I have filed the various papers that I needed to file in order to move things along. I’ve visited schools and found out a bit about various programs. I’ve also gone snowshoeing, sledding, been on the radio, been hugged a lot, seen quite a few old friends it has been fun. Yet in a lot of ways I see impermanence and suffering, I see people struggling in so many ways, I feel myself struggling and I want to help myself and then help people.

Depression has hit me at times and I feel grouchy and lost and there’s nothing for it but to feel these things. My mantra of late has been ‘I don’t know’ because this is often the only honest thing I can say. I just don’t know.

I want to share this picture with you. This man’s name is John Hagen he’s the father of a very good friend of mine. In this picture he looks more or less like he always has in my memory. Over at his son’s house I saw a picture of him when he had completed his first totem pole. He was so young and so handsome and it made me think how very much there is that I don’t know, that I might not ever know.

I don’t know if this makes sense either but it is all I can say.

I have been eating a regular diet for a week now.  Usually green food for breakfast, spirulina, barley grass, water, and vitamin C.  Some fruit during the day.  Seeds, chocolate powder, and raisins after work.  Plus a cooked dinner.  Mashed potatos.  Pasta.  Veggies and hummus.  Curried rice with garlic and ginger.  (Not all at once, these are mostly various meals). 

My strength, awareness, love and energy levels are very high.  The first two days of eating were very sloooooooooowwwww.  Very, very tired and very heavy.  I really could feel on an emotional, spiritual, and physical level the reintegration from a lighter frequency to a more grounded one.

I am thinking about it in reference to Ryan’s comments about teaching meditation which echos lots of intrapersonal questions I have had over the years.  This question of when and why do we move from student to teacher. 

It is nice to have a formal process.  My current teaching work (my job) involved getting formally certified (a masters degree in the field), an acknowledgment ritual (graduation), internships with teachers, and a title.  All of this in addition to the skills and knowledge needed to teach how to give a public speech.  It is similar in my spiritual lineage.  One is recognized by the Cheikh and by the community as someone who has the skills needed to guide others.  This type of firmness is helpful and satisfying.

In other areas things are more fluid.  I find that in my speech classes, much of the real learning that takes place happens in spontaneous interaction, and often from my candor about my personal life and experiences.  These are the things students refer to after they have left the class. 

There seem to be other times that call for us to share our gifts, whether we have received the turban or not.

When I first started practicing Islam, the exoteric literally saved my life.  Finally!  Here is what it is all about.  All spelled out neat and clean.  Having “mastered” both the exoterism of lower middle classdom, and wannabe gangstaism, and finding both of them, for me, lacking, this was bliss.  I experienced incredible waves of fulfillment and progress as as a human being. 

Then came my dissolusionment with those forms as my continued inner growth and development made them seem obsolete, restrective, and oppressive.

Now as I am on my fourth day eating after the week long super feast.  I am appreciating the value of the exoteric.  Starting with the eid prayer at the end of ramadan.  Reintegration from this fast I am doing has been more work by far than the fast itself.  Watching the communal celebration at the end of ramadan and the three days of visiting and praying that follows, calls to mind the infinite wisdom contained for the reintegration of a soul into what the catholics would call ordinary time.

I’ve also gone to work breaking ice with an axe so that it’s easier/safer for mother to walk from her car to the house. The pick side of the axe is on the back so it makes swinging the axe pretty awkward but between the axe and a spade I’ve managed. There is something therapeutic about breaking up ice, something very child like too.

I’ve also been practicing tai chi chuan / 太極拳 out in little plowed out section off of the driveway. I was concerned about finding a place to practice but it seems the slow evolution of my practice has made that concern less necessary. In the beginning the uneven and somewhat slippery conditions would have made practice physically impossible, later on they would’ve been too distracting and now they’re just external conditions which I’m able to adapt too. This is not any great progress just the natural progression of a deepening practice. It is rewarding to see that in small ways like this the years and the work have made me more able.

Today was especially interesting since I got to listen to ravens conversing in the trees over head. I’m not sure what they were saying but I like their language and enjoyed the company.

Osho talks about the path of awareness, and the path of love as being distinct until one has made significant progress deepening one or the other of them.  He advises that until one has made progress it is best to stay with one of these paths until they merge.

For me they are constantly cycling back and forth.  I will be drawn to a teaching and practice of love and community, represented above by Ram Dass, Amma, Gurmukh, and Michael Bernard Beckwith, and then I will be super excited with a teaching and practice of awareness and simplicity, represented by Chogyam Trungpa, Cheikh Aly, Bikram Choudry, and Adyashanti. 

It is an upward moving spiral of grace and practice.

Since last August I have been a regular “love streamer” to Agape services, ejoying the music, the community, and also Michael’s sermons, usually while doing the Bikram Yoga practice. 

This video really expresses a lot of where my thoughts and feelings are at right now.  It is filmed at Leaf Organics, a raw restaurant in LA.  The restaurant ownders book Raw Food for Real People has also been a big inspiration for me.

Peace from Massachusetts to Alaska and indeed all around the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=sO4QoexAbZk&NR=1

Saturday morning, Enema #1-Easier than I was worried it would be (way easier) and harder than I thought it would be. 

Sunday night, Vitamin C flush-The vitamin C flush does the same as the salt water flush, but also more in giving you the benefits of the vitamin C.  This was a wild ride!  I started taking vitamin C around 730 and stopped around 9.  I wasn’t up all night, but I woke up about every two hours for a “cleansing”.  I felt very sick in the morning.  Hardly able to stand. 

Monday night-Enema #2-Awesome!  Really, really easy, and immediately benificial. 

I have been having very vivid dreams.  Experiencing states of physical pain, and lightness.  Emotional joy and lightness, and also fear and irritation.  I have really wanted to break the fast quite a few times, or wondered if I could do it.  I pump myself up with thinking about others who have fasted, and also realizing the strength of the Buddha I possess.  It seems a gift available for all who want it.