Posted 5/31/2002 08:55:02 AM
i almost did not post the Hekmatyar entry from yesterday. political commentary is so divisive...

anyway some soothing words to start this day as i watch the sun peek through the late spring foliage in Austin:

It is an odd thing I think, that I sometimes forget that this is how life is: memory and the vestiges of color and sound we carry with us from our previous lives. It is as though the pictures on the wall are the same, but the wall itself is different, a strange color of taupe. This remembrance is the emotional currency we carry with us as we go from place to place, and we hoard it to keep ourselves happy or we trade it so we can forget. And while some may remember the photos they’ve taken before, others can see only that the walls they have moved into are not the ones they remember. My friend who lives here feels the need to move every six months. 'I need to get the hell out of here’, he tells me, wherever 'here' may happen to be. These days, he wants to move to San Francisco. He has moved across the country not realizing behind him trails that thin gray tether of grief that will follow no matter where he goes. Yet, maybe he is aware of this anchor and desires forgetfulness? He is my dear friend, but only he knows how to remember what he chooses to forget. ~

Posted 5/30/2002 10:31:24 AM
how many times do we have to tell you to off this guy? no one has the stomach for political killing anymore. this guy could have been taken out scores of times in the last 12 months not to mention over the last 10 years. for those who do not follow, this is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar--one who unleashed mortar genocide on the civilian population of Kabul in the early 1990s when he was whining for power and who now has betrayed his country again in calling for a new civil war to empower himself. bastard.

unlike Masood, Hekmatyar is not a likeable chap and will not be mourned as a martyr or as a hero by the people of afghanistan. he is a religous and war time opportunist who has brought perverse violence and suffering upon his own people. time to call in the not-for-profit assassination NGO. there is a strike force of brits currently hunting him and i heard that the usa shot at him from a predator recently. perhaps we should be praying for our enemy.

Posted 5/30/2002 08:41:03 AM
when driven by craving, i am convinced that if only i were to achieve this goal, all would be well. while creating the illusion of a purposeful life, craving is really the loss of direction.
- s.batchelor

Posted 5/30/2002 08:33:17 AM
on the allure of chicago

Posted 5/30/2002 12:14:39 AM
... "what is irreplaceable about me?" she asks with sleep induced candor.
this offered in summation of a cadre of thoughts only winking at the reader through words taking a middle path between prose and poetry.
what is irreplaceable about me?
her voice intones feelings of conflict and wonder older than what we can know.
wonder that will be reintoned by her children's great-grandchildren in a time and place as foreign to us as the lost peoples who make up our unknown heritage if far enough back we go.
this unanswer is all i have: what is not?
you are a treasure that will never be fully known.
the language of replacement is insufficient.
::

Posted 5/29/2002 11:03:28 PM
the kingdom is about awakening to wholeness,
of purity at the level of intention,
of love pervasive across all action,

it is about abandoning your right to tomorrow,
giving without reciprocity,
sculpting solidarity with nothing to sell,

Posted 5/29/2002 05:51:39 PM
the compulsion to contrive a perfect situation is a blinding craving by those still carrying the expectation of a discernable exacting perfection.

what happens when perfection is seen as perspective? is the burden lifted or will one seek to live as if it were still there?

creation is messy. creation is the ultimate movement forward.

beyond creator we cannot speak in this way.


Of three metamorphoses of the spirit I have told you: how the spirit became a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child.

Posted 5/29/2002 10:18:33 AM

Posted 5/28/2002 09:20:56 PM

BBC News | SCI/TECH | Faces from the Ice Age

if authentic and dated somewhat accurately this discovery is very interesting. imagine the vast, advanced societies evidenced by these diverse human figures represented in stone from 15,000+ years ago. how tenuous history is. after a cataclysmic planetary event in our time what would be found in 15,000 years? the statue of liberty? mt. rushmore? evidence of vast metal and stone cities? certainly not our precious debt record or census information or personal data stored in the sand and magnetic media that powers our fragile, "modern" existence.

Posted 5/28/2002 09:19:42 PM
i think we've chosen new cages...
it's odd to move when you don't really want to.
i said it. did not think about that in advance.
i expected nothing but honesty and offered nothing but the same.
we'll see if honesty is all that it is cracked up to be.
i don't see it. the one concerned with not listening claims to hear on this point.
i think that this one is mistaken.
no is a spiritual experience we all learn to experience both ways.
love and peace.

Posted 5/28/2002 03:30:20 PM
the Shower Shock Soap below is from the ThinkGeek site for those uninitiated in the ways of geek culture. a quote that has been on their index page for some time has always brought a smile to my face:

Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance.
--Sam Brown

... although a substantial offense with style is always more entertaining ...

Posted 5/28/2002 03:20:45 PM
in the quest for new, creative ways to inbide caffeine this has got to be the most creative concept so far: Shower Shock Caffeinated Soap. don't eat it. the caf supposedly is absorbed through your skin...

Posted 5/28/2002 02:56:55 PM
{my text editor to do list from today}

girls to school
clean kitchen
resume

return book
setup pc

money...?
pay bills

pray

move beyond used
move away from gross overcommitment of time and resources (mental, emotional)
move toward a pattern of employment that is sustainable and provides for my family
move toward a pattern of spiritual expression that is authentic, soulfilled and awe inspiring

or whatever

Posted 5/28/2002 02:50:09 PM
what is lost when mystery is revealed? perhaps revelation is less desirous than mystery. or maybe they play off of each other like yin and yang always feeding into and out of the other? just a thought from someone who reveals too much regularly... but who consistently is accused of being an obtuse, wishy-washy wonk (read: mystery?). i dunno. random thought for the day.

Posted 5/28/2002 02:44:16 PM
Eminem CD spotlights new piracy patterns - Tech News - CNET.com

this is an intriguing phenomenon. the new eminem CD is the #2 disk put into computer CD-players before it is even released.

Posted 5/28/2002 11:42:05 AM

Mina Sherzoy: The Afghan Mother Theresa

After the Taliban fell, Sherzoy saw her chance, and made a remarkable decision: She gave up her comfortable California life to finally follow her heart home. {more}

Help Mina.

Posted 5/28/2002 09:47:49 AM

Posted 5/28/2002 08:17:04 AM
heard the old b.adam's MTV unplugged version of think about you today. i've heard a lot of him recently. he did the soundtrack to spirit (which is very good... yes, jess, i am old). our interscope friend gave us the disk a week ago and we have been listening to it nonstop for the last 24 hours.

Posted 5/28/2002 12:50:27 AM
can't sleep. we saw dreamwork's spirit today. expected very little. came away moved.

Posted 5/27/2002 05:13:30 PM
the current mp3 playing:
bryan.a, heaven.live.unplugged

Posted 5/27/2002 04:29:11 PM
the only authority any of us really has is relational.
command-based authority always undermines itself at some point.
those who practice command-based authority end up destroying the very thing
that could have brought them the authority they sought to inflict rather than enact.

Posted 5/27/2002 04:23:23 PM
power: we crave it. we fear it.

power is inevitable.
to crave power is destructive, but
it is not power that is the destructive element. it is craving.

power is inevitable.
to fear power is destructive, but
it is not power that is the destructive element. it is fear.

there is a dance with power
that is always simultaneously within
both enacting power and giving it up.


note to self: write on emptiness, the loss of self and power.
edit 052802:0935
{in case the irony of making a note to self about the loss of self is missed i thought that i would have myself make an editorial note...}

Posted 5/27/2002 03:44:11 PM

i was just IMing with a friend about the feeling of the weather. we just left the theatre and emerged into a quiet darkness much like the still, lush twilight of recollected times past--Skardu, Singapore, the Pacific Northwest, Katmandu... the hint of wetness, the slight breeze only noticeable by the understated movement of the leaves, the blanket of clouds that seem more securing than ominous. these make up the brooding, creative, soul-filled darkness that moves through me as i move through it.

believing ourselves to be something solid and autonomous, something that can encounter the world as it is--dominating and subduing it without ourselves being impacted, something other than a unique and powerful emergence from a unique collection of conditions is to inhabit a linguistic tradition of self-centeredness and despair, and, i would submit, is to lose something of what it is to be human--perhaps at an even deeper level what it means to be a part of our unique planetary existence.

the rain, the clouds, the thunder over the horizon, the quiet movement of the wind through my shirt, the deep impact of ayesha's hand in mine, eyes to look back at me offering love without possession--the commitment of freedom, the cycle of joy in preparing and sharing food, the all too natural pathologies of power in protecting and extending the lives and dreams of those we love, these, the powers inherent in what it is to truly live a human life, these powers that rip through us as if from afar all the while no more distant than our next breath, these we are given by design and they are ours to enact with love, with faith, with hope. this unfolding gift of play, of passion, these unforeseeable moments enfolding each other until the end we each reach. these are ours. we are theirs.

it is the story that remains at the end.

possess you cannot.

live.