. I don't care for drink. I don't care for parties. I don't care for people. I just shut down, close off, pull in, and shut it out. India seems so far away, and my heart feels like it is existing outside of my body in that far away place. It's a devastating feeling, but I must keep on as best I can in the hopes that I am one day reunited with my [non-]self.

Friday, August 7, 2009

I drink a lot of black tea with milk. I have a banana every morning with eggs and toast. This afternoon I met some Tibetans at the farmer's market, and learned that unfortunately there is nowhere in the city to buy Tibetan brown bread. We talked about Dharamsala and Mcleodganj, and one offered me a sweet mint tea, and another gave me a cranberry scone. I bought a loaf of wheat bread for breakfast, and from yet another Tibetan I bought about a pound of peaches. I intend to do my best to recreate ama-la's breakfast in the morning. It won't be the same, but it will be in her spirit. I miss my family and the smell of the mountains and the sounds of the pouring rains and yes, sometimes I even miss the incessant barking of the stray dogs at night and the cow shit in the streets and the glaring stares and the honking cars and motorcycles. I know that I can't continue on this way wallowing in my sadness, missing a place I can't be right now. But at the present time my emotions are so raw, and being here is so strange, that I can't help it. My mornings are fine, but by the afternoon I don't know what to do with myself and by the evening my spirit is sunk in a mire and sleep becomes my only comfort.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Same Same But Different

[A bit of free writing from my journal, just a few hours old]

It is my second day back in New York, but it almost feels like I never left. Of course, time went on in New York in my absence, but it still feels like nothing has changed but me. Being on the morning rush hour train didn't feel quite as crowded or dirty as it used to. I feel quite underwhelmed by this city now, and I miss Dharamsala with every atom. I had lunch with Andy this afternoon and he said he's never seen me looking so great, that my aura has been revitalized. I went to the Rubin Museum after lunch and walked around, saw statues and thangkas and other artifacts. It was a small comfort, but not too impressive after having been in India and seeing what the temples had on display. Right now I'm sitting at the flagpole in Union Square killing time until I can pick up my photos I had developed this morning. I've never felt so heartsick in all my life. There is a heaviness weighin on my chest that is beyond my capacity to express. I can try to explain to my friends how I feel, but I think they're probably mostly baffled by it. I feel like I've abandoned a lover. I'm not interested in anyone or anything I see. Everything here seems so vapid; the merchandise, the fashion, the conversation. And I ran into Michael at the Bean this morning. I was telling him how amazing the trip was and how much I loved it; he said he would have to put the pressure on so I get my senior work done. It didn't seem like the right time to tell him I no longer want him to be my advisor. But if I intend to pursue graduate work in Tibetan studies, and I do, then it seems like a waste of time to write about anything else. So I'm going to do what I have to do and hopefully the school will cooperate with me. I also briefly mentioned to Grandma my intention to move to Dharamsala once I finish college, and she said how she thinks I should do Birth Right before I get too old to. It was kind of random, but even if I spend a year in Dharamsala I'll still have enough time afterwards to still do Birth Right. I am so drained right now, physically and emotionally. The time difference is kicking my ass. It's already 3:30 am in India, and my body feels it, too. I really just want to go back to the apartment and rest, but I have to wait another hour for my photos. I could wait until tomorrow but I'm already here and one more hour won't kill me, though I really wish I could go somewhere to lie down. But if I did, I would run the risk of falling asleep for hours. My ass is numb from sitting on this stone and I'm so tired of sitting in cafes and paying too much for tea just because I want somewhere to sit for an hour or two, but I'm too tired to walk around, and browsing in stores seems pointless. I have nothing else to do but just wait. Interestingly enough, without even noticing, I sat directly on top of the Indiana stone around the flagpole. I miss Tibetans.

I am in a fucking bardo state. I just want to go back to where I feel at home!

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Delhi, Round 2

When I left Dharamsala, I cried. It was too soon. My little sister Choeyang made me a bracelet and necklace. She kept wiping my eyes, telling me not to cry, and hugging me. Then I had car sickness for the entire ride to Pathankot. I sat on the platform at the train station spinning the mantra wheel on my ring, anxiously attempting to calm myself by reciting "Om Mani Padme Hum". I also did a full set (108) of recitations on my mala beads. On the train I felt sick again, because it smelled like fromaldehyde, and the further I got from Dharamsala, the sicker my heart. Of course, my classmates, last night and today, keep telling me I can't complain about not being there anymore because it will only bring everyone down. So tonight I opted out of going to dinner with them so I could have some time to be sad by myself without bumming anyone else out.

Friday, July 31, 2009

I was born in exile.

I am coming home early. The friend with whom I was planning to travel following the conclusion of my school program has to return home unexpectedly due to a family emergency. It sounds like a tragedy, but in fact it is kind of a relief. These past three weeks in McLeod Ganj have blown my world wide open, but it is a world centered around Tibetanness, not Indianness. I have lost all fascination with India outside of the Tibetan communities here. There is something about their spirit that enthralls me, and has drawn me in.

My ama-la read did mo for me tonight, which is Tibetan divination. I asked several questions, the first of which was should I return to McLeod Ganj. The answer was yes, except the time is not right quite yet. I asked if I should stay in New York after graduation, the answer to which was that if I stay, there will be a negative energy preventing my body and heart from being in sync. And Indiana is absolutely out of the question. I then asked if I should continue to study Tibetan Buddhism. If I do, it will be incredibly difficult, but well worth it in the end, which confirms what my intuition has been telling me these past few days.

I asked about my love affairs next. There is no love for me in Indiana. New York has potential, but there will be a woman physically coming between my mind/heart match, which has already been proven true. In McLeod Ganj, there are no obstacles. In my ama-la's words, "You are the queen of this town."

My last question was, "Am I Tibetan at heart, or was I Tibetan in a previous life?" The answer was overwhelmingly yes, 100% yes. There was one card which my ama-la didn't know how to read, which I interpreted as probably indicating the fact that while my heart is Tibetan, I am not in fact born of a Tibetan family.

I will return to McLeod Ganj within a year. I will continue to study Tibetan language and Buddhist philosophy. My heart resides in exile.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Regretfully Yours,

Owing to sporadic access to the internet and a very inflexible schedule of class, study, and excursions, I will be refraining from further updates until I return from India. I will transcribe my journal entries and post photos when I get back to New York. For now, I will let your imagination fill in the gaps.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Mystery Tour

Today's events (times are approximate):

5:30am: Dawn/awaking
7:30am: Breakfast
9-11am: Bus ride to Old Delhi and tour of the Red Fort
11:30am: Attempted visit to the largest mosque in India before afternoon services, only to discover that it was closed to non-Muslims owing to the death of the former Imam. A huge flock of large black birds was circling over the mosque. Eerie.
11:45am: Lunch for meat eaters at Karim's (famous) Moghul restaurant. Mutton kebab, mutton byriani, mutton curry shared by the four carnivores in our group. The mutton was most certainly freshly slaughtered, probably locally acquired from one of the many streets lined with idle sheep tied to walls. The vegetarians had paneer, vegetable curry, daal, and we all shared rice and butter naan. The naan continues to be the best I've ever had in my life.
12:30-2pm: Attempt to find tea stall down an alley only to find it closed. Pestered by beggar child. While my back was turned to him I heard a loud smack, but ignored it thinking the boy had (for whatever inexplicable reason) clapped his hands to get us to pay attention to him. As it turns out, a nearby man had smacked him upside the head for harrassing us. He walked off for a little while but hung around near us, then when we walked away he continued to follow us. While we were standing at the mouth of the alley, he kept putting his hand out saying, "Please money, please money" in the most pitifully obnoxious way. I simply ignored him, while our professor told him no and to go away in Hindi. Then we were again split into two groups and received two envelopes each with pieces of paper on which were written new locations in Hindi for us to find. The first was another Sikh temple, though smaller than the one from the day before. To get there we had to walk down this dirt road, which was lined on both sides with tarps under which sat appallingly impoverished people. This teeny tiny little boy wearing all yellow and wearing the white cap of Islam started talking to and strutting down the street with us. He was probably 4 or 5, but was completely alone just running at the mouth saying who knows what. Eventually we reached a main road at the end of the winding parade of severe poverty. We got further directions and walked down this sidewalk lined with stalls while we were harrassed by merchants trying to lure us into their store. Finally we reached the temple, leaving our shoes outside, stepping in the water before crossing the threshhold, then pulling our scarves over our heads. Then we sat in the main room for a while and enjoyed the men singing and playing music, watching worshippers pay their respects. Afterwards we asked directions to the next location, which turned out to be a Jain temple we had seen earlier from across the street at the Red Fort. We again checked our shoes outside the entrance, then went in the gate. Unlike the Sikh temple, the grounds were disgusting. Dirty and covered in pigeon shit. We tried to get inside to the temple but it turned out they were hosing it down and the gates up into it were closed. It was so filthy outside we left after about 5 minutes. We put our shoes on, tipped the attendant 10 rupees, then got in a tuktuk and went back to the hotel. On the road we passed a shanty town with naked children sleeping on dirty blankets outside of shacks while older children and adults either sat around or walked between shacks in dirty clothes. We also passed a rickshaw stable full of horses and donkeys. When we got back to the hotel, we retired to our respective rooms.
2pm-3pm: watched BBC World News/Discovery Channel
3pm-4pm: napped
4pm: wake up call
5:40pm: woke up to my teacher calling to ask if I'd be joining the group to discuss our discoveries from earlier, having fallen right back to sleep after receiving my wake up call.
5:40-6:30pm: discussion
6:45pm-8pm: dinner at Kwality Restaurant, typical North Indian cuisine. I got to hold my professors' baby, Isabella. She really liked me. Enough so that her father got slightly jealous when Bella's mother said, she likes you because you're nice and fun. He said, "I'm nice and fun."
8pm-12:30am: walked back to the hotel, said goodnight to our teachers, then hung out in one of our rooms, smoking, talking, and then ordered Benson and Hedges, Kingfisher, and hot milk to satisfy the various cravings of the five of us. Group bonding, yay.

Tomorrow we are taking a tour in the morning of New Delhi, then after lunch we have the afternoon free to roam about and go shopping for handicrafts and souvenirs.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Delhi Meats

I arrived in Delhi last night around 9pm, but by the time I went through the Swine Flu Health Check, Immigration, Baggage Claim, and Customs, it was almost 10pm. Outside of Customs I was met by a representative from Sea and Sky Travel, the company the college has employed as our "travel liason", who led me to a cab and sent me on my way because he had to wait for the last of our group to arrive at the airport shortly following me. When I got outside, the first thing I noticed was the dust. The second thing was the full moon. Not only was it a full moon, but it was also the Dalai Lama's birthday. Auspicious timing for an arrival, to say the least.

When I arrived at the Hans Plaza Hotel in central Delhi, the incompetent concierge had no record of a reservation under my name, so the taxi driver had to call the agent from Sea and Sky to talk to the hotel and finally I was given a room key after about 15 minutes of frustration and confusion. Owing to the excitement of being in a profoundly unfamiliar environment and the 9 and a half hour time difference, I was unable to sleep right away, and so waited until my roommate arrived around 1am. After we settled in and contacted our respective relatives to inform them of our safe arrival, we visited the 24hr hotel cafe for what would be a relatively timely dinner were we in New York, but considering it was 3am in India, seemed to be a curiosity to our waiters.

We returned to our room mentally drained, but physically unaccustomed to the time difference. I was unable to sleep until after sunrise, at 5:30am. My roommate awoke around 6am and proceeded, perhaps out of restlessness, to get ready for the day. By 6:30 the sounds of her moving around the room woke me from a bizarre dream (which are one of the common side effects of the anti-malarial I am taking) and was unable to fall back asleep. I watched BBC World News after showering and dressing while waiting until it was time to meet my teachers and fellow classmates at 9:30 for breakfast and orientation. By 12:30 we dispersed for a few minutes to freshen up before attending a group lunch at the United Coffee House. The food was outstanding, perfectly spiced and served with the best naan I think I have ever eaten. After lunch, generously paid for by the college, the five of us were split into two groups and each given the name of a different nearby destination which was written on a piece of paper in Hindi. Our task was to find a stranger and get directions to the designated location and record the sights, sounds, smells, and overall atmosphere of the place.

My partner and I got directions from several strangers then walked the 25 minutes or so to what turned out to be an enormous Sikh temple, Gurdwara Bangla Sahib, the largest Sikh temple in Delhi. First, we had to check our shoes outside the temple walls, then step into a shallow pool of water at the entrance to wash our feet. We walked barefoot around the perimeter of a huge pool where devotees were bathing, which was set in the middle of an even larger courtyard, paved with a black and white marble mosaics, red woven rugs drenched in water running the length of each side and intersecting at perpindicular angles. The enclosure was walled in by open-air corridors where some worshippers sat in groups, some lay sleeping in the shade, and others walked about. Then we went inside the temple, which was up a flight of marble stairs.

Inside there were small groups of people prostrating in front of a room with large glass windows revealing what appeared to be some kind of shrine covered in brightly colored embroidered cloths, and touching the doorway with their hands and foreheads as a means of obtaining blessings. We went upstairs and walked around a balcony overlooking the main room where more small groups of people were scattered around on a bright red and orange patterned carpeted floor around a platform mounted by several seated musicians. They were singing what we assumed to be prayers, seated on cushions around another altar draped in heavy embroidered cloths, the whole space marked off by a golden railing. We walked around inside for a little while longer, taking photos and observing the worshipers, then trickled outside with the crowds, and walked around a large flagpole draped in orange fabric where people once again were touching with their fingertips and foreheads. Finally, after walking around the fourth side of the pool, we sat for a period in the shade of the open-air corridor. After a few minutes, a teeny little India woman wearing a white sari and a kind smile approached me and started speaking to me in Hindi. I hadn't the vaguest idea what she was saying, so I just kept saying, "I don't understand", "I only speak English", and shake my head and shrugging my shoulders in what I could only assume was the international sign for, "I don't understand". Eventually she wandered off, and my companion and I laughed off our confusion and decided it was probably time to go.

At the threshold to the temple we washed our feet again, traded our little tin coin in for our shoes, and once we had them on got in a tuktuk, a little three wheel motorized rickshaw which looks as precarious as it feels. We rode it back to the hotel for 50 rupees (about $1) and had the pleasure of being pestered by beggars at every red light. We just ignored them until they either went away or the light changed, whichever happened first, and neither of which ever happened fast enough.

After about an hour's rest, the whole group met for masala tea( which is probably the most delicious drink I have ever had) in the hotel cafe to reveal the mystery locations we discovered and our experiences and reactions to them, followed by a dinner of South India dosas at the Banana Leaf. The sun set while we were at dinner, and as we rounded the corner onto Barakhamba road, a huge, low-hanging yellow full moon appeared in the dusty sky and escorted us back to the hotel.

I am presently back in my hotel, enjoying some black tea with milk before assing out for the night. I will hopefully be able to sleep through most of the night, considering I haven't really slept since my last night in New York, not counting the ambien-induced spell of unconsciousness I had on the flight here.

Tomorrow we are taking a tour all morning of Old Delhi followed by another "special project" involving the locating of a mystery landmark.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Continental Flight 82 Newark to Delhi

From now until my return (Aug 16), this blog will be exclusively dedicated to my experiences living and traveling in India.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Friday, June 26, 2009

Just a matter of time, now...

I got my Indian visa today. I am astounded by how quickly it was processed. Apparently getting a tourist visa is as simple as applying, no questions asked. I suppose it might not have been so easy had I not been applying from a Western country, but I guess those are the breaks. I'm not fretting nearly as much now. I have a doctor's appointment on Monday to get a tetanus booster and prescription for malaria pills. That's the only other formality before my trip. Everything else is finishing my readings, accumulating supplies and gear, and moving out of my apartment. I'm not really looking forward to the last thing, but I'll probably just sell as many of my books as I can bear to part with, and my bed. I don't really have anything else besides clothes, posters, and bags full of photo prints.

I'm going to India a week from Sunday!!!

Monday, June 22, 2009

Universal Cooperation

So, I've been bugging out lately. I'm behind on getting my visa for India secured. I also flew off the handle for a couple weeks at the beginning of the month and have overspent my preparation funds and now must humble myself and go running to the family with my tail between my legs asking for a few hundred dollars loan so I don't have to buy everything at the last minute, including paying for my immunizations. But I'm not particularly fretful. I know I can pull it together. I stopped binge drinking, and have been in communication with the study abroad coordinator, and she isn't impressing me with a sense of panic, so time, though short, is not up.

On that note, I'll be in India two weeks from today. Well, tonight. My flight leaves New York approximately 8:30 in the evening on July 5th and arrives in New Delhi approximately the same time on July 6th. I've been doing my homework for the trip, reading the assigned books. The first was the autobiography of the Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile. The second, and more factually informative, is In Exile from the Land of Snows by John Avedon. It is enthralling despite it's density, and is putting the idea in my head of changing my thesis topic to something relevant to Tibetan studies. It makes sense, actually. Not only will I be studying very closely with my professors on this trip, but I will be interviewing Tibetans and submitting a final project at its conclusion, all of which can be tailored into a new thesis proposal, which I will have to submit at the conclusion of the summer. Plus, I am so fucking over my current thesis advisor that I no longer have any desire to work with him. So, establishing a strong relationship with my professor while I'm in India could hopefully lead to him agreeing to be my advisor in the Fall.

That's about it as far as the mundane happenings of my life presently. I have been jotting down some short creative pieces that will be forthcoming shortly.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Fucking A. Or D.

I love my friends. I really do. 

But sometimes I hate my life. I hate not knowing why I'm jumping through hoops at the circus called "College". I hate knowing that my Bachelors of Liberal Arts with a concentration in Religious Studies is going to be completely fucking worthless in the "real world". 

But, I suppose, looking on the bright side... I have all these experiences which will make for a very salacious and controversial book, or series of? That is why I withhold details here. So none you bitchez can steal my storeeez. Plagiarism is a real thing. 

Friday, June 12, 2009

Naught.

I am God and YOU are the Devil. And the Devil has power naught but to ignore God.

Where's the Bacon?

"Bacon's scream is the operation through which the entire body escapes through the mouth."
Deleuze

Filthy Black Poetry

Your darkness drains me. The negativity is what I find alluring. You are contrary and awkward and you FUCK FUCK FUCK me like the dirty BITCH I AM. You and I/we are filthy. I want to wash you just as much as I want to rub dirt on your chest, face, legs. I'll use my wolf's tongue to bathe the salty residue from your skin. I want to feel your darkness overwhelm me.

retrofacto

PAGE ONE
Crazy nights, bursting, bursting. Full of LOVE. It's bursting out of my eyes, my nose, my very pores. Seeping, seething, brilliantly exploding. poison magic potion. I can feel the train coming, and I'm eating the leftover coke out of my nose. It is making my LIPS TEETH AND TONGUE NUMB. I

PAGE TWO
I know I AM GOD and I KNOW you know it, too. Dear Lover, I see the suggestion of you everywhere. I have such a LOOOONG BROOKLYN! BOUND TRAIN RIDE AHEAD OF ME. Where are you, my man who is God? My man who is me. I'll know you by sight. I already know you by feel. I felt you very close me

PAGE THREE
tonight, but NOT QUITE THERE. I paid my overdue fine today. My requisite sacrifice. Trouble FOLLOWS ME AROUND. I don't ask for it. It just comes to me. I'm a magnet for CHAOS. I am actively S P I R A L I N G OUT OF CONTROL! This is both a blessing and a curse. Order only exists for me

PAGE FOUR
to fall apart. That is all order can do, by Nature. But necessity will bring us together. Dear Lover, I see the incomplete reflection of you in all these males but I don't recognize MY SELF (whatever that is) in them. Dear LOVER. I truly need you. I long for you always. You are always in

PAGE FIVE (non-sequitur)
MY DIVINE HEART!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PAGE SIX
[[Blank]]

PAGE SEVEN
my true heart. I have a false heart which I wear on my sleeve, and a true heart that is locked deep inside me. I know how the the key must feel, but I have no idea what it will look like. No locksmith crafts a lock without a key. All the other men are just there to cut my teeth on.

PAGE EIGHT
The real deal is mysteriously lacking, absent. Lover, I'll know your lips, and they were NOT HIS. When I meet you, ALL OUR QUESTIONS WILL BE ANSWERED TOGETHER. I FEEL FULL OF GOD=LOVE.

PAGE NINE
The magic train is on its way. I can feel it wanting to be here. I wish I had a guardian of the night with me. The Vampire has stuck his fangs into me. He drank my blood and has walked in my blood MY BLOOD. He has placed
ME under his dark spell. He abuses me when I

PAGE TEN
beg for it, and only when I beg for it. I want to write filthy
BLACK poetry to him.

No more wanting

REALIZE.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Swing on the Spiral

I have been acting out, out of control, swinging on the spiral... letting it carry me further and further out to I don't know where but I embrace the freedom of not thinking simply acting. Spinoza would frown on my passivity, but I'm allowing the entropy to tear down the facade of an ordered life.

I have a new adopted brother. I met him a week ago outside a reggae party. He was carrying an ankh and draped in crystal beads and Ethiopian crosses. He pledged to lend me assistance whenever I need it no matter where I am or what time it is. He calls me "goddess", "magnificence", and allows me to carry his ankh as a mirror. He also gave me a full bottle of frankincense oil. Friday I met him at Brooklyn Museum for First Saturdays. We spent all our time in the Egyptian exhibit, meeting the gods face to face and he agreed to let me wear one of his ankh necklaces until he saw me again and could make one for me. Afterward we drank Guinness out of coffee cups on the lawn and I met a bunch of his other brothers and sisters. They were nearly all wearing ankhs around their necks. I have never met so many true Egyptians. They all have beautiful locks, some of them with beads, feathers, and charms adorning them. Amazing, truly amazing. I will see my brother again tonight and we will dance to reggae again.

Last night I saw David Byrne for free at the Prospect Park Bandshell. It was incredible. Liz and I sat on a black sheet and drank Jim Beam and ginger ale and smoked and danced our way through the triple encore. I also made a new friend when Liz went to pee, an artist named James. We exchanged names and emails, and we are going to the Met on Thursday to see the new Francis Bacon exhibit.

I've been meeting so many beautiful, amazing people this summer. It makes me kind of sad that I will be leaving them for five and a half weeks. But there is little I wouldn't give up to go on this trip to India.

I still haven't stopped listening to Tool pretty much constantly. It's all I want to hear. Especially "Lateralus". Just watch this video if you're curious why.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

I loved to despise him.

I've always had a fondness for vampires. Call it weakness. Call it lust. Call it what you will. It has always been.

But admitting it. When the vampire has had his fill? What then. Feelings of inadequacy. Feeling like your blood isn't heavy enough?

Knowing that it's too heavy. That it falls too hard. Drip drip drip. On the floor. Too heavy to drink up. Wasted drops. And you call yourself a vampire?

Games we play. I'm no good with games. I don't like rules. I play by my own. And where do they get me. Full of blood, bursting with blood, too much blood for those

vampires.

Drive them away. That's what my new brother says. He gave me the magic potion, and I anoint myself. What did I expect, putting the potion on my neck. No vampire will any longer draw near.

Such a fool, the girl who goes hunting vampires with a garlic necklace.


She bit herself, and opened a bleeding eye to guide her way.

Friday, June 5, 2009

drunk math

S: i hope she likes drunk people! :D
A: who doesn't?
S: sober people. i think it's a scientific law
S: like P^d*n+1=S+a*n+1
S: or, a Person to the drunk multiplied by (number of drinks plus one) ((because its always one too many))=a Sober person plus annoyance times number of drinks plus 1
S: pretty good eh? my problem with math was that i never found it interesting. it should have been like this.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

green liver

kate: that's why I drink straight out of liquor bottles

kate: for the environment.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Rest your trigger on my finger

This is a very bizarre video of a very clean live version of Tool's "Pushit". I don't know where the the animations came from or what performance the audio is from, but if you listen closely at certain points you can hear what sounds like muted cheering, and very audible cheering at the end. The youtube page didn't have any information about its origins. Regardless, it's still beautiful and eerie.



(I'm posting this not only because it's amazing, but also because I have been listening to this song particularly, as well as the rest of Aenima, for about a week now. It seems to be the only thing I can listen to while working on my finals, or while doing anything else.)

Thursday, May 14, 2009

What I've been waitibg for.

Just finished the Ethics. Smoked a couple cigs. Then sat on the toilet with my pants down and stared at the tile floor until my vision started to subtly vibrate .

There is no turning back now. That's what happens when the truth is revealed. And to think, for almost 400 years this has been floating around and still most people don't know about it. What the fuck is up with that? Seriously.

Now, I'll listen to Tool until my ipod dies, which it inevitably will, and write about rationalism and literature.

Monday, May 11, 2009

brain storming for spinoza final (20pg)

The idea of the supernatural is an inadequate understanding of the nature of God. God, being the infinite essence of which all things are attributes and modes, there is necessarily nothing in existence throughout eternity that does not receive its essence from God’s nature. Therefore, because God is Nature and all things originate in God, all things are natural.

In the Ethics the foundation of inadequate ideas is an ignorance of the ultimate and proximate causes of effects. This is essentially the same argument he makes negating the reality of miracles. Miracles are nothing more than natural phenomena which surpass the observer's understanding of the forces of nature which could have cooperated to produce such phenomena. In the same way that God has no choice but to infinitely express his essence through his attributes as realized in finite modes of existence, humans have no choice but to be acted upon by external causes. The only freedom that humans have is to employ reason to understand what the causes are that determine their actions, and amend their understanding of them so that the awareness of causes helps to increase ones power to preserve ones existence, which is ones inalienable sovereign natural right.







p.s. Stooges, Fun House = probably the best album ever in the history of rock music.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

one more adequate idea

"... he alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason."

finals. again.

the moon is full.

i'm drinking coffee at school.

i feel like i'm in on a secret.

for the past four days i have felt like i have been on psychedelics but i have not been.

progress is being made towards my ultimate present.

i want to shake spinoza's hand and thank him for putting into words what i have struggled to.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

"Man has free will to the extent that he knows who he is."

Since Spring Break I have been suffering through a slump, otherwise known as a crisis of motivation. Researching for my senior work proposal sapped all my intellectual energy and after the break I just stopped doing my work. As you can imagine, this had negative consequences, both in my academic and personal lives. Fortunately, the gravity of the situation finally sunk in. This happened largely due to a debilitating case of bronchitis, which forced me to stop drinking, needlessly socializing, and generally wasting time. Instead, for the past week I have done little besides sleep and try to read for class. This weekend I finally picked up (three weeks late) my copy of Spinoza's Ethics. I am presently still in the first section, "Of God", which is fascinating and less difficult, or so it seems, than I was led to believe. I'm not only reading it because I was supposed to for class, but also because I intend to write my final paper on God, as conceived by Spinoza (a conception which I find very attractive).

Yesterday, my professor emailed this to us, a lecture by Alan Watts pertaining to our classroom discussion, which you should find interesting regardless.

Monday, April 20, 2009

frown

Being sick is bullshit. I need a back rub and some nyquil pm.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

I guess I'm, like, old now?

Birthday: the Twenty Third Installment









[All Photos by Luisa Opalesky]

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

nnnnnnnnnnkitteh cake

funny pictures of cats with captions
see more Lolcats and funny pictures

(It's my birthday in T-minus 50 minutes!)

Friday, April 3, 2009

Tonight I went looking for trouble.
I found it, but it was pretty boring.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

bl[oo]ad[e]

I rediscovered how invigorating physical pain can be,
and how, when emotions are longed for but won't come,
an arrow of cuts pointing the way can open the flood gates,
and perhaps I'll sleep soundly tonight,
the sting of fresh wounds quietly calling out to me from under the covers.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Meet me on the rooftop of the world



I will be spending four weeks here (Dharamsala, India) this summer.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Lucky for you I take pictures of random shit around my room






(some of this stuff is not from my room)

Spring Broke

I haven't been giving Spinoza enough attention over Break. I am a bad philosopher. I will try to make it up to him eventually.

Yesterday I went to the opening of an exhibit at a warehouse in Williamsburg. Tara and I drank free beer, took a few laps around the exhibit, then met some awesome artists. Then we went to Alligaytor Lounge, scavenged some pizza tickets, had a beer then bailed. Tres weak.

On my way to sit in a cafe, binge on coffee, and read Dante, I was stopped by a pair of individuals. One was South Korean woman and the other was a darkhaired guy who didn't say a word. They wanted to know if I had heard of "the female image of God" in the Bible. Being a religious studies student (I hate the redundancy of saying that), I was skeptical, but I was having trouble figuring out what this woman was trying to say thanks to her accent. I was genuinely interested in what they were saying until she started to say that it was the "end times", and alluding to apocalyptic prophecy in the Bible. Now, I have read the bible, even Revelations. But I read it in an academic setting, as literature not Truth. As soon as they brought in the end of days, Heaven, the one True God, I couldn't take them seriously. If I'd been in less of a hurry, perhaps I would have asked them to show me just where in the Bible WWII is explicitly prophesied. I remarked that prophecy is written so generally that it is easily misinterpreted. People have "seen the signs of the end times as prophesied in the Bible" since the Bible was written! So, I mentioned my studies, and that was when her partner finally jumped in, asking "May I ask what religion you practice?" There was something in the way he intoned his question that made me defensive, so I replied, "I don't practice a religion. I'm a religious studies student." Then he asked me if I'd ever been Catholic in the past. I don't think he meant past lives, but if he had I probably would have answered yes. But I told him no. It was at this point I started backing away. They were desperate to keep me on the hook but I had better things to do than debate with people who seemed to have less understanding of Christian theology than I do. And that is saying something, not being Christian and everything. To get them to finally back off I told them I would need direct revelation to believe in whatever it was they were trying to tell me about. The guy said, "But it says that you have to come to it for salvation, it won't come to you." I said, "It's already coming to me. Don't worry about my salvation," and walked away. About twenty feet later another pair of people approached me, and said, "Excuse me, may we talk to you for a moment?" I answered him with another question. "Are you with those people over there?" and pointed in the direction I'd just come from. "I don't know. Have you heard about the female image of God? We're with the something or other Elohim blah blah blah." "Yep, that's what they said, too." "So you're not interested?" "Nope, thanks!" Then I waved and walked away.

For the rest of the afternoon I ascended the mountain of Purgation, passed through the cleansing fire of realization, entered the Garden of Earthly delights and was baptised in the rivers of oblivion and good memory. Afterward, I went grocery shopping. Trader Joe's is a godsend. I told them not to worry about my salvation. I can find it on my own, thanks.