The Elephant’s Belly

Digesting it all….

Pre Friday March 27, 2008

Filed under: Uncategorized — jozenn @ 8:17 pm

Centered piston thinking.  Round opens to round, and down and up and down.  Sometimes, that’s just the way it is.  Firing on all cylinders, one might say.  With discretion never before employed to this degree.  We see…only what we are meant to see….  The seeing brings gifts, and traumas, and little buddhas in their teflon traps waiting for the moment, being the waiting, listening to the days, the nights, the opportunities pass by.

Such spaces hold only those who fall there.  No desire brings one willingly.  Only suffering, or wishful remorse, or subsequent alienation, or passive-aggressiveness, or lack of motivation, or subtle ignorance, or shallow forethought.  And then there are those that learn how to say no.  No becomes as no is.  No suddenly draws all the fire, all the ire, all the murk and mess.  But it shields itself in its own bliss, laughing off the gusts of experience like water off a duck.  One must pick their experience after all.  Perhaps the level of experience?  Perhaps.  Most likely not, as level is as level does, and frequently level only means: mis-interpreted.

Phantoms.

Loose among the reeds, scattering among leaves, listening like thieves.  Dream spaces left upside of all, wishing finally to fall.  In fall.  IN fall.  Inward fall.  Inward sprawl.  The dive down in takes its own spin, and later stays strung out and listing, waiting for the proper call.  At your wall.  The listening takes upwards, and inwards and finally outwards.  Uncontained, unwieldy, unforgiving.  Lastly living the place of peace.

 

Spring Equinox March 20, 2008

Filed under: Uncategorized — jozenn @ 10:47 pm

The full moon rose over the Oakland hills like a giant saucer ray gun thingy. One of those days where it seems much bigger than normal. I practiced in the afternoon today, and took full advantage of the extra heat in the shala. As I walked to the train, staring at that massive orb, it was obvious I was practicing during a full moon. No big deal, just a fact.

Two weeks from today I will be in Maui. A week away from the world. Hopefully much of it spent underwater. It’s no secret to me that I’m running away from everyone. I need it. I don’t want to be here for the occasion. Usually I like to spend such days with friends, family, people. Not this time. This time I want to leave. So I leave.

The problem with practicing in the afternoon sessions is insomnia. I get so jacked up by the intense backbends. My teacher wasn’t pulling any punches today, either. Thankfully. Which means I’m sitting up at 11:30 when I should be asleep thinking about whatever. Thinking about writing again. Thinking about documenting again. And now I’m writing. Documenting.

This path twists. I’ve just crossed the seven year mark with my practice. Four of those now have been in Berkeley. The pressures of grad school have done interesting things to my practice, but nevertheless, I’ve managed to keep it up. Sometimes I marvel at that. Most of the time I don’t think about it, I just show up. But I don’t have to show up tomorrow, so I’m not bumming on this late attack. Sleep will come when I need it, apparently. Reflections on the future inevitably lead me back. My Shiva book closed two months ago, the chapters it encompassed finally finished. This year I’m getting used to this new skin. Taking it for a spin. Un-blown glass waiting in the kiln. Molten and red, liquid. Sacrificial artifice, linking form and face. Through and through my thoughts pass on, withering out of space. The centerpiece lost, and balance one, following through simple grace. Fuss and fuss, leave a mess, flick a file, learn to guess. It ends one day and and then ends again. Liquid molten red new skin.