What is rooted is easy to nourish. 
What is recent is easy to correct.
What is brittle is easy to break. 
What is small is easy to scatter.

Put things in order before they exist. 
The giant pine tree grows 
from a tiny sprout. 
The journey of a thousand miles 
starts from beneath your feet.

-Lao Tzu

What I’m learning: prevention vs. permission.  What we allow to take over, corrode, permeate, dismantle.  “Put things in order before they exist.”  This means dishes as they dry, even if there are no more to be washed.  The sink will fill.  A full sink is a full mind is a full belly is an ulcer.  Most Western medicines treat symptoms; it does not seek sources, or pre-sources–what we do before the damage is done.  So, even with medication, we quickly return to the place that keeps bringing us back the pharmacist.

Last week, I saw an acupuncturist, one whose teachings and opinion I trust; she looked at my body, the acne on my back, heard me talk of anxiety and unrest, and said: you need to stop drinking coffee.  Coffee! A variable in my diet I hardly even stop to think about.  Yesterday I visited a masseuse, a woman with a warm spirit and soft voice.  She pressed her hands on the knots in my back, and said I should probably start sitting upright.  Today, I’m arching my shoulders back.  Taking breaks from the computer to stretch.  Too many things repeat on their own, it seems.  Our bodies, these sores that keep swelling.

]]> http://messymuse.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/moon-sliver-im-winking-too/feed/ 2 kimmerlyaj http://messymuse.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/hafiz-rumi-osho-eli-that-ole-i-ching/ http://messymuse.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/hafiz-rumi-osho-eli-that-ole-i-ching/#comments Mon, 17 Oct 2011 21:43:35 +0000 kimmerlyaj http://messymuse.wordpress.com/?p=799 Continue reading →]]> With That Moon Language

Admit something:
Everyone you see, you say to them, “Love me.”
Of course you do not do this out loud,
otherwise someone would call the cops.
Still, though, think about this,
this great pull in us to connect.
Why not become the one who lives
with a full moon in each eye
that is always saying, with that sweet moon vision,
what every other eye in this world is dying to see?

–Hafiz

Osho says the same thing, with emphasis on courage.  When we feel unloved, he says to love more, love louder.  Love like flowers and thunder, the type of love that shakes our boundaries.  If we get out what we put in, what other option is there?

Some Kiss We Want

There is some kiss we want with
Our whole lives, the touch of
Spirit on the body. Seawater
Begs the pearl to break its shell.
And the lily, how passionately
It needs some wild darling! At
Night, I open the window
and ask the moon to come and press its
Face against mine. Breathe into me.
Close the language-door and
Open the love-window. The moon
Won’t use the door, only the window.

–Rumi

Last night, while walking down South First around midnight and panicking about life, my much more level-tempered roommate, Eli Smythe, reminded me of something crucial: that we’re just waiting to discover what is already placed in front of us.  Most of the time, things we already know.  What do you even want, she asked?

**

Bits from today’s I Ching: “Perhaps this road has chosen you…. accept and bear with discomfort of chaos without pushing it away…. allow things to clear without force…. give trust where it is due, where it is not, do not resort to harshness….even small courage will be rewarded….. Be what you dream of being and only your inner heart will know the gain and loss.”  Sky and Fire.  Water and Thunder.

**

I suppose there’s richness, also, in hunger.  That gorgeous, freeing empty feeling.  When I let all the air out, and I can sit on my back porch in the middle of the night, look into the black sky, and see the moon as it wanes.

the whole world, a conjunction:   and still     for     not but      or so         yet. 

conjunctions held the world: and not for, or but, yet so still

the world, in conjunct: and yet, not still, or for, but so.

YOUR TURN!

More on the books, taken from Smashwords:

Prelude to a Change of Mind, the first book of The Hidden Lands of Nod, introduces the magical Dvarsh, their strange mental technologies, and the vast struggle at the heart of their society. Seen through the eyes of a human woman they save from death, these warriors from an alternate reality shift time and space in defense of the homeworld they left in our hands but have not abandoned. 

Entranscing, the second book of The Hidden Lands of Nod, picks up the tale twenty years on as Meg Christmas, the Dvarsh and the Thrm struggle to save love and the planet from a conquering horde. While the Dvarsh gird for psychic battle, Meg surfs the far reaches of being on the cusp of a new transformation. This offbeat fantasy is equal parts big ideas, grand adventure and considerable fun. 

Sleeper Awakes, available through Robert’s Web site and not as an e-book, is the third book in the cycle, even through Robert wrote it first, and can be considered the nucleus of The Hidden Lands of Nod. The description below is taken from Robert’s web site:

Sleeper Awakes, denominated third in The Hidden Lands of Nod series, is the mother book from which the entire world of Habdvarsha and its parallels derive. The story of a traveler, Boyd, made homeless by monstrous catastrophe, and hunted for the very fact of his survival, Sleeper Awakes is part bildungsroman, part finger-snapping beat fantasy, part green anarcho-social surrealist manifesto, part comic peroration, part Taoist meditation on the nature of being, part—you get the picture. If you are a reader who must fit every title on your shelf into a pre-existing category, this is not the book for you.

It’s the end of Summer, a few weeks into the new school semester, when most people move cities and start new lives and are filled with a renewed sense of purpose.  This is the first time in months I haven’t itched to run away.

"Here, trees can grow backwards and become umbrellas to your plastic cactus stuck in the ground. You planted them because you're afraid of scarecrows and make better friends in theory. Here, you are rid of ex-boyfriends and monthly payments and all those boxes you stuff self-worth in. You are safe in your imagination. And if ever threatened, just smirk; your mind is lined with spears and sharpened by the finest of felt tip feather pens." -AK's Special Idea Book

Not that Austin, Texas is particularly dazzling or resting atop any sort of magical well, with a clear view of the stars at night, and a family of dwarves for neighbors, inside a small pocket of some lively city with all my best friends, as I’d envision my ideal place to live in the universe.  A cold front here means 100 degrees instead of 112.  My electricity bill is 700 dollars due to weird water consumption problems.  And I’ve grown scarily comfortable with sweating in public! It’s not even that I’ve grown so accustomed to the way this city functions that it feels like “home,” either.  It’s that “home” is becoming less and less a physical terrain than a sphere of familiar objects–found in music, found in coffeeshops, found in eye contact, pen pals, work, and even cloud formations.

My pen pal, whom I correspond with daily, lives in L.A.  We’ve been sending each other respective photographs of our cities through the eyes of a tourist.  Mostly mine consist of sunlight or clouds or places I like to visit, filtered through the Android’s fun lenses.  It’s helped me keep my eyes open, to  appreciate this special spot on the map I overlook daily, mostly because I’ve been walking with my head in a book, just to cram in reading time! It’s the other stuff we share, though — the lyrics, the weird encounters, drunken philosophies, hypochondriac diagnoses, dating blunders, and terrible, never-to-be-repeated jokes — that make time and space inferior.

The work I do for Confabule feels the same way.  My writing group, experimental decorating that may or may not irritate my beloved roommates, my friendships.  It’s all the same.

This isn’t an original thought, I know.  Too many “Home is where the heart is” doormats adorning front entrances.  But, to my defense, it’s lovely and real– to feel acceptance and comfort, in a larger sense, through imagination, connection, shared visions and spirits.  I could be anywhere.  And I’m happy it’s here.

Be like the Italian — sensual, passionate, free-spirited.  Affection collects on the lips and fires special synapses.  The only way to transfer is to press against; permeate tense appearances, like tea leaves in water.  Each kiss creates a different color, and can be tested with a Litmus strip.  Old loves with new loves watching new loves with old loves, loves who avoid your calls, loves you forget to call. If kisses could just cancel out acidic sentiments, there’d be no need to hold the tongue. We’d all be mouthing the same words:  friend, I know where you’ve been, and damn, am I lucky to love you.

“Why do you want me to kiss you?” He asked intently.  ”Do you just go round kissing people?”

“Why, yes,” admitted Marcia, unruffled.  ”‘At’s all life is.  Just going round kissing people.”  

“Well,” replied Horace emphatically, “I must say your ideas are horribly garbled! In the first place, life isn’t just that, and in the second place, I won’t kiss you.  It might get to be a habit, and I can’t get rid of habits.  This year, I’ve got in the habit of lolling in bed until seven-thirty.”

-from Head and Shoulders, by F. Scott Fitzgerald 

It’s true–we move like water, then harden as clay.  But even the different elements inside our bodies communicate. Bentonite clay absorbs toxins and other internal contaminants.  “When mixed with water, it rapidly swells open like a highly porous sponge. The toxins are drawn in by electrical attraction and are then bound and flushed out of the system.” (www.bulkherbstore.com)  This back and forth, then, I suppose, is necessary.  Yin feeds Yang.  Though divided–part light and part dark–they create the same shape.  A circle, so no matter how buoyant or heavy, we can move, also, as wheels.

Look at her face.  /Open your eyes into her eyes.  /When she laughs, everyone falls in love. /Lift your head up off the table.  See, /there are no edges to this garden. /Sweet fruits, every kind you can think of, /branches green and always /slightly moving. /How long should you look at earth’s face? /Come back and look again. /Now you see the nervous greed /deep inside plants and animals.  Now you see them /constantly giving themselves away. /Greed and generosity are evidence of love. /If you can’t see love itself, /see the results. /If you can’t find love-colors in anything, /look for the pale, tried face of a lover. /Take this town with its stores and everyone /rushing around, some with a lot of money, /some without any.  -Rumi.

Take the image to the right: “Give passionate kisses.” What an inspiring juxtaposition! Kisses! NEXT TO A DUMPSTER (not pictured)! It’s practically Jesus and the prostitutes! (If you look close enough, you might even see Mary lurking in the empty crates). God, technology just makes me so spiritual.

Strolling along…

Dead grass that appears alive thanks to the lens coloration.  An empty, beaten path.  A dark, open door.  A closed gate. A hatchback!  Your front yard never looked so ready to jump into a picture frame as the signature piece for your newest collection, “Cars, Yards, and The Landscape Within.” You’ll turn your house into an art gallery, just for the irony.  When someone jokes, “Hey, this place looks familiar,” you’ll snarl, and take photos (with the vintage lens!) surreptitiously of all the engaged, concerned faces.  It’s for your next collection,  ”Faces.”

This one’s so vintage, you’ll channel an ancient self and look for cows to milk. It’s true–with a smartphone, it’s possible to travel through the wheel of time.  You never return quite the same after drinking from the well of South Congress toxicwater.

And, finally, the inevitable self-portrait, where one’s aim is to become completely indistinguishable and obscure.  Who cares about watching for fast-passing cars?  Don’t they know the new Beirut just feels good against wide, open concrete?

Psh. Who are you kidding; they just wouldn’t understand.

I believe in kindred spirits, but I didn’t realize that idea extended from human to literary magazine.  It makes sense.  These are human stories we’re dealing with– emotions, characters, hopes, dreams, disappointments, all the elements that fasten us to one another.  Most every story and poem in issue six of Pear Noir! touched me on a soul level.  It could be that when affording a print publication, versus one that exists only online, the bar of quality raises.  Stories, I imagine, must pass stricter surveillance.  These are tangible archives, after all–unaltered evidence of what you put out into the world.  As the editor, Daniel Beercase, says, “imagine a scholar from some future (or alien) civilization poring over an ancient copy of Pear Noir!, perhaps the one in your very hands, fascinated by these twenty-six symbols that we take for granted?”  So, why not make it anything short of enchanting?

I’ll share some of my favorite passages:

“Thinking of Faust carried to heaven by a chorus of angels, I looked out at the bone-white sky and imagined the old man sitting by the Mediterranean, seagulls scooping sardines, oysters surrendering openly in love with the moon. For me, the anchor line was cut, and my sails bulged over a blue infinity of verses and refrain. I had found a new ocean. I am drawing from it now.” Robert Morris, “Neruda in the Library.”

‎”Paz is as tall as the tallest organ pipe. She slouches as she eats/ the earth, she walks and eats herself into the black, and she is/ the thirst of beggars, and she says, Don’t you ever stop screaming until/ someone says they love you. The trick is, You must say it first.” – Lisa Marie Basile, “What Paz Took.”

“Yesterday, when I / considered my sickness, I saw my parents, naked in the baking /heat, kissing and whispering.  I was worried where my sickness/ was leading me, and turned my attention to a distant town, to its golden clock, its white stone villas, its/ boulevards crowded with/ angels shielding their eyes from the sun.” Mark Strand, “On the Hidden Beauty of Our Sickness.” 

“But the worst thing that could happen is/ you could be stuck behind a couple making out/ on an airplane. / and you’ll feel like a load of laundry / that gets washed but still smells weird / and you’ll feel like the moon shining bright / but no one is looking / and you’ll feel like an incredibly beautiful woman / at the bottom of the ocean.” – Kathryn Regina, “——.”

“People do not drift, Binary Man would say.  They are together or/ apart, dead or alive.” -N. God Savage, “Binary Man.”

One that hits a little too close to home:

“I thought if I put enough miles between us, I could avoid anyone.  Change my address, my job, number: I was good at being gone.  Or at least I was until I saw Justin again.” – Melanie Unruh, “Souvenirs.” 

“Seeing the existential through the ordinary is all well and good but sometimes you just need to cross the room without your soul hanging out like your shirt tail.” -Kathleen Heil, “think of the last bad novel you read read this you think of this.”  

Copies are still available.  All my love to every writer in this issue, as well as Daniel, for being one of the most considerate and compassionate editors I’ve encountered!

Xoxo, always.

I had to stop reading mid-way.  All the anticipation to see my own poems in print felt too much like standing in the batter’s circle, swinging hard into the air, like you’re some killer all-star, when really, you know the moment you step to the plate and the pitcher swings her fat arms, you shrink to the size of a golfball and remember it’s not even softball you hate, but ALL sports.  Save the only one you’re decent at: ribbon-dancing.

My friends into astrology would laugh and point right now, saying “oh, you poor Cancer.”

Good news is, the stories and poems so far are all beautiful and resonate on the same level as my own soul, if not my writing.  Seriously honored to be a part of Pear Noir!

The next post, hopefully, will be one of insight into the heart and grit of the pieces in this issue, and not another Amanda panic attack.

Stay tuned! Be well! Read more! And don’t forget that all of life’s metaphors should end in ribbon dancing.