Strangers in a strange land, we find ourselves here. In a world you didn't create or ask for, a product of the wheels of time grinding on with remorseless relent, consistent intent. Catch your breath now, speak while you can, before the big sleep, the bigger dream, and the next rise from our deep slumber, spinning around the wheel, throwing up images against the blank canvas, the dancers playing their parts, spirits clad in veils, donning translucent masks from time to time, step to step. All in balance, all in rhythm, always. Never skipping a beat, churned from the great furnace's heat. Embraced by none, embraced by all, these are the multitudinous and complex, the large and the small, the many and the numbered. Wisdom springs from virtuous action, and this is what we all know how to do best, despite our best efforts to act the part we suppose we're meant to play: calm, cool and collect, but fuck the Oxford comma. In our blip along the line, a hiccup in time, the wise who embrace movement and dance unabashedly show their color and sound, for better or worse, speaking to the Now, from the heart, from the source, the bottomless lake, the underground river that flows, round and about back unto itself, never repeating. When we tap in and draw from it, it is never exhausted, as the water always finds its way back to the source, one way or another, sooner or later. We all have our time in the sun, and our time of sleep. Wake each day in knowledge of this and you will find the bliss we all seek, the truth that it is our freedom to play the cards we are dealt, to play our hand, or draw another card from the mysterious deck. Turn the page and you're there. On razor's edge Brahman sits, ever and always. On the line between existence and re-cycling, we are the survivors. Nothing is wasted, everything is perfectly imperfect, and just exactly on time. Here and now we are arriving, cell by cell, moment by moment, revolution by revolution, spinning and expanding unto infinitum. Each day we rise and arrive, each moment we taste and touch, observing and absorbing Our many creations with our own eyes: this is our Experience.
These days I try to channel the essence of the Student striving in service of the world. Make an offering, advises the Oracle. In this time, offerings are not judged by their content or merit, each is valued equally just as it is, an offering, forged in the kiln of time and effort in pure intention. Actions and creations are offerings in the spirit of service to the world. My offerings are expressions of a time and space made through my own perception, a moment in time, a breath in and a breath out, not lingering for too long in any one spot so as not to lose the rhythm and momentum of creation. Let me worry about the quantity, and let the quality emerge on its own.
And so, from this mindset it is easy to see how we have collectively created the world of ten thousand things, the macrocosm of proliferation everywhere we look, different things to experience, each unique in their own moment of time and space, a flicker in the expanse we inhabit now.
It was two years ago that I left New York City. It's taken me this long to feel I can make some small assertion about what this move has all been about, yet at the same time I am certain I have only begun to realize its meaning, to experience its manifestation. I do know that the longer I am here, the more certain I am that it is the right place to be. Often we don't notice changes because they creep and evolve under the surface, below everyday perception, but in a moment of reflection it couldn't be more apparent. Acting from the heart, we always bring ourselves exactly where we should be, our "home". It is said that home is where the heart is. Just as much so, I say heart is where the home is. Home is not a place, but a feeling. If we can find it, we can live there forever, wherever, whenever. In this way the entire world is our Home, paths to and from unfolding in the moment, guided by the compass of our heart, our gut. "Follow your bliss"...
Over the last year I've spent most of my free time building and developing what I like to call my Temple. It is made of neurons and binary bits, a personalized and highly streamlined physio-musical interface between my Self and the vibrations of sound. Much like the universe, this temple is always a work in progress, with a clear and driven direction. My Temple's goal is to develop one thing: the power to turn ideas into reality. With ever-increasing speed and abundance, the result is a mutual enhancing and arising of more ideas, and more results. The Process itself enhances the clarity of its conception and expression, a symbiosis of metamorphosis and mitosis, with the ultimate, fleeting utopia of equally qualitative and quantitative growth. By releasing our grasp from the results of action, free of judgement and second-guessing, the Creator is bound by nothing, truly free and unhindered by the fruits of one's labors just enough to see an idea through to completion and move on, swiftly escaping the entanglement of the human ego's prickly snares.
This Temple, to me, allows energy to move from Source to mind, mind to fingertips, fingertips to technology, technology to sound, sound to ears, ears to neurons, neurons to Source, and back again. A custom-tailored interface empowering and facilitating the birth of offerings to the world and recycled back into the River, one way or another, for better or worse, for now and for ever.
The tarot card of The Tower tells me that anything built on an unstable foundation is doomed to topple before its potential is fully realized. All towers must fall, as must all universes collapse, but as we know, the one we find as our Home is only one: that in which we find ourselves. I wish to live in a strong and tenacious Tower, so I intend to build my foundation the best way I know how.Look at any ancient civilization's cities and I do not doubt you will find a Temple at its center, its core, its most cherished, protected, and essential structure. As such, I have spent the past year training my mind, streamlining my workflow, and nurturing the conduit of the human body.
In this way, as I have begun to see the fruits of my labors only in the last month, I have learned to take greater joy in the process of creation itself; not discounting, but far outweighing the joy gleaned from a single fruit, a fruit I formerly may have clung to and sucked dry, in hopes of finding endless bliss in its inherently limited supply.
These days, I try to look at creations as merely offerings; I care not whether they travel any further than the comfortable space of my studio. I see myself planting seeds and pouring into them the time, care and energy needed to blossom into whatever they may become. These batches, when ripe, are dutifully released from the nest to meet their fate, however the world sees fit. I hope the best for them, but am unshaken by the outcome, allowing the sheer excitement of the future seeds' mysterious potential to reach far beyond my own imagination.
Finding bliss in the process, and likewise relying on one's creative power, rather than the creations themselves, the artist finds sustainability. In vain, trying to build a concrete stairway from one's prized, yet static results, one finds only stagnation, as if a lily pad would support one's weight forever. Instead, the Creator flits by tip-toe from one to the next, finding lightness in motion, his swiftness and speed empowered by his ability to cast new steps, temporary Homes, in any and all directions, revealing unexplored pathways to undiscovered realms.
If 2011 was about rebirth, the casting off of my "New York DJ" veil and starting back from the heart; then 2012 was about development, examining notions and conceptions that no longer serve me and laying them to rest, if only for now, emptying my cup of the old so it can be filled with the new, finding out what (and who) really matters, holding them (and her) close, nurturing them, and allowing them space to flourish, forming a strong base to build on. 2013 must be about, as Hexagram 47 says, "being tested in the fire of life, the Universal force that endlessly shapes and alters you until you come to realize who you are in relationship to the rest of the Universe and learn to act accordingly."
Whatever happens next is up to me, to my ability to let go and act with pure intention, to not look back, but firmly forward, regardless of the results. We don't know what's in the Ocean until we dive in head first. This ain't no "wade in and test the water" business. This is pure, unadulterated action, from the Center. With every Inhale, comes an Exhale. Catching momentum and moving in step with the Rhythm, surely and steadily, fearlessly, for better or worse, never skipping a beat, never losing sight of what truly matters: Now, creating our own worlds, every day. Let us Play.
With the beginning in rear-view, the uncertain path ahead with no end in sight, in each time-space moment, WE are steps along the WAY...
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