Leonard Cohen: she bound him to a kitchen chair......"

We all deeply deserve to experience love and joy...For God so loved the world...

It seems so odd and so humbling to think that with all my education and experience in psychology both on various couches and in various guises i was  still more or less clueless as to how to really meet life.  Of this I can honestly say I was clueless about what  really matters.  Oh yes!  I was blind but now  I see and I was deluded but now I am clearer.   And that deep, deep down, in the heart of the matter, we are all miracles of light of love of motion of whirly molecules all dancing, all swirling eddies of liquid-form and light.  We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon.........

This daily practice of mindfullness of loving-kindness towards the wife, and at work, and increasingly mindfull awarness of the mental machinations of this mind that connects me to the "Matrix." (oh this journey is gonna get far out!)  This daily practice is the energy that keeps the heart open that keeps the mind focused. that keeps the devil away.  A sense of humor and a phenomenological appreciation and a sense of silliness helps!

"Play that funky music, white boy......

          "When you see beauty in everything and in everyone then your soul is free."

i heard the above line in a Hallmark movie.  It struck me as very zen-ish and, i think it's true.  That as one begins to see with the heart, one also beings to see more color in the world.  Surprizing and unexpected color.  Unexpectedly, i am starting to see the color in people.  i don't mean their race i mean their spirits, their hearts, their unique-ness - Our uniqueness.  Our "child-like-ness'es," which are moments i think, where our basic goodness and wholeness, our  innocence and playfull-ness bursts out of us!  Celebrate Diversity!  Celebrate Life!  Celebrate Color!  Emerge! Unfold! Experience the love and the joy!!!

Life is a dance and light dances too!  We are all pulsating on multiple levels to various rhythms, dancing, dancing. All of life, all of "us" people and it can be beautiful.  Each day is an adventure and one can really only trust that what is truely necessary will be provided for.  Some how. Some way. 

Today this funky little town we call home held its first annual gay pride festival day.   The first time I guess all the two-spirited people in and around Durango and the four corners could come together to show and to celebrate their fullness of color, of spirit and heart.

Ageing, we are and the heigtened sense of impermanance it brings, opens one to the preciousness of our moments.  Here.
In this life.  Being alive!  Experiencing the beauty of life.


i wanted to celebrate this day and to experience this level of acceptance, compassion, joy, and openness too, towards, and with all.  And we did.  to be continued....

Memorial Day

...the light is clear inside Peggy's house.  A dear friend who simple appeared one day in our lives in the strangest of places and ways.  Inside a mall.  Under a tent.  Images of dogs n cats with little sayings simple and profound.  Profundity i have learned arises from most simple roots.  And here i am, a commanding view of the orderly clutter of a dear friends house.  The light is clear.  The space is quiet. Wind competes with ice box noise to accompany the occasional bird song.  The movement of the fan illuminates the dancing of the light.

i am here to photograph Iris.  "Iris Bob" has been learning how to grow Iris' and letting me learn how to    photograph them for nigh on to 15 yrs now, and i'd be dearly remiss if i did not post a link www.iris4u.com so all  the masses can visit.  So far, it's been an interesting visit.  So far, i remain lost in last years image of Iris' and have not moved on.  i have faith that i will.  i have less faith that the truck will start each time it needs too and, i think, there is some lesson to be learned - some teaching to absorb knowing conditions are such that it's a coin toss whether or not the truck will start or leave me stranded and dependent on the good heart of others.  So do I trust that an angel will appear when needed?  Do I trust in a strange city having faith when i hold out my alms bowl someone will respond from the generosity and kindness of their heart, and help me ease my way home?  Do I trust really that all IS and ALL will be alright?

So far, the truck turns right over and purrs like Ellie, my friend's cat and the light remains clear.

 Each day is an opportunity to learn, to grow, to be present as some new part of our life unfolds, and the gift is the spaciousness of Mind to observe it. A gift which only seems to grow each day.  Yesterday, (the truck was perfect) and i came to see how much i was clutching the past - the way(s) i saw and photographed the last time i photographed Iris.  This year, i am using chance elements of time and movement much more so than ever before.  Continuing to explore image possibilities in imagination and trying to work out the details as i go.  Yet.  Still i cling to the crutch of the past much as we all cling to the concept that "the truck will always start," as we cling to all the "ways [things] we were," pushing away what is lest we let go and see something new.  This is a process.  An immersion process.  Time taken will be time well spent.  i trust this to be so.  i have faith it shall be.  And still, always, it seems one has to go through all the old motions, run through all the familiar routines, till the mind runs it course for the "moment" and becomes still.  Still for 1/25th of a second.

Yesterday was memorable.  While preparing to play a woman remarked to me: "you must have simply a wonderful time doing that!"  At first taken aback, i recovered and replied: "i have delightful times doing this - times of great joy!" It was good say that and it was good for her to ask it.  Words can be magic.  Weaving spells and incantations.  Most put us to sleep.  A few wake us up. 

And another, a man who at first seemed to be a pest but awoke in me the desire to reach out too and to teach.  To share some of the light, some of the amazement, some of yes, that delightfulness i notice as i practice the seven factors of enlightenment each time i photograph.  He listened.  He learned that he could see with new eyes truths which formally had been well hidden in plain sight.

doc rob

War is a drug & Art is a ritual

Just finished watching the "Hurt Locker," hence half the title:  "war is a drug."  An ancient and honored drug.  A rush and a high unparalled.  The violence of the movie is what occurs silently within - growing deadly within the souls of the warriors who chase the rush and the high.  I am grateful I did not and never will have to endure those conditions.  Nor those endured time and time again, those who have to pay time and time again.....we "will always have the poor among us."

Being a soldier is a choice.  Becoming  a warrior is, perhaps not.

These past days alone have been kind to me.  I realize I too need the solitude, the seclusion, and the silence of this space Karen and I are creating together.  I have mended fence and scrubbed floors, played with images and words,  and I have been blessed and touched by the sacredness of life - by the simple elegance of it all.

Walking across the pasture, the wind in my face and hair.  Exhilrating!  Wonderful!  How good it feels to walk the green earth to feel the actual ground beneath my feet not cement or packed dirt.  Just the earth!  Crickets heard and instantly I am 7 or 12 and its July and the stars are bright and I am with people who love me and with whom I feel safe and all is right with the world.  POOF!

Then i am right back on the hillside, Tomo is standing still a few yards away just watching me as I turn into the sun and perform sun salutation rituals while aspiring that all beings might experience moments of such joy as this - that they too might know they are held in love by the universe.  A peace settles upon me.   A meadow lark sings nearby, its voice piercing the deep silence of the field.  Tomo moves closer to me and stands looking back home.  She offers me her muzzle as if to make sure I have not turned to salt or stone.   Its not my land but no one can take what i experience there away from me.  And the view is grand! 

Ahh the gravity of it all!

Ok, here's a thought for you.

Recall how in the bible Jesus purportedly says:
"unless you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.?"

Well, i've been thinking.  Seems i once believed that Jesus was speaking in some sort of well, "tongue," so to speak.  A poetic reference to some metaphor or euphoric state.  Or maybe something pointing to something obscurely Jewish, or esoterically Greek, or mythically  Roman. Or maybe astrologic.  But lately i've been wondering............lately i've become curious........that maybe just maybe Jesus meant to be taken literally.

That:   "Unless you become as a little child you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven."  What if to enter the kingdom of heaven one has to embody child-like attitudes? What if its as simple, as ordinary, as "plain as the nose on the face." simple?

So, can i?  Am i willing? to continue to play a holy fool? Continue to talk to the wind and the trees, the flowers and the bees laughing with delight as i might do so.  Of being filled with light.  Of overflowing with big sky mind / big ocean heart?  I can.  I will when conditions arise such that.......

Fracked!

Mind is so fracking full of stories its a miracle when all quiets down.

It's tough!

It's damn difficult to stay in the moment