Recent Journal Entries
Success is as dangerous as failure
January 24, 2012
Hello world. I will be travelling soon. And I just wanted to say hello, and goodbye, and apologize for any bad blood between us. If I’ve done anything to offend, or hurt you, I am sorry. Work on the new book continues. It gets better and better. In two days I will be on the ground…with my senses buzzing…gathering details and more…
Love this passage from the Tao Te Ching. Talk to you later.
Success is as dangerous as failure.
Hope is as hollow as fear.
What does it mean that success is a dangerous as failure?
Whether you go up the ladder or down it,
your position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground,
you will always keep your balance.
What does it mean that hope is as hollow as fear?
Hope and fear are both phantoms
that arise from thinking of the self.
When we don’t see the self as self,
what do we have to fear?
See the world as your self.
Have faith in the way things are.
Love the world as your self;
then you can care for all things
— Tao Te Ching
This is from making the edits at Transcend café on Jasper Ave. earlier today.
whatever works
December 31, 2011
Well… I feel blessed to be here at the cusp of 2012. I am sending out benisons of Tonglen today….to all I met and grew to love over the past year (and to those I only met via the bouncing electrons of ones and zeros, bits and bites)….Breathing in, we allow ourselves to feel the inevitable suffering that occurs in this life. Our heart’s natural response to this suffering, while breathing out, is compassion. We breathe in the pain and suffering of this world like a dark cloud, letting it pass through our hearts. Rather than bracing ourselves against this pain and suffering, we can let it strengthen our sense of belonging and interdependence within the larger web of being.
A Tonglen is the best blessing I can offer.
The perfect quote for New Year’s Eve is here, from Woody Allen’s “Whatever Works.” Some will no doubt look at this quote as negative. I can’t see it like that. It comes from a very negative, pessimistic character though; one who comes to this realization at the end of the movie. At the end of the movie, he chooses happiness and grace. He offers up this little speech and it shocked me. This is Woody’s way of saying Gather ye Rosebuds while ye may.
“…I happen to hate New Year’s celebrations. Everybody desperate to have fun. Trying to celebrate in some pathetic little way. Celebrate what? A step closer to the grave? That’s why I can’t say enough times, whatever love you can get and give, whatever happiness you can filch or provide, every temporary measure of grace, whatever works…”
…And this same flower that smiles to-day. To-morrow will be dying.
Christmas...comes
December 23, 2011
Well, Christmas Greetings to you all, from me!!! Hope yours is peaceful, hopeful, joyous and has moments of silence in which you are present.
the black elk visits
December 21, 2011
In my not so frequent visits with the Shrine, on the occasions when I picked my dad up, took him to the meeting, and stayed for dinner (I was so welcomed into that sodality!!!), they have a tradition of announcing the deaths of fellow members – they called it Shriners or Masons who had been visited by the Black Elk. I like this. I think of my own fraternity – my own sodality of writers. In the past few weeks, Christopher Hitchens, Russell Hoban, and Vaclav Havel have been visited. Noted. Acknowledged.
For the muse
November 28, 2011
There are mornings when the muse is so far away…By muse, I mean the connection to that almost-magic force of creativity that draws lines and circles of connection in what we write – but that we are not entirely aware of. One can always write. I can always write. I am never blocked. But the muse is not always present. Sometimes she just wants me to get the words down and then, after bathing in some exotic perfume, she will come and sit with me during the rewriting. This sorbet, from last week, is for the muse.
Connecting with the muse
Some mornings the only way in is through sadness. You open the door to sorrow, and in you go. She will be sitting at a table by herself with a half empty bottle of red and cigarette. You will sit down across from her and say nothing. She’s heard every possible line – she knows them all. You look at her. She’s very pretty in a maintained kind of way. She’s an illusion of beauty – a faded tattoo. Blond hair frames and softens a face that does not need softening. Her eyes are grey. The kindness in her eyes breaks your heart. It’s just that she’s just been at this for too long. Mostly, she’s beautiful and desperate and sad.
“What do you want?” she whispers. “What do you want from me?”
“I don’t want anything,” you say.
“Everybody wants something.” She does not look up from the table.
“Well, I already have what I came for.”
She looks up. “But the music hasn’t even started.”
“Just finding you here, at this table, alone – was enough.” And it is. Feeling her sadness was enough. Feeling something deeply, is enough. Because it’s all connected in here – sadness, joy, pain, love, hatred, despair, bliss.
She takes a gulp of her wine. Her teeth are stained by the wine. “Will you still want to dance?”
“It doesn’t matter,” you say. You look at her hands. They are slender and strong. She’s wearing a solid gold band on her right hand. You start to form a question but stop, then think – what does it matter? “When was the last time you made love?” you say. “When was the last time a lover smoothed his hand along the curve of your hip, traced a finger tip just below your breast, kissed the nape of your neck? When was the last time you were hopelessly lost in that dance?”
Across the dance floor, the band starts to play a slow and mournful tango. You hadn’t noticed the band before. She closes her eyes and breathes. When she opens her eyes and finds yours, you can feel the fierceness and intensity. She reaches across the table and takes your hand in hers. “I don’t know,” she says.
Older Entries:
- 2011•11•20 ~ The aspens {1}
- 2011•10•28 ~ "December in Paris" {2}
- 2011•10•06 ~ On the sorbets and Bob Chelmick's voice... {2}
- 2011•09•26 ~ VENN
- 2011•09•08 ~ Avenue Magazine article on Bistro Praha -- Edmonton
- 2011•08•24 ~ Point No Point {3}
- 2011•07•26 ~ The flowers {2}
- 2011•06•30 ~ No balanced person writes a novel {3}
- 2011•06•27 ~ The circles...
- 2011•06•15 ~ a tiny slip of paper
- 0000•00•00 ~ Complete Journal Archives
