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Bwop
Lokahi
USA
244 Posts |
 Posted - 12/26/2010 : 10:46:18 AM
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Aloha kakahiaka kakou!
I beg your indulgence- the following may not actually be poetry. But this happened this morning, and I teka notice den. To wit:
Ode To A Pugilist
You know you’re asleep when suddenly you aren’t.
It begs the question: what precipitated this transition, what planet is this?
It’s not the gentle cadence of the rain.
Whoa! That’s it! Lightening!
Maybe lightning’s occurrence here is just scant that of earth quakes. Rarified air!
I watch through eyelids and enumerate the visual/aural discrepancy.
I know, it’s not exactly one mile per second, but convenience lends a certain smugness to ignorance.
Mostly ten miles.
Holy cow. I’m sick as a dog, the cat’s got my tongue, there’s a frog in my throat and I’m a little hoarse. I mollify the menagerie with a taste of my own medicine- the tonic that keeps on giving- and am, yet again, almost killed by the cure.
Back to bed. Still counting.
Right, Earth….
And it’s Christmas today. Or was. Just tell me, someone just tell me, what are the odds of getting sick on Christmas??
I am of the ilk who prefer ‘chimpanzees’ to ‘alligators’. Four miles now. Four chimpanzees.
The night conceals its sleight of hand in birthing a new day, but, I realize, the sidereal nativity is a fait accompli. Boxing day. Cool. And the sparring contest is on.
There is only one contestant in the ring. It’s Lono. He-with-head-in-the-clouds is shuffling slabs of sky, kahekili are his kahili as he night marches mauka on his Makahiki sojourn. Chimpanzees are powerful lackin’ now- he’s just a biscuit-heave away.
And that’s when this ha’ole “saw the lights come on”. Ground zero of the majestic awesomeness of akua connecting heaven and earth- struck by lightening.
Please, don’t worry. It didn’t actually strike my body (like the electrician who didn’t finish working on my motorcycle because he got hit by lightening- it melted his Argyle socks and welded his zipper shut), it hit the house. But it did get me in my most sensitive area- my mind, my heart.
The experience is so vital, so encompassing. I almost didn’t notice because my ego had a lot of explaining to do. “What the bloody hell!” “Are you mad at the lack of consideration in the volume of sound?” “Did that void any warranties?” “Somebody’s gotta pay…” But, akua help me, I can still taste the flavor of experience.
The flavor is called NOW.
I so rarely have the foggiest notion of NOW. Maybe the push/pull of chronological dualism is, pun intended, “minute”, but it changes the game. How lucky to have it cancelled by rain. Hope and fear are the poster children of ego. How else could I imagine that existence just had about to come all the time?
Lono woke me up. It’s Christmas, and I was given the present.
NOW is ungraspable, NOW is water, NOW is NOW. I realize if I try to talk anymore about it, I’ll sound like Dr. Bonner of Castile Soap fame. “Timber wolves and dachshunds living together”- o.k., but you can’t pin down NOW.
The thing is—there is no thing.
There are lots more chimpanzees back. Lono is heading to Håna. Bless her heart, Auntie Ua is tending my pots of Ulu and ‘Awa. The roosters are trying, not convincingly, to re-establish their lofty positions. It’s 3 a.m. in the morning, and I can’t go back to sleep. I sit. I write. I play music. I have such appreciation, such gratitude. I really enjoy my present.
Right, Earth….
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Bwop |
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thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2168 Posts |
Posted - 12/26/2010 : 1:06:20 PM
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| Reality is, at best, only dimly percieved. |
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rendesvous1840
Ha`aha`a
USA
1055 Posts |
Posted - 12/27/2010 : 05:31:37 AM
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"I reject your reality and substitute my own." - Adam Savage
Unko Paul |
"A master banjo player isn't the person who can pick the most notes.It's the person who can touch the most hearts." Patrick Costello |
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slipry1
Ha`aha`a
USA
1511 Posts |
Posted - 12/27/2010 : 07:37:43 AM
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Re reality (whatever THAT is):
"Wherever you go, there you are."
"There's no delusion like self delusion" |
keaka |
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thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2168 Posts |
Posted - 12/27/2010 : 10:36:47 AM
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| One needs an illusion to be disillusioned. |
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Julie H
Ha`aha`a
USA
1206 Posts |
Posted - 12/27/2010 : 9:07:32 PM
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Just shocking! Bwop!
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Lawrence
Ha`aha`a
USA
1597 Posts |
Posted - 12/28/2010 : 09:01:03 AM
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Nice stream of consciousness Bwop, glad the Lightning was not a little closer!...
"Thunder is good, Thunder is impressive, but it is Lightning that does the work" (Mark Twain).
I kind of miss it here "on the flats" in "Kaleefournyah" (we lose the governator this week). Growing up in Florida I have had it hit within a few feet of me several times. It is different to really have your hair stand on end (instead of figuratively) and to hear the "sizzle" just before you go deaf for close to an hour! One time it knocked a branch off a tree that was three feet outside my bedroom, and my bed was 3 feet inside. The eight inch diameter branch hit the house and broke the window throwing glass onto the bed where I (up to that point) was sleeping.
The Tampa-Orlando-Sebring area has the highest frequency of Lightning strikes in the country, I have been told.
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Mahope Kākou...
...El Lorenzo de Ondas Sonoras |
Edited by - Lawrence on 12/28/2010 11:29:22 AM |
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Bau
Lokahi
USA
226 Posts |
Posted - 12/28/2010 : 5:30:52 PM
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interesting story
the way i see it, there is no 'now', only the future continuously, instantaneously converting into the past. What we perceive as the present, is our awarness and witness of the convertion. Or perhaps we are witnessing only creation and formation of the past. Or past and future already exist and we are mearly traveling on a time line only able remeber what we have already passed. Our perception is such a foggy little window on reality. |
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thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2168 Posts |
Posted - 12/29/2010 : 4:01:56 PM
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| At least we can record tunes for easier learning. Writing down recipes is good, also. |
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Mark
Ha`aha`a
USA
1628 Posts |
Posted - 12/30/2010 : 09:03:37 AM
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hmmmm, I've always thought that the whole concept of "Be Here Now*" to be a tautology.
I mean, where else can you be?
Gosh, I'm thinking about something I did the past... and when am I doing that? ummmm...now.
And now I'm imagining the future... where's my flying car???
And the question I've always wanted to ask is, "Does the Buddha have dog nature?"
Woof, says Ozzie. Woof woof, says Daisy. Buddha, he don't say nuthin'.
(*Not to be confused with "Be Her Now," the object of most cosmetic advertising.)
Oh, now I get it.
Zen koans, zen koans gonna rise again... |
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Bwop
Lokahi
USA
244 Posts |
Posted - 12/30/2010 : 12:07:10 PM
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Slap me and call me Buttercup, Iʻve unleashed a Pandoraʻs box of hinged, semi-hinged and totally unhinged lunacy (you know who you are, or maybe you donʻt. Maybe youʻre not telling...). How cool is that?
As an arm chair philosopher, Iʻd muse that our problem with time is in trying to imbue it with qualities other than duration. We are three-dimensional creatures warping our minds over the fourth dimension. Every dimension has trouble conceiving the essence of the next dimension, whether it be folded, bent or looped (a two-dimensional creature would think of us 3D guys like a series of CAT scans). (And the Buddha was a dog- he could sit, he could stay and he could heal- but he had no dogma, Mark). As a pulsating, vibrant string of cosmic potentiality existing simultaneously in ten dimensions, I do, or did (and always will) think.... well, that will be enough of that! Iʻll just shut up, make recipes and play some music quietly in the corner till this thing blows over. ( Lawrence, are you sure that wasnʻt the tree in Poltergeist that was planted over the burial ground and was after your ʻiwi?)
I do like a good bundt cake.... |
Bwop |
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Bwop
Lokahi
USA
244 Posts |
Posted - 12/30/2010 : 12:13:27 PM
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| Zen cone: "First there is no ice cream, then there is, then there isnʻt" |
Bwop |
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A Zen Christmas Story
