The Intimate Stranger Suite

"The Meeting at 4:00 a.m."

I seem to have been going about this all wrong.

There is a sick hurting person right in front of me.

I can feel him shake and cry all the time.

He keeps me up every night.

And I am not sure when when the last time I have taken care of him or counseled him.

I don't really have the slightest idea what he wants, the shape in front of me.

I'm not sure I really ever asked.

I had plenty of ideas.

But all I have ever done is demand and push.  And shape him into what I wanted.

I always assumed that what I wanted was what was best for him.

What can I do to make you happy?

What is it I have been missing?

Why are you hurting so much?

"Pay attention," he says, "and I will show you."

"Feel my beating heart.  Let go for once.  Really, and not just something you have read in a book.  Just give up and surrender to the pain."

 All I need is a hug sometimes.

"And you don't have to be that dramatic, and certainly not public about it.  So stop writing you fool.   After all, what you are saying is kinda embarrassing me:-)."

Now we both smile at the same time and laugh.   And go back to sleep.


"Love"

"We do not need to go out and find love. All we need is to be still and let love find us."

"Detritus"

Its always about you, you always think of yourself first.  Even now.  Even this stupid exercise.

You are manipulative.  You don't really care about me or other people.  All you do is manipulate other people to get what you want.

You are not my friend.

You cannot be alone.

You always go from one relationship to another, hurting everyone in the process.

You only are attracted to people who are distant from you, as soon as they get close, you spurn them.

You are volatile.  You cannot be trusted.  You blow hot and cold.  You are not stable. I cannot depend on you to be strong.

You are not here for me.

Sometime you should put other peoples feeling above you own.  It is not about you all the time.

I don't understand you.

Love 2

Thought processes, thought dynamics, feelings shape your experience.

Perceive love.  Become love.

Experience love.  Spread love.  Become love.

The Refurbished Cross

When I was young I refused to be confirmed in the Catholic Church.  I don't know why.  It just struck me as wrong.  I'm not sure when I started rebelling.   I remember something about being told by a Nun that there are only two alternatives, one of them following Jesus and the other suffering damnation.  It seemed wrong.  Even though I was only 13 or something, such a simple dichotomy, one of which involved being roasted alive for eternity just struck me as not something I wanted to get involved with.  As when I was pressed, "Jesus is asking you Mike, are you really not going to follow him?"  I decided not to.  And I was proud.  I was "special."  While the other kids went docilely along with the story, I decided to extend my middle finger to the whole idea.

My parents, bless their heart, showed remarkable patience.   Even though my father was very devout, I remember him telling me that even though the purveyors of the faith in the small town in North Eastern Wyoming may not have the answers for me, the teachings did have truth which I would discover later in life.

So I went on for many years extending my middle finger to the Church.  And it gave me many reasons to do so.  The priest who would have confirmed me was later dismissed for soliciting a male prostitute in Denver.  Though I went to a Catholic University, many of my classmates simply followed the Catholic teachings without question.  And, of course, I was not going to be a lemming.  So when I had to take Theology Classes, I studied world religions.

After college one of my close friends and employers discovered that he had been sexually abused by a priest when he was young.  He started one of the first survivor organizations of those abused by priests.  I grew angry at the Church's byzantine response to the situation, and that, together which the Church's treatment of women, caused my extended middle finger to grow even more outstretched, firm, and rigid.

It was really not until very recently that I came to a  much more rich understanding of Christianity and its beautiful and inspiring symbols.  The most moving symbol for me is Jesus on the Cross.  It is no wonder that it is the universal symbol of Christianity.  Jesus' arms are spread wide to accept the suffering of the world.  He is embracing the suffering of the world--not turning away from it.   Or, as the Buddhists would say, suffering is exacerbated by avoidance.  When we are confronted by harsh realities in life, or even small discomforts, we often by impulse run in the opposite direction, distract our self from it, or deaden it with any number of sedatives.  But we can never escape the suffering in that manner.  Plus, we can miss what it trying to teach us.

The Crucifixion also contains many other symbols.   It is no accident that the world is enforcing the suffering on Jesus.  The executioners, denizens of the world, are spreading his arms wide and extending his legs, and nailing them open, emphasizing that to live in this world offers no escape, no end to the suffering.   Such is the first Noble Truth of Buddhism elegantly depicted as Jesus is nailed to the cross by humanity.

And Jesus accepts his suffering--and even more remarkably, forgives the world for what it is doing to him.  "Forgive them Father for they know not what they are doing."  For only by forgiving, can the suffering be transformed into universal love, which is the ultimate salvation for humanity.

I think Mom and Dad, I'm finally beginning to appreciate what you said:-).

Various points May 6-8

So then I'm on a bike in the morning riding to the zen center also known as the Unitarian Church, and then I am talking to this new couple who were originally from Bolivia by way of Houston and the Houston Zen center and they have all the zen trappings in their black robes and me in my bike shorts and jersey.  And no they are not going to the sesshin at the end of the month because they are going to a week long sesshin in Bolivia.  And then we start zazen and I notice that they are moving in zazen. Then I think are they going 2000 miles to sit and move in Bolivia.

But then it feels like anxiety. Or the idea of anxiety.  So I go exploring to find out what this is.   And its  like a top spinning off the land and I realize the sensation is just me, I am the top spinning on the  the world beneath me.  And I hear the earth tell me:  "Don't worry I will give you what you need."  Then I realize that this feeling of anxiety is really just a feeling of not being connected to what is around me but separate, and separate feels alone and scary.  But don't worry, you are of the earth and I will give you what you need.  And then everything was rainbows and unicorns again.  For I am not separate, and I realize that whenever I feel separate to relax into the ground.  And to look into the eyes of others.  And to feel the earth beneath me.

And then Elihu was giving a dharma talk and it seemed to have more of an edge than usual.  Very sharp and condensed.  And funny.  I remembered to look up the book he referred to:  "Trying to Give up what you don't have."  LOL

And then I try to take a nap and can't.  Then I go to a birthday party at It's all About wine and I talk to Rick and his girlfriend who I don't know that well but she seemed to really warm up to me when I made the joke that she needed to stop showing me the pictures of her twin daughters (college age) who were demonstrating cleavage.  Which is true by the way in the sense that I don't really need to see that and that 2) they did have nice cleavage but 3 it seemed to make their mother happy that I thought "them" attractive.   Further jokes on this issue will undoubtedly take place in the future because they are going to Summer camp with me evidently.   Which of course will take place on my birthday.  Which is probably good that I'm not going there alone on my birthday, or maybe not.  It would probably be good for me to be alone for awhile.  But I digress.

So then I continue to move boxes, but take a break.  And then I talk to the landlord dude, or at least I think that he is the landlord dude and he seems very nice almost to the point of being intrusive and I wonder and start to devise plots so that Dave and none of the other tenants know that I am a lawyer which might get them believing that I have something interesting to steal, which I do not, unless you like carbon bikes or wine.   And I have those hidden in a different place anyway.   And Dave the landlord dude seems ok anyway.   And it feels like it could be a home.

And then I go to Delinda's art opening at the Hoogland.  And she has a painting of people sitting zazen at her house by the lake.  They are sitting not moving of course.   And it is called something to do with zen.  And I look at the different designs on the picture representing perhaps the mental states of each one of the meditators and I think about it for awhile and wonder if one of them is me.   Which I am sure it is not, but I imagine that if one of them were about me, it would be the one with overlapping concentric circles like multiple ripples in a pond.  Certainly not the one with polka dots.  LOL

So then there is a long interlude with my daughters.  Taco party.  And then I strong arm them into going to a yoga class with me.  Their first one.  And the other people in the class comment that fathers day has arrived early because they are doing it for me.   But I know I doing it for them, so that they will go to the YMCA yoga class in Decatur by themselves, and know what to expect.

And then I move boxes again.  And then I make M very sad again which is very sad in itself.

And then I go to the open Mic poetry night at William Van's and I wait a long time before my name is called and then I read without humor or emotion.  I read "what must be done," "help," and "drunkenly sober."  And I wonder what Ian and Mason think about it.   Well not so much Mason because I know he was higher than a kite.    And my mom wants to hear what I read so I send them to her which is probably not a good idea because now she is worried that they are worrisome poems.  Which when I read them again they are a little odd, but I insist to her that I am feeling ok, which I really believe I am.  Except for this morning when I woke up all tight in my back.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I was the highest bidder on the djembe recommended by Dennis and Dawn.  And that it is enroute.  For my birthday.  And I think that I will like the drum circle business.   And Dennis and Dawn.

Points of LIght/non-Light, May 3- 5 because Journaling would be a good idea according to the dude who listened to me ramble for well over an hour before I got the message when I saw him furtively look at the clock on the office wall

At work during the normal time of non-light around 11 where it always hits because my blood sugar is low or whatever, you know the time, where it all feels like it falls apart, but especially this time because now I have those sensations in the back of my skull that I imagine signal the onset of a new chemical imbalance in my brain and I think, now it begins, embrace the change, befriend you demons, they are leading you to growth, while on the other side I think what am I doing? this is not therapeutic, etc. etc. you know the drill, this is the dynamic, but any way, all this was interrupted by a text from Lellis, about the fact that all the Rotary people should proceed to the Illinois times, or at least those without preexisting lunch plans because Lo there is a Hy-Vee food truck on the premises because its Cinco de Mayo week,  so without delay because my lunch plans only involve being alone which is of course referrant to the preexisting condition above that dynamic going on that I need to embrace the loneliness for growth vs the "what are you doing" not healthy dynamic, so I take the former and socialize at which point I arrive and am greeting by a big hug and "I'm glad you came"etc and life is once again all rainbows and unicorns then it gets even better because I meet by chance one of my new poetry group besties Shatriya and It feels again like I have community and non loneliness and that all is good.   And then the conversation with the Hy-Vee manager and learn that it is none other than Julia  formerly of Julias kitchen in the food truck and that's why the fish tacos are so good and behold what F. Farrar is eating looks even better because it involves collard greens wrapped in some sort of port belly and looks way artistic.

And then it is discussed how I found out about the event and I make everybody laugh by commenting that I do everything that Lellis tells me to do which goes over well with her boss Fletcher because after all he is paying her to market and the fact that I follow her orders is a good indicia of her employment skills and then I feel good having killed two stones with bird by generating laughter and praise at the same time.  So this would be a high point.   I have decreed it to be so.

So then there continues to be the ongoing internal conversation involving moving and storage, especially storage of the wine which by the way I haven't touched in awhile having set on this course of self discovery, And as I arrange and move and plan the above mentioned dynamic returns to the refrain of "on the road again" to "road to nowhere" which I wonder if this little endeavor of self discovery is indeed therapeutic to wit, that those with anxiety do no benefit from being shut off and alone but function better in groups, versus, the need to face and befriend the inner demons and not keep avoiding them.

Then I am on a bike, and then I am at a winery, and then I get sad news upon sad news from the owners and wish I can help, and maybe I already have.   Poor things, all of them.  May they all be well and may all these storms pass them over or at least give them a fucking break.  Can you hear that?  Give them a fucking break storms!  Pass them over I say!

And then I am in a car late to my work thing in bloomington and then I am late for the dinner and I walk in when Tim is speaking and its somewhat embarrassing and a reminder that I don't fit in, which is reinforced initially by my table mates that I don't have anything in common with these people but then I remember my little mantra from the last Zen sesshin that all is god, and I remember that these people and my thoughts about them are all god and that I am god intoxicated and then my little darkness returns to light and i remember that all these people are me and we are just one big fucking happy family and all is well and all is good and then I think that I must blog about this and be more specific about what I mean by God so this is your reminder to do that dude.

And then the conversation from the Bible belt leads to discovery that one of the bible thumpers is actually an obsessive marathon runner, way obsessive to be precise, and there is a certain repoire developed as we talk about bulletproof things and gut microbiome things, you know the usual stuff that I am into these days.  And have been into

And then I continue to have long conversations with people who keep coming out of the wood work and I learn that it is not just me with a chakra imbalance, it is the world.  And then I go to sleep.  And did I mention that I have not been sleeping well?   Then I need to buy one of those slide locks and put it on the door so noone gets in at night.  Or a dog to protect me.

Poetry for an Open Mic, Caterpillar Edition

Help

Though dying
we are nowhere near dead
not so much undying as unliving.

Our worst build an agglutination of debris, donations and larceny.

 and transmit a ring side view.

Our best burn down a tiny candle

waiting for a litany of fact

Out the time at the speed of light
terminal velocity

Massive as a moon

Wide as a galaxy

Fragile as a dragonfly's wing
Touching in the distance.


Crystal Bridges (The Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas)

Beggars outside sweatshops
choking dysentery exhaust fumes
through thoroughfares
swarming as cigarette butts
hit the pavement

the meek prey without mercy
meager rations in every strand of DNA
save the harvest of AK-47s.

Meanwhile
Across the continental divide
Behind a vast array of mansions
in her small neck of the woods
art for her sake and
Inherited millions defend
where there is not a penny for tribute

"Always low prices"
success wealth population fame
life rolling along
like a pretend Mercedes
or was it her Porsche that slammed into the mother of two?

Retribution
 a war management didn't see coming
 On their lips
planted the leaf of Kali
graffiti daubed Help Desk survivors
anonymous
undersocialized
cyber-warriors

Playing the Part of the Victim Badly, Rated EM

If we have to pick roles, please let me have the silly one.  I can do silly.  Sometimes when I am locked in the embrace of the silly, I feel like I can do silly 24-7, Mon-Sunday, holidays included.  Just give me brief periods to catch my breath and I will continue with the silly.  I can continue with the silliness until you almost think I'm being obsessively silly, but if you look very closely you will see that I stopped just short of being obsessively silly, planted my pole vault down and then leaped beyond the region of obsessively silly which circularly then becomes extremely silly.   Think Monty Python.

These last few months I have been self-cast in a serious role.   And it has been bringing me down, Bruce.

My sweet lord Jesus Mohammed Brahman Atman Quetzalcoatl  Hari Krishna Vishnu Black Elk Odin please don't cast me in the role of the serious.   I can't pull it off.   I get bogged down in it.  I will bring everyone down around me in the quagmire of seriousness.   I will be the King of Drama and insist that all yield to my domain.  Trust me, if you cast me in the serious role, it will be a box office disaster.   It will make a B movie look like an academy award winner.   And I don't care how sultry the woman co-star is in the trailer or promo photos it is a movie that no one, I mean no one will want to see or much less want to participate in.  The only hope for me in a serious role is that you cast me as a martyr and then kill me off in the opening scene and hope that the entire audience hasn't left yet.  

Any movie with me playing a serious role would have to have a new rating system.   Not PG or R, but EM:  Excessively Maudlin, with the necessity of the audience signing a release based on informed consent that what they are about to see may cause headache, nausea, disdain, repulsion and disgust.  

If I were cast in the serious role what would be the soundtrack?  Certainly something melodramatic, sappy.  Think of a group with the vibe of Air Supply crossed with Nick Drake combined with the belief that they are serious suffering artists worthy of our sympathy.  Any suggestions?

The only way I think I could survive a serious role is if they hired a special assistant during the shooting of the movie to continually give me a jolt of electricity or whack on my back with a keisaku stick to remind me to "snap out of it you idiot.  Stop being a victim and wallowing in your own self pity.  What the fuck.  You have everything going for you.  Why are you fucking doing this to yourself.? Shape up buttercup,  or I will sick the little ruv on you."

P.S.  if you do cast me in the serious role again, please case Virginia Madsen or Chani with me.  #justsaying