WHERE WE MEET

“We're fascinated by the words--but where we meet is in the silence behind them.”
Ram Dass

These words describe a powerful experience for me.

When I truly began to meditate it was with a sense of working my way slowly behind the thoughts in my head. I discovered the serene space that exists buried beneath the momentary clutter of my thoughts.

The truest, most authentic moments of my life have been enjoyed TOGETHER with those I love but in absolute silence...

...driving feeling true companionship beside someone, top down, wind blowing our hair, off on an adventure...
...during a strong, warm hug that says more than any words could...
...resting my head against warm, bare skin, feeling the rise and fall of calm, steady, contented breaths...
...walking purposefully, hands firmly held, knowing not where we will go only that we will be together...
...looking directly into someone else's eyes and knowing in that moment that you both feel the same way and it is a feeling utterly beyond description...
...beneath the high canopy and among the cradling roots...
...an unspoken connection even when miles apart...

“Things aren't so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered.”
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

ELICIT A REACTION

"When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing creature. He becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens and he opens the way for a better understanding." Robert Henri

Our ability to elicit a reaction in our audience - to cause them to spend any degree of time outside and away from where they normally reside - that is enough. It does not have to be a choreographed or strictly navigated response.

Our purpose becomes to disturb the natural order of thought, perception and order.

To experiment, explore and play and to encourage that mindful exploration in others.

What fun!

What reaction do you want to tease out of your audience?

YOU ARE WHAT YOU READ

As the old adage goes...you are what you eat. I am a voracious reader. I consume books, of all varieties. I tear through them. I linger over them. Sometimes I savour pages and chapters, drawing them out like a lengthy meal with wine shared with excellent company...and yet other times, I read with a velocity that barely allows time enough for comprehension and digestion.

If a palm reader could pour over my shelves and spread the recent collection of my readings wide, I wonder what she would conclude? (And why do I automatically assume that all palm readers are female?)

Below I reveal the indiscriminate pattern of my most recent reads...perhaps you can elucidate on any hidden meanings as you see fit...

These are from the last few months...

My Antonia, Willa Cather (again)

Images of the wide open west, its raw beauty, the allure of its possibilities, its savageness.

Society of S, Susan Hubbard

Vampires struggling against one another in a race to develop synthetic blood.

Evermore, Alyson Noel

Haunted by conversations with her ghostly little sister, a mortal is drawn to an immortal. This is not the first lifetime they have met...

The Book of Air and Shadows, Michael Gruber

Action, suspense and romance when letters point to the existence of an original Shakespeare manuscript.

Blue Moon, Alyson Noel

Second in the immortals series. Ever lives on...

Death in Venice, Thomas Mann

Worth several readings. Mann packs every sentence in this tragic tale.

Lace Reader's Guide, Brunonia Barry

A twisting narrative loaded with surprises.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Flavia de Luce mystery series), Alan Bradley (first-time author at 70!)

A spunky 11-year-old, consumed with chemistry and fascinated by poisons, solves her first mystery.

The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag, Alan Bradley

Second in the series. A traveling puppeteer arrives and sinister things begin to occur in this small English village.

The Tiger Who Came to Tea, Judith Kerr

What happens when a tiger arrives at the door expecting tea.

City of Bones, Cassandra Clare

First in the Mortal Instruments Series. Clary is introduced to the world of Shadowhunters.

The Wednesday Letters, Jason F. Wright

A husband's tradition of writing a letter to his wife every Wednesday exposes a family secret after his death.

City of Ashes, Cassandra Clare

Second in the Mortal Instruments Series. Shadowhunters continue their battle in Manhattan.

I Am Papa Snap and These are My Favorite No Such Stories, Tomie Ungerer

An odd collection of short stories with imaginative illustrations and slightly off-center characters. Think Mercer Mayer's Professor Wormbog in Search for the Zipperump-A-Zoo but darker.

Babar the King, Jean de Brunhoff

Babar at his best - imaginative, adventurous, clever and endearing.

The Best Buddhist Writing, compilation

Compelling shorts shed light on varying Buddhist perspectives.

City of Glass, Cassandra Clare

Third and final installment. Return to the homeland of Idris.

Babar and Zephyr, Jean de Brunhoff

Follow the monkey on his adventures as he meets mermaids, charms terrifying monsters and attempts to rescue a kidnapped princess. Wonderfully imaginative!

Wicked Lovely, Melissa Marr

Faeries lure a mortal into their world in another attempt to fulfill the legends.

LEAP

Hop. Jump. Spring. Pounce. Twirl. Dive. Flounce. Jaunt. Skip. Cartwheel. Chasse. Slide.

All of the above.

Whatever the action word that gets me up, out and moving, right NOW.

Move it, move it!

I am daring to create the outcome that I desire.

I know what I want. As we speak I am leaping.

What are you up to?

What is your action verb of choice?

EXPLICIT

A detailed response.

To elaborate extensively.

I have yet to look up the clinical definition of explicit...

I tend to be thorough so it's rather surprising that I have yet to do this.

If you were hoping for photographs in this post, I need to be honest and up-front, you may be sorely disappointed....

But I am trying to unearth the use of this word within the context of my own life.

EXPLICIT.

I have a preponderance for truth. Absolute.

I do not tolerate waffling explanations or rambling uncertainties or wavering answers.

I have a tendency to be overtly authentic.

"You are a truth-teller." my friend said, in a slightly accusatory tone.

Does this make you uncomfortable?

It is our responsibility to present ourselves honestly to those we value in our lives. Then to trust that they will know what to do from there.

If we don't provide each other with the whole truth, then we are unable to make entirely educated decisions. We are basing our decisions upon unstable foundations, wobbling half-truths.

Would you build your dream home on sand? Absolutely NOT!

Why then would you dare to construct each day of your life and each relationship you hold dearly upon anything less than the solidity of your truth?

Start now. Don't hold back.

The truth sets us free.

Honesty empowers us and those we truly value with the power to make appropriate decisions.

Enjoy the power.

Lavish those you love with the truth.

LISTEN CLOSELY! PART I

Now close your eyes and listen...what do you feel?

more about "The Mormon Tabernacle Choir - The Pil...", posted with vodpod

LISTEN CLOSELY!

Whenever I hear this piece...
I imagine I am lying in the fields of Willa Cather's My Antonia.
Tall grass rippling in smooth waves.
Running arms wide open through fields of gold.
Gentle, almost inaudible rustle of dry grass.
Caress of sun-ripened seed against bare skin.
Dancing with the warm breeze.
Shimmering against the glow of the setting sun...

Listen closely! Breath - taking...

Listen to the post above.
Close your eyes. What do you feel?

"Once more with joy O my home I may meet
Once more ye fair, flowr'y meadows I greet
My Pilgrim's staff henceforth may rest
Since Heaven's sweet peace is within my breast.
The sinner's 'plaint on high was heard
On high was heard and answered by the Lord
The tears I laid before His shrine
Are turned to hope and joy divine.
O Lord eternal praise be Thine!
The blessed source of Thy mercy overflowing
On souls repentant seek Ye, all-knowing
Of hell and death, I have no fear
For thou my Lord are ever near.
Alleluia!
Alleluia!
Alleluia!
For evermore.

Listen closely!
Right about minutes 2:15...it takes my breath away every time I hear it...you can feel the music and the mood turn a corner. It's a physical sensation.
Even though I know it's coming the anticipation, the voices and the music lead me on...

It's truly amazing how the music inspires the feeling of tears turning to hope and joy...as if the tide were building and then the crest of the wave begins to fall.

And yes, I vividly recall the Warner Brothers animated short, "What's Opera Doc?" set to Wagner's Tannhauser Pilgrim's Chorus with reworked lyrics.

Classic Bugs Bunny! Superimposing Looney Tunes over Wagner. Intertwining rich music with wit and comedy...

What ever happened to Saturday morning cartoons?!

(Ever-so-educational. Seriously. ow was I first exposed to Wagner?!)

A BACIO

I recently returned from Italy. Actually, to be honest, part of me still resides there. I am unwilling to let go of the exquisiteness that I experienced while exploring that sacred, ancient country.

"A bacio." Like a kiss...

In San Gimignano they use this phrase to describe a particular type of experience...

Fleeting beauty. The transient quality of the greatest, most authentic experiences in life.

Like THE kiss...

There is something so absolutely perfectly delicious about an extraordinary kiss. That moment in which two people leave everything else and surrender into each other and the spontaneous, absoluteness of what they are experiencing together.

EVEN AS IT HAPPENS IT IS GONE!

As soon as you become aware of the perfection in that moment, it has already passed.

Like the first bite of something long-awaited.
Ice cold water after a long, hot yoga class.
Plucking a tree-ripened apple and taking an immediate bite.

As soon as you recognize the taste as it dances across your tongue, it is already no longer there.

We spend our lives unknowingly chasing after these butterfly kisses - sensations and experiences that were never meant to last but nevertheless leave an indelible, lasting impression.

Is it in our nature to wish to capture that which we can never keep? Like a bird in a cage. A bird is intended to fly.

A kiss held too long loses its appeal.
A kiss that we can no longer have seduces us eternally.

The first bite is sometimes just enough...to simultaneously bewitch and gratify our senses.

The perfume of angel's trumpet that lingers for only a moment before the breeze carries it away, has greater power to captivate our memory, and hold us hostage... to the idea, the potential, that which we held for only a moment and then somehow lost.

A bacio.

The fleeting beauty of something irreparable, irreplaceable, unique in its occurrence and its rapture.

A bacio.

Like a kiss.

A one-off. The mold has never existed. No matter how you try you can never exactly replicate the experience. (Thank goodness!)

As soon as it exists, it is already gone.

So authentically and purely beautiful that it is beyond description. Words do not suffice.

A bacio!

I will spend my life stringing these moments together. Creating a web of beauty beyond the measure of time, beyond the description of words.

I know with each moment I am getting closer to the one who recognizes this beauty, who surrenders willingly, who offer generously and who will share this journey alongside me.