Today, the mail fairy had a little surprise for me when I got home. Inside my mailbox was a little key with a note that there is a package for me in a bigger post box. Grinning like an idiot, I unlock door #2 to find the small box and the big Lulu shipping label.
I don't open it just yet. I figure a little unveiling is in order. Oh, wait a second, Soli, Gia and other friends are going to meet me at the Playwright before hearing Noah Levine (author of "Dharma Punx" and currently touring for his new book, "Against the Stream") speak at the yoga center across the street.
I all but skip to the Playwright. I get us a table, and the rest of the crew shows up.
As Soli takes a picture of me holding up the box, the waitress is kind of wondering what the hell we're doing as she takes drink orders. Everybody else arrives, and I open the box. Out comes this glossy print reproduction of my collage. It looks better than I could have believed. We do the show and tell, noting the high paper quality among other things. Our waitress wants to see, and she liked it, congratulating me, even as we leave. There will be things I change, most notably the spine. I like the font I used, but it might be better to use a font I sort of created myself for the front cover-consisting of my shaking hands writing out a sort of pseudo spraypaint concoction.
You can see for yourself from the
small photo gallery-part of which involves Soli getting a shot of me holding up the box at the playwrightI have no problem with show and tell where this is concerned.
We all eat, having our beer, margarita, coffee et al. and talking, joking around and just having a great time before we realized it's twenty after seven and that we needed to pay our tab and go.
In due time, we trot across the street, and converge with everyone else in a very pretty room painted in a warm yellow/beige tone. We grab mats/blankets to sit on. Eventually, my back starts bothering me and about halfway into the talk, I hop up on a chair.
I really liked a lot what Levine had to say. Not all of it I could live with myself, but I understood what he was getting at.
Mind the babbling that will follow.
My knowledge of Buddhism stems mostly from art history classes I took years ago (I want to find a paper I wrote where the professor asked us to name a buddha figure and use artwork and history as to why s/he would be such a figure. I chose cartoonist Matt Groening, drew him as his Life in Hell altar ego with Bongo, Maggie Simpson, I think and others as Botthisatvah, got an A and thought about it during the talk). One facet that impressed me was that there was no sale of eternal happiness or pleasure in reaching an afterlife. Pain is inevitable, and to be accepted, shown compassion to even.
I understand what he was getting at, but while I can accept that stubbing your toe, or in my case, the back of my hand hitting book trucks is a natural part of the life that comes again, I still hit the book truck and the shooting pain and ensuing bruise can go fuck itself.
I can state to pain that I don't like you any more than you like me, but we can cohabitate, however uneasily. Besides, no one was died of four letter words.
Then, there was forgiveness. In cases of major wrongs, wrongs beyond that of accidentally stepping on my foot, or just sticking your foot in your mouth as we all tend to do, I have a pretty damned hard time doing it, and if in the past, I did forgive a major wrong for any reason, it's a lot coming from me. In all but a few cases, the party screwed me again, sometimes in worse ways. I don't know if it were those cases, or upbringing, the Catholic school system, the public school system, astrological sign, lack of non diet cola in my childhood years or what have you, but I am not a forgive and forget type of person, even if I help that special someone in a major emergency. I wonder too if forgetting is a part of that equasion of forgiveness and letting go. Would I be more forgiving if I forgot those insults, hurts as I would forget where I put my keys? Who knows.
This never made it's way into my art classes, even though an overview of the belief systems and who the Buddha was came into play in the context of the artwork.
One thing I found interesting was that there was no use of substances like drugs and alcohol, even though one can argue that the mind could be expanded. The idea was to be completely aware and mindful.
I remember reading Elizabeth Wurtzel's "Bitch" and listening to a spoken word CD of Alan Watts. I was very fascinated and intrigued by what both had to say, but there was something a little off about what I was taking in. I learn from reading "More, Now and Again" that Wurtzel was high out of her mind when writing "Bitch" (as if some of the frenzied passages weren't hint enough) and I learn last night that Watts was often drunk out of his mind. This is interesting to hear this from a speaker that is also a recovering addict. Little something I saw but didn't, which if you take in Buddhist/New Age text, teachings, etc. you can kind of get a sense of concepts so simple you miss them and take for granted. It's something to think about, even if you are not at all religious as I am.
Onto everyone's favorite part; guided meditation.
This was a little something I never did in my history of East Asian Art or history of Japanese art classes, unless you count sitting still for lectures? Probably not as you take notes and answer questions, and I did a lot of that. I do occasionally meditate on my own. Candles aid this. To do it in a group was somewhat new to me, or newer as I haven't been to a mass service since 1997? 1998? Either way, I couldn't really keep as completely still as they wanted back then (little things like this explain why I have believed for several years that no matter what your faiths dictate, if you look at brass tacks you'll hear a lot of the same basic story).
I get situated, lying on my back and staring up at the ceiling as he spoke. Become aware of the body's tension/resistance.
Twitch.
Tense.
Something dissolves a little inside as I stare up at the ceiling.
Oh, my eyes are supposed to be closed during this. Ok.
More inner dissolve.
Hey...that's me. My neck feels tense. My heart beats. Wow.
It's a deprivation tank for claustrophobics like me. Hmmmm.
I never thought that way except when romantically involved with another person. That there is a pulse is amazing. Part of the love drug? Not any newer to anyone else? As impermanant as pain, I guess.
I dream of running from a girl who interviews Lulu authors and kills them in the hotels where they read. I wake at around one in the morning. I go back to sleep after some water. I took off Friday and will finalize Social Disease so it will be ready for distribution, purchase and hopefully reading and signing.
