A tale from the Zen realm...

I am happy to say that I have been tuned in to the Zen realm lately. The picture comes in crisp like on your new HD flat screen that you may have bought with your shiny paycheck. The audio is in beyond-surround sound; cosmos-encompassing sound I call it. I tapped in on my snowboard a few days ago. Knowing the outcome of a park run as I dropped in. Slow motion cheshire-grin flow, full zenvoovy buddha praiser. What it is really about is using the energy that is already there, osmosis-ing it right through your being. The-energy-is-already-there. You-can-do-anything.

This Zen cruise took shape the other night:

I was on my way to meet some old New York cronies at a billiard hall on the west coast. The streets were puddled from the day's rain as I puffed on a healthy joint strolling down the main boulevard. Chattin' up a storm with meself absorbing lights and sounds that surround puff puffin' away like a slow steam engine on the central track. Bars approaching I clipped the joint and placed it on a shopfront windowsill for later retrieval.

Further down the street I passed a bum who was silently begging with his cardboard sign and his head hung low in the soggy night. His energy felt desperate and sad. I reached the corner and then turned around with the idea of giving him the joint clip that would help him get some shuteye and forget all his worries, if only temporarily. I was already quite nicely toasted and it put a silly smile on my face picturing the delight I was going to bring to this bum's bumlife. I could just picture him cozying up in a concrete corner somewhere and inhaling to his bumheart's content.

He put his hand out for the handout (that's why they call it that) and I said, "You can have the rest of this joint to smoke." He hesitated. "I just stopped doing drugs" he said in a muffled shybum tone. Feeling terrible but at the same time thinking 'How on earth did I find the one bum who gives you back what you gave them?' I snatched the clip back out of his hand. I told him I was sorry, which I was, but then I realized that he needed that kind of incident, that temptation, to strengthen him. He should be proudbum, living on the streets without a drug habit to support might make his life easier. Less distractions and more time to enjoy complete bummin' freedom.

So there I was, back to strolling down the main drag with a burnt joint. 'Who will be the lucky winner of temporary toastiness?' I thought. Selfish judgmental me was not going to give it to just anybody- a quick cosmic evaluation would be necessary. It would not be given to the tightsleeved buffbros or the nasal-voiced short-skirted goof troop (as if) or the no eye contact hidden agenda cool crew; then who? who would it be given to? I was just a block away from my destination but I knew that I would find the rightful heir to the roach. Crossing the street, my ears perked up to a male voice speaking behind me:

"I just think that we can have physical contact that is not sexual. Like, sometimes I just wanna share a bed with a girl and just cuddle, no sex or hooking up or anything. Why can't everyone realize how important the human touch is?"

As soon as he said "human touch" I spun around real quick to see an early twenties threesome, the kid who was talking in the middle walking arm in arm with two girls, just your average suburban hipkids on the Friday night prowl. What beautiful words to hear, whether they were alcohol induced or not.

I had recently had discussions about human touch; how we long for it by nature and that it is a necessary component of happiness. I chimed in with a wild cosmic finger pointing at them, "Yes! Yes, that's it! That is what I like to hear!" They all looked up a bit surprised at this strange eavesdropper. Their energy changed, instantly becoming a bit protective - something I am used to being a fan of random human interaction. In order to open them up I had to prove my worth and I did so with a concise verbal flow direct from the Zen realm (where many of my thoughts are founded): "We are all sensual creatures and we long for human touch and all physical contact does not have to be sexual. It is one of the best ways to express love, which is everything, which is all we require in the whole entire universe. It is all LOVE. Don't ever be afraid to express love in any form, and being all lovey dovey is not corny and showing affection needs to become a daily practice of our lives."

I had stopped walking during my rant and now they had reached me and were smiling so I hopped on the love train and was walking arm in arm with them. "Exactly, so true," the one girl was saying. "Totally," exclaimed the guy as he was putting a cigarette in his mouth to light it. The cigarette bounced off of his lips and onto the wet pavement.

We have a winner!

Before he could bend down to pick up the cig I had my free arm outstretched to him. "I think you should smoke this instead." All of their eyes lit up and the cigarette went forgotten. I gave him the roach, then gave them all big loving hugs and went along on my very merry way, smiling awe as usual. Happy for making them happy. Happy for hearing conscious thoughts so close to my own that are a rarity on that street where on any given weekend night the human spirit gets twisted in an alcoholic fog and becomes unrecognizable. Just happy and grateful for the constant unfolding zen flow (truth) that takes ordinary occurrences and zaps them into rainbows that brighten my soul.

Floetry

I have been spending some time not in the mountains recently but in the city, really feeling and observing the difference between the two energies; vastly different from each other. The city is hungry, always feeding; the mountains always giving and quiet...I enjoy jumping head first into either. Different music and different states of consciousness abound in my city experience. I brought back energy from the mountains for the second city-go-round and it softened the blow just like I wanted it to. These are some scribble poems I produced quite naturally during a very mellow night spent by myself on a couch on a huge hardwood floor on a hillside with thoughts:

Imigine inhaling the whole scene

and then

exhaling it all right back into place

because you are a part of it.

Slow piano thoughts,

Electric moonlit cities

by my side

Thank god for lemons...fresh lemonade is electricity for the soul.

Old Journal Attempt #26A

I have never been able to keep a diary or journal. I just write random shit in random books and on random pieces of paper or in this case typed on random pages of webspace and that is that. I recently found a slim flimsy medium sized address book that I was motivated to fill up with a journal about sixteen months ago while I was living in San Diego. I filled about a page and a half. What I am stoked on is that what I wrote still makes sense to me now and my thinking has not changed, which I like for some reason.

I think I thought differently a few years ago and have been undergoing a metamorphoses of sorts, a blossoming of the soul, an unblurring - now I feel a greater purpose and a greater love for the universe and my part in it...

- this is what I wrote on that page-and-a-half of journal attempt #26A:

It's August 31st 2008, I'm tired been up since dawn, now it is 10 something, some French Stevie Nick's song playing on my new room radio, the one my mom sent me, songs over. My boss got me/gave me girl scout cookies, one box of pb/choc and one box of lemon cremes that I left on the hood of the antenna of the van and drove off. I forget things easy, afraid its gonna get worse. Now its just a lounge beat. Gonna lower it and keep it on while I sleep.

Already September 4th, go figure. I can't seem to understand the flow of energy among humans, not sure it is possible we rob energy from others and vice versa, quite intentionally and unintentionally to hoard for ourselves. Is it selfish or is it natural? Is there a scientific explanation for the imbalances of our brain chemicals that produce our mental forcefields, some strong some weak, constantly bending and morphing, like the oceans. Maybe since we are made of saltwater, on the inside in every molecular nook and cranny there is a tiny bit of Di-hydrogen Oxide and some sodium and they create a mini-ocean movement network. Swells, pulses of energy wind driven. Thats why people who talk too much are strange. By too much I mean few credible things said per words muttered. If it is just noise then all it does is create crossed up swells with too small of an interval to really produce anything organized. Nothing lines up at that rate. Wisdom allows us to track our swells and understand at which tide and in which direction we react the most gracefully. A universal grace that can be felt best when it is abundant in groups. Bad vibes good vibes.

Sometimes life is funny

Now it is October 15th. Been catching waves on a different board lately. It has put my surfing right where I want it. No track pad on the back, 6'1" rounded pin, thin but floaty, holds a rail real nice. I got two legit short tubes on it. I've been smiling before I duckdive a nice wave out of respect to it. Sometimes it is just a smile of childish awe. I'll usually laugh before I am about to get pummeled. Not a loud laugh just the internal kind. Curious squirrel lurking outside the van. I wish they weren't so timid. I would feed it and take good care of it. My radio won't pick up my two favorite stations for some reason maybe they are two low on the dial. I get to blast the jazz in my work van, sometimes I get a real good groove. Jazz reminds me of good waves, anything goes.

Sometimes life is funny sometimes it is too peculiar for words

The way the folds come undone

Revealing a more intricate pattern

That can only be felt and not seen or touched

The split split split seconds that ricochet the path

Or paths, but there could just be one.