is palpability.

On Friday “on” hosted its first house show. It was a last-minute makeup for someone else’s dropped plans, but it turned out to be  success despite many road blocks.

Most importantly, it showed us that this sort of thing is possible.

It might not seem like much, but it was big. Stillwater doesn’t have a whole lot going on in terms of music shows, so to draw a full house + porch meant a lot.

Special thanks to Jordon Shinn for lending his house on short notice.

Another plus on this night was getting to see my friend Sam Beer, a wonderful photographer and linguist at OU and getting to meet his good friend Amber McKinney.

hogyan éred el.

Restart. Reboot.

• Phone Post

I had stopped myself from demolishing my fellow students intellectually, but I was cocky and confident enough physically to take it upon myself to win basketball games by exposing the opposing team’s weakness without as much as a second thought.  There was a barrage of images and brain videos from both sides of myself, which begged the question of why I allow one side or the other to dominate depending on how I view the situation, and more importantly, how I view what the repercussions may be to anyone in my wake.  Just a note of observation and something I will clearly have to monitor, it seems that physical prowess and the aspiration to physically be the best is completely acceptable for me, while intellectual mastery is to be wielded with extreme caution regardless of intent, but especially if it purposely or inadvertently has the potential to cause another to feel inferior in any way.

This all has very little to do with the exercise of The Happy Heart, but it is what came up during the hike, and I just report the facts ma’am.  Ok, that’s not entirely true.  It was the moments in my life during which I have shined unabashedly that informed my Happy Heart Meditation.

About three-quarters of the way up the trail to my pre-determined destination, I found my spot.  I hadn’t expected it, but the rock called me, and I answered.

Approximately twenty or thirty minutes up Mt. Wilson Trail from the trail head, a boulder juts out over a ravine that comfortably holds a stream in its grasp at its lowest point.  Normally, the sound of the water running through is faint at best, and more often than not, non-existent at worst.  The boulder was something I seem to have missed in the dozen or more times that I have traversed the rocky climb.  It was perfect.  It looked as if it were cut for the seat of some giant. With an ample backrest that ended about the middle of my scapula, and a width that could comfortably seat three across, it was almost too perfect (whatever that means.)  Although I would not want to be the person on the far side of this enormous natural chair as it precariously dangles a good three feet off the edge of the trail.

So, to remind you quickly, here are the directions again:

1. Pick an image, event, person or anything that evokes a deep feeling of happiness.
2. Imagine your heart as a large, oval room with you sitting in the center.
3. Begin to see this deep feeling of happiness filling up the oval room of your heart.
4. When the room is full to bursting with this feeling of happiness, allow the feeling to escape through windows of your heart and move into your entire body.

I have had some difficulty imagining sitting in my heart.  Sometimes, my brain works so linearly and literally that sitting in my heart seems ridiculous to my “rational” mind.  How do you sit in your heart?  I don’t know.  But if I did know, I would sit the way I did atop the Giantess’ rock (an inordinate amount of male references is quite boring as it’s been done so often by so many, myself included,  literarily speaking.)

I closed my eyes.  I felt the rock beneath me and behind me, comforting me, cradling me.  I listened to the water rushing through, over and around rocks in the ravine below.  I felt the cool breeze wash over my body with it’s sweet, fresh smell and the sunlight’s warmth on my back.  I watched the young 15 year old Jon Snow, mopping a floor with real joy at a school he never liked.  I saw the man offer me a job.  But I was still sitting on my borrowed boulder along Mt. Wilson Trail.

This went on for about ten minutes.  Seeing myself proud, happy and joyful, but still sitting on a rock on the side of a mountain.  Then it hit me.  I was sitting.

Then it was a landslide (not literally, thankfully.)  The Giantess’ rock was the seat inside my heart.  The mountains, the water, the breeze, the sunshine, my quaint little town back down below, California, the whole world was inside my heart.  How big is the world, I mean really, when it’s all said and done?  And what is big when the only frame of reference is the limited human sensory experience?  My heart is bigger.

I felt the room that was the world inside my heart fill up with this joy until it was ready to burst.  It was a warm, golden light.  The world and my heart could no longer contain it all.  It rushed into my arms first, then filled my torso and spread down to my legs and finally exploded through the top of my head.  I basked in the beauty of it all for a bit.

I was buzzing.  My whole body was tingling as I opened my eyes once again.  A huge smile broke across my face, well, at least it was there for a moment.  It was so powerful that I had a slight moment of vertigo before I cautiously climbed off the stone upon which I sat.  Then I let out a booming laugh at the thought of me falling off my perch that echoed throughout the ravine.

So, Lakers won again the second time in a row yesterday.

Nice game, but as yesterday was all too deep and heavy to discuss about the poor Wizards, today is similarly just not enough the thrill (irony detected) in me about the win against the Pacers to make me spend too much words on the game.

We won, cos right… well there’s no comparison between Lakers and any of those two scrappy teams (sorry to any Pacer or Wizard lover around. No disrespect… just stating the obvious).

Today is again Wii League, finally in a complete way: people coming at me (this afternoon I get back in my house cos I want to ride Swifty, day is so clear and chill and perfect I want to go outside, and that’s why I exit from work at 3 pm…) along Karim, everybody picks up something cold and nice to eat and then at 9 pm all in the arena for 3 hours gamers. WHOOO-HOOO! I love that

Yesterday my nerdiness, hopeless one, has fully manifestated itself while I was following the Apple iPad launch in San Francisco.

I only know that I want it.

Steve Jobs presents the iPad

I have the Kindle and an iPhone and a laptop, a Mac home… I have two iPods (one regular, one shuffle) and still as soon as I saw that, a voice inside me screamed:

“GET IT NOW!!!!”

I always feel like a kid anytime Apple unveils anything new.

Then Jobs is the ultimate showman, isn’t he?

I am a total devotee and a freak, too. What can I do about it… I am. I will have that for my birthday. Ehy! turning 25 is something important.

LOL.

Before I reach the actual matter of this post (I haven’t even caressed it yet…) and while we are in Southern California matter… this is the Grammy Week!!!!

Awww. The Grammies. How I love them. I would love them even more if I could just be NOW in La, in my lil new house, wandering in search of… good things

Some of which are for instance already enlightened by this People’s article:

People Grammy Parties Preview

And needless to say, there are two things that caught me: Jamie Foxx’s infamous party (I could have BET MY LIFE  sweet babies would have chosen that one, as *somebody* really loves Jamie Foxx) and then the news about the party organized for the launch of the Green Music Group (awwwwwwww! totally in awe of this) on saturday, preceeding the more than legendary Davis’s preGrammy night.

Aww. The green conscience of my beloveds just fills me with pride.

I just wish I could be in LA now. Oh… how I do I could.

Now I can finally tell you about what I was thinkin yesterday, deep in Karim’s arms after a long long day.

Yesterday, you know, it was tough for me. I suffer deeply inside me the tragedy of the Holocaust, even not being Jewish, or Rom… Hate of beasty proportions just collides with my spirit so much I feel hopeless and too tiny to surface back.

Karim suggested me to do some meditation.

Zen Words

And then we started to get phylsophical about the way I am quite a split personality, also in my way to react to tragedies such as the one remembered yesterday.

“You are definitely an intellectual person, Zaira. Which is amazing and totally right, not to mention completely fascinating, especially in someone as beautiful as you are. Unfortunately, this bonds also with your huge sensitivity in a way that affects you when the mere logic can’t tell you why barbarian acts take place. When your brain can’t find reasons sufficent enough for the pain inside your heart, you feel lost, and that’s understandeable…”

“You’re right. That’s exactly what happens…”

I said back to him.

“Well, the love you have for Eastern Philosophy can help you exactly there. Being Zen asks you to not being judgemental, just to be a conscious observer. It’s not indifference, it’s actually the only way to give sense at the human madness without succumb at its evil grab over the soul. When you consider that your own given symbol, the thing you feel describe you the most, it’s a Tao… you totally show you know the truth. Indeed you’re VERY Tao in everything you show. It’s something totally precious in my eyes…”

Zen Garden in Kyoto

We started to talk and browsing through our THOUSANDS Japan pics we took this past summer. And talkin about satori (illumination in the Zen concept), and recalling little koan stories and going by memory with some japanese haiku poems. We were kissing so amazingly the whole time, and in a long, elapsed space of time we ended naked making love over the floor in a wonderful, truly wonderful way.

That was purely magical.

Maybe I love Japan so much cos being in touch with its way of life can help my way too thoughtful (in painful way) mind. Never actually got to reflect about this.

Once again Karim knows me more than I do know myself.

It’s magical.

That too.

Thank you honey.

I love you every day more, and you’re the golden frame that keeps my chaotic Tao together well.

• Phone Post

I remembered a basketball game in which we were down by 2 points.  With time running out, I found myself with the ball just inside the left wing of the 3-point line.  I remembered looking at the clock, just like every kid that shoots hoops imagines it, 3-2-1.  I looked at my feet.  I looked at the clock.  I looked at the score.  No one seemed to want to defend me, so I made a decision.  I dribbled twice, backward, behind the 3-point line to set my feet.  I shot.  The buzzer sounded.  The ball tickled the twine dangling beneath the basket, and, like any good, cocky shooter, I just left that hand up in the air for all to see the perfect form with which I had just won the game.

Those two scenes and many more played before my mind’s eye as I traversed up the narrow, rocky trail.

I began to relive many little scenes throughout my youth.  Some wonderful, some not so much.  We established in the Ascending to the Madness series that there are many sides to me, and that, until recently, part of the problem regarding my lack of an unfettered ascent had been that all of me were not on the same page.  So began the barrage of scenes of the different sides that have been with me most of my life.

I was around 10 years old.  My father was going to school, they didn’t call it seminary, but for all intents and purposes, he was studying at a Bible college to become an ordained minister, so we’ll color it seminary.  I grew up with the Bible coming out of my ears.  I was such an excellent student that I was asked to represent the entire fourth grade (if memory serves) and participate in the Bible Olympics the school held every year.  It was a great honor, or so they told me.

At the Bible Olympics, I knew every answer to every single question, without fail.  I knew every answer before every other competitor seated at the long table that seemed to stretch on forever on the basketball court of our school’s gymnasium.  Question after question.  Answer after answer.  They were all mine.  I hit my buzzer not a single, solitary time.  I froze.

I saw myself sitting there, this stiff, terror-stricken little 10 year old.  A big red buzzer button awaiting my slap, a punch, just a delicate touch?  I gave it nothing.  The crowd in the bleachers seemed to come down on top of me, crowding me, the lights blinding me.  I was frozen.  I was scared.  Too scared to even hit a buzzer.  Stage fright was only a small part of it.  Mostly, I was scared to make the other kids look stupid.  I could have.  I could have intellectually obliterated all of them.  I could have run the entire table of questions without fail.  Even when a question seemingly stumped the entire group, little Jon Snow knew the answer, but even then, I didn’t allow him to even put a shadow of his hand across the face of that ominous red button.

As life develops we tend to progress with the relationships in our lives. Shedding acquaintances and the faux friends acquired through time. As we grow, we notice that the circle of true friendships become more about quality verses quantity. Life circumstances dictate the strong ties we build. Either we cherish them- or relationships become another cigarette butt thrown out the car window as we cruise through life on our own bumpy potholed road.

My husband, soul mate, life partner, best friend and yes my KING has opened my eyes to the wonderment of a TRUE relationship. A relationship of understanding, mutual respect, individuality, oneness and compromise. I love his approach to our marriage. Gentle, loving, open, supportive and protective. While we share the same creative mind, our individuality is always our own. Our goals always clear, known and mutual. Our own relationship has been such a strong foundation that many of the same principals transcend to every relationship I encounter. Friends, family even how I deal with various play partners in the scene.

In the recent years he’s opened himself up to learn more about BDSM/ KINK. He loves the beauty and art of the Lifestyle, yet participation isn’t in his grasp. His limited knowledge and experience has had him inquire more. He’s fascinated by many aspects and has done a bit of exploring of his own.

I recall attending a fetish event with him and being so excited he wanted to attend- that I missed the quick lesson in protocol and disclaimer I should have given prior to leaving the house. Long story short, he approached a collared slave and couldn’t understand WHY he was not responding to his very polite introduction and offer of a gentlemanly hand shake. After a few moments of proding the very well behaved slave who was being orderly and obedient- he then steps out  of his ’sub-space’ and leans over to my husband and courteously says: “Hey man I know you’re new, but I’m not allowed to talk to you. I’m NOT being rude. I just can’t.” Then the slave retreats and assumes the same position his Master left him in.

I caught the tail end of the conversation and saw the slave retreat. A wonderful way to handle the situation I thought and I appreciated the way he approached my husband. After explaining what just happened, my husband and I laughed and it has actually turned into a fond memory for us. Although what made me happy was my husband’s reaction. While we did find humor in the situation, I noticed that he felt embarrassed by his lack of knowledge and his non intended disrespect. He seeked out the slave’s Master and humbly apologized, acknowledging that there was not any intended disrespect by his earlier actions. He simply did not know. My husband did this on his own accord. The Master was kind and generous and welcomed my husband into the scene with a “No harm, No foul…thank you for respecting our protocol.” Most folks would of been intimidated, my husband was man enough to do the right thing.

As we’ve grown in our own personal relationship- he has come to the conclusion that he can appreciate the BDSM Lifestyle, but it is not one he practices. We share many of the same friends from my world that we both adore and love dearly. My husband allows me to be me and practice a Lifestyle independent of his own. I do keep the lines of communication open and the conversation always flowing. He knows all the toys I play with. The submissives I train and those I intend to collar. As he puts it: “Go ahead, do you…I appreciate what you do. I just can’t wrap my head around it.”  He still attends fetish events with me and KNOWS who to approach now. lol Although he can’t ‘wrap his head around it’…I do notice how royally comfortable he is when I send my female toys to attend to him and sit at his feet. A King is a King. He IS MY KING and  I’m THE grateful Queen to share Court with him.

xx

MLB

How many people have provoked the question, “What are you?  What order of being do you belong to?  What species do you represent?”  Not, “Who are you?” with respect to name, origin, or ancestry, but “What are you?”  Not Caesar, certainly.  Not Napoleon, or even Socrates.

Only two:  Jesus and Buddha.  When the people carried their puzzlement to the Buddha himself, the answer he gave provided an identity for his entire message.

“Are you a god?” they asked.  “No.”  “An angel?”  “No.”  “A saint?”  “No.”  “Then what are you?”

Buddha answered, “I am awake.”

- Huston Smith, from “The World’s Religions”

• Phone Post

It’s a strange thing to be writing about a Happy Heart in the midst of a family member dying.  My grandmother passed away last Saturday evening.  In fact, I have been to two funerals in five days.  Not exactly the type of material that feeds and nurtures the subject to which I aspire to explore in this series.

It feels so long ago that I started this exploration of my Happy Heart.  Two lives have passed, but it feels like two lifetimes since last I sat before this screen to share with whomever might be listening.

I didn’t shed a tear at Marie Snow’s funeral.  Not a single one.  At the funeral of her husband, my grandfather, Bill, who passed away three and a half years ago, I experienced the same seemingly apathetic response.  Not to say that I was apathetic.  Far from it.  Given the relationship with my father (it’s good,) it was certainly difficult to watch him in pain at the loss of his dad.  Due to familial bickering (to put it mildly,) my father was less effusive in his emotions at his mother’s funeral.

I spoke at Bill’s funeral.  I told his favorite jokes.  All ridiculous, as he may have been the corniest man to ever walk the face of the Earth.  But I knew that he would have wanted it that way.  I submit the following for your own inner corny comedian:

“What’s green and has wheels?”  Answer:  “The lawn.  I was just joking about the wheels.”

The difference between Bill and Marie’s funerals was glaringly, almost painfully diametric in presentation.  Where people got up to speak about Bill, myself obviously included, about his life and the way he touched us all, no one spoke on behalf of Marie.  One single, solitary automaton of a man, my grandmother’s last pastor, droned on and on about who and what Marie was and had been as a woman, a teacher, and parishioner.

Where I found my tears surprised me.  At a Catholic church on a Monday morning, participating in a different funeral of a man I met at the market, and that I only truly knew in passing, during a song I had never heard, a strange liquid seeped from my eyes.  This is interesting, I remember thinking.

My grandmother and Andy could not have been more different people.  A former military man, Andy was huge.  Even on the edge of his departure, supposedly weak from the hole in his intestine that eventually claimed him, he was reported to have still been giving his potentially bone-crushing handshakes lying there in his hospital bed.  A mother of six, Marie was small and thin but strong in her own right, both in the spiritual sense and the physical from many hours logged working in her garden.  They both had strength and power in their own way, but two people never lived their lives more differently.

I’m not new to my thinking that death is just a part of life and at whose table we all will eventually find ourselves raising a glass.  I was happy for both of my grandparents.  Bill had Leukemia, and Marie her Alzheimer’s.

To fret, worry, feel sadness or loss, are all a part of being human.  Being attached to those things, however, puts us in Ken’s definition of the rabbit hole.  Marie, Bill and Andy all needed to go, to get out of here, to move on to the next phase of their energetic existence.  Call it what you will, heaven, the cosmos, the after-life, it makes no difference.  Energy cannot be destroyed, so I know all three of them are better off wherever they exist now.  So, why feel saddened by their new adventures?  I’d rather rejoice in their freedom from this corporeal shell.

I write this partially to let you know where I have been and why I haven’t written this last week or so, but maybe I just needed to get it off my chest too. Either way, thanks for listening.

A while back I met an eager sub that quickly became a precious play partner. The energy we shared was fabulous. It’s submission divine. From the first session, it was apparent that the power exchange we shared was unique. It proclaimed the longing desire to be owned by me and to be a part of my stable. So, we slowly walked the path. Each time nurturing the bond that was organic. To be owned is equivalent to the sacred  vows of a marriage. A life long commitment with mutual understanding. It would belong to me. Fully. Mind, body, soul & sexuality. Everything. Eternally. Just as my sacred Blue & Lily.

From the beginning, I made my first rule crystal clear:

it will serve NO ONE but me.

and it fully agreed and understood my expectations.

We were off to a good start & continued on.

Consideration of my ownership is not given to anyone. I chose Puttana to train. I felt that it too held the same dedicated quality as my Blue and the ability to serve mindfully & unconditionally. As we’ve approached a new year, I’ve learned otherwise. Our friendship outside of our D/s relationship led it to make decisions which  in turn severely led me to abort the mere thought of possible ownership. It is a huge responsibility to take one under your tutelage. My time is precious and the time we shared was ours and special. I had great hopes for us. I feel we both did. I gave it many opportunities to attempt to salvage our D/s relationship. Although the pompous and self centered actions it took were full of ego and now covers it’s judgment in a veil of blissful ignorance.  Once protocol is breached, there is nothing else left….even when you consider one a friend. I have no hatred in my heart. Life tends to reveal things to us as time progresses. If we listen, you’d be surprise what you REALLY hear.  My only wish for it now is: I hope it finds happiness as it no longer lies with me. That I give as a friend. Not Miss Lola. While my departure from it is bittersweet. It is necessary…may you find clarity ‘it’ & as time passes you will come to realize what we did have can never be duplicated-EVER. It is not something you’ll find in a random turn over of house Dommes. You’ve done that. Which is what led you to me. No amount of money in the world could buy what we shared. Puttana is now dead. No longer existent. I bid it now a warm farewell.

ciao ciao

Greetings all. I warmly welcome you. While many of you do in fact know me as a sex advice columnist and my various articles. I discuss with many of you, your relationships, marriages, sex life, swinging and kink- the list goes on. I find it interesting, that I’ve never had a dedicated site or blog as Miss Lola and my own personal kink & bdsm experiences. While at AVN last week, I was asked several time ‘WHY?’. My answer: “Hmmm. Good Question. I’ve just always been a private player.”

So why the change of heart? Well, while I still remain a private player, I’m finding that this year is leading me to some truly remarkable experiences and I want to share them with you. From various appearances, special events, new articles coming out, various industry conventions, shows and the training of some new slaves- You’ll share my experiences with me.

• Phone Post

The Happy Heart exercise asks me to sit inside my heart once again, the same way I did way back in October when I did the Heart Song exercise.  I like this exercise much better, well, that’s not fair to say better because Heart Song certainly has its purpose and usefulness, but Happy Heart is what it says it is, and the Heart Song, well, that requires a bit of diving into the mire of sadness that accumulates in the heart.  Both extremely important, but I think we all prefer the light, fluffy stuff when it comes to matters of the heart.

So, sitting inside my heart, here are the directions:

1. Pick an image, event, person or anything that evokes a deep feeling of happiness.
2. Imagine your heart as a large, oval room with you sitting in the center.
3. Begin to see this deep feeling of happiness filling up the oval room of your heart.
4. When the room is full to bursting with this feeling of happiness, allow the feeling to escape through windows of your heart and move into your entire body.

Living at the base of a mountain has its privileges for the active body.  You may remember that the impetus for this whole journey was a direct response to how hard I physically push my body and the resulting pain that initially drove me to Ken’s wizardly ways.  The pain is virtually gone, but Ken is still trepidatious about letting me run, which frustrates me greatly, but I’m trusting in the process.  So, I decided that after 4 months of not doing anything, that I would go for a hike on the Mt. Wilson Trail behind my house.  It wasn’t running, but it was something.

The mountain burned about a year and a half ago.  Southern California is no stranger to wildfires, but this one came the very day that I moved into my current place of residence.  It was close enough that I had to evacuate, or so the police and fire departments would have me believe.  Being new to the area, I of course acquiesced.  Later, I found out that ‘manadatory’ evacuation cannot really be enforced, but that’s not really relevant at the moment, so I digress.  I visited the trail again a few months after the fires, but it was a rocky sea of mangled, charred tree trunks and branches, without a speck of green plant life anywhere.  Truly barren and desolate, it was almost depressing.

So, through a combination of the fires, my new found obsession with running on the beach and whatever else life threw my way, yesterday was my first time back to the mountain in quite some time.  My plan was to hike up to what is known as “First Water” about 1.5 miles up the mountain.  The trail head is just under 1000 feet in elevation and First Water just under 2000, not too strenuous, but certainly a workout.  My intention was to hike up and come back down, and then go back home and do my Happy Heart assignment.

It was not my intention to begin finding the things or the reasons or images that made me happy, but, inadvertently, that is what began to happen.  And that was pretty cool.

• Phone Post

I’ll get into cranio-sacral stuff a little later on.  Rob’s work, like any good body worker/healer/magician, is part technique, but the vast majority of the healing takes place because of the ethereal, intangible aspects that the healer brings to the table, and Rob is exceptional in that area. (Would you expect me to bring you anything else?)

What I will tell you, is that this work feels fantastic.  It’s so delicate and so gentle, it’s hard to see if anything is actually being done.  It’s not difficult, however, to feel that something is definitely happening.

Rob’s office is in Westwood, just minutes from the beach.  After our session, I had to go.  I go to the beach a lot.  Even now, when the wind whips off the water forcefully and chilly enough to bring tears to the eyes.  I love the beach.  At night, the middle of the day, sunrise, it doesn’t matter, but the sunsets are what I crave most of all.

The sunset at the beach today was the most amazing one for me yet.  And I mean ever.  There was an orange-red cloud in the form of a giant dragon.  There are indeed dragons in Jon Snow’s, George R.R. Martin inspired and created world, yet another strange manifestation.  As I allowed the water to gently caress my feet, I began to notice there were many dragons in the clouds.  For a time, I thought they were engaged in a battle.  There was one in particular, more of a Loch Ness looking sort of dragon, than the classic model flying type, that had an immensely elongated neck.  It seemed to be hovering right above me (ok, so maybe it did fly.)  It was then that I realized the dragons were only playing, the way dogs and little boys wrestle and fight for fun.

Immediately the sky changed.  My world changed.  I felt like everything was suddenly in 3D, or maybe that I was, in that very same way that I had been trying to create in Ken’s office.  It was strange madness.  I could see any specific point or section on a cloud and that point or section would suddenly seem as if it were directly in front of my eyes.  I could manipulate it if I wanted to.  I didn’t, but I certainly felt that belief in my body.  I spun around on the sand and water looking inland to the boardwalk in Venice, to the Ferris wheel on Santa Monica pier, back out to the sea, and it was all right there for me to grab, feel, smell, taste, whatever I wanted.

I went to see “Avatar” again the other night.  It was the late showing at 10:40pm.  About 12:30, I’m guessing, I started to fall asleep.  At least you would have thought so.  Sleep was too easy a label.  I was falling backward.  I was being taken.  I kept leaving to go somewhere else.  It scared me a little because I kept coming back, or waking up, but the fear was not so powerful a deterrent to keep me from going back again.

My sleep recently has started to become the same.  Not sure if it’s real sleep, an astral projection, or if maybe what I am dreaming is more real, and this body is the perpetrator of the true lie.  The parrots were back this morning.  They usually sit right outside my window when they squawk their songs to me.  I asked them to be quiet this morning.  Except, I think I pushed my head and face through the wall behind me and got directly in front of them when I asked.  Then I “woke up”.  It’s all madness.

After telling Jon Snow, for what seems to be the millionth time, that he knows nothing, Ygritte throws him another line.  “You might be learning some, though.”

Lately, especially, I have to ask what’s happening, a lot.  It’s all so wonderfully confusing.  I am getting lost in the magic.  I know that I’m working my way toward greater spiritual heights.  The ascension, if that’s truly what this is, is one hell of a ride.

Listen, I’m not saying you should believe in or subscribe to any of  this madness.  It’s just what I have been and am currently feeling and experiencing in my journey.

• Phone Post

I often use Kelly Howell’s meditation cd’s to help me with tuning my mind because more oft than not, I just don’t want to do it, or, more accurately, I want to be led.  These are the cd’s with binaural beats.  Binaural beats are really cool.  Extremely simply put, a different frequency is played into each ear, and the two hemispheres of the brain are forced to work together, but not to hear the frequency being played in either side, but to hear a third ghost (there’s that dog again) frequency that actually helps alter your brain wave patterns to get you into deeper states of meditation.  So, being part mad scientist, I used the opportunity to combine the cd’s binaural beat technology with the chi machine.

Ten minutes passed in what seemed like an hour.  The abruptness of the machine stopping is quite pronounced, and it certainly caught me a little off guard, but I was still able to heed the direction of following the energy up and out through the top of my dome.  My entire body tingled, but not tingled like oh, it looks like a beautiful day, let me open the door, and ah! it’s freakin freezing tingle.  This was more like a hum.  In fact every time I have done it this week, the hum has been there.  It feels like my body is being pushed up from the floor in the manner in which magnets repel each other.

I felt everything spiraling upward through my head until I thought the scalp on top of my skull might actually burst.  And then I felt it.  My body jerked suddenly upward.  It felt like I was beginning to power out some sit-ups, but I suddenly slammed my head into something hard and a heavy chain surrounded my shoulders from behind and jerked me back down to the ground.  Then again with the same result.  Again.  Pass the healthcare bill already, I’m gonna need it.  (I wonder if there’s a public option for the spirit.)

I tried to leave my corporeal reality several times.  So, the next time on the machine, I started anticipating the stop, but the stop was not to be had so easily for the expecting.  And then a funny thing started happening.  I began to feel the stop.  The chi machine was sliding back and forth with steadfast, undying diligence, but I kept feeling it stop.  Each time it stopped, my spirit was trying to catapult itself out of my body, and it almost worked too, if it hadn’t been for that meddling mind pulling it back in.  Pulling me back in.

So, off to Ken I go yesterday.  Tales straight out of books coming to life in front of my very eyes, messages from beyond, or something to that effect, and a new attitude for a new year and a new decade, I had so much to talk about yesterday, and I was feeling really good, so away I went, ready for whatever the wizard could dish out.

I open the door to the Firm Body Evolution Spa, where Ken’s office is located, walk in to the left and immediately find myself facing a certain idolized celebrity.  She’s much smaller than I would have thought, I hear myself saying safely within the confines of my mind, thankfully.  Mark, one of the very few that work in that office, politely introduces me, and boldly proclaims that I give the best hugs.  She who shall remain nameless (except for the perceptive) says she’ll be the judge of that.  She looks up at me and says, “Uh, you’re gonna have to come down here or something.”  I’m only too happy to oblige.  After the hug, while she publicly proclaimed that she thought we were pretty even, I could tell she still thought she held a slight edge.  It was cute.

I was lying on the hip rotation machine wondering at the wonder of it all.  That’s partially true, and actually, after much reflection on all of the fantastical madness that has become so prevalent on this journey, I was lying there still questioning what was real.

From the second story window of the FBE Spa, all you can see of the La Brea Tar Pits across the street while lying down on a hip rotator machine is a palm tree or two.  I chose a palm tree and focused on a specific leaf, trying to blur the edge of it.  That edge was the edge of reality I told myself.  I can blur the edge of that leaf with my eyes the same way I can blur all this world and the spirit world.  Focus on the edge.  The edge of madness.  Madness isn’t bad, you just have to be able to sift through it.  The edge.  The edge.  What is… Hey the end of that leaf looks like the end of the pony tails on those guys from “Avatar“.  I’d like to be in a 3D world.

And so it was that I began to try making the palm tree out there feel like it was in 3D.  And I was doing beautifully.  Floating in and out of my fantasy while the machine went about it’s business caring little to nothing of the swirl of thoughts going through my mind.

“Get off that machine!”

Ken walked in so suddenly and with that mock authoritative voice from behind my line of sight, I nearly jumped out of my skin.  Oh, he got a kick out of that.

We did our work.  Ken’s adjustments have been doing wonders for my physical body, so these days, after some quick physical tinkering, we have been doing more of the theta healing for the spirit, mind and emotional body.

Ken listened, perpetually looking so slightly bemused, as I poured out all the madness.  Smiling coyly, he relished every minute, every detail.  Through the characters manifesting in my physical life, my spirit trying to escape this body, dancing on the edge, holding the hand of madness, he listened and smiled.  He likes this me.  I like this me.  I was the child that wonders, asks questions and is fascinated by it all.  That’s not me all the time.  I’m trying to figure out how to let that part of me play a bigger role.  Neither of us really realized there were more personalities of me that like to sabotage the whole, until today.  This session was about putting all of me on the same page to ready myself for a joyful initiation.

After the work, we walked to grab a bite to eat and discuss what was going to be our next plan of action for me for this year.  He did theta healing by proxy.  We both agreed it might look weird if he was holding my hand at the bar of Callender’s while asking me questions and then pulling on my fingers.  Ken energetically, spiritually, put himself in my place and pulled his own fingers.

On a beautiful, sunshiny, L.A. winter day of about 75 degrees, we joked and laughed back to his office.  My cute, new friend was still there when we returned.  She was oh, so cute, when she showed me a dancing elephant that played the harmonica on the side of the road that she had met in India, I think.  She asked for another hug.  This one was for real.  Not that the first hadn’t been, but this one was, just right on.  Now that we were familiar with each other’s techniques, pressures, and correct, necessary height adjustments, we really laid one on each other.  Then she asked Ken what she did before she met me.  How fun.  Just another nugget.  It made me happy.

• Phone Post

I went about my routine of showering, dressing, grabbing this computer and walking up the hill to the market for coffee and a bite to eat.  The proprietor of the establishment, a petite woman, around fifty years old, always has the energy to greet everyone with a brilliant smile, and this day was no exception.  She peered at me over the reading glasses perched on the edge of her little button nose, flashed that wonderful smile, and said, “Oh! You’re not awake yet.  Coffee.”  It wasn’t a question.  A little cackle, and she set off to make a cup for me.

Later that day, in the middle of the afternoon, I once again walked up the hill next to the wash that comes down from the mountain, crossed the little wooden foot bridge by the green park bench in the southeast corner of the parking lot, and I made my way across the narrow street to the front door of Mary’s.  Fallen leaves,  bigger than my head, colored gold and faint green with hints of red, tickled my flip-flop clad feet.  A local and a market staple, as well as a retired Pasadena police offer that loves to “sing” Bob Dylan songs to me, stopped me to say hello, and before he could finish the word, he stopped himself, and said, “Man! You’re not even awake yet, are you?!”  It happened a third time that day, and you know what they say about things happening in threes.  Actually, maybe it’s just that things happen in threes.  Whatever.  I just know that for me, that’s almost more than one and a half times more than it needs to happen to make it stand out and feel a little eerie to me.

Somewhere, somehow, I’m not fully awake.  I may not even be partially awake.  But on which side?  Maybe it’s both sides.  How do I know it’s only two sides?  Maybe there are many more sides than just two.  I could go in circles for days.  This much is clear.  Someone, or something, maybe even just a different version of me, is trying to tell me to wake up.

So, even the messages, the lessons are becoming animated, real, tangible things it seems.  I’m starting to wonder how much I have allowed myself to regress, because surely being in the human body with human emotions is a regression from the ambivalent, unattached spirit whence we came and to where we return.  So, what is the real?

• Phone Post

I talk to Ken quite a bit, obviously, about all this stuff.  And like any good romantic hero struggling to find his way, I am constantly reminded about what I don’t yet know, or, in the case of Ken, what I have not yet remembered.  And now, seemingly quite suddenly, I find myself with the lines all blurry.  What do I know, I mean really know, that I am currently not allowing myself to remember that I know?  The deep stuff.  The magical stuff.

And then there was the anger.  Not madness, this time, but real, actual anger.  I was trying to find a reason for anger anywhere and everywhere for about a week and a half.  On the road, at work, oh, at work!  Sure, I could quit.  Show them my flair and walk.

Everything was eating me.  I was angry at people in general for not getting it, not seeing the picture the way I do.  How could they be so stupid, so blind?  It’s right there! I have felt like screaming to them.  How do you not see it?!

In another attempt to bring a fictional book to my current reality, I had to ask myself the question from “Illusions” by Richard Bach.  How can I help those I only want to smack the ever-living shit out of? Ok, so Bach’s character never said that, but he was fed up with people.  I had to be honest and admit that I was starting to look down at some people.  A lot of people.  Almost everybody, actually.  I was suddenly a pious new age jerk.  How the hell did I end up here?  I’m not like that.  And then it hit me.  You know nothing, Jon Snow.

Over and over Ygritte says that.  And I’ll admit that I started to read this series of books just so I could look for parallels to my own “real” life.  (You would do the same thing and you know it.)  Be careful for what you wish.  So, I have to find some humility as well as rid myself of this anger.  Great.  That should be easy.

• Phone Post

So, yes, there truly is a character in a book series with whom I share a name.  I know this because I am currently knee-deep in the third book of the four currently published.  And, yes, that is an exact quote.  And, yes, it is a fantasy series.  And, yes, I am a dork.  And, yes, I do enjoy indulging my inner nerd-child from time to time.  So there.

I give you that quote because I want to express how strange this life has become.  I suppose I could have quoted Jim Morrison in his song “Waiting for the Sun” about this being the strangest life I have ever known, because that would have worked as well and as effectively, if not as surreptitiously.

It’s interesting and not too strange that this character exists somewhere, and that he’s running around with my name.  Jon Snow, the character was publicly born 22 years to the year after I was.  How soon before his public unveiling he was born in his creator’s world, I couldn’t say, but I believe, and I haven’t done any real research on the subject, so don’t quote me, but I think it’s pretty rare to share both a first and last name with a character of a NY Times bestseller.

Ok, so that is fine and dandy, but what happens when the worlds start mixing together? the real and the fantasy.  (I could talk for a good while on what’s fantastically real and what’s the real fantasy, but for now we won’t do that.)

I have inexplicably had characters from the book showing up in random ways, and not to belabor the point, but to provide proof of said randomosity, I will cite two perfect examples without giving away any of the plot points of the books for those who may want to read about my fictional doppelgänger.

First, there is a sorceress named Melisandre.  Melisandre is always dressed in red gowns, and in my reader’s mind, she has this Elvira crossed with Cruella de Vil sense about her, but in a sexified, good way.  (Let me fantasize my fantasy in peace, thank you.)  A woman showed up at the restaurant during the holiday season wearing a crushed red velvet coat.  The coat had a flipped up collar that enveloped almost all of her neck, and it flowed all the way to the floor hugging her small waist in the middle and flaring at her boots as it swept down her thin frame.  Her hair was blonde with fire-red tips that gently tickled her shoulders.  Not that I was paying too close attention.

Jon Snow’s character in the books has a direwolf named “Ghost”.  One of six direwolves found in the first book, the animal is named for his albino characteristics of white fur and red eyes.  I came home last week after a long Saturday of work to find my neighbor Andres’ dog, Shogun, lying on my kitchen floor.  Now, I don’t see Shogun very often because of the layout of the cabins in which I live, so I forget that he is there sometimes.  Shogun is a large Akita (I think) that is blind, so his eyes are glassed over by cataracts, which makes his eyes look incredibly spooky.  Shogun is also completely white and about 100 pounds.  Ghost was in my kitchen.

Don’t weep, insects –
Lovers, stars themselves,
Must part                    

                        –Kobayashi Issa

This little poetry jewel I found while researching Buddhist literature after reading an amazing collection of Buddhist stories called Two Zen Classics translated by Katsuki Sekida. This awesome book is full of little stories called “koans” which help zen students attain “truths inexpressible in words”. The Two Zen Classics are: The Gateless Gate and The Blue Cliff Records, both from the Song Dynasty (960 AD to 1279 AD). The book is full of insights to eastern thinking.

This particular haiku was translated by Takashi Ikemoto. It was written in the early 18th century. Issa is supposed to be one of the best haiku composers ever.

This haiku contains two themes. The first is of God, who is referred to as the Beloved in Buddhist Culture, and his relationship to his followers, who are referred to as Lovers. The theme is that the Lover hopes to be impregnated by the Beloved’s divinity. Interesting theme, huh?

The second theme is the short-lived but blissful happiness that one feels; it is often compared to drunkenness.

I really loved this poem, as I love all haikus, because of the beauty hidden within it’s natural simplicity.

“Zen Buddhism has significantly shaped the historical development of Japanese haiku. Not all the haiku poets were Zen Buddhists, but several key figures were.

 Issa lived for several years in monasteries and took his name from the Buddhist ideas of emptiness and change. “Inasmuch as life is empty as a bubble which vanishes instantly, I will henceforth call myself Haikaiji Issa,” he wrote. Haikaiji means “haiku temple” and Issa means “one tea,” signifying a bubble in a cup of tea. When Issa was paralysed by a stroke at the age of fifty eight, and recovered, he changed his name to Soseibo, meaning “Revived priest.”

In Zen Buddhism there is a great enlightenment called satori, sought through many years of disciplined meditation. There are also many little flashes of enlightenment, called kensho, which are intense forms of those everyday noticings that surprise us or please us because they seem to reveal a truth, or to be exemplary, or to connect us again, momentarily, with the sense of awe. Haiku is a momentary, condensed poetic form and its special quality is that it is perfectly adapted to give the reader that little instant of kensho insight. Basho developed the haiku form so that each haiku became a little burst of awakening. It is this that is the essence of haiku, not its number of syllables.”

                                    —-George Marsh

The Satori process is something I have known about for many years, and had been resisting doing just as long. If anyone knows about the “Enlightenment Intensive” version of the process, you’ll know just how long… The story I told myself was that it was too much work, too tiring, and that I probably wouldn’t ‘get it’ anyway.

Then a few years back, my dear friend Louise who had trained with Clare was leading her first group in upstate New York and asked if I would join… to which I naturally replied “no thanks” – rather automatically. Shortly afterwards I had a look at myself and thought, well, maybe I should – if I am avoiding it so much, there must be something there for me… Naturally by the time I next saw her the group was filled. I sighed with relief, but inside something said: “Missed!”

The next day Louise approached me with a mischievous smile: “Guess what Devesh? We’ve had a cancellation – you can join.” And that was that. I can’t say I was looking forward to it, but consoled myself with thoughts that I was supporting Louise, would be with people I knew in a beautiful place, and after all I’d lived a rather adventurous life – how bad could it be?

I’ll tell you…

After the orientation and ‘modus operandi’ were dispensed with, we got right down to it. The group sits in dyads, opposite each other. One asks The Question, and then the other responds. Then, after 5 minutes, the other asks The Question, and One responds. What’s “The Question?” Well there are more than one, but most folks start (and end) with the same one: “Tell me who you are!” The process repeats a few times, and then partners are changed. Repeat, mix and match, repeat some more.

For five days…

Did I lead you to believe that this was ‘a bad thing?’ I misled you! Within the first few minutes of having sat in my first dyad, to do the process for the first time, I was ecstatic. Something just ‘clicked’ – I fell in love with the process instantly. The entire construct felt to me like an exquisite piece of mathematically precise baroque music. Delicious in its simplicity and deeply nourishing in the depth of its conception.

So that was the easy part of this story. How to describe what this process is about, how it works its magic?

It is intensely personal: after a few minutes you run out of things to say, but keep talking. After a while you are amazed at what is coming out – not that it is particularly significant – but that it just keeps coming and coming… Pretty soon inhibitions start to fade and the act of looking (and looking) brings up all sorts of things, not necessarily ‘Significant’ but then again, often there are insights into yourself that just bubble up.

OK. Not always comfortable or easy to see or say – but come up they do, and the seeing and the saying is in and of itself an amazing process. All along your partner is there to witness and to listen, and in that focused attention of seeing and hearing you – support your looking deeper. In seeing and listening to your partner, one feels a sense of privilege to be able to witness another so intimately.

At the same time it is completely impersonal. There is no conversation as such, rather a continuing exchange of the roles of watching and being seen, of speaking and being heard. There is no responding to each other directly, but there is Resonance. By the bucketful. Sometimes it’s just the depth of the gaze, or the silent communion in the recognition of the other’s depths as akin to our own. How do we know? There is no dialogue… We know, we just do – undeniably so.

Our tears bear testament to this.

Is it all blissful for everyone all the time? Nope. The occasional agonised cry bears witness to the intensity and also to the resistance some of us experience at times. There is also the humility of being laid bare – naked and exposed in ways we rarely allow in our ‘normal’ lives. We go on, at times exhausted, often fully energised and ‘on line.’ And sometimes we cannot tell the difference between the two.

It can get psychedelic.

And then, every once in a while, there is the sense of being a fly on the wall watching a room full of all this activity. There is a steady hum of the voices, the echoes of those voices, the gentle waves of movement in the collection of bodies, and the warmth of us all engaged as living cells of one organism in a magical dance all together. Who is talking? Is it you or is it me? Listening to you, I hear my own voice, my own thoughts. Speaking, I hear words coming from somewhere inside this body, but I am not saying them, I hear them at the same time as you do…

And, every once in a while: Something Else.

No idea why, no idea when, no idea from where… Something Else descends for which there can be no ideas, for which ideas as such are just like so much noise in the background of… The Blessing, The Gift… That which cannot be said, but speaks volumes. The Question becomes The Answer becomes Becoming…

Read more: Satori Process with Clare Soloway

• Phone Post

Words have been written to show me the power I possess and secretly hold in fear.  Men causing antique aircraft to hover like helicopters, men changing their visage with a simple wave of their hand and passing through walls as if they were made of air, shadows armed with blades as real as the ground beneath my feet (for whatever that may be worth) to spill a man’s blood, driving cars with no gas required, dead men walking as natural as life.

And yet, here I stand, feeling no wiser than I did a month ago when I called upon my brother the Raven.

I feel him inside my body, mind and spirit.  This cage of flesh keeps him safe, or is it my own ego that is safe by his continued imprisonment?

I ask again to be given the strength and courage to burn this physical cell and free the Raven so that we may spread our wings and soar, as brothers, as one.

It is our time.  Thank you.

Time for a yet another wallpaper pack since I promise you another one before I go off to Semarang for my Christmas holiday. And yep, it’s another Touhou Wallpaper Pack for you Touhou fans out there. I’ve just went back from the cinema watching Avatar and boy it was such a mind-blowing film. I think I will give a review on that later on. But this time, enjoy the wallpaper I have chosen specially for you. Cheers!