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

Pisces Eyes

I was told I have "fishy" eyes.  "Those big watery Pisces one's that make you look as if you just smoked a fat joint," kind of eyes.  And you know, I just might!

Our second year of Essential Dharma classes at the dharma center just ended and we went and had our horoscopes read by a highly recommended "Jungian Astrologer."  He was good.  It was good.  It was good to get away and good to come back.  Ahah!  Conditions arise .....and fall. 

I feel asleep thinking of beauty and of what the dancing monk called  "eternal oneness" and which I call of
"Abiding love."  Through my fishey eyes - my "psychic-spongey-ness" I am slowly, painfully, beginning to see beauty in and of compassion.  As I ponder what the deep implications of believing and behaving as if there is truely no-separatness of the the One and us manys all entails? 

I think of one who sees through a "colored" filter but does not see that she does.  Telling herself the same story she was taught to see as a child.  That story still colors her perceptions of certain social and racial concerns and tints it with fear and anger.  With a sense of outrage and indignation of the unfairness of conditions we are all to some degree subject too.  And because of that story and how neatly its premise and its conclustions fit with the currently prevailing social/economic/political ideologies.  It continues to color her view about life.  But I wonder?  I wonder and maybe I think that maybe the larger picture isn't about fairness and justice as it is about compassion and appreciative joy?

If one imagines that deep deep down there is no separation amongst and between us.  That we are all comprized of the same energy, the same life-force, the same lovingplayfullness.  "We are the world," as the late, great, and odd entity known as Michael Jackson once said.

So I'm a pondering and a wondering what that means in terms of how I and how We relate to self and other?  Right now I am kinda leaning towards taking John Joseph's advice and staging a good old Capricorn release session.   All I need now is a good Hallmark movie to move me into a more compassionate state.........

The Open Heart Cafe: Closed on Sundays.

The first principal of buddhism according to Kornfield says: "See the inner nobility and beauty of all human beings."  Illustrating this principal is a quote from Thomas Merton:  "The saints are what they are, not because their sanctity makes them admirable to others, but because the gift of sainthood makes it possible for them to admire everybody else."

It has been awhile it seems since i felt my heart truely open and receptive to and of and for the noumena and other entities around me.   The second principal of buddhism is: "compassion is our deepest nature.  It arises from our interconnectedness to all things."  Buddhism is an extremely well inter-connected organization of thought and comprehension of ways of journeying through this life.

I have practiced waking up with the intent to go through the day seeing the nobility and beauty in others.  It is not easy.  But, it is fun. And.....it most definetly softens the heart.  It most assuredly massages tender spots within one's heart.  Its easy in some ways which are surprizingly hard in others.  For me, it seems to require a combination of other practices.  Metta, right intention and for god's sake, right speech!  It's not that there are right words so much as there is a right spirit and if the spirit is right the words will be right.  Pretending to secretly be the Dali Lama is kinda cool.   Cool and easier I think than pretending to be  Jesus Christ or a vestal virgin.    And as much as doing this can supercharge the day, lighten the spirit and perhaps enlighten the mind - there is an aversion to starting each day like this.  There is within me, an aversion to being so "chirpy" and a desire to awe and shock.....Or hide from.

And still my heart feels guarded.  Not tight, not shut down, just guarded.  A little self-protective still but increasingly more clearly aware of the subtle changes and shifting of the vagueries of the heart as it navigates through the vissiccitudes of life.   I long for spring!  We all long for spring!  And still, the snow falls, and still the sunsets, and still my heart beats. 

It was the night of the Weird Pic show put on by Carson Jones.  It was cold.  I was missing the presence and warmth of the spouse, and killing time when i took this.  Since i took it i have been putting off working on it and this, perhaps only the first attempt checking in just to see what my condition is in.  "Yeah, yeah, ohhhhh yeahhhhh."

Moment by Moment by the Doobie Brothers

Jack Kornfield, in his book "Wise Heart," speaks of the fact that both light and consciousness manifest in both wave and partical form. He goes on to use the metaphors of "big sky," and "mirror-mind," and equates these with wave-like consciousness to show us possibilities of experience available to all.

If one can imagine that their consciousness is linked too and equivalent with that-which-is-the-sky, then one can experience the vastness of consciousness.  If in one's imagination a person can identify with and be-the-sky then in turn one's understanding of the essential truth of the energy of Love as that-which-binds and paradoxically that-which-is-unbounded takes root and begins to grow.  And  if one can let go and allow their partical-like consciousness to expand and flow wave-like, than I think the experience of life becomes freer.  Liberation becomes imaginable and there is inevitably a lessening of suffering.  "Suffering" understood as the buddhist dukka.  Our self-inflicted wounds.

When I think of mirror-like-mindedness...a camera comes to mind and at first anyway its easy to imagine being absorbed in image-making and in being-in-the-moment imaging being a camera.  The mirror in a camera filps the image so the mind can interpret and label and "control" the shapes and forms of various aggregates of energies-in-agreement, and tones and textures, light and shadow.  Merging and filling up.

I like both metaphors and find both to open doors to deeper experiences and explorations of consciousness.  Consciousness and how it plays with how it perceives and how it experiences the noumena of the phenomenon we call life.  If both light and consciousness manifest as both wave and partical, and if the stuff of what we call noumena (things) also manifests as both wave and partical, than it makes sense that everything that is, most especially including us, manifests as wave and as partical on multiple levels and dimensions simultaneously both in (our bodies) and out (our consciousness) of time.

We experience life in both its wave-like manifestations and its partical-like manifestations and when our manifestations happen to be in synch, when they happen to be in rhythm magic happens.   Life momentarily becomes a dance.  A party.  Examples of wave-like consciousness it seems to me then would be, among other things, music, dance, athletics, arts or certainly aspects of the artistic and creative processes.  Making love and baking cookies or knitting a homile to put above the kitchen clock.

Partical consciousness on the other hand, seems to refer to that moment-by-moment - second-by-second shifting/arising/falling/passing flow of the consciousness of time.  That "chasing-the-light" awareness when one experiences the world in "moments."  Moments of time.  Moments measured by the falling of a leaf, by a cloud shielding the sun, by time measured from dawn to dusk. Ahh these "magic moments" as my favorite boy-band singer once sang before he left to become a preacher man.  Sadly, too many lives can be distilled down to only a few good moments - a few magic moments.  So when we do  experience  moments of   joy and awe, of gratitude and grace.  Moments of understanding of timeless awakening, of perfection, of the kingdom.  We need to give thanks.

I think conditions are sometimes such that all is in synch.  Through my day job I am starting to learn and to see, how single-focused and concentrated energy can be effectively applied equally well to writing up legal documents and as applied to the art of creation and image-making.  But in photography alone  I come closest to being immersed in the ebb and flow the warp and weave the co-mingling of light as partical as it moves as it dances upon and across the subject framed by my lens........AND aware simultaneously of consciousness as wave form as joyful realities flow through me.  As I experience bliss and serenity, awe and mirth, dancing back and forth the Nikon tango light love art and being all dancing n sparkling all pulsing to different yet harmonious rhythms.  Equinamity arises!

The Doobies really were a great rock n roll band .  I take their advice often to simple "listen to the music," of the unfolding life-time-in-this-world playing my shaker adding my voice to the song.
doc rob

Fences build good neighbors

I have a neighbor.  He is an odd duck, a rare breed, a horse of another color.  He is a man of his word and he is a man of faith (in these times both are rare).  He is one who religiously follows his chosen path. He lives it and it shows.  He is a man with a good heart and a strong back.  Ask him and he will tell you that he is your spiritual brother.  Ask him and he will gladly give you a hand up.

 Mortality arises!

Yesterday I went out to help my neighbor put up a snow fence alongside our road.  Of course the fact that the conditions were the kind that were "nearly impossible and certainly down right crazy to even think of putting up a snow fence" sort, didn't seem to deter either of us.   For all of his admirable qualities and my own humble blessings, we both were foolish!

I collapsed!  The physical exertion combined with the blistering cold and the brutally harsh sunlight on the snow was enough to send me to my knees!  I knelt trying to just breathe and center self, look at the crystal sky, the pure mountains, and feel oddly grateful to be there then.  To experience that moment.  And to know that I was safe.  That my neighbor would take care of me in my time of need.  As each generation does for those who preceeded.  Just as I help steady my father-in-law as he navigates these last days of his journey in this life, so could I allow myself to lean back, feel safe, and know I could rest my trust in the heart of my neighbor.  That he would offer me a hand up!

Thought I'd die!  Maybe I did?  Some?  A little bit more realizing the impermanance of life, of this life, this "Doc Rob" life. Experiencing the cold stark truth of the feebleness of my body amidst the onslaught of those brutal conditions.  Experiencing this eddy in the mind "I" call  "me."  This conglomeration of whirling swirling spinning twisting particles of energy, light, and life that we ALL are a part of -- and all participating in that and in the "More" co and inter-mingling our energies my neighbor and I.

So, are we spiritual brothers you and I?  I think yes I think no.  I think the metaphor "brother" still clings to the illusion of separatness.  Concepts which emphasize separation impoverish the spirit.  I think as we learn to move beyond these concepts and see with more clarity, we no longer solidify reality.  In mindfullness, we learn to see life arising and passing, being present we can experience the life of body and mind as if in a continual flux, each breath a beginning and each an end.  Sharon Salzberg says:  " Without the rigidity of concepts, the world becomes transparent and illuminated as if lit from within. With this understanding, the interconnectedness of all that lives becomes clear.  We see that nothing is fully separate, that who we are, what we are, is intimately woven into the nature of life itself.  Out of this sense of connection, love and compassion arise."

Fly over Country

Life slows down out here in the boondocks.   One becomes earthier and the rhythms and times of the earth deepens this adventure, this journey we know as our experience of life.  It's hard though - at times.  When the stressors of work and the requirements of survival and all one's hopes and desires and one's fears and anxieties combine.  The mind tends to wonder, it tends to drift.   Thoughts spin new thoughts, fears begat fears, and the mind sinks back down into that mire of mud, into that web of illusion, getting lost in the past or the future and being mindless of the here and now.  Yep!  Life slows down but not necessarily the mind and that's essential.  I think.  To being present.  To being present to one's self being present to the bare awareness of nature.  It's elements, it's moods, it's beat, it's pulses and times.

We live in what I happily refer to as "fly-over" country.   Planes fly so far above us that while we see their trails and glints, we never hear them.  "Fly-over" country is quiet country.  Its wide expanses of land, mountains and clouds.   Out here, one can hear the "sound of silence."  Out here, one can follow the path of the sun from rise to set and mark the change of the seasons with notches on a western deck.   Out here, one can learn to slow down.  One can learn how to be nurished by the mud and one can practice unspinning the mind's many paths of illusion/delusion/confusion.  One can begin to experience clarity of mind as one learns to observe and note the proclivities and tendencies of a mind.

And it is hard.  To be present.  Fully present in the moment to self to other to surrounds and to the experience of a moment.  I still wonder how "moments" are defined.  Like an "hour" is measured in minutes.  60 Minutes.  An hour.  Seems to me those "moments" which have and will define our lives are timeless and more frequent than not if one remains awake and aware, in the moment, the here and the now and not in the sweet bye and bye.  I am experiencing (with the help of mind and mood altering substances) that when the mind is going, when it is off spinning its stories, its tales, its webbed narratives primarily to it's self because to everyone else its the "same old story" and everyone is tired of hearing it except the one still mindlessly repeating it.  Over and over.  As one grows older there is "no (more) time to wonder in the mire."  (Come'on baby light my fire....).

Minute by Minute counting down to 60

The phenomena of time fascinates me.  The experiencing of time blows my mind!  For years I have sworn off being tied to time.  In the conventional sense. Wearing a watch, keeping track.  Which is not to say that I don't pay careful attention to time.  I do.  I am rapt by pondering the nature of a "moment," by inquiring into the experience of time mindfully measured and playfully explored.

A teacher said:  we live moment by moment and each moment is the same as every other moment.  Meaning that each moment is equally precious.  I cannot imagine living so intensly, I doubt I have the constitution or stamina for it.  Imagine how exhausting it would be to be deeply into the sanctity of each "moment."  Imagine how joyful, timeless, and fulfilling?

As we age by necessity we grow to understand time in multiple ways.  We have felt the urgency of a second, and caught the twinkle of the eye.  We have been absorbed into the magic of a moment, and been taken for a "magic carpet ride."  We have all experienced  moments which have changed us - changed our sense of self and moments in which we have transcended self and felt or sensed the presence of the Holy.  We have observed the changing seasons many many times now, and no longer can we pretend that we have an unlimited number of seasons left.   We understand that each life has its seasons and we appreciate this more as we cross into the autumn and winter of our own life and those of our loved one's.

Time grows shorter.  Time becomes more precious.  Time's use becomes more valuable.  Make love not war!

I am fascinated by rhythm and rhythms.  By the beat, by the pulse, by the gentle sway of rock and of soul. I feel I am in the autumn of my life and as of yet I do not know what rhythm (s) await me.  Which one's will entice and captivate and which will take me to the doorway of the timeless.

I wonder, how long is a moment, I wonder how moments are most often measured.  I do not know how I will feel until I actually arrive at 60.  But suprizingly as I write at 59 and 51 weeks, dead broke  money wise, but oh so rich in other more lasting treasures.  I digress,

I wonder if I can capture via the photographic process some sense of time.  A leaf falling.  A bird singing.
Breeze carressing flesh and defusing aroma's as I take a breath.  Aware that the moving of air into this body is equivalent to the breeze moving across the trees, the grass, the world as it exists for me, in this time of nearing 60 and in this space called Durango Colorado.

doc rob

Saturn Returns

60 is rapidly approaching and Saturn makes its final return, in the time of my life. Aches and pains and more and more complaints from these old bones and from my worn well flesh. In my mind I am only twenty five and life as it is now can be projected onwards. But that is not what is. What is is that this body i have so taken for granted for far too many years is aging. These molecules that aggragate around me in at least five dimensions have agreed to slowly let go. I know not where they go nor do I know where I go.

A friend gave me a gift of the image of life as "the river and the eddy." The eddy being all that is a phenomena - an object. an object-of-consciousness. And the river is the unconditional; the ground of all being; the one thought/one Mind; God.

I find it comforting and intuitively correct to hold the view of life as river and eddy. I'd like to think that the time ahead will be smooth and gentle. Truth is I do not know. Each day I ask god to grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. I pray for Equanimity and for Joy. It seems to be working - working in ways I could never have imagined. On we flow.........

This kind of practice deepens in and over time. Changes arise. One starts to recognize patterns. Patterns of behavior, of thought, and habitiual patterns of reactions and response. One starts to have insight into their own generic and particular eddies which make up the "streaming" that we are. All of us droplets of water - all of us oceans of light. Catching a falling leaf is equivalent to catching a falling star. Isn't it?

doc rob (a/k/a) the eccentric old coot

Ripples

I imagine being eye to eye with the water of a reflecting pool.   I imagine mind as still and as clear as the water.  I  imagine tiny pebbles of kindness dropping into the waters of life by gentle hands - hands that know only how to wish well - hands that wish only to be moved towards touch in compassion.

I  see and I feel these little pebbles being dropped and dropping into that reflecting pond,  onto that mirror of mind, birthing natural rhythms and of couse the eddies and the ripples, those myriad interactions which aggregate around and us and within us.  Where does one stop and one begin?  Or is there such a thing as a beginning?  At all?  Imagine no beginning and no ending "imagine no religion too."   Flickers of light dancing.  Dancing upon any lake, any body of water, any and really, upon every-body.  We are all water and light. Diamonds in the night.  Diamonds dancing in the light.

Seems that no matter how many times I return to the same place that it is never the same space....  and ripples have effects.  My intention is for my contribution  to be kind and engaging and that my ripples be inspiring, challenging, creative, loving and wholesome.  It is a work in progress.

doc rob

What is Enlightenment?

I think I may be slightly delusional living in this time in this space in this mind and feeling as if enlightenment is nothing more or less than being alive in the moment, of being mindful of the "moment," (however a "moment" is defined or counted out in "time" or "breath),  as if enlightenment is really such an ordinary state of being of simply being present to sensations, and movements, the touch of texture the dimensionality of form and shape the graphics of line and pattern and the feel and the story of color, of color as light, of color as depth as color of life and soul all mushed together with shadow and light, with holy spirit-holy body and Life!

Anyway..... I think enlightenment is really and truly so quite ordinary and mundane that we simply over look it.  By thinking perhaps that it must be something grand, something supra-mundane, something magical and mystical we miss the invitation for our participation in the rhythms of life and the call to be part of the various levels of conditions arising simultaneously or nearly so as we live and move and have our being.

But if so, it is a  "kind delusion." One that allows me to imagine  and to actually feel and experience how good it feels to "drop pebbles of loving-kindness" into the world  and observing how people's eyes, faces, and minds light up as the kindness moves upon them.  It is a gift to be mindful of acts and words of  loving-kindness.   There is surprise and delight, and merriment, and now and then, a moment of awakening hits us like a Hallmark movie moment and we are transported and transfigured till  POOF!  Its gone!  But not without leaving an imprint behind.  Which begs the question:  what sort of an imprint do I wish to leave behind??  Which further begs the question: can one mindfully and heartfully scatter, toss,  and  drop, enough pebbles of kindness into the mix of this multi-connecting rhythms of life and life's attendent responsibilities, disciplines, devotions, and deviations being all mushed about?  To make a difference?   Its a wonder ya know?

Its rather nice to take a stroll down Main St and think of others coming and going in kind ways; wishing other energies other entities good will and good heart and being open to opportunities.  Looking to be a kindness to another.  It feels good and it has repercussive effects.  Seems that acts of kindness begat acts of kindness - reaping as we sow as we grow and as we share and connect with others from a gentle spacious space.  From a place of compassion, ripples given from and ripples felt within the open heart.

One wonders where and how-come Christianity missed the boat.  If perhaps the frightful hunger and need for power and control absorbed those who were in positions to make a difference way back when.  Way back when Christianity was a path and a way of living rather than a mental game and a way of manipulating.  A way of manipulating poltically, economically, regionally, and along class lines in order to maintain the status-quo of those who fear the most and would have the most to lose from teaching people the truth and allowing them to explore and have their experiences validated as part of the path - part of the dharma - the way buddhism does it.  Easy and hard, fast or slow.  We walk this path we are all manifestations of the One which appears as many.

Back in philosophy the question was raised:  How does one reconcile the many and the one?  But the question is based on a false premise - that the One is something somehow distinct from the many.  Perhaps I suppose because you and me and the person next door all represent the many, that so the thinking goes that if you are you and I am me and they are them that that necessarily means that we are all separate.  Unrelated.  Unconnected in all but the loosest sense.  When the truth is we are all connected in all ways except the loosest sense.   Divide and conquer.

While sitting in a garden in an alcove on a warm August day, eyes gone soft, breathing slow, mind spacious and at rest a fly arose.  And I wondered what it would be to see this world with eyes of a fly, with fish eye, with multiple lens eye, to see from the perspective of the least among us.  And so I imagined and so I felt and so the understanding settled upon me that the One manifests as Many and it occured to me as I laughed that the One is the Many and the Many loses touch with the One in the multiplicity and the manipulations of the mind.   Mind in lower cap letters.  Mind as in mine and yours.  Each a segment of - each a holograph of the One and of the Many.

I am so fortunate to be able to love and to live, to work and to play, in this delightful town of Durango.  I am so fortunate to have "found" this place so thankful we listened to the call of this space.  And moved here and are learning how to build here.  Here in  our home.   Karen and I.  A place we call "Casa Serene."

doc rob

Boom Boom Boom

he older I get the more I understand that there is  a rhythm to life and a  rhythm to every life.  A definite beat.  A pulse from out of which all the rhythms are grounded.  A beat from which all other rhythms arise.  Each season has its own time signiture (winter,to me seems a slow, bluesy, 6/8). The divine matrix is poly-harmonic and poly-rhythmic and still, be it Coltrane or Jagger or Ringo or Bach  there is still, underlying all, the pulse. The beat. The boom boom boom! 

"Turn, Turn, Turn," is a song about "equanimity,"  from the book of Ecclesiastes.  Though no bible scholar, to me, the book of Ecclesiastes only makes it more clear that everything is impermanent and when we grasp and try to hold on that we are missing the boat.....that we are not in rhythm, that we are off beat. Its an old saying I know, but does anyone really march to their own drummer? Does anyone really exist out of rhythm, out of synch with the dance of life? For long? And live to tell about it??

The more I practice loving-kindness....the more I cultivate seeds of compassion and joy, the more I start to "get" the concept of "Equanimity."  The more I struggle with letting go of the "vanity of vanities," the easier and more satisying it becomes to simply connect with and play the basic beats.  To do what one can at any given time, to give what one can in the moment.  

Doc Rob

In just a Moment

For some time I have been pondering the question of time both as a phenomena with spiritual and quantum characteristics,  and as it relates to photography and to the creative process.  History and life stories, myths and personal tales bear witness to the import of, to the "decisiveness" of, to the earth-shattering / mind-blowing "OMG" moments of life.  Of our life.  So, no question that moments are important and I think its important to experience such moments and perhaps more so to be humbled by and moved to be grateful for, those such moments.  I know I am.

So, when does a moment start? Does a moment have a specified time frame?  Of what duration?  Or maybe its musically based - grounded in some deeply rooted heart pulse - a beat recalling Elvis, and Hank, B.B. Freddie Van Morrission and the boys.  If so I wonder is it  counted in the 6/8 of african rhythm or in the 3/4 of country rock?  Surely not counted by the ticks of a clock.  Safe to say I do not know.  Equally honest to say that its important to pay attention to those qualities and energies which come together in a "moment" that can change one's life.   If one has never had an experience of being intimately and deeply connected with / held by / composed of that which is variously known as "Father," or the "unconditional,"   I simply call it abiding love, then you know that which I speak of and you probably remember that or those moments are comprising the most important moments of your life.  If not, if you have not had such an experience and you want one or several, than start using your imagination to take you there and best start soon.

Clearly this topic will require more moments.  I knew it might the instant the idea popped to examine my experience of "life moments."  What ever they might be.  Without or with as little judgement as possible, learning how to stay more in the moment.  Practicing ways to hover around and linger a bit longer.  Learning to notice a complete moment in a breath, and learning to let go of that breath.  Finding freedom in the mind and experiencing greater spaciousness and depth of the mind and most cool of all, almost all the time feeling held within a vast space of that "ever present everywhere....that warm love."  (Van Morrison)

doc rob