>word.)>rEvolution)

Reading a novel or autobiography or short story or biography is one of the few ways we get to know someone as intimately as a lover or close friend.  Character development mimicks this feeling of falling in love with someone–starting to know their gestures, their thoughts, their looks, their ins and outs.

For me, good writers know people, feel people, understand them.  And accept them.  perhaps.

I have started to love everyone, and yet, I have not begun to write them.  It is daunting–creating a person, with all their wisdom and complexities.

We barely know ourselves completely–why we are the way we are.  So . . . how do we propose to know a character, to understand what their actions would really be?

I think we must begin with sketches of ourselves, and other people that we know, before we can write a fictional character.

. . . That is how I will begin.

There is something magnificent about a jukebox.  At your fingertips (for a dollar or two) you are granted access to a whole world.  Creating a playlist is like creating the environment in which you live, and if you choose a pop or hip-hop song, you will be invoking a crucially different atmosphere than if you slow the room with a jazz riff that speaks to the soul.

Yet, in the end it doesn’t really matter what you choose; music penetrates one’s being.  Even with the tunes that we bob our heads to and mess up all the lyrics . . . A song often gets inside of you because it once defined an exact portion of your life in a past that we so easily equate with our selves.  Sometimes even unfamiliar songs have this quality; something about their essence we intuitively recognize as our own.

I laugh with a deep understanding at the line in “High Fidelity” when Cusak’s character responds that he is organizing his albums “autobiographically.”  I often think about a self-indulgent playlist defining the journey I have so far lived: an album for the guys who somehow stuck inside of me, an album for my great loves–my friends, an album for the trips I’ve been on–England, NYC, for the places I’ve lived . . . for the people I’ve been.

My first great love in music was Ani DiFranco.  I met with her at a time when love, for me, could only be granted to that kind of extreme poetry and exposed emotion, when something (or someone) had to be worthy, by which I mean unusual, thought-provoking, and honest, to warrant my respect.  Now I’ve got an entire playlist devoted to “Happy Happy” music, and those “sappy,” ever-appreciative country ballads have worked their way into the mix.

I wrote recently about a love affair with life–I think music will always be my greatest love affair.

Sometimes, especially on nights like these, when a long work week has led to an intrinsic need to calm back into being, just being, I long for the days when I would stay up at my parents house and play pool and listen to music on their five-disc cd changer stereo for hours at night–all by myself, no judgment, no distractions.  Now I am trying to muster up enough well-being to go to a pool hall alone, hope not to be hit on or become self-conscious, and just play like I’m in my own little world again.  This pool hall I like is nearby and always seems to give me a discount just for coming in, but the music, the relaxing into me, will surely cost me 50 cents a song.  Oh well.  C’est la vie . . . .   It’s a small price to pay for the benefit.

Several years from now, when I look back at this particular period of my life, I believe I will remember it as the era in which I was fueled by coffee.  And excitement.  =-)

I am loving my reporting job more than ever.  I think it is the opportunity, rather necessity, to learn something new everytime I approach another project.  . . . Half the time I have no idea what is being said in commission meetings, in conversations with people with strong opinions about the local government, etc.  But I ask questions, and I find a way around it.

Obviously, it is also the satisfaction I get by writing what I understand accurately and bringing pertinent news to people in an interesting and clear fashion.  =-) (could that sentence be any less clear??).  I love anticipating the questions of my audience and finding answers for them in my articles.  I also find it fateful that I am approaching this with little knowledge of municipal government nor the city that I cover, and therefore have the ability to present the information clearly to others who may have the same limited background knowledge.

The coffee is also necessary for the many jobs I seem to be taking on at once.  At last count, I was up to five part-time jobs.  Looks like it’s about to be six!  I enjoy them though: tutoring, writing, working with children, serving people.  My life is rewarding.  I am so full of joy!

And here I am, falling in love with the life that I have, like I talked about in my last post.  Isn’t it just amazing what happens when you open yourself to it?  When you put out a suggestion, a desire into the universe . . . and you allow it to come back to you. =-)

This will also be the era in which I remember being just incredibly happy.  . . . for no significant reason, except that I’m doing what I want to do, and letting go, and letting God.

“If they be two, they are two so / As stiff twin compasses are two” - John Donne

I just experienced the strongest connection with someone via e-mail.  It is strange.  The validation, the understanding that we are connected in this world through time and distance. 

I have been thinking far too much about romantic relationships lately.  I have a few men in my life who are “prospects.”  Mostly they are friends, or becoming friends.  But I have unwittingly began to think of them as prospects.  I find it strange.  And somewhat frustrating.  That I can still not separate enjoyment of one’s company and attraction from desire.  I guess attraction fuels desire.  I guess I should not be unhappy about that; I should just allow for space around it, and thus a clearer understanding that it does not matter.  It just is.  And it is okay.

This e-mailing was with an old professor–no romantic underbelly at all–and it was the second time I felt this today:  I want to experience a love affair with the world.  The world.  Specifically, I felt a desire to experience it with myself, and next, with literature.  But in general, it is the whole lot of the beautiful world that I would like to experience it with.  And suddenly . . . the desire to have it with someone else is lifted, or at least lightened.

I somehow have a conflict within me about being able to do both.  To fully experience love in this world with my life and all of my actions and ideas.  Why does this proclude a romantic relationship? . . .

I feel that . . . it is a matter of where you place your energy.  I sometimes find myself putting far too much energy in the relationship, far too much importance, and seclude my happiness to that area of my life.  This is very silly. =-)  I need to be able to incorporate happiness into all areas of my life.  And still accept a relationship into that happiness. 

hm. =-) — goal #1. . . . The relationship comes second.  Whenever it is right to come.  And I am content. =-)  And all is well.  Forever, already.

I wrote some idea down at services today on a ticket stub.  The Swami was talking about the “real” and “unreal” selves, just as I had written about a few days ago, and I just couldn’t avoid jotting the ideas down, to contemplate later. 

The woman next to me offered me a piece of paper.  But I didn’t want to take it.  I like the spontaneity of random writings on random scraps.  (I wrote my entire speech for my sister’s wedding on old grocery receipts in the airport.)  I like the idea that certain things come to you at a certain time; even when you’re unprepared for it.  And more than that, I like the idea that they come to you when you need them.

I don’t know what the philosophy is in Vedanta, but I find it strange that the Swami would address exactly what I am inquiring into; that when my mother is expressing her need to be more spiritual, she finds a long-lost mantra from her second initiation; that when I’m looking for a picture for my sister’s baby shower, I find a note to her from my dead grandfather; that at times when I have asked, I have been answered.

I cannot say that all the time I have wanted for something, some bit of information, some bit of growth or understanding, I have found it.  But I do see some kind of guidance system in my life.  Some kind of developing structure that molds around me.  What of this is fate?  What coincidence? . . . Or perhaps it is something else entirely.

A wave of philosophy that has newfound popularity (through means of movies like “The Secret” and “What the Bleep . . . “) states that we attract into our lives what we desire and expect from them.  And also that what we put out reflects back to us, “like draws like”.  I don’t know. 

Again, I think of this, and I must wonder what our soul does that our brains, our perceptions, do not recognize–do not recognize or do not process and bring to the forfronts of our consciousness.  Is it entirely possible that my mother, so long upset, so long searching for something to give her peace, so long unable to move herself past her emotional shackles to get back to that spiritual, loving self–that her soul, her essence has found a way to bring into her life a reminder, a “sign”, that she can and she should again pursue that path for her life?  (Why do we bring to ourselves outside influences to guide us back to ourselves??)

—–because our other “stuff” gets in the way-—–

I guess it is possible that we cannot see with our mind what is within us, that our souls (god force) must show us from without ourselves.  . . . strange.

I need to get back to my source.  To withdraw from senses, body, mind to the pure essence of me, to find answers there. . . . But–even if I do not, I feel I can still find answers from without, when I need them; when I’ve wanted them the most.

This part of this intuition is tuning into yourself, but also . . . somehow, unknowingly, recognizing when something has come to your life and will be beneficial to you to pay attention to.  pay attention.  What of this is fate?  What is attraction?  What is just merely coincidence??  If I misinterpret this, will it matter?  The source, the specifications–none of it will change what is good for me.

<I still wonder though . . . >

In the midst of nostalgia and emotional confusion and “bouncing back”, I will be happy enough to know that I had an influence on him, that somewhere along the way–he grew because of me.

=-)

OOOkay.

An avatar is a name for God embodied on earth (in human or other form). 

When my Swami talked about it, I believed in it.  I absorbed the notion that Jesus was an avatar, as Krishna was an avatar, as other prophets were avatars in their own times and places.  But I did not consider the distinction between “avatar” and regular man.

Avatar: supposedly God, whatever God is, embodies “himself” into a form on earth to teach, to heal, etc.  Embodies himself, as if it is a conscious decision of God’s.

If God, however, is a force.  If God is not a separate being.  If God is the Ultimate and Ever-Present and Essence of everything.  If God dwells in all beings.  Then how is an avatar different from all beings that God dwells in?  Does this avatar have more of God in him?  Is he something like 90% God and the rest of us are 35%?  Is he “all god” and “all man”, and we are just half god and half man??  I find this very interesting.

I believe that all people (perhaps all things) contain a source.  The same source.  The same eternal, all-knowing, all-powerful, loving, honest source.  And we can tap into it.  And access pure truth and ability.

What is the difference between avatar and man?

Is the avatar simply the man who has found continual access to their God source?  And has turned that access toward spiritual concerns, has made his ability one that can influence others and lead them to their own God source.

Yet God is greater than just one man?  Is it not?  Is there a difference between the God that dwells within one and the God that dwells within all? (perhaps in numbers) (perhaps in force)

I might believe this:  If God consciously incarnates Himself into a form to teach and to heal; If born of God is an avatar; If God is the sum of all sources within beings; perhaps it is all beings, the essence of all beings, the omniscient aspect of all beings that creates, collectively, an avatar.

It is said that God “comes” to earth in times in which he is needed.  Our all-knowing selves recognize those times, and in response, we give of ourselves a God to follow.

Why must we give us a God, when we have one within us?, give us a God to lead us right back to the Gods within us? 

Because of all the “stuff” without us.  Because of our half- or fully “man”.  I say that “within” us is a source, is God.  But in reality, I mean, and many mean, that we are the same as God.  Atman/Brahman/Brahma.  That that is what is “real” about us.  . . . Real.  real.  Real.  If I say it a hundred times, it will only sound stranger.  Real.  And what about the rest of it?  The “stuff” that gets in the way.  What of me is that? if it is not “real”ly part of me.

Sunday, 4 A.M.

An endless and flooded

dreamland, lying low,

cross- and wheel- studded

like a tic-tac-toe.

/

At the right, ancillary,

“Mary”’s close and blue.

Which Mary? Aunt Mary?

Tall Mary Stearns I knew?

/

The old kitchen knife box,

full of rusty nails,

is at the left.  A high vox

humana somewhere wails:

/

The gray horse needs shoeing!

It’s always the same!

What are you doing,

there, beyond the frame?

/

If you’re the donor,

you might do that much!

Turn on the light.  Turn over.

On the bed a smutch–

/

black-and-gold gesso

on the altered cloth.

The cat jumps to the window;

in his mouth’s a moth.

/

Dream dream confronting,

now the cupboard’s bare.

The cat’s gone a-hunting.

The brook feels for the stair.

/

The world seldom changes,

but the wet foot dangles

until a bird arranges

two notes at right angles.

~Elizabeth Bishop

I have spent the last half hour trying to search out the correct definition for whatever Vedanta, or more specifically the Vedanta practiced and brought to the U.S. by Swami Vivekananda and Sri Ramakrishna, says is the quality of God and mankind.  For what nondualism or monism or panentheism or qualified/modified/conditional nondualism is!  No such luck.

I remember when I was at Oxford, I wrote a paper about Hinduism, about what Hinduism “was”, and in the end I concluded (as my professor had expected) that Hinduism was not really anything, but a bunch of strings trying to hold a whole mess-load of beliefs under one big misplaced umbrella . . . that really couldn’t cover all of them.  <I guess I will have to make up my own definition>

So today was the Sunday service at the Vedanta Center in St. Pete.  It was a special Christmas service, and . . . among all the things that our new Swami <insert correct teacher’s name here> said (since Swami Yuktatmananda just moved to New York (sad face)), there was one thing that really stood out to me, that he really didn’t address at all.  And this was it: If we accept the idea of avatars, the idea that periodically “God” will incarnate “himself” into human form to come to earth to save all the fallen souls or preach a new philosophy or, as I would like to think, put his loving hand on our backs and lead us down our most appropriate path, then we must accept that there is a distinction between God and Man.

A distinction between God and Man: a very interesting thing to hear from a (supposedly) nondualistic Swami.

So . . . this made me think.  I have accepted the idea of Jesus and Krishna and other avatars to a certain extent.  I understand the reasons for their teachings.  I understand that they had some aspect of the divine and were sent as teachers.  I believe that there are many more, lesser known, gods-in-human-form that have come to set the world right or open the doors of enlightenment for new composites of searching souls.  But I have also, for quite some time now, firmly believed in an impersonal “God”, so impersonal, and so much a part of ourselves that I cannot even name him or it “God”. 

 What is this “God” force really?  And how can we know?

 . . . I’ll have to let these questions roll around inside me for a while before I respond.

How I am such a woman, complete with rollercoasters of emotions.  –My apologies.

I’m working on getting to that happiness more often.  Rather, coming from it and allowing it to overcome me.