Empty your mind of all thoughts.
Let your heart be at peace.
Watch the turmoil of beings,
but contemplate their return.

Each separate being in the universe
returns to the common source.
Returning to the source is serenity.

If you don’t realize the source,
you stumble in confusion and sorrow.
When you realize where you come from,
you naturally become tolerant,
disinterested, amused,
kindhearted as a grandmother,
dignified as a king.
Immersed in the wonder of the Tao,
you can deal with whatever life brings you,
and when death comes, you are ready.

Read and weep or rejoice or just stare blankly:

I know that some of my readers are rolling their eyes out of sheer distrust of theories that do not involve human intuition, and that really don’t involve much more beyond some brand of wackonomics, but those readers are either going to have to face the music or stop reading right about now. This first link is an astrological guide through the month of December. We began in the first days of Sagittarius, a fire sign, and eventually will move into Capricorn, an earth sign. This can be a time of stress as well as a time of very uncomfortable changes and confrontations (death of nature seems to go hand in hand with these grim self-realizations). Read the aforementioned link to get a better detailed description of what the remainder of the year will look like astrologically.

This link tells us about the New Moon we saw in mid-November, which fell under Scorpio, and is about to move out of Scorpio in a few days. One of my favorite lines from that article is, “It may feel:  uncomfortable, delightful, frustrating, blissful, intense, unsettling and raw just for the appetizer course. Grief is being stirred up, high beam of light is upon denial, powerlessness is being pushed so you can regain your sense of empowerment.” Read on at the provided link.

A parade, something loud and with directed movement yet a pending chaos, made the streets swell with activity and a host of roasting smells, a sea of faces both tragic and hopeful. Everyone somehow blended in. I was walking along, found my way to an urban forest near a college campus and a little house, and came along a path, alongside which a tall white tree grew. This tree was unusual because it was transplanted from marshy Mississippi terrain 100 years ago by a very rich woman who could not part with the site of the behemoth. Sadly, the tree hadn’t thrived in the northern reaches of Kentucky until recent days, long since its benefactor, of sorts, passed away. The branches were spurting leaves fast enough to stand still and watch it happen, with little flowers rolling out as the finale. Nothing like this had ever happened to the tree. The roots were taking hold, that’s how one passing voice described the phenomena. I was stunned in my tracks and forgot what I had been doing or where I was going, content to bask in this natural wonder for an equal number of years it had found no release.

Positive: According to one of my friends, my calling her prevented her from being in a wreck. This, I realize, sounds ironic, what with all the car wrecks produced by cell phone users, but you’ll have to take, ultimately, her word for it. She  made it a point to thank me twice.

Negative: Energy is currently warping, and I mean this on an intimate level, my own energy. Personal energy is transferring into something new. While this is actually a positive thing, it currently is in a chaotic limbo, which is a negative thing, and it feels something like menstrual cramps of the heart (that’s not a good analogy, let me try again: it’s like the heart organ is being wrung dry with very forceful dry hands).

Positive: My brother took my advice about a girl. It was some sticky love triangle that no genuine big-hearted 17 year-old kid ought to be in the middle of. Well, really, he was in a situation no-one should be in, it’s too much pain. And so, he found his way out with a little guidance (that he was reluctant to accept) and some forethought into his own emotional state, presto! He’s good. Jesus, I wish we all listened to voices preceding us.

Negative: My ankle is the size of a grapefruit. Too much running in old shoes, I guess. It matches my lop-sided gait that I inherited from the bike accident I had 2.5 years ago. It matches all the other lop-sided pieces of me, metaphysically, emotionally. Crippled inside and outside.

Last night I saw Bill Callahan perform, a.k.a. Smog, a.k.a. (smog), a.k.a. contemporary contender for best baritone voice in recorded music history. I’m not shy to roundaboutly admit that I have a crush on the little poetic demon, but you won’t find me starting any conversations with him, either. It’s ironic to note that he thinks of his latest album, Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle, as upbeat and lively, as his tendency toward the subdued, dark, and sparse are still irrepressibly present, lyrics like fangs that gnaw at the sensitive bruised organs of a listener’s emotional whereabouts. The more I think about it, though, Bill’s right about his own music: it is more upbeat, it does have some suction for fresh air…  

There were several moments of clarity, insofar as Callahan’s music-making and my listenership history have intertwined with one another (at least since my teenage years). One thing easy to note stylistically about Callahan is his use of what I’ll call mantras, phrases he will repeat and repeat and repeat, almost taking a bludgeon to the words and cramming them in the listener’s ear, without reprieve of forgetting said mantras. And dare I even mention the despondency and self-cruelty he challenges to a duel within these simple yet poignant and painful mantras? It can be a form of meditating (which I heard through the grapevine Callahan is an atheist– unimaginable!), cyclical patterns and repetition leading eventually to a blissful state. One of these was a new one, “I used to be so relaxed, now I can’t sleep.” Unfortunately, this sentiment is one I can relate with readily, sleep and restlessness, insomnia, being constant sources of frustration, likely revolving around other problem areas. At its height I was receiving no more than three or four hours of sleep per night, which eventually led me to reach toward natural remedies like Valerian, various “sleeping” teas, and finally Melatonin. Regardless of my own cure, how I have cut sugar intake or how I quit smoking, this feeling Callahan meditates on through this solitary line, of relaxation mutating into restlessness, is one that allows the listener to fall into a memory of a moment spent alone during deathly haunting hours, watching shadows and hearing pipes and floorboards stretch and sing their lonely tune, perhaps pacing in socked feet with a sore brain and an inability to relax, neither heart nor jaw. I don’t miss those insomniac moments, but don’t think I would have learned a few things without being pitted to that despair of night’s feasting.

My second moment of Callahan inspired clarity was at the point when Bill was repeating another of his latest mantras, “If you could only stop your heart beat for one heart beat.” This was when I realized the database of raw human experience is universal, and that it is nothing to run away from or be scared of. I suppose I had received the message before, but it had not occurred to me that the message was one being sent to everyone, a mass text message, an army of carrier pigeons circling the globe nonchalantly yet with purpose. If only, Bill. If only we could all just stop comfortably stuffing our heads up our asses and remind ourselves of compassion, one of the only true tools that allows humans to connect with one another. If only…

I initially thought about buying a beer for Bill Callahan. I hear his unadorned voice chanting hymnals for all the lonely hearts’ post-apocalypse, for all those who have lost faith in something or someone, and I somehow, for years, have felt sorry for the guy. After seeing him live, however, and having a handful of my own painful experiences and my own ability to climb out of the depths of my own tribulations, I realize a zen-like swagger belies his gutteral incantations. He’s not preaching, but he’s not letting anyone walk away thinking their alone in their despair.

P.S. I had made my, uh, revered (?) chocolate cake and took it in its entirety to the show (I will probably be one of those little old ladies that carries around ziplock baggies of odd fruit-nut-chocolate combination cookies for acquaintances to charitably nibble on). Upon Callahan ending his set (I don’t know why I was surprised that he had an encore), I took the small container of chocolate cake to the merch table where the Brooklyn-based all-girl trio, Lights, were sitting. An aside, I wasn’t sure if their M.O. was to recreate Heart/that 70s California feeling, but they had it down, all the way to their relaxed “Thanks, man”s. I handed over the pre-sliced cake and they began giggling and asked, “Does it have weed in it?” I misheard and responded, “Wheat? Yes! Are you allergic?” This created another onslaught of giggling, likely more a response to my obvious misunderstanding and naivety. They giggled more and claimed to be excited to receive cake, my only response to this was, “Can you make sure Bill gets a piece?”

My friend, Elaina, who operates one of my favorite blogs, “book a week geek,” was caught a few weeks ago quoting Julian Barnes. Elaina and I have a long history/list of common interests, the common denominator being literature. Anyway, here is  Elaina’s quoted portion from Julian Barnes’ “Parenthesis.” I, however, found more…

“‘I love you.’ For a start, we’d better put these words on a high shelf; in a square box behind glass which we have to break with our elbow; in the bank. We shouldn’t leave them lying around the house like a tube of vitamin C. If the words come too easily to hand, we’ll use them without a thought; we won’t be able to resist. Oh, we say we won’t, but we will. We’ll get drunk, or lonely, or –likeliest of all– plain damn hopeful, and there are the words gone, used up, grubbied. We think we might be in love and we’re trying out the words to see if they’re appropriate? How can we know what we think till we hear what we say? Come off it; that won’t wash. These are grand words; we must make sure we deserve them. Listen to them again: ‘I love you.” Subject, verb, object: the unadorned, impregnable sentence. The subject is a short word, implying the self-effacement of the lover. The verb is longer but unambiguous, a demonstrative moment as the tongue flicks anxiously away from the palate to release the vowel. The object, like the subject, has no consonants, and is attained by pushing the lips forward as if for a kiss. ‘I love you.’ How serious, how weighted, how freighted it sounds…

… We must keep these words in their box behind glass. And when we take them out we must be careful with them. Men will say ‘I love you’ to get women into bed with them; women will say ‘I love you’ to get men into marriage with them; both will say ‘I love you’ to keep fear at bay, to convince themselves of the deed by the word, to assure themselves that the promised condition has arrived, to deceive themselves that it hasn’t yet gone away. We must beware of such uses. I love you shouldn’t go out into the world, become a currency, a traded share, make profits for us. It will do that if we let it. But keep this biddable phrase for whispering into a nape from which the absent hair has just been swept…”

P.S. Thanks, Elaina!

I was walking along the railroad tracks that led from the urban part of the county to the rural part, past a cemetary, a slaughterhouse and eventually the nut house.  Green pastures oozed from behind the line of maturing oak trees like dollops of green coconut mounds, randomly populated by little houses seemingly constructed of nothing more than a few walls of cardboard and sandpaper roofs. Talking to my two comrades, I looked down as I scuffed my feet in the gravel when I noticed a black baby goose hopping  its round little body, up and down, going nowhere. I bent toward it and scooped it into both hands. Upon showing my fellow travelers, and disputing the possible whereabouts of its relatives, the infant goose transfigured into a human baby, though a little smaller than most human babies. She was clearly a newborn, but with silky golden locks and an irrepressible smile, which she kept stuffing her hands into. She quietly cawed at me, soft spurts of joy and love.  I hugged her because what else was I to do with a tiny child who could not control her body movements nor her abundant happiness? It was at this moment that I suddenly forgot I was standing at railroad tracks, forgot my comrades, and could only focus on nurturing the baby and my instant desire to have one of my own. Upon recognizing this fervor for motherhood, I considered this baby’s mom and that my mission must be to find the woman. This was an easy task, as nearby were heavy swinging glass doors that led into an infant care facility. Inside the doors were vases arranged uniformly, as tall as me, with white flowers bundled neatly like tepees, floating in the water. A woman in a nurse’s uniform came from behind a desk with her arms stretched toward me, knowing immediately where the baby belonged. Handing the happily brimming child over, the urge toward motherhood multiplied.

I decided to cut my hair for the end of one part of my life and the beginning of a new one.  All the important players throughout my years were going to be present for a commemoration ceremony, which was to celebrate the inhalation of new days, an era rejuvenated by the past, yet ignorant of the future, and fully overwhelmed by the body of the present.

My new haircut worried and plagued the minds of several who were close to me, one in particular who asked me how long it would take my hair to grow out to the length it was before. The haircut was nothing of major consequence by my estimation, except that it was about 4 or 5 centimeters long. The simple, yet monumental and noticeable, difference caught attention and created snippets of conversation.

I had nothing to add to the reactions of others, only that the cutting of hair seemed essential for moving into the depths of  my mysterious future.

I was walking along a bridge that connected to the freeway. Traffic was bustling by me, but I didn’t mind all the commotion, nor was I threatened by its proximity. I contemplated jumping from the bridge into the busy traffic below. I had been told that I would survive the jump (even though it was a very long fall), even with the speedy cars. I jumped, landing on my feet without an ache in my body and without a car coming close to hitting me. I turned and saw nothing behind me. No cars, traffic, people. Just a long empty road. Ahead of me cars were appearing out of nowhere. I walked along, seamlessly weaving through the busy activity without doubt, courageously and curiously drifting with some purpose.

I dreamt I was in a space vessel with some unknown travelers. I told a fellow traveler that I was worried about being sick in outer space and that I was scared of being weightless. The traveler squenched his eyes with annoyance, “But you’ve done this a million times, why would it make you sick now?” Perplexed, I tried to remember what it felt like to travel in outer space all those times before. Then it occurred to me that the impact of spinning combined with high speed made me so dizzy I would fall asleep every time. On this sojourn, however, I awoke shortly after take off and watched the stars as we spun and projected through the galaxy. Our destination was further than we had gone before and I was glad to get to be conscious finally.