...9.18.21... to call a place home...

 ...throat stuck in a thought and working it out through tartar vocalizing by myself in a whole foods cafe surrounded by screens of football, live, but none of them are here and people around but none i know and the prison cell bars are before them and me, even as we walk past each other socially distanced because the pandemic is a psychology of property and individuation has been my rebel response until i realized i was only regurgitating the way of the -ism of the mono-crop culture... i'm a gmo'd corn gone wild and still stuck on the pathetic shelves of a supermarket, progressing from city to suburb to now not where the hell to go or if there is a go and i get why know you left and step to his eyes on panama... 

...sludged through fishtown earlier, wondering if this was the place to mark an x and call home and it's become dizzying - this search for place to belong to - some people just move and it's okay - but i carry dreams of tribe with me... my moves have to be measured cause they mostly haven't and time is running out...

...what i can tell you about fishtown is that there are things to do... that there are people around... there are institutions that offer culture, woodshops and reuse centers, where policy and industry are considered... where the earth is factored into reshaping the landscape... unlike this middle class suburb where people who sought comfort find comfort in not having to think about things, so long as they are safe and they are healthy and their kids are in good schools... i think... 

...mt airy has more of a past that is present... a more thoughtful family crowd moving in, people who want coops to shop from and cafes but also community... 

...where is there community?... where is my community?...

...if i had to choose - fishtown offers stuff - things to do - opportunities to be relevant in the work i do... traffic would be a possible issue, and it would be the city, with what comes with city... 

...i am drawn to more green space these days then city, more tree lined than avenues... more cafes than restaurants... more access to national parks... i am also drawn to real community... to yoga community and in my mind it's happening - the ashram - in the depressed regions where a multi unit multi story house is affordable and can serve as a live work space...  but what about a n a...  and tribe?... they live next door... two houses next door to each other... 

...does it matter where?... after-all whichever way you go... so long as you stay on it long enough... you are bound to get somewhere... 

...pretending to be who you want... 9.10.21...

 ...as you Are... come... as you need... Surrender... the answer is before you... just as yoga is here... ujjayi... you choose to breathe or not... even as we age... even as the wine grows sour... 

...there are memories that aren't yours... that extend beyond this body... and you are one of them for me... in my slight of tongue and twist of speech... 

...fated for death... we all are... from these bodies... the 20's... 1920's... roaring 20's... when you were twenty and you mom 40 and you in the blanket of parents and guardians and youth... running down a dream... filled with smoke and the scent of whiskey like a perfume in her mouth... you watching her smoke come through your nostrils... 

...inventing stories of who you would like if i were ... a man with a .22 tucked in my waist... a load of powder in the ziplock in my back pocket... a journal and nietszche rolled in ups bag... creating movies as i move through you... for a story that will lead you to cheer me on into greater pretend...

...pretend that i know what i'm doing... i have no clue... hence the spiral of words that leave me and you in the sphere of sanitarium... 

...the american modern has tailored this strait jacket i wear... that has left me closer to a grave without a clue and pushing my family to an edge that reeks of regret and hurt and disappointment... 

...one truth is that whatever you spend time doing... whatever you challenge yourself int... you can and will grow deeper with... that it will progress you... whether it's yoga or writing or foraging or making medicine or getting a car or a house or being handy with repairs... 

...put the intention forth... carve the time... do it... take action... stop running in circles... see what happens... 

...possibilities abound... 9.8.21...

 

...in the plaza de major of astoria the syrian dancers meld into the greek dabke as chris and i watch with anthropology... a walk through the town square lands us in conversation with the woman from richmond, on her bike, swaying her hips to the rhythm of ancient as she connects with ancestry... she tells me this when we share a laugh over the guy with the illuminated balloons that are tethered by the strings bunched in each hand so that it looks like he has the wings of an astronauts and its delightful when he is behind the stature of sacrotes, along side the band in intermission, but as he grows close, we shield our eyes, and when he passes we laugh and the laughter like alcohol provides excuse to speak, to shed the inhibition that requires reason to speak, to disintegrate walls...

...the cyclist tried, when he sped down the wrong side of the street and ran into the van crashing the bumper and flipping over... a circus of a tuesday evening walk that led to audience and spectacle... each of us participating in the awe... chris and i found ourselves next to a woman from boston, who like us were seeking to put together the pieces of the puzzle that led us there... 

...for chris and i, it was the smash of vehicle on vehicle that we heard from a block away... for the woman, it was her walk from the subway on her way back from a friend's in greenpoint... we shared curiosity that merged into a curiosity of each other... 

...these moments abound... the intersection of lives and possibility...  the fairies are all around us... in this moment... seen and unseen... drop backs into wheel and the standing forth... one hand handstand and straight legged jump throughs... they are there... like vipassana... and the novel... and the spouse... and lovers... and kids... you just have to lean into what isn't seen...

...new moon... 9.6.21...

 

...she played in h living room, dropping her index and middle fingers hard on the d a c minors, her ring and pink held up like the handstand i was doing in my vinyasa catching glimpses of our second break up, another another... screaming gloria... G L O R I A... as i walked out of her place in the morning dew of cabs and ubers dropping off bachelors and bachelorettes coming home from a night of hope, their lovers clinging to the close of their eyes as they dreamily walked through me... me an apparition in the streets of memories that haunt these hauntings of stores closed and whispering the shouts of dean and his boys, sonny and his gang, jack and j walking up and down steinway booming... i was glad to be away from them... spooked their past with the wisdom of age... of being surrendered by the guillotine of age... 

...i'm on your side even though it's over... and i walk out in peace, the door closes but it's a really a swivel that i walk in and out of living and bedrooms kitchens and showers only to really see what your life is like... wanting to know you more than the kisses that plague the lips of our cells with the mongrels of media that strike chords of man made fears and yet are heedless in their arrogance towards the One... readily regime changing and dropping the mother of bombs on a people and their history until they like us are fragmented... without village or community they are ripe for the modern we are  drugs alcohol sex and nihilistic music addiction... 

...its's a new moon and the luminosity of possibility rings in the closures of flings that this time drop feedback slips in my ears for me to transmute the pattern of man made in china and factories in dhaka... i'd rather wear the torn jeans from the salvo on elmira road... on tuesdays they have half off blue tags but i was there on wednesday and fell in love with the vegan down and it reminds me that i want to no longer wear suede or leather or hav anything to do with that industry and instead of telling you what is bad or good i want to grow deeper in my love for veggies and soil...

...and the new moon holds with it the promises of the past full moon when i put forth intentions for harvest... it is time... to harvest... as this season requires... which means sharing what i've planted - medicine kits, yoga courses, clinics... writings... and more... in the less...

...in the name of ALLAH... 

...9.4.21... lust or love... seeking Connection...

 

...sometimes... You... and then you... and the battleground... what i think is love is lust... and what is lust is a desire for Connection... to be with You... and it's odd... cause the people you want to be loved by are usually those who disavow this... who are unavailable when you avail yourself... except...

...this is the exception... when you lose interest, when you no longer want to play... when you move on... then it happens... the desire... the kindling you were seeking... and then you are open again... then you put yourself in the ring... desire still fuming inside you... fumigating... suffocating... and then you get together and it shows... this desire... and because the tension is premised on resistance... and you offer none... she loses interest... is unable to be present... 

...the cycle is what leads to vrittis... whirlwinds of thought that keep you stuck like a record... spinning... out of control... you are out of control... 

...in the name of ALLAH... 

...sometimes... 

...the opportunity is in the suffering... to learn where it comes from... the lust... the seeking of pleasure... and when this is unavailable... hurt... disappointment...

...an obvious pattern... and yet... why does it cycle in this way...?... why do we keep after the sugar... the late night dessert - coco-bliss... the want... the anticipation leading you to get dressed, get fresh, superficially... so that your plastic is crisp, as nice as the packaging for the cologne at macy's... as nice as the packaging for the thousand dollar watches... you go... travel great distances... with this anticipation... this desire propelling you... not knowing where it's going... where it's going to go...