Tag: Inspiration

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I spoke about wings / You just flew

I find it so inspiring to see what happens when one commits 100% to something, and here’s an excellent example: Fiona Apple in the zone, without flashy lights, without makeup, without any of the unnecessary extras that so often obscure performances like this:

I can’t help but imagine what might have been possible in that room without the headset, microphone, or camera tethering her to the material plane…

The Whole of the Moon
Michael Scott / The Waterboys

I pictured a rainbow
You held it in your hands
I had flashes
But you saw the plan
I wandered out in the world for years
While you just stayed in your room
I saw the crescent
You saw the whole of the moon
The whole of the moon

Hmm, you were there in the turnstiles, with the wind at your heels
You stretched for the stars and you know how it feels to reach too high
Too far
Too soon
You saw the whole of the moon
I was grounded
While you filled the skies
I was dumbfounded by truth
You cut through lies
I saw the rain dirty valley
You saw Brigadoon
I saw the crescent
You saw the whole of the moon

I spoke about wings
You just flew
I wondered, I guessed and I tried
You just knew
I sighed
But you swooned, I saw the crescent
You saw the whole of the moon
The whole of the moon

(The whole of the moon) with a torch in your pocket and the wind at your heels
You climbed on the ladder and you know how it feels to get too high
Too far
Too soon
You saw the whole of the moon
The whole of the moon, hey yeah!

Unicorns and cannonballs, palaces and piers
Trumpets, towers and tenements
Wide oceans full of tears
Flags, rags ferryboats
Scimitars and scarves
Every precious dream and vision
Underneath the stars, yes, you climbed on the ladder
With the wind in your sails
You came like a comet
Blazing your trail too high
Too far
Too soon
You saw the whole of the moon

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Rover 90, and other pleasures of Pic’s peanut butter

I love Pic’s peanut butter. As a lover of jars, I love how easy it is to remove their labels. I love that so many of my homemade jams (etc) are now adorned with bright red stars on their reused-jar lids.

The last Pic’s label I peeled off had a poem on it so good I’ve been keeping said label around for weeks, trying to keep it from sticking to everything I accidentally get near it.

Time to transcribe so I can finally throw this gluey label away. I hope you’ll enjoy this as much as I do.

Rover 90

Once I met a girl who owned a Rover.
Older than me, could barely reach
the clutch. Hair as fine as cobweb;
a piece missing from one of her fingers.

The Rover ran on five. In spring
she let me under the bonnet.
I ground the valves in, and we drove
on six all summer. Running like a dream.

By autumn, the engine was blowing smoke,
the girl was pregnant. By the side
of the road out of Tapu it died,
the Rover, the girl, the baby, and I.

-Bill Smith
‘The Poet Who Writes for Peanuts!’

I really FEEL this one, you know? Tapu is just 25 minutes up the road from us. The whole scene reminds me of my old Holden Gemini, and associated adventures in Tasmania in 1998. “…serious pieces worthy of a darkened corner, a glass of wine and perhaps a box of tissues” indeed. Thanks, Pic’s.

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For Nothing is Fixed: podcast and poems

“Fixed” as in: permanent / unmoving / unchanging;
“Fixed” as in: repaired, made whole.

On this theme I present this timely and provocative conversation between Viveka and Paramananda. So much of what Viveka says (and not just in this podcast!) resonates with my experience, in particular:

Just because we’re physically together doesn’t mean we’re vibing together… Just recognizing that when we’re physically together doesn’t mean that all bodies are able to be there in the same way has been a huge teaching for me.

and:

How can we actually co-create a space that everyone is genuinely able to be welcome with others, to be welcoming others? …There’s something about the beautifulness of our differentiation where we can actually welcome each other fully.

Their conversation takes as its springboard this poem by James Baldwin, which Paramananda recites beautifully (and from memory!) at 4:40:

For Nothing Is Fixed
by James Baldwin

For nothing is fixed,
forever, forever, forever,
it is not fixed;
the earth is always shifting,
the light is always changing,
the sea does not cease to grind down rock.
Generations do not cease to be born,
and we are responsible to them
because we are the only witnesses they have.
The sea rises, the light fails,
lovers cling to each other,
and children cling to us.
The moment we cease to hold each other,
the moment we break faith with one another,
the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.

***

Here’s another excerpt of a poem, which I heard for the first time this afternoon. Apparently it is stenciled on the streets of Salem, Massachussetts in such a way that it is only visible when it rains, and I wish I could find the poem in its entirety:

Prema-Bangera-TheArtofHealing

All around the globe, Right Now, people are busy filling in the cracks of our world with gold, and I’m deeply inspired.

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Compassion for all beings is compassion in action: Viveka on The Buddha as Social Revolutionary

Lately I’ve been wondering if my belief that I’m acting on behalf of other beings is actually a form of delusional spiritual bypassing.

How can we balance the energy needed to do our own work to address our own delusions, and the energy and work to support the liberation of all beings?

I posed the question above to Viveka during a talk she gave on The Buddha as Social Revolutionary; a month later, I feel even more strongly that we Buddhists could muster a bit more socially-engaged energy while we also use the tools for our own comfort and self care.

Check out her fantastic answer at 45:25 (thank you Viveka ❤ ) or for even more inspiration, watch the entire talk! It starts at 10:07 in this recording and continues for an hour:

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What’s your Printery?

I love everything this video reveals about this man, his vision, his spirit, his work in the world… Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr, please take my money!

You will not get a degree
You will not go into extraordinary debt
You will print all day, every day
You will clean type
Wipe up ink
Smell the scent of grinding heavy metal night and day
You will not move back in with your parents
Nor struggle to have a quote/unquote “career”

You can give him money too, via his latest IndieGoGo campaign. Hat tip to Austin Kleon for alerting me (and thousands of other e-newsletter subscribers) to the existence of this inspirational being!

If a contribution isn’t in your budget right now, Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr offers an alternative to “join[ing] the growing movement of people who are taking control of their own damn lives.”

OtherWays

May we all find our own version of The Printery, which is, as Amos describes,

another path, a community that will assist you in achieving your dreams.

Not someone else’s dreams; YOUR dreams.

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The Lanyard – a poem by Billy Collins

Thank you, Jen, for sending me this video of Billy Collins reading his poem The Lanyard… on my mother’s birthday, and her mother’s birthday, no less!

Start at 0:45 for best effect:

My mother gave me life, and it was only because of her own late mother’s sacrifice that we both exist at all. In return, today I offer you both this blog post, knowing full well we’ll never be even.

Full poem below, as can be found all over the internet without attribution… the former US Poet Laureate has published many many books of poetry, do support him by checking them out! Continue reading “The Lanyard – a poem by Billy Collins”

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the water it moved / yeah it moved me

I’ve experienced a particular magic that is very difficult to describe, and it happened to me regularly while surfing this spot at sunset, on days when there was just enough haze in the atmosphere to blend the pastel colors of sea and sky seamlessly into one another to such an extent that distinctions themselves felt meaningless… in fact the difference between me, bobbing gently amongst all that wonder, and the vast expanse itself seemed to disappear entirely.

This song — and even the lyrics, which I finally “got” after playing the song over and over on trips to and from the Buddhist Centre — evokes a similar feeling for me. The internets claim that the artist herself now lives and surfs in this same small town, so I like to imagine it’s her I captured in the photograph above exactly two years ago today.

pacific is bigger / than I ever knew / until I got in her / and the water it moved / yeah it moved me / and if I was frightened / out there on the shore / well I had good reasons / but I don’t anymore / yeah it moved me / there’s nowhere to go where the earth doesn’t quake / it moved me

Lyrics (c) Kelly McFarling [source]

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Exactly the Q&A I need right now

Q (from Rupa Bhattacharya, Editorial Director, Culture at Vice):

…how do we make space for ourselves and hold being a trailblazer and everything else that comes with our work?

A (from hospitality activist and bartender, etc etc Ashtin Berry):

I’ve often said that self-care requires discipline, but it also requires acceptance. You can’t really care for yourself if you aren’t sitting in the awareness of what your body, mind, spirit needs. So holding space for myself right now looks like investigating my feelings in a deeper way and acknowledging things even if I don’t have words for it at the moment.

Full original below for additional inspiration, but first here’s my own (five years ago!) Ace Hotel mirror selfie, constant-companion fanny pack lurking in the background:

AceHotelSelfie.png

Huzzah for celebrating the awareness of what the body, mind, spirit needs, and to letting go of needing the right words for what you discover through that investigation!

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A yoga sequence to cultivate compassion from Chelsea Jackson Roberts

I found this lovely heart-opening yoga sequence several months ago while putting together a class on the Heart Chakra:

Heart sequence.png

Since then, I’ve incorporated it into just about every class I teach, and it’s become my go-to movement practice… so I figured it was about time I shared the love!

It’s quite accessible in that it is easy to practice anywhere, without a mat or specialized clothing. It’s also easily adjustable to fit any timeframe. I usually start with a version in which I hold each pose for two full breaths. Even if that’s all I have time for, my mindbodyheart feel so much better for it; even better if I have time to go through several rounds, timed with the breath.

I’m convinced that this sequence was exactly the loving kindness that I needed during a recent retreat that was very challenging, both physically and emotionally.

Thank you, Chelsea Jackson Roberts, for sharing your inclusive practices and experiences with us. They are truly gifts that keep on giving!

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Thoughts on the way to the climate strike

I’m off to the climate strike in Auckland today, with all my intersecting identities, mixed feelings, and no sign, because what words could ever be… right?

I love that sometimes a piece of music, words that aren’t organized in the usual fashion, and/or movements of the body can express those ineffable so effectively. More Love indeed. May all beings be well!

Thanks to my colleague, friend, and most-committed yoga student Daniel for sharing these ❤