there is something to be said about perseverance and doing that which feels "good". and i will say this: when it comes to snowing around on mountainous jewels of ice i choose to ski, not snowboard. it may be the way in which one feels composed upon two skis with two poles, like a strong and confident praying mantis, or the divine music of swish, or the savoring of air at crackling speed that bring my heart such joy. yet, nearly half of the mountain population are on snowboards! and so, i gave the board and her cohort of bangs and spills and wipe-outs a shot. yup, i am most definitely a ski girl, not a boardy.

The Bull

The oldest bull crossed the day.
His legs scratched the planet.
He continued, traveling to where the sea lives.
He reached the shore, the oldest bull.
On the edge of time, the ocean.
He closed his eyes and grass covered him.
He breathed the whole green distance.
And silence built the rest.

-Pablo Neruda

Do you believe in what you see?

is see SNOW!

"Perpetual inspiration is as necessary to the life of goodness, holiness and happiness as perpetual respiration is necessary to animal life."

-William Law

Traveling can be a bitch. and it can also be fun, rewarding and filled with unexpected gifts- like seeing our loved ones all grown up, sharing a sacred moment with a blood relative, or just in-joying the slight change in climate. In the last few weeks i have traveled from the tops of the West coast down to its seemingly sensuous seams at the bottom; from the sparkling lakeside of Northwest into the hot breathing hills of California- and what did i learn? what a New Years eve is like sober. Thank Goodness for Growth! now, with much excitement, i present Charlie Balcom- just a lil' more grown up...

YEAH!! IZA FEATURED ARTIST!!!

www.absolutearts.com

There are a million ways to sweep: rushed and sloppy, short with quick efficiency, grand sweeps with an eloquent back swing, a sneak attack...all great lifetime metephors. Today the sweep was exhilarating, meaningful and poetic...i half smiled as dust-made masterpieces graced the floor; light and space settled into a fresh and dazzled awareness.. and yet again, i am humbled to return to the practice. That's the thing- sometimes the mundane is mind-blowing and the simple a symphony.

this year i devote myself to Tolerance- to live this life with all the strength, compassion and acceptance i can muster. to realize that this life is a gift.

no thought, no mind, no sound, no syllables, no perception... no self

The Family

"...thoughts and emotions are the radiance and expression of the very nature of the mind. They rise from the mind, but where do they dissolve? Back into the mind. Whatever rises, do not see it as a particular problem. If you do not impulsively react, if you are only patient, it will once again settle into its essential nature.
When you have this understanding, then rising thoughts only enhance your practice. But when you do not understand what they intrinsically are - the radiance of the nature of your mind - then your thoughts become the seed of confusion. So have a spacious, open, and compassionate attitude toward your thoughts and emotions, because in fact your thoughts are your family, the family of your mind. "
Sogyal Rinpoche

Each of the seven days of Kwanzaa is dedicated to one of the following principles, which are explained by Karenga as follows:

Umoja (Unity) To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race.

Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.

Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility) To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers' and sisters' problems our problems and to solve them together.

Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics) To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together.

Nia (Purpose) To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.

Kuumba (Creativity) To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.

Imani (Faith) To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

(from WIKIPEDIA)

Old Man with Torah 1999; Hyman Bloom

Hanukkah o Hanukkah, come light the Menorah.. lets have a party, we'll all dance the hora??.. while fried foods, candle lighting, and dreidels are all genuine markers of the holy celebration of Hanukkah, i want to re-mind us all that this Festival of Lights is also about rededication. and rededication is good. when one candle burned for eight long days on such a small reserve of olive oil, was it not like our own inner fire; the eternal lamp that kept our temple illumined; the flames of dedication? i devote this day of Hanukkah to all beings who devote themselves to their Higher Selves, no matter how the temple crumbles.

The Journey

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice--

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"

each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff finger

sat the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do--

determined to save

the only life you could save.

-Mary Oliver

thanks for your support!

www.phloxpdx.com/blog/

again and again i try to bring the attention back to the present moment, the here and now. fingers crawl curiously along the keyboard, waves of chamomile and mint perfume the chilled air beneath my nose, posture in check. every detail is slowing down. not judging, just being. someone should say: practice mindfulness as if your life depends on it, beacause it does. once the practitioner enters into an active state of awareness they can then become one with the experience. and then there is focus. and then there is some serious ass whoopin' martial artists and musical masterpieces up the yin and the yang.
a mere chick in a nest of experience, i am endlessly reborn into the world. and learning to flex my mindful muscle is very new. so new, that i have just discovered the art of moving meditation: painting!! how on Earth did i not recognize to remember that painting is the process of self-actualization in the moment! oh dear, have i got a lot to learn... meanwhile, it all changes again and again.. a mere reflection of the conscious movements from one moment to the next..

I have taken to heart Francis Bacon's dictum that
"truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion".
- Donald B. Calne

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't do back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.

-Rumi

Anger

Give up anger; renounce pride;
transcend all worldly attachments.
No sufferings touch the person
who is not attached to name and form,
who calls nothing one's own.
Whoever restrains rising anger like a chariot gone astray,
that one I call a real driver;
others merely hold the reins.

Overcome anger by love; overcome wrong by good;
overcome the miserly by generosity, and the liar by truth.
Speak the truth; do not yield to anger;
give even if asked for a little.
These three steps lead you to the gods.

The wise who hurt no one, who always control their body,
go to the unchangeable place,
where, once they have gone, they suffer no more.
Those who are always aware, who study day and night,
who aspire for nirvana, their passions will come to an end.

This is an old saying, Atula, not just from today:
"They blame the person who is silent;
they blame the person who talks much;
they also blame the person who talks in moderation;
there is no one on earth who is not blamed."
There never was, nor ever will be, nor is there now
anyone who is always blamed or anyone who is always praised.

But the one whom those who discriminate praise
continually day after day as without fault,
wise, rich in knowledge and virtue,
who would dare to blame that person,
who is like a gold coin from the Jambu river?
That one is praised even by the gods, even by Brahma.

Be aware of bodily anger and control your body.
Let go of the body's wrongs
and practice virtue with your body.

Be aware of the tongue's anger and control your tongue.
Let go of the tongue's wrongs
and practice virtue with your tongue.

Be aware of the mind's anger and control your mind.
Let go of the mind's wrongs
and practice virtue with your mind.

The wise who control their body,

who control their tongue,

the wise who control their mind are truly well controlled.

- Buddha

Art cannot be modern.. Art is primordially eternal.

-Egon Schiele

While fragrant warm winds, oak-spotted rolling hills and sage salty air have me longing for the backbone trails of Southern California...it’s SNOWING in Portland and i LOVE it! May all beings appreciate snow!

"Someone stole 500 pounds of canned food -- representing the entire haul so far in the Mayor's Annual Food Drive -- from the community-room kitchen at the Genoveva Chavez Community Center. "

That was donation food for the hungry!

Non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, moderation, non-possessiveness, purity, contentment, discipline, study, surrender--

what a beautiful list of observances and restraints for a yogi to practice! Patanjali concurs, and he is one smart cookie. Although it is Asteya, non-stealing, that jumps out at ya here, such an act of utter disregard denies the unique potency of all the Niyamas and Yamas.

In high hopes that you and i will be bright examples of goodness in the world...

"Donations for the food drive are being accepted through Dec. 7 at the Chavez Center, City Hall and Fort Marcy Complex. Collected items will be distributed to hungry families and nonprofits in Santa Fe"


..and may we all be forgiven.

How often do we express gratitude? i wonder, how do we give thanks? For me, when sincere, it is the whirlpooling of acceptance in the heart- as if a tremendous joy had swallowed me whole; it's a cosmic nod; it is the happy recognition of my Higher Self; an instant tour of the Grand Namaste; it is a feeling of calm inner peace.

To thank is to Love.

Happy Thanksgiving Day!

Keeping passion at bay or surrendering blindly to it-which of these two attitudes is the least destructive?

I don't know.

~Paulo Coelho

It has been my experience that time freezes in two moments: when you think you might die and when you find out that someone you love just did. The moment lingers with an unfixed pang of disbelief; a timeless shudder of nothing passing thru silent thick air; and i am deeply humbled by death and her winter wonderland..

In Loving Memory of Fukuoka..

..you will be missed.

Because in our culture we overvalue the intellect, we imagine that to become enlightened demands extraordinary intelligence. In fact, many kinds of cleverness are just further obscurations. There is a Tibetan saying: "If you are too clever, you could miss the point entirely."

Patrul Rinpoche said: "The logical mind seems interesting, but it is the seed of delusion." People can become obsessed with their own theories and miss the point of everything. In Tibet we say: "Theories are like patches on a coat, one day they just wear off."

-Sogyal Rinpoche

dude!

On distraction...

Some say that any distraction from the present moment is the ego’s attempt to dissuade our Higher Self’s evolution. We are continually reminded to Be Here Now. It comes to no surprise that equal in number to these healthy 'spiritual post-its’ are the nagging distractions of the outer world. Please forgive me for clinging to polarities here, but i can't help but wonder: are all distractions bad? These days i feel increasingly ‘medium’ minded and distractions just seem to be a trustworthy vehicle for change and growth… allow me to explain.. perhaps there is a lil' habit one wants to change- trying again and again to stop that lil' habit she finally begins concentrating on the habitual movement (from moment to moment) using concentration as a distraction; in this way, re-paving the pathways of the mind and placing focus on the inner and the outer world; one foot in and one foot out; allowing conciousness to hold the action,
rather than letting it all go on auto-pilot!
Perhaps this is what Coach Ilg was illuminating when he wrote: "Am i grasping or am i concentrating?"

i love to write about the sweet and abstract, the obvious and sometimes scandalous approaches we humans take on life-- change, impermanence, death, and union have all made the list this month, and so, in the season of using my own voice.. i am reminded:

YES all things change, and also- CHANGE TAKES TIME. Consider if you will, how long a desert stone could lay upon Mother Earth before some crystal hound comes lifting her up and mindfully moving her. It could take 27,000 years for that stone to change position!

In my personal experience, some things take a very long time to change.. especially encrusted negative tendencies and habits- for example, it took years and years to recognize the self defeating process of substance abuse- so that now, with Awareness and Patience, i can in-joy the intricate and much more exhilarating, sparkling nature of life itself!

However.. it may take a while longer, perhaps lifetimes, to unmask some of the other aspects of our ubiquitous being. is Life the movement from moment to moment...?

All love is sweet, Given or returned.

Common as light is love,

And its familiar voice wearies not ever.

They who inspire it most are fortunate,

As I am now: but those who feel it most

Are happier still.

~unknown

Inside of my mouth
A haiku about apples,
Someday I'll write it!

Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being...

But anywhere is the center of the world.

~Black Elk

Brambles before me, not of me.
Lost to definition, far from names;
Answers beg for a question,
pleading lines from the infinite.

~lil' k in '05

YES the personal briars of our seemingly finite lives are so very dense with sensations that we are constantly grasping and bending, closing our eyes and crawling, notoriously prying through life’s a'maze'ing dance.. and when we PAY ATTENTION to the evolution of our One Being, we may notice that we scrimmage: we are all playing on the side! So, if and when the illusion of the ego-minded identity takes center stage, just remember-we are all on this playing field together.

It would be inappropriate to indulge my reader (that's you) in the mayhem of the mind, for some thoughts are pure chaos: ideas that spurt furiously into senseless concepts. We all have the intricate details that embellish our separate lives; we are a myriad of passions, doldrums and epiphanies- which can be so very confusing!

Confusion is ignorance, the very root cause of our suffering, as the great Buddha taught. This suffering takes shape in the throat of separateness. We must be in union with a universal omnipresence and let go of the desire to have an individual ‘self’ in order to attain jnana (true knowledge). It is that which has been written, read, and said over and over again through the canons of time, from ancient scrolls to bathroom walls.

If we could just detach from this scene for a moment, allow blessed space and concentrated awareness to open the heart, admire the thought, accept a feeling.. know that all is One.. then we just might have yoga.

Thanks for Reading ;-)

The spooky part of anything is the illusion of its permanence. For example, pain. It is freaky to think that a tooth will hurt forever. Nothing is forever. Imagine how often thing change-- glaciers melt, leaves fall and our "must haves" eventually fade out... even our breath will cease its exquisite role in the body. Although we are all flames of the same inexhaustible fire-- there is no way to escape the deep awareness of our body’s movement from the present: aka death. And it all comes down to death. How spooky it is! And positively radical too!

Halloween: blatant, eerie, hilarious.. sucking down sugar, seeking the strangeness of sudden confrontation... celebrating darkness while masking begging with receiving. The dense quality of night that arrives with no warning. So often, especially at this time, i am stilled by the ever-present spooky quality of the human existence.

How Wonderful is Death! Death and her brother sleep.

So through the eyes love attains the heart:

For the eyes are the scouts of the heart,
And the eyes go reconnoitering
For what it would please the heart to possess.
And when they are in full accord
And firm, all three, in one resolve,
At that time, perfect love is born
From what the eyes have had made welcome to the heart.
Not otherwise can love either be born or have commencement
Than by this birth and commencement moved by inclination.

By the grace and command
Of these three, and from their pleasure,
Love is born, who its fair hope
Goes comforting her friends.
For as all true lovers
Know, love is perfect kindness,
Which is born-there is no doubt-from the heart and eyes.
The eyes make it blossom; the heart matures it:
Love, which is the fruit of their very seed.

~Guiraut de Borneilh (ca.1138-1200?)

(that's my gorgeous cousin Mattie on the right)

DID YOU KNOW?

1. Men who regularly carry their mobiles near the groin, on a belt or in a pocket could potentially have their sperm count reduced by as much as 30 percent. Source: MSN.com (ACA, Hungarian Research)

2. Radio waves are believed to cause interference with heart pacemakers and other medical devices. In Japan, it is now recommended that using a cell phone on a train should be avoided. People are asked to turn off their mobile phones when around seats reserved for the elderly and handicapped, or when on a crowded train. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org

3. In the case of children and young people under the age of 16, the UK Chief Medical Officers strongly advise to use mobile phones for essential purposes only and to keep all calls short. Source: Stewart Inquiry U.K., chaired by EMF/EMR expert Sir William Stewart

4. Lloyd’s of London, one of the world’s largest insurance companies, refuses insurance coverage to cell phone and power generating companies against damage to workers’ and consumers’ health. Source:http://www.powerlinefacts.com

5. Since 2005, there have been 7 state class action lawsuits, and 2 workman’s compensation lawsuits brought against various wireless equipment manufacturers and employers. Source: Dr. G. Carlo, Chief Scientist of the World’s Largest Research Effort into Wireless Safety

6. In new Verizon contracts in fine print -- upon signing the contract the customer is asked to agree not to sue the Cell Phone Maker or participate in a Class Action Lawsuit. Source: Verizon Cell Phone Service Contract

7. Talking 500 minutes per month on a cell phone increases the probability of brain cancer by 140%. Some studies show up to 300 percent increase when using the cell phone between 500 and 1,000 minutes per month. Source: Wire Technology Research, Second State of the Science Colloquium Book; January 2001 Journal of the American Medical Association; Early Hardell studies.

8. There are 30,000 to 50,000 new cases of brain and eye cancer each year worldwide attributed to Cell Phone usage. Source: Epidemic Curve, Safe Wireless Initiative.

9. Teenagers talk on cell phones an average of 2600 minutes per month. Source: Safe Wireless Initiative study conducted in Buffalo, New York in early 2005.

10. Disney Corporation, who 5 years ago turned down $2 million per year licensing fee for use of Disney Characters due to cell phone radiation safety concerns, in July of 2005 announced its plans to launch a “family-centric, Disney-branded wireless phone network called Disney Mobile, which will sell mobile service, custom handsets, and premium phone content featuring Disney characters”. Source: www.forbes.com

The Reasonable Father

The universe is a form of divine law,

your reasonable father.

When you feel ungrateful to him,

the shapes of the world seem mean and ugly.

Make peace with that father,

the elegant patterning,

and every experience will fill with immediacy.

Because I love this, I am never bored.

Beauty constantly wells up,

a noise of spring water

in my ear and in my inner being.

Tree limbs rise and fall like the 

ecstatic arms of those 

who have submitted to the mystical life.

Leaf-sounds talk together like poets

making fresh metaphors.

The green felt cover slips,

and we get a flash of the mirror underneath. 

Think how it will be when 

the whole thing is pulled away!

I tell only one one-thousandth

of what I see, because there is

so much doubt everywhere.

The conventional opinion of this poetry is,

it shows great optimism for the future.

But Father Reason says,

No need to announce the future!

This is it.  This.   Your deepest need

and desire is satisfied by the

moment's energy here in your hand.   

I had my first drink when I was two years old. I must have liked it then too.

It seems appropriate that on the 100th day of my coveted sobriety I’d find myself at my cousin’s wedding. An enticing southern Californian cocktail of temptations and desires.
The ceremony was short, sweet, and for the most part sincere. The warming sun and cool ocean breeze on salty tears of love: truly beautiful. The reception, however, held a stench of one thing only: alcohol. O, the seductive fortress of delusion, whose sultry moments fade from rancid winds of nausea. I was feeling as clear and kare-free as ever, yet there I was- in a perfumed and decorated vat of liquor.

Like many, I have learned to use drink as social lubricant. The realms of distortion can be a cozy place to dwell, a place where abstraction holds a quality of “proof”. Truth be known, addictions are manifestations of deep rooted fears that one must face steadily and mindfully with fierce compassion.

I have often wondered what life would be like sober, how it would feel to awaken fully without the regret and shame that has often foged the waking hours.
I am learning.

Those of you who struggle in escapism and seek relief in a ritual of misguided hunger, may these 100 days of sobriety be for you. May we feel with texture a life that opens like a sea anemone on the coral reef. May all being be free.

“A mind that is stretched to a new idea never returns to its original dimensions.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

If you think your body and mind are two,
that is wrong;
if you think that they are one, that is also wrong.
Our body and mind are both two and one.
- Shunryu Suzuki

All vibration is the spiraling undulation of three forces: sattva, rajas, and tamas. All life grows thru union of these gunas so that we may resonate in tune with the polarity of the Universe.

And so, all nature is a expression of cycles: birth and death, pushing and pulling, acid and alkaline, positive and negative, yin and yang, male and female, spirit and matter, ida and pingala. All energy moves in a cycle of consciousness, spiraling and pulsating from the sattva guna (Sat refers to the Supreme Being); the prana powerhouse and the diamond castle of our lady, Sushumna.
Emanating from sattva guna is a positive centrifugal field of force called the rajas guna- the energy of expansive and creative expression that underlines the evolutionary process; quite literally "the glow” in the expression of life that sustains the conscious mind.
The negative centripetal field is called the tamas guna. The Sanskrit word for tamas means, "to perish" and rules the resonance of negativity and the reactive unconscious mind. Tamas is the instrumental purifying source which eliminates that which is not life sustaining.
All vibration is the spiraling balance of these three forces.


Only with harmony may we harvest equanimity, discrimination and wisdom. It is in harmony with the five phases of materialization (Ether, Air, Fire, Water and Earth) that we vibrate with Body and Soul.


Why am i addressing this very important concept of polarity today? Because so often we forget to pay attention to the ever so spiritually sensual oscillation of life; we tend to 'buy into' the black or white mentality when really, all forces work together to re-establish natural balance.
So the sacred breath of Brahma dances and flows, gets stuck and flings undoubtedly inward and down, outward and up..


..inevitably back to the Source.


a bow to all who dance with awareness.
may we continue to learn and be present.

"The unknown is what it is. And to be frightened of it is 

what sends everybody scurrying around chasing dreams, 

illusions, wars, peace, love, hate, all that. Unknown is 

what it is. Accept that it's unknown, and it's plain sailing." 

John Lennon

Yom Kippur is the traditional the Day of Atonement (At-one-ment); a day to fast, abstain from work or any activity and think about our sins toward God and one another. On the tenth day of the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah) we are to repent for our sins, bring awareness to our feelings and place a karmic net beneath the New Year. We ask God to forgive the faliure of our future oaths.. a 'just in case i fuck up.' It is a time to open your heart and merge with whatever Oneness you may feel; to celebrate connectedness; reflect on our spiritual fall-outs (we all have them) and ask for forgiveness.

Now, i remember this holy day from the awe~some vibrating sounds of the shofar (a wind instument made from ram's horn, the sound the breaks the fast: 'break-fast') and some didactic talk of goats, incense and inscribed stone tablets. I remember loathing the long service and the car rides over. Admittedly, i was a drag a-long Jew, attending temple for the free Manashevitz and the well anticipated big party (Bat Mitzvah.)

Today, however, i am finding some beautiful poetry to this day of reverence. Consideration of our actions and how they affect the society at large is one that perpetually sparks compassion; compassion for all beings beginning with ourselves.

Yum Kippur is also a day of sacrifice. I don't know about you, but my idea of sacrifice has been pretty thwarted lately. So, in order to re-evaluate what exists within and without , we must take time to be still. Really still. And this is what i find so poetic about this particular Holy Day: It's not that God, Brahman, and Wakan Tonka are judging our actions.. we are our actions. We are our the judges of our very own universe. Surrender is the most non self-cherishing sacrifice right there! Letting go of our self for the day, watching our minds replay the drama of SIN: Scene II; Act IV... remaining unattached to our actions, thus creating more space for the clear transendent light of union and service.

And of course, we can try again and again to do the right thing, to make it a 'good' New Year.. and we should. However, i want to remind us all that having compassion for ourselves and for others is the only way.

all we need is Love