a space for kitchen magic

Listening to The Greencards: "time" (what else are you going to listen to while thinking of the Isle of Skye?) Well, today was a detox day. I'd like to recommend a face-infusion recipe to all: This is one of the most relaxing methods to ease the tension out of your face (ever realized how hard it is to keep that mask in place? unconsciously too...[i'm in purim-planning mode)]

Boil several quarts of water-

In a metal bowl (keeps the water hotter longer)

Add: dried lemon and a few mint leaves (this works well for gentlemen who want to have a clean, fresh smell)

(females add with rose hips and/or a few drops of lavender oil)

Infuse all ingredients together & place a large towel over your head.

Close your eyes. The heat may sting for a bit...but it's worth it. It burns the tension right out of your face....blow into the air to keep the heat circulating.... stay for about 15 minutes then replenish water. For a deeper effect- you can drink the same the tea infusion....

i'm sorry- my eyes hurt to much to be brilliantly entertaining.... i'm off to skye

namastaei.

III: exploring the rains

i'm sitting here, at my computer which is precariously balanced on my desk, a desk overloaded with random papers, Ceram's archeology book, my broken phone, my american airlines flight information, the Ra"Cha"L's text (i'm researching his response to Gershom Scholem for no reason) the Dr. Oz health book (which i've yet to do anything with- for me just having it is a big deal) a calligraphy set, a quill, stationery, my gloves, my speech and an enterance clip from the morgan library... yet again, the wayfaring stranger feeling has returned. like the times when you stare at your image in the mirror and possess your eyes and see, possess your ears and hear, possess your body and feel, possess your self and be.

Today was a snow day so no Hebrew School sojourn. I'm kinda disappointed cuz i had a smashing lesson planned on magic vs. miracle (in connection with our Moshe/10 plagues lesson)....and i miss my students, who are, like their teacher, a bunch of mexican jumping beans overflowing with innovative questions. it's also pre-speech night, not that its helped much. i'm almost bored of my own material... and i hate public speaking, especially when it's going to be televised for absolutely no reason. i am tempted to get on that stage and make farming noises and scream how ridiculous this whole enterprise seems to be...this preposterous indoor activity, when all i want is to be outside...away...to stop talking...and sit in silence with my own thoughts...to be with my own self.....and just make sense. what that must feel like, i have no idea. i can read. i can argue. i can dismantle papers and catch comma splices...but certain things, well, i am just not naturally gifted to do. in this explorative mode- i think it's an opportune time to mention my third value: exploration.

to me, exploration does not imply outward movement, but rather a path inward, a journey in self. a resolve to explore all that comes within and be unafraid to let it take form, to let it change you. it takes courage to do this, perhaps more than discovering new frontiers. there is nothing quite as enigmatic, nothing we run further from, than being conscious, than empowering our own action, than possessing our own selves.

imho, exploration is a life-long preoccupation...a commitment to the gradual unpackaging of self. it's in that that one discovers the space to become, the impetus to grow, and most importantly, the power to transform. it is the courage to face each new wave of life, each new breathtaking experience and let it happen, to make the choice and let it touch you, seeping into your core o being and let it change you.
that's exploration.

there's still so many things i need to do. i am taking a jack kerouac/ robert prisig adventure one day (i gotta finally see this country like it's meant to be seen.) i still gotta see south america, the buddhas of borobudur, the backwaters of kerala, the pushkar camel fair, bostwana's okavango delta, ipanema beach, hell, the whole damn world. and with that, please gd, myself, too, which never seems to be done.


with that i depart,
and wait.
till tomorrow.
deep breaths.
namastaei.

Core II: RELATIONships that sail....

theoretically, a post-evening...at a high level of abstraction:::
all i can say there's no excuse for maturity relapses (with guests no less,) the days when you're back in the purple haze contemplating mass head shavings....

i think i finally get the big brother concept.

sheesh-

relationship with self- letting go at Andy Statman (finally. like a loser. cuz everyone does... ;)
relationship with world- letting others know that you've let go at Andy Statman (particularly, glum listening, striped freakish Park Slope people who are entirely too serious)
relationship with friends- people noticing you've let go at Andy Statman (and being incompetently unreasonably stubborn)
relationships with Others- being okay when you finally resurface from Andy Statman concert.

ta da.

namastaei, and i really really really really mean it. got to stick my head back in the toilet and flush away the last of my common sense....

The CORE: part 1

good evening my friends.
I know it's late... well, i'm in bed, rehashing all the things that went on today... all the many, many, unplanned things (believe it or not girlies, i was meant to do other things tonight ;) not that i'm complaining- i miss those midnight moments.) it always strikes me as funny, how a person can live a life in a single day- go thru the range of emotions, actions, everything...all in the spanse of a few hours. we should all be blessed with days of such nature.

so, i know, my blog is not quite exciting or popular. truthfully, i'm glad. i've lost that ambition some time ago. life is quieter now, taking a new shape, and in a strange way i no longer feel that cyber-performative drive quite as strongly. gives me a bit more leeway to write the Great Whatever ;)

i'd like to share something that i've only recently discovered...see, i work in this amazing institution, this wonderful self-reflexive meditative place, where people think, really think, wonder, dream and honestly act. in this environment, i've managed to put together a list of my Life Essentials. I thought i'd share them. there are six (so now you know to stop reading this blog if you're totally not interested.) it goes with my whole intentionality concept and art with accompany.

so here we go- (and no, this is not prewritten, i'm writing as i go at 3am ;)

ONE: JOY
music thought: www.joykillssorrow.com

Joy to me is Being. That inexplicable, incommunicable part of ourselves that just Is flowing with the World. It is that part that wills us express our Inner Art- our inner- Self- that divine light that when in sync- shimmers and glows with beauty and peace.... it is that force that drives us to stand outside the extra two minutes to enjoy the bright winter sun... that wind that makes us drift off in class imagining the impossible.

Joy is the tenant of all existence. without it we have no purpose. we have no life. we have no spirit. we have no self.
i've realized that it is so easy to let joy disappear, to dis-value it, and let it go, our society stressed it so little...
still, i've thought a very long time about joy. and in my relatively short life process, i've realized, that joy rarely comes to you. joy strikes you, shocks you, dazzles you and sometimes leaves you feeling empty, oddly-lonely and dazed. it comes at odd moments... driving your car on a summer afternoon listening to Emmylou, having a cup of tea, a soaring moment...joy sometimes comes over nothing. over breathing. over being.

Essentially, i've determined that joy comes when one listens to their inner voice....really listens. and, when, mind, heart and spirit are aligned, an incredible lightness of being comes...the dance in the rain, the random tune, the smell of a fragrant flower, suddenly you NOTICE all that surrounds you....all that you are part of.
removed from a regulated society, removed from the classroom, removed from limitations of self- Joy takes you- Joy permeates you- Joy integrates you with life. Suddenly, there is happiness, empowering happiness in being in the moment, in the space, in consciously experiencing bone-deep joy in a shimmering bright world.

The first thought is to find that voice, listen to it- and let it sing. The first part is put Joy in your life and not wait for it to happen to you.

namastaei.

all my worries far behind....

back to my late-late-late night ramblings, listening to that fab new eric clapton and jj cale song... lordy lord its such great a Mark Twainesque Huck-finish song (well if author and character ever managed to meet on some middle ground banjos and guitars in hand...) So yes, i know, i know i am supposed to display art work, intentional cyberstuffs and what not. well, i'm having a mighty hard time with scanners n' other technological handcapping dependencies (i'm waiting for the day they device a TDD- technologically deficient disorder for people such as me'self,) so for now, we'll have to stick with......well other things, like 3am river rides.

hmmm.... main reason for the duchamp toilette? well, besides for having had a particularly harrowing experience today involving a crapper (lea- don't you dare tell ;) i decided that i shall find art/joy/beauty in all sorts of randomly spontaneously appointed objects. i'm feeling very jack karouac these days, seriously contemplating heading on a major zen/highway gig for a while... finding all the mad, mad people, the folks who are mad to live, mad to laugh, mad to be...people who burn, burn, burn like fabulous Roman candles exploding like little spiders across the inky skies.... oh yes. that is it. right there. ;)

Oh, i guess, i should forewarn you all, i'm on a bit of a buddhist streak (sans the "self-discipline thing" and the "limits are positive" sort of thing) well, actually, what happened was...someone gave me a book in exchange for a book (i do that sort of thing on the occasion- half my books have stories and belong to random strangers- like a lovely Minnesotan couple i met on a ship from Greece etc.) and in that book, it quoted another book. so i bought the second book, a buddhist book. voila! it turns out that (minus all limit related things) i am in fact quite buddhist- believing in things like self-awarenss, self-happiness and well, just being and knowing it. kinda cool, in a backwardly enlightening way. how this affects any of you, me or the nature of this blog, well, we'll just leave that highway wide-open....

Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town

Greetings again. With some encouragement, I've decided to return to the blogosphere. the past few months have been a whirlwind of living, wayfaring and wonderful. i've been struck with a wanderlust to see it all, feel it all, be it all... i feel like i'm returning from a long roadtrip to the Blue Ridge mountains...traveling so far away without ever having left... it's brilliant to look back at the troubles and triumphs of living and know that the ride is far from over ;)

so, i've been thinking... if i start my blog again, i'd like to do so with intentionality (which is one of my new life mantras.) although i am not a regular blog reader (old-fashioned me) i know that many are forums of discussion, religious debate, social invovlement etc. i'd like to do something a little more organic (yes, in a technological sphere.) i want to make my blog an art space- open-ended like one of my group-meditation exercises at hebrew school. i want to give room for those brilliantly colorful voices, the bluegrass photos, the cinnamon shaped doodles, and the moon-mad scribbles of those of us who live and know that we are living... i want a blog that celebrates the process of becoming who you are.

a long time ago i realized that one of my life missions is to celebrate the bereishis in people (a book i also happen to teach.) i get an incredible high from that creative fire, the burning energy that thrives in the core of our beings...the light that makes us realize that all of our life's travels are but one single journey, one wayfaring unpackaging, one art of being.

so, i'm open for contributions, i have a few to kick it off (email: dee.hin@gmail.com) i was planning on collaborating with some fellow artistic souls (tho not a requirement: besides, artistic does not imply socially conventionalized "arty," but rather a creative thinker, the light-winged agile minded, he who is self-aware, and the meditative but conscious....) some folks lined up: a harmonica railway player, a long-skirted photo-mystic, my neice...

namastaei.

'nother year...nother day...

leepers jeepers. i officially no longer blog. intentionally non-intentional but voila intentional.

wow-
thesis is being reviewed this week...papers flying, hebrew school is going amazing, blustering in this autumnal whirlwinds...i love fall, jackets and warm sweaters...coffee adn fingerless gloves...mmmmhhh.
life is delightful these days adn i have no complaints. blessings.

may this new year me wonderful. and yes girls we are now all [underscored, emphasized] legal... i'm sorry for keeping hte party waiting... ;)