Amazingly enough, a coupla people have commented on me not writing for a few days. I've had a few things on my mind that have had the effect of inhibiting my creativity. As I've mentioned, I got audited by the State for 1997-98 state taxes, and I couldn't find the W-2 form for 1997. The state had me fined and penalized for $7,000 and I was terribly troubled because the tax had been paid by my former employer, and indeed they owed me a refund. I think I really got the refund, but they seemed to have lost my records. My problems were solved when Bob Leonetti came to my rescue and fetched my pay records for that year.
I've been thinking about writing about the various places I've slept in during my life. I bummed around for about 7 years, and slept in some very strange places under some unusual circumstances. I've slept under a lot of bridges and over-passes. Sometime in very dangerous situations. One of the problems with being a bum is not being able to find a safe place to sleep and because of that, having problems with fatigue, so that when you find a place to sleep you just pass out no matter whether it's really safe or not.
I remember being in California once, and had not slept for 5-6 days in a row. I found myself in a residential neighborhood, and couldn't go a step further. I ducked behind a hedgerow and spread out my sleeping bag quickly and give it up completely. The next morning I woke up to screaming. I looked up and there was this middle aged woman looking out of her bedroom window and saw me snoring away about 5 feet away curled up under her shrubbery in plain sight. Looked good the night before. I got up, grabbed my stuff and ran away.
Tuesday, April 08, 2003
> These words stirred a kind of memory.
> Could we exist as a wave and a particle?
> A particular manifestation in time and a
> wave in the ocean of life, depending on focus.
Yes, without even considering multiple lives in multiple places simultaneously.
You come to realize what each of us call "me"... as ourselves in the first person... exists as the same monad looked at from it's polarity, the many. Wave or particle?
A Rose
A rose is a rose
Is like wiggling yo' toes
and calling that
baking a pie.
And taking for truth
that a fart is uncouth,
and thinking that death
is to die.
The actions that follow
the sequence of dreams
that comes first
in a moment of mirth,
is a humor unkind,
and a mockery divine,
of the limits
of what you are worth.
fmp '72
In musical composition this is just the theme and variation technique used by many composers to create
symphonies. One theme and multiple variations, with each variation existing as a standalone individually
different from the other variations... and yet all connected by the original theme. Jazz.
Have you ever heard Mozart's composition based on the theme of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star? Within each
variation exists the theme of that old nursery rhyme.Familiarity with the theme allows understanding of the
myriad variations.
This is what "seeing" the kingdom is like, recognizing the essence of the pearl within all it's manifestations.
> Could we exist as a wave and a particle?
> A particular manifestation in time and a
> wave in the ocean of life, depending on focus.
Yes, without even considering multiple lives in multiple places simultaneously.
You come to realize what each of us call "me"... as ourselves in the first person... exists as the same monad looked at from it's polarity, the many. Wave or particle?
A Rose
A rose is a rose
Is like wiggling yo' toes
and calling that
baking a pie.
And taking for truth
that a fart is uncouth,
and thinking that death
is to die.
The actions that follow
the sequence of dreams
that comes first
in a moment of mirth,
is a humor unkind,
and a mockery divine,
of the limits
of what you are worth.
fmp '72
In musical composition this is just the theme and variation technique used by many composers to create
symphonies. One theme and multiple variations, with each variation existing as a standalone individually
different from the other variations... and yet all connected by the original theme. Jazz.
Have you ever heard Mozart's composition based on the theme of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star? Within each
variation exists the theme of that old nursery rhyme.Familiarity with the theme allows understanding of the
myriad variations.
This is what "seeing" the kingdom is like, recognizing the essence of the pearl within all it's manifestations.
Sunday, April 06, 2003
During the final dream period of my sleep this morning I dreamed about two snakes. I recognized the place I saw the snakes from an experience I had as a young man. I wasworking in a field driving a tractor, and had stopped the tractor to relieve myself by crossing over a ditch and entering a wooded spot on the other side. Upon the
completion of my business I pulled my pants back up and went to recross the ditch to return to work.
The ditch was the runoff of a small pond just up the way and had running water in it. The stream of water was just
wide enough so that I had to take the longest step I could and then jump a little. The depth of that ditch put the height of the field about eye level. I found a solid place to set my right foot on the near side of the spongy bottom of the ditch and prepared to make a little jump to the other side and crawl up the ditch bank to reenter the field. Just as I landed on the other side, I saw the snake crawling along the top of the ditch bank about two feet from my face. I froze in midair with my right footstill in the air above the stream, with my left foot planted on the other side. The snake never hesitated in it's forward movement, but kept crawling slowly, ever so slowly forward along the top of the ditch bank. It was not a poisonous snake. Just a regular water snake with a reddish belly. It was about 4-5 feet long and had a girth about four inches in diameter. I didn't have time to be afraid. That came later. After it passed on it's way, then I felt the fear. I seemed happy I had seen the snake after I had relieved myself rather than before or there might have been other complications to deal with.
The funny thing about the snakes in my dream was that the first big black snake I saw was dead. It was not only dead, but hollow like an empty bag. I held it's head up by pinching the loose skin together and lifting it up. This is how I knew it was empty skin because it looked round and firm when I saw it laying there. It was about six inches in diameter and the length of it run out of sight around the bushes it was laying in. Well, at least part of it was. I thought it was laying coiled doubled up in a coupla rows, but as I looked to see how long it was I realized that one of the rows was another black snake about the same size, and it was moving a little, definitely not dead. It's head was out of sight, and I was damned glad of that. I realized both snakes, one alive, one dead, was over twenty feet long. Too much snake for me. I jumped up and started running. I was so scared I jumped the entire ditch and I came to the side of a ravine that had clay and layers of small pebbles on it's slope and I clambered up the side of it hoping that snakes couldn't climb uphill fast. I had no such problems. Then I woke up enough to realize I had been dreaming.
I don't get into dream interpretation too strongly, but I have kinda thought about the implications of this one. I have read that when you dream of snakes it has spiritual implications. I'm wondering if the dead snake represented my old religious beliefs, and my new views are represented by the live snake. In that sense, that I was not afraid of the old views and definitely frightened by the new ones. The old adage, "Familiarity breeds contempt." comes into play here. I was not afraid of the dead snake, and even picked it's head up and looked at it with detachment. The realization that there were two snakes that looked fairly similar and that the second one was alive and inspired deep fear seems significant. To what end... I have no idea.
completion of my business I pulled my pants back up and went to recross the ditch to return to work.
The ditch was the runoff of a small pond just up the way and had running water in it. The stream of water was just
wide enough so that I had to take the longest step I could and then jump a little. The depth of that ditch put the height of the field about eye level. I found a solid place to set my right foot on the near side of the spongy bottom of the ditch and prepared to make a little jump to the other side and crawl up the ditch bank to reenter the field. Just as I landed on the other side, I saw the snake crawling along the top of the ditch bank about two feet from my face. I froze in midair with my right footstill in the air above the stream, with my left foot planted on the other side. The snake never hesitated in it's forward movement, but kept crawling slowly, ever so slowly forward along the top of the ditch bank. It was not a poisonous snake. Just a regular water snake with a reddish belly. It was about 4-5 feet long and had a girth about four inches in diameter. I didn't have time to be afraid. That came later. After it passed on it's way, then I felt the fear. I seemed happy I had seen the snake after I had relieved myself rather than before or there might have been other complications to deal with.
The funny thing about the snakes in my dream was that the first big black snake I saw was dead. It was not only dead, but hollow like an empty bag. I held it's head up by pinching the loose skin together and lifting it up. This is how I knew it was empty skin because it looked round and firm when I saw it laying there. It was about six inches in diameter and the length of it run out of sight around the bushes it was laying in. Well, at least part of it was. I thought it was laying coiled doubled up in a coupla rows, but as I looked to see how long it was I realized that one of the rows was another black snake about the same size, and it was moving a little, definitely not dead. It's head was out of sight, and I was damned glad of that. I realized both snakes, one alive, one dead, was over twenty feet long. Too much snake for me. I jumped up and started running. I was so scared I jumped the entire ditch and I came to the side of a ravine that had clay and layers of small pebbles on it's slope and I clambered up the side of it hoping that snakes couldn't climb uphill fast. I had no such problems. Then I woke up enough to realize I had been dreaming.
I don't get into dream interpretation too strongly, but I have kinda thought about the implications of this one. I have read that when you dream of snakes it has spiritual implications. I'm wondering if the dead snake represented my old religious beliefs, and my new views are represented by the live snake. In that sense, that I was not afraid of the old views and definitely frightened by the new ones. The old adage, "Familiarity breeds contempt." comes into play here. I was not afraid of the dead snake, and even picked it's head up and looked at it with detachment. The realization that there were two snakes that looked fairly similar and that the second one was alive and inspired deep fear seems significant. To what end... I have no idea.