blank blank fullness

^You are to become my waking dream,
Arriving at your merciful white gates
As movement overtakes standard reason,
Down with conventional distinctions!
Prove you are what you say, appease, indulge the impulse towards
Euphoric omni
Potent, Present, Science
Until trans-disciplinary becomes accepted
As a non-hyphenated word,
As the natural fact of real existence-
Realized!
May we step out of one anothers' way
Perhaps that'd be too easy,
Carry on, as you were
Revived are the senses!
Beware of their vacuum state
Tasty tools, circus master, tame me!
Renaissance of the seventh
Alerted with the sublimated desperation of
Arrival
Perpetual departure towards
Ever elusive conclusion
Should we ever dare to arrive there
While still alive, here
Then death awaits
Everything disappears -
What a truth-filled lie!
Ghostly realm,
You are to become my waking dream
And we'll slip past those crumbling walls
Already dissolved
All ready for the awakened ones

 ____________
Edit (July 29, 2010 11:45am)

I saw Inception last night, post poem composition.
Love the parallelogram 

The pause. So often it's in the pause between things where the 'answers' will emerge.

We give advice, we get advice, but always seemingly after the fact or at a time when that advice isn't needed, per say; when objectivity is a facile gift grace à a detached stance.

Reading an article (this might be a bit much for some people, try to reserve your judgment) which dispensed with pretty rational, if not other-worldly perspectives and guidance is, for one point, inspirational. Great. I've got inspirational sources I can seemingly always count on and I count my blessings (an interesting idiom now that I stop to really consider it) for that bed of richness.

But while I'm reading, internally nodding and mmhmm-ing, I've come to question (in general, and myself) application, and considering what of in-the-moment fidelity to the nutritious material I am reading, as situated in a situation not exactly asking, needing. To be more clear: when we're in the 'heat of the moment', or going through actual, materialized life-situations, wouldn't it be nice if a little birdy were to pop up and dispense of that wisdom taken in as on-the-shelf?

Inspiration in action. Applied recollection. That's the tricky part. Bridging the gap between these two worlds.

Real-time. Reeling it in.



PS interestingly, my Getty Image search result for 'bridge' rendered a considerable amount of guitar, violin images. Music.

Buongiorno tutti! Today's word is: Prana

I will provide a few takes, this first one comes from Ayurveda The Science of Self-Healing...

"It is vital energy (life-energy) which activates the body and mind. Prana is responsible for the higher cerebral functions, and the motor and sensory activities. The prana located in the head is the vital prana, while prana which is present in the cosmic air is nutrient prana. There is a constant exchange of energy between vital prana and nutrient prana through respiration. During inspiration, the nutrient prana enters the system and nourishes the vital prana. During expiration, subtle waste products are expelled."

Though this term has been familiar to me for some time, a few weeks ago a conversation I had with a friend briefly taught me about the different ways different people may obtain prana. It can come from taking a very cold shower, engaging with other people and receiving prana from relationships; it is in the foods we eat, and the consciousness with which we approach our food (and other facets of our interactive lives), taking a moment to pause before putting fork-to-mouth to express gratitude for the sacrifice (if animal products are consumed) and purity of energy we are about to consume. A friend of mine once gave some lovely advice: to consider the trip taken by the various elements on your plate while you mindfully chew your food (an essential part of the digestive process). From the seed planted in the ground and where the ground is. Then, the care with which that seed was nourished by the sun, the farmer, the rains and temperatures of the air. Imagining the plant growing and finally being harvested, how it was packaged and through what hands it passed (human or machine) to get to the crates and containers, then loaded onto trucks or planes... How much energy was given to deliver the food-energy to your grocer or dining establishment? If you cooked the food yourself, how much thought did you put into the process? Were you conscious of the feel of the knife in your hand and the pressure and sensation of passing this knife through the skin of that plant or animal? Then combining it with other elements, taking care of the heat and flavors as it cooked... The more aware we become of the inter-connectedness and the path of these infinite energies making up our daily lives, the better we are equipped to make the best choices for our selves, for our loved ones and for the communities we live in... all a part of the bigger picture, containing the bigger picture, while being contained by the global... our holographic reality.

Here is another excerpt, from Light on Life (p. 102):

"Consciousness (citta) and vital energy (prana) are in constant association. Where consciousness is focused, there must be the energy of prana too, and where you direct the energy of prana, consciousness follows. Consciousness is propelled by two powerful forces, energy (prana) and desires (vasana). It moves in the direction of whichever force is most powerful. If breath (prana) prevails, then desires are controlled, the senses are held in check and the mind is pacified. If the force of desire gets the upper hand, the breathing becomes uneven, and the mind becomes agitated. These are things you can actually observe, just as you observe right measure and balance in asana (the yoga postures), and this is why and where the practice of yoga brings self-knowledge. You will not reach Knowledge of the Divine Self without passing through self-knowledge. Your practice is your laboratory, and your methods must become ever more penetrating and sophisticated. Whether you are in asana or doing pranayama (conscious breathing), the awareness of the body extends outward, but the senses of perception, mind, and intelligence should be drawn inward"...

And from good 'ol Wiki:

Prana (प्राण, prāṇa) is the Sanskrit for "vital life" (from the root prā "to fill", cognate to Latin plenus "full"). It is one of the five organs of vitality or sensation:
viz. prana "breath"
vac "speech"
caksus "sight"
shrotra "hearing"
and manas "thought" (nose, mouth, eyes, ears and mind).

In Vedantic philosophy, prana is the notion of a vital, life-sustaining force of living beings and vital energy, comparable to the Chinese notion of Qi. Prana is a central concept in Ayurveda and Yoga where it is believed to flow through a network of fine subtle channels called nadis. Its most subtle material form is the breath, but it is also to be found in the blood, and its most concentrated form is semen in men and vaginal fluid in women.
In Ayurveda, the Prana is further classified into subcategories, referred to as prana vayus. According to Hindu philosophy these are the vital principles of basic energy and subtle faculties of an individual that sustain physiological processes. There are five pranas or vital currents in the Hindu system:

1. Prana : Responsible for the beating of the heart and breathing. Prana enters the body through the breath and is sent to every cell through the circulatory system.
2. Apana : Responsible for the elimination of waste products from the body through the lungs and excretory systems.
3. Udana : Responsible for producing sounds through the vocal apparatus, as in speaking, singing, laughing, and crying. Also it represents the conscious energy required to produce the vocal sounds corresponding to the intent of the being. Hence Samyama on udana gives the higher centers total control over the body.
4. Samana : Responsible for the digestion of food and cell metabolism (i.e. the repair and manufacture of new cells and growth). Samana also includes the heat regulating processes of the body. Auras are projections of this current. By meditational practices one can see auras of light around every being. Yogis who do special practise on samana can produce a blazing aura at will.
5. Vyana : Responsible for the expansion and contraction processes of the body, e.g. the voluntary muscular system.

May the prana be with you ;)

Perhaps it's the electronic screen, or the degree of impersonality (iPad is changing this in a way, I guess), but when browsing the web, reading off an austere screen, so much removed from me, the intake takes a frenetic shape, my mind tends to be 3 windows ahead, skimming, skipping, scanning; next, next, 'what was I going to do? ah, yea', tabbing.
Rarely, heck, now that I've paused to give cause-- almost never-- do I feel at ease (on a subtle level) when interacting with these internets. What a scary, serious shame. How much time spent... nervous. Jittery, jumping. "The medium is the message." This medium isn't organic, it's electronic. It might deliver something human, but it itself, is... and don't get me wrong I can't / won't do with out you, but pixels -- ya'll are cold. Part of my cognitive functioning becoming bionic? Electricity naturally occurring as synapses signal to spark, shoot messages across the dark hallways of the byways of my brain. and then some + static from flat screens composed of man-made brilliance = overload?. balance is the key, time away to be nature-ally free. Balance coming in bursts of 2-weeks a year for the standards......... hmmm. C'est tout?

The Daily Standard .............................................. ! ______ ?

Fill my blank in with:
awareness
feeling
in my fingers and flesh
interaction
with the bigger-than-me
created by me, I who was created to create it once over
to in turn see it, truly, believe it
without the need to defend it
open source code
to indiscriminately share it
without thinking twice 
built-in being remembered 
IT is BUILT-IN
clean mirrors
real food
a sense of humor
stretching
sweating
stressing
to de-stress necessarily, unforgetably
the non-corny, non-'new-age'-labeled, L-O-V-freaking-E
Real-ity
as it is, as it will be

....... this evoked it for me: "When you live this close to nature, you are listening to a different language ... and you become more sensitive and develop an understanding for the surrounding environment.  I think we all know that feeling of having been outside all day, doing good physical exercise, your muscles feel tired and useful and your senses sharpened. That feeling you used to have when you were a child."

Paperback is so snuggly, now that I think about it. It even comes with its own distinct scent. Like a person.
What does Google smell like? (no hard feelings, goog, you're clearly incomparable. And clearly I'll challenge thee with a comparison)

Well, all this reflection washed over me in a second when I actually took interest in something past those kind of cool-check-this-20-bit-snapshot-link-stumbled-upon-thumbs-up-'like'-ness seen through them web goggles (data miners should really do some research on the average length a window stays open. they probably have. who wants to check it? correlate it to our ever bending, flexing, reflexive rubber-band attention spans). That something touched me enough to make me realize I was being touched in a way (all Kosher here, thanks) closer to the spine of a touchable page-turner. That make sense?

I am, intending a step into depths, depths intended to elevate -- a footprint in some half-dry cement, web's a sidewalk perpetually paved, sure this window might stay open on your screen for not longer than a Twitter
// but content.
Man, Woman -- content. What does the content do to you when it contacts that thing behind the eyes made to break it down to take it in? How long does it take to take a swim around the chambers of your cells and fill the gaps where filed away are millions of megabytes of "I'll never remember that, what impact?"

I guess it only matters when you know it does.

Too much impact? Impact not the necessary matter at hand. A symptom instead. Doing more to undo what's been long done-and-done. Our global 'footprint'. How to push back / while moving forward. always, always forward \
something bigger intervenes
intravenously it sleeps


Thanks, web goggles, wouldn't be here with, by, without you.

And goodnight