Having a great week, playing music (trying out my new amplifier!), visiting with relatives from California, making a beadwork gift-card for a friend who's sick, learning better how to deal with stress and uniify with my radiant and eternal Inner Being, instead of identifying with my illusion-bound human toddler-self!

What a gorgeous day! My life is so full, thanks to the serendipitous fact of having moved to the street music capital of the country, Cambridge, MA many years ago, and becoming a street performer. I love playing music in the street and subway (parks and plazas, too!), and I also love working as a street performance monitor for the Arts Council. This afternoon I monitored in Harvard Square for 6.5 hours, and then tonight I came back to the Square after dinner and played a couple hours of jazz. It was just a perfect day. I feel blessed by so much wonderful music and so many wonderful and talented friends.

More on the Golden Flower Technique and meditation in general: I remembered (after writing the most recent post) that the Golden Flower ('circulation of the Light') meditation of Lu Dongbin starts out with orienting one's visual focus on the tip of the nose, but once the breath is settled and calm, you revert to placing your consciousness and your focus on the point between your eyebrows. Voila!

Interesting development: I'm finding, to my surprise, that meditating with focus on the 3rd eye, combined with the 'hong so' mantra is much more effective for me (produces an almost instant calm and ability to filter out thoughts), compared to meditating with focus on the tip of the nose with eyes slightly open, as taught in 'the Golden Flower Technique,' etc.

Last week I found a treasure at a local secondhand store: a copy of Autobiography of a Yogi for $1. I first encountered this book back in the early '70s. I later read it again in the late '70s. I really love it. I usually let it disappear from my collection of reading material, and then a few years later I'll find another copy and read it again, so that I've probably re-read the book 10 times or more, and I'm sure I've bought copies of it 4 or 5 times over the years. It means all the more to me now because there's no longer a lot of spiritual reading material that resonates with me these days--- I'm more picky and (hopefully) discerning than I was when i was a kid.
Not every single thing in Yogananda's book is totally divine truth, to be sure (for instance, he revered Ramakrishna as a saint, who, it turns out, was a pedophile), but there is nevertheless the ring of veracity to it, and it casts bright ray of cosmic sunlight into our dark culture of materiality. Cults, fads, fashions and trends come and go, but truth never gets old or loses its appeal.

Someone asked me if I have any of my paintings on the blog. Here's one! This is one of my favorites. I think I painted it about 20 years ago. From time to time I'll post a few more. Half of my artwork is abstract, like this one, and the other half is sort of fantasy art like you'd find in a children's book or a Tarot card deck.

Bizarre! For some reason, 'Blogger' posted 5 copies of my artwork in addition to the original the other day. I don't feel like going to the trouble to try to redo the whole thing tonight, but I guess tomorrow I'll have to delete it and do it over. Strange mistake!

Had a great day-- played music in the subway for 2 hours this afternoon and then rushed off to do my sound monitoring gig from 5:30 till midnight. Not much going on, in terms of performers, because it had briefly rained, so a number of performers went home early. I had a chance to walk down near the river and meditate. Realized again today the massive importance of daily meditation, and why it is the foundation. If prayer is 'talking to God,' meditation is 'listening to God,' and more than that, it is merging with God and dying daily to your little human self and becoming One with the Divine within. Those who are successful at prayer-- great spiritual healers and spiritual masters who show some evidence of power over the elements of materiality and so forth-- are always people who have learned and chosen to live a consecrated life.

Oh man, what an exhausting evening, followed by satisfaction in a job well done. Jonathan and I have been working hard on creating the 'perfect' backtrack tape for me to play over these past few days, and it's been a comedy of errors. (When will I ever learn that it's not perfection, but 'flow' that I need to aim for? And mistakes are often part of the flow, and not something to be abhorred.) So we celebrated having completed the 90 minute tape of some 19 songs last night (bear in mind that Jonathan is a blind man, doing all the recording and dubbing, with me helping him by checking sound levels, etc.)
Anyway, today, we discovered that somehow we'd left out two of the Jobim bossa novas I absolutely had my heart set on having on this tape; the mystery of how we thought we recorded them, and I typed them up on the list as 'done,' and then tonight they weren't on the tape, shall probably never be solved, but it created quite a bit of consternation and some ruffled feathers for awhile. Finally, we came to our senses and realized we should stop analyzing, blaming each other, and catastrophizing about it, and just do most of side B over, which took another almost two hours.
Oh joy! We are now listening to the tape, and THIS TIME it is finally truly complete, with 'Triste,' Once I Loved,' 'Chega de Saudade' (No More Blues) and a host of other gorgeous Jobim bossa nova tunes, a couple jazz standards and a bit of jazz-blues in the mix.
Now I WANNA PLAY!!!!!!!! We've been struggling with creating this new tape for almost a week now. I'm ready to play some music! Gotta pamper my man and help him get some good rest so he'll feel like going with me when I go out to play tomorrow afternoon before I work in the evening.
I'm listening to the tape now, and I've been practicing some of the new tunes.
***** unmitigated BLISS *****
For me, improvising to beautiful music is such a source of joy and delight.
Here's a tune I wrote a few months back; it expresses it perfectly:

Musicality

Music gives me an attitude
That fills me with such gratitude
Leaving me with one clear choice:
To open my heart and rejoice--
Providing love and motivation,
The energy of exultation.

Music will open the way
Music will save the day
Music will light up the night
Music will set all things right

Oh, what fun I'm having! This is the third time I'm redoing my 90-minute backtrack accompaniment tape of jazz tunes that I play my flute solos over when I go out and busk in Cambridge and Boston. I think I've deleted all the songs that don't quite work, and I've found 6 new bossa novas and a couple of really exciting jazz-blues tunes to put in their place. Almost every tune I play now is a Jobim bossa nova. I never tire of playing them; they are so beautiful, and challenging in a really good way. They demand and inspire massive improvisational creativity and imagination.

I'm starting to notice a pattern here! -- I wear purple almost exclusively and I decorate my house with lots of purples and blues, but when I create art or post pictures, I'm often drawn to oranges and very warm colors. Contrast is inevitable and good!
Anyway, I'm feeling renewed and wonderful these last couple of days. I seem to have opened up once again to a clear sense of how natural it is to allow blessings and abundance into my life-- and love, joy, peace, and gratitude!

I enjoyed making this so much that I'm planning to make another one in shades of blue for my mom.

I haven't been coping with stress well lately, but today I feel a lot better. When I'm over-whelmed, it's hard to focus and sometimes it's even hard to meditate. I find the best thing to do is just wait it out, making sure to get plenty of exercise and a good night's sleep. There must be a better way, though-- I feel like so many days that could have been productive and interesting are lost to my need to just deal with too much stress!

Recently I discovered an interesting and fun way to get more exercise without the usual resistance I feel to doing it. I have this toddler-like resistance to regimens, and even to devoting a set amount of time to exercise. When I'm at the gym it's not so hard to get into the flow, with all the other people around me exercising, but at home it's another story. So what I've started doing is short bursts (10-15 minutes at a time) of yoga, pilates, qigong and/or cardio exercise... a little here, a little there. It's a totally different feel, and I think I really like it. It appeals to my inner eclectic.
Then tonight I discovered a channel with all kinds of free pilates, yoga, cardio and weight-bearing exercise videos on cable. I tried some of the yoga and pilates, and it was really fun.

Oooh-weee, what a gorgeous evening! I just took this picture out our apartment window (we live on the 18th floor, so we get a really nice view, especially at sunset). It's a cool, misty, even slightly foggy night, just the kind of weather I love. It reminds me of our many camping vacations on Lovells Island, where it's often misty and the fog horns are frequently heard going off in the distance. Cambridge doesn't get that much fog, so I just had to hunt down my camera, put new batteries in it, and take a few photos.

<---- This is for all the friends who made me smile today, my 60th birthday!

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BTW, I have to say, waking up on June 5th to the idea of being 60... it's just weird. It's not even that I don't 'like' it. It's just strange. The older I get, the more I don't get this age thing. I think it's a set-up. They give us watches and clocks (and calendars and denture commercials, and all the rest) and if we're not careful, we get on the consensus reality conveyor belt of human obsolescence. That's one of the reasons I've never believed in wearing a watch. I'd rather be eternal and not pay too much attention to time.

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Anyway, it was a lovely day, in the simplest of ways. I didn't have a big party (I will have one later this month) and Jonathan and I celebrated with almost no fanfare, but there was plenty of love from friends and family. I have so much to be thankful for.

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Wow, I've really gotten up on my soapbox lately. I think the real essence of my rant can be better summed in one simple paragraph:

You have two choices: you can try to tame all those unruly little squirrels living in the attic referred to commonly as your language banks-- line them up and get them to do neat little songs and dances for you, teach them tricks, make them stand on their heads just so; or you can leave the 'house' altogether and soar among the clouds, up above, over and beyond words and thoughts-- free, untroubled by the whims of duality.

Now I'll be quiet and take my own advice. :-)

When the mind no longer wanders vagrant but merges with the Way and rests calmly in the Way, that is called return to the root. Keeping to the root without straying is called serene stabilization. Over a long time at this, diseases vanish, life returns, returns and continues, so you naturally come to know the eternal.

--7th generation master of the Northern Branch of the Complete Reality School of Taoism, known as 'the Preserver of Truth.'

I just saw Wayne "Dire''s latest new age blame PBS extravaganza tonight, entitled... (are you ready?)... "No Excuses." He really sticks it to those of us who aren't naturally equipped and effortlessly endowed with overflowing passion and exuberance for creating massive wealth and success. Zen Slackers don't get much respect from Mr. Dire-- he'd be a great used car salesman. I liked him better when he switched to talking about 'THE TAO' for awhile, but he's clearly back on the 'Abe-Hicks sauce again. He always brings someone on his 'show' who's suffered unimaginably, and lays a great big fat guilt trip on all of us, trying his best to disavow us of our social conscience and common sense.

As you may have guessed, I'm not too keen on this guy. I DO NOT GET why PBS keeps asking him back over and over and over again, to torture us with his misguided teachings.

Like Plastic Jesus and Mr. Smiley Face, he is leading America down the primrose path of self-destruction.

Whoa! That art I just posted with the Mozumdar quote (immediately below) was so neon bright and intense, not to mention kind of new-agey, I just wanted to tone things down a little with something a little more... subtle!, lol.

I love this quote from A.K. Mozumdar:
"There is a vast difference between the mortal and the spiritual planes of mental action.
[Joel Goldsmith referred to them as the 'mental plane' and the 'spiritual plane;' this is terminology which works a little better for me.]
In the one, we use our mind in our conception of perfecting a certain temporary result, and in the other, we use our mind to realize That which is permanent and above any result."

America has embraced the 'new thought' movement of positive thinking and conscious creation with open arms. (Understandably, as new thought is a uniquely American phenomenon that was born on our soil, grew and evolved here, and eventually morphed into the 'new age' teachings.) On its surface, new thought and conscious creation are wonderful and sweet and spiritually uplifting. The underside, though, is a deadly kind of denial and cheerful blindness that fosters selfishness and a blissful disregard of the real problems that exist in our society. Not to mention that in their most extreme forms, these teachings lead to acquisitiveness and a mean-spirited lack of concern for those less fortunate than us, or to a neurotic guilt complex based on the idea that 'if you see it, you created it.' This is a sad state of affairs, and it takes a certain amount of discernment and maturity to get beyond this seductive type of thinking.

I wonder when we will turn to the non-dual reality that underlies all phenomena and embrace 'no thought'-- the path of meditation, contemplation and spiritual evolution based in learning to turn our light around and look within. I think this the only path that will bring us out of our present troubles. Obviously it's better to think positive thoughts than negative ones, but many have been duped into believing that if they observe unpleasant things-- suffering, oppression, pain, whether their own or someone else's-- that they are adding to that suffering and making it worse. This is simply not true. Of course we need to be thoughtful and measured in our response to negative experiences, especially our own, but hiding from 'what is' is never the answer.

Our culture, on the whole, has accepted this line of thinking for many decades, but it has reached a critical mass over the last couple of decades. And where has it taken us? Are we better off as a result? Are Americans more generous, loving, joyful, prosperous, happy, spiritually integrated and psychologically healthy as a result of the overarching preoccupation so many of us have with positive thought and thinking only about good things?

I'm feeling great concern for my friend, May, tonight. Her partner, Jon, has the unenviable and unthinkable task of deciding whether to keep her on life support-- she is not doing very well at all. Yet the doctors urge him to wait -- there are certain signs indicating that she is quite cognizant, even though she appears unconscious and her heart rate keeps plummeting to dangerous levels.
Her problems all started 24 days ago with a fairly routine gall bladder problem. One crisis after another led to her being unconscious, and the experts cannot tell her partner why this happened, nor do they know exactly what to do heal her. They really don't know why she is unconscious! I know the hospital has already made at least one mis-diagnosis of pneumonia that caused her to become much sicker and have to go back to the ICU, but now Jonathan and I suspect they may be covering up yet more errors. Well, we likely will never know, so I must just focus on meditating upon her well-being and return to consciousness.
Life is precious!

Every so often I just have to give myself (and those around me) a good jolt of PURPLE! Don't believe the hype: purple is not just for 'old ladies.' It's the color of creativity, love, passion, joy, spirituality and fun. What's not to love about purple?!?!! */*

I'm seeking to get back to a more natural way of doing things. Keeping a fasting record and counting the number of days, I realize, can lead to tension and an unnecessary amount of frustration, and also an unhealthy preoccupation with living up to a false standard that I set for myself, instead of just going with the flow and living naturally. So I'm going to try to just juice fast when I want to juice fast, and eat when I want to eat, and dry fast when I want to dry fast, and so on.
Sometimes setting a goal is really important and helpful. Right now, going with the flow seems more important, as I seem to have lost touch with my inner rhythm somewhere along the line while doing this long juice fast.

Two of my posts disappeared. They were here last night, but this morning they're gone. I wonder what happened!
Another cold day, and I just don't have it in me to go play in the subway when it's like this. I can't wait for the weather to moderate-- it's supposed to be warm again tomorrow.

Oh! I almost forgot---
I just posted that my day was rather uneventful, but in fact, my friend who is in the hospital had a second procedure done (after the first one done yesterday failed to accomplish its goal) and this one was quite successful, so it was a great day!
So nice to see a comment from my friend WY here tonight. :-) I love the feeling of connection I have to my friends in the rawfood community and now on my Facebook wall. Also a couple of 'angels' -- N. and J.-- whom I regularly correspond with via e-mail. Strange that I seem to bond easier with my cyber-friends than the ones I meet in the street sometimes. I'm such a visual person that I think when I'm talking to someone face-to-face there is too much going on-- my visual senses get overloaded... something like that. Online I can relax and feel the essence of the individual. That's it; physical appearances cloud over the contact and connection with impressions and misapprehensions about one another.

I accomplished almost exactly nothing today-- at least to all appearances!-- but it was just that kind of a day, and I had to go with the flow. I just had to upload one of these gorgeous images I've been putting in my 'Art By Others' folder tonight. They are so inspiring.
Peter max takes me back to a time I cherish, having been a hesitant child of the '60s who only embraced its treasures as the whole wonderful spectacle was winding down in the late 1970s. (I was definitely a late bloomer.) It's his colors that completely entrance me. Actually, they floor me! Loud, neon-bright, maybe, yet there's something so new and fresh and exciting -- even now, decades later -- that looking at many of his works makes my heart beat almost race sometimes with creative excitement and inspiration.

Br-rrrr. An unseasonably cold, moist day today. No rain, but the cold seems to seep right into your bones. I was supposed to play music in the subway tonight, but I'm tired and under the weather, and playing for three hours in the cold subway is out of the question tonight, so I went back to Harvard Square tonight and told Sergei, who as I write is playing his guitar for 7 hours (!) today, that he can go ahead and give the evening slot to someone else. I could use money, but it'll have to be another day.

Once again, feeling so grateful-- I was worried about my friend who is having a major health crisis, and this afternoon I was feeling really frustrated about how I could help her, wishing I had applied myself more diligently in my study and practice of spiritual healing over the past few years. As I lay there meditating, letting these feelings of anxiety and helplessness wash over me, I asked the Universe to help me see how I could help her. Suddenly-- not right away, but within a few minutes-- there was a shift in my consciousness, and I was suddenly seeing the spiritual truth shining Its light into the situation. I perceived my friend's perfect, eternal Being and felt a tremendous release from all the pent-up sadness and fear, into joy and Light. I know now that she can be healed, no matter what the material picture is.

I'm so grateful, on the one hand, for the gifts of nutritional and metaphysical knowledge that have been handed to me, allowing me to sustain my health and wellbeing without recourse to doctors, medicine and medical procedures. I'm feeling pretty sad, on the other hand, because a very close friend of mine is fighting for her life right now, in part due to errors made by hospital staff. She's in surgery to have a stent put in some duct in her gut, in hopes that an infection that's raging in her body will exit (??)... no, I don't get it either, but that's what they're doing to her. She's been unable to speak or open her eyes now for a couple of weeks, and is on a respirator and feeding tube. She put me on a list of people who are allowed to get updates from her boyfriend about her condition, and also visit, but she's too sick to receive visitors. She's an extremely psychic and receeptive individual, so as my thoughts have been with her this week, Jonathan and I have both 'felt' her presence here in the house with us, even though her body lies inert in the hospital. Lights are flickering and burning out, electronics are glitching and burning out, and there is just this strong feeling of connection.

I have two healing groups-- both of which do 'distant' spiritual healing-- helping her. Jonathan lights candles every night and we meditate. When your loved ones are in the clutches of the medical labyrinth, it's a little hard to let go of material considerations and 'what ifs,' and just lift your consciousness beyond words and thoughts (and worries). But that's what I have to do, because the very thought of hospitals and surgical procedures fills takes me to a pretty dark place.

A.K. Mozumdar (http://www.mozumdar.org)/says it much better:

"When our mind is spiritualized by the contemplation of our permanent Being-- the Conceiver of our conceptions-- it manifests a spiritual quality. The more spiritual our mental habits become, the more we manifest the permanent quality of calmness, which is natural. Through calmness, the conscious aspect of our mental life is attuned to our Super-conscious aspect, which is the Power with Its potentiality, or the Power-to-be-conscious. By the conscious identification of ourselves with our Self, we become conscious of manifesting that which is latent in our Self, and which is ours to manifest. Prayer, or the mere wish, or the proper mental attitude serves as a direct connecting link with that which we desire to bring within our mental experience, in accordance with our own Divine plan or pattern."

I've been steadily pondering away over the past couple decades regarding the best way to understand the higher truths and-- more importantly-- actualize them in my day to day reality. [Actually, this is one of the reasons I love juice fasting: it clears the cobwebs and makes things clearer to my understanding.] Yesterday I ran across this little template that I drew up in my notes a few months ago:

TEMPORARY BEING/

human mind:

mental realm = human suffering

---disease, discord, misery, affliction, lack----

'Mass Mind" in the world

PERMANENT (ETERNAL) BEING/

'I AM Presence' Mind:

spiritual realm = perfect pattern

---well-being, calmness, harmony, joy,

fulfillment, abundance

'REALM OF TRUE FORM' in the Inner Kingdom

I dry-fasted for 24 hours, and stopped it with a huge glass of orange/strawberry juice. I had hoped to go a bit longer, but I have to take Jonathan to the gym today and do some things, so that's okay too.
I am so grateful that I have learned at a young age about the importance of taking control of our own health and not putting much stock in allopathic medicine. I have a close friend who is in the ICU at a local hospital and nearly unconscious right now, in part due to mistaken diagnoses and mistakes made by hospital staff. I feel so bad for her and her boyfriend, for whom she was caring, as he was quite ill. But now he must attend to her, even though he needs to be resting and taking care of himself. Sometimes you just wish you could wave a magic wand and help people. Well, in truth, we can help a lot: in this case I turned to a distant healing group and asked them for help for both of my friends.
Today I will drink a little more juice, and go for a long walk while Jonathan's at the gym. Tonight I'll do yoga. I canceled my music practice today; didn't feel like a priority right now.

I've been on another juice fasting 'journey,' and as always happens on my juice fasts after awhile, I started really tuning in to what's important in my life, and I'm feeling more ready to let go of things that get in the way of my living that life. I made a brief list of the things that are most important for me right now:

1. interior listening

2. periods of silence

3. cultivating good habits

4. making choices based on my highest goals and priorities

5. developing a coherent spiritual practice

6. conscious Surrender

7. sacrificing superficial values and pastimes

8. loving service to others

9. cherishing simplicity, order and harmony

10. practicing patience and poise

Of course, the question is, will I begin to manifest these changes? Inner progress seems so slow sometimes! But as my good friend Jodi often says, "Onward and upward!"

A large component of the secret of learning to rely less and less on material substance and food, and to begin more and more to assimilate prana and invisible life force, is the cultivation of LOVE. I am not sure yet if prana and Divine Love are identical or simply so closely aligned that the cultivation of love attracts prana into one's field.

The sense I get is that if you consciously cultivate a massive amount of love and compassion, and you are striving toward a breatharian mode of living, you won't need to practice sungazing or a lot of intense breathing techniques to reach your goal.

This is so important, vital to both longevity and spiritual evolution:

The reason people can only fare well on a metaphysical and/or raw food path until they hit their 50s or 60s-- at which point they often start to fail or just live nominally and deteriorate at a rate closer to the norm for mainstream society-- is that at this point in life, their chi (life force, prana), which they had naturally stored and used, begins to wane significantly.

The path of hci acivation is vital to sustaning health, well-being and true longevity.

Many raw foodists lose their glow and their health when they get older, because raw food is only part of the process. They are still incomplete.

Similarly, any metaphysicians and practitioners of spiritual healing lose their vitality and well-being and beauty as they approach the 'golden years,' because they have not cultivated the inner elixir of life, and their life force has begun to recede and diminish.