Hi all, long time no blog...

I have been thinking of this superficial distinction that many of us have between fiction and non-fiction. Any subject, no matter how well researched can only be written/described as a map of the terrain covered and the only map that can be a complete description of the subject being mapped is a map as large as the subject itself (in which case it's not really a map anymore...). Anything less than that is made complete through belief in what fills the gaps between the bits of information in the limited map. By extension, any history of any aspect of the world is missing the feelings and direct perceptions gained from the actual event that is not contained in even primary sources held in ones's hand (unless one has the power of clairvoyance...). No one can ever be an expert on anyone else's experience without actually having been there, and even still, they only have access to their own feelings and not the "other's." Any such claim to authenticity is inaccurate and false. I no longer believe in "non-fiction." It does not exist and is a creation of our imagination and belief system.

Try an experiment: change your belief about something, and see if it stays the same, or if it changes. Life is not only stranger than fiction...it actually IS fiction.

:)

Have I been reading too much Franck Herbert?

peace,

paul

Hi all,

I am on the verge of another journey-this one outward involving lots of travel. But, as usual, the journey is also inward. My companion is Deepak Chopra's The  Path to Love. This book is so full of widsom and insight into loving of self. It has helped me see many things clearly about why certain things happen in relationships and how to overcome problems of getting along with others and with myself.

This passage struck me deeply:

"All of us are imprinted one of two ways: either the world is dangerous with moments of safety, or the world is safe with moments of danger."

Having grown up with a childhood of the later, I have grosely misunderstood the former. Perhaps this accounts for moments when I feel unexplained grief deep inside just seeing a child with their mother...one person lashing out at another...being misunderstood by someone and misunderstanding them also. I seek less to challenge people than I did, knowing this, and seek more to understand them and the challenges they already face...to nurture is the noblest cause...

For those of us who grew up in a safe world with moments of danger, the learning curve is steep in relating to those who grew up in a dangerous world. It explains, perhaps, the differenc between optimists and pessimists, romanticists and classicist, flow and control, etc. But just knowing of these differences helps a great deal in the path towards compassion and understanding.

One last tidbit of wisdom from this great book: "Reactions result in a closed set of options; awareness results in an open set of options."

As you travel through this life, I wish you the presence of awareness and the maximum possibility of options.

Be well on your path to understanding, love and tranquility, and have a peaceful journey.

paul

Hi all,

I've been very present for the past months...living in the here and now, which, ironically is why i've been absent from my blog. The crows at Stone Henge told me to take my journey inside, and that's what I've done.

So, why am I here today? Well, a friend sent me this photo from a friend of hers (who took it in her bank a couple of years ago), and I couldn't resist a few comments.



And we are worried about terrorists...

There are soooo many levels of tacky irony, and insensitive crassness here. I don't need to spell out the obvious ones, well...because they're obvious. But I can't help but wonder who those dog tags used to belong to...

A passage from Barbara Marciniak's book Family of Light comes to mind:

"You must learn to end the wars in your world by ending them in your minds."

Whomever created this tree has an incredible dissonance which I'm sure they are not aware of...which motivates me even more to practice love and forgiveness. It also motivates me to look deeper inside myself to find the dissonances that I am not aware of.

Happy holidays no matter what you believe or celebrate.

peace and harmony,

paul

Hi all,

So, big day tomorrow. We elect a know president which means different things to different people. Some look to the president for leadership: to make the changes that need to be made in a world that we've nearly destroyed at a time of financial ruin and uncertainly for the future, in the face of tremendous hazards and challenges, and against what might seem to be all odds.

Others, like me :), look at the outcome of tomorrow's election as a symptom of the feeling of the people that make up this great country-as a bellwether of how we are feeling and what we value. Seen like this, it is not the president who makes changes, but the people that vote their energy, their ideals, their values into office. The president does not change the world: we do, and that change happens one person at a time, quietly inside. And WE do this tomorrow.

When people begin to invest locally in the farmers and neighbors whose businesses need their support instead of trying to make millions on a stock market speculating on the success or failure of companies whose values cannot be known, whose practices are untested whose faces we have not seen, we will elect a president that reflects those values: values based on greed, rather than on need. When people stop trying to fix China, Iraq, Iran, and every other place thousands of miles away that need help, and focus on the people next door, in their neighborhood, their network, their town, problems can and will get solved. When our town is healthy, we can help others. When our family is dysfunctional, that dysfunction spreads and we are energetically attached to every other dysfunctional family. Disease spreads, but so does health and love. When we love, we are attached energetically to every other person that loves. It is time to focus our energy, our attention, our every cell on that love. It is time to look around, feel the people next to you, whether this be in the classroom, at a restaurant or on facebook/myspace/friendster, etc. and send them love.

What we focus our thoughts on expands. So, if we can concentrate over the next 48 hours about the healing that our country and the world needs, the election will come out in support of that energy. If we focus on paranoia of who gets elected, the results of the election will reflect that outcome. It is my belief that this paranoia about George W. getting elected a second time, actually contributed to his second win. Fear of electing someone will lead to their getting elected.

I am not here to advocate a particular candidate, even though I have strong feelings and opinions about it. I am here to advocate that we put our thoughts were our values are. My advocacy is on healing and healthy energy for this country, and I believe if we all project this energy, it won't matter what candidate we chose, that energy will come alive-it will manifest around us in magical and miraculous ways. The president is one person, but their actions are fed by, and float on OUR energy.

A friend sent this video to me and I think it is what inspired me to blog today.

peace and love to you all.

paul

Hi all,

I've taken on a new project, or perhaps I should say that a new project has taken me on...

I will be on leave next semester, and as part of that leave will be on a residency at CMMAS in Morelia, Mexico working on my third CD in the spirituality series begun with In lake'ch (and continued this summer with Kuxan suum in France). In addition, I have decided to do a pilot series of radio programs on Healing and Sound. I chose this subject because it interests me, and having begun to dig into the research, have found out just how little I know...

But, also that my instincts are correct: that sound has the ability to not only tweak our heart strings and make us cry, but it also has the ability to...well, quite frankly...eh hem...I'm not quite sure how to say this...It has the ability to actually just plain..."MAKE US!"

Physicist are toying with the idea that the smallest substance of matter is tiny vibrating strings ("string theory") and in my humble opinion, there is significant evidence of it that can be observable. At least, the notion that at the base of everything is energy vibrating, seems to me to be nearing indisputable.

As part of my digging, I've uncovered "cymatics" or the study of vibration and wave phenomenon. What does this mean you might ask? Well, it's the ability to observe waves physically through a substance. This is done in a couple of ways: 1) to put solid substances such as salt or graphite on a hard surface that is vibrated by a sound wave or 2) through water that is vibrated through sound waves. It is amazing to see patterns emerge that look identical to patterns in nature. Below is a short video that I hope you will find as amazing as I do (and yes, I plan to start my own experiments at home in my basement!).



My mind is racing with the implications of this for me as a composer. All my life, I have thought that sound has power...I've known this...but conventional science and even musical thinking is that it is limited to the emotional mamby-pamby manipulation such as making us cry or smile or laugh, blah, blah, blah. I think, as this simple video demonstrates (and there are many more out there...) that sound has the ability to transmute physical matter. This I have experienced with my own toning, which I've blogged about before.

So, sing, I say, and heal yourself!

What? You are having trouble finding that right brain place?

Well, maybe this will help...

peace,

paul

Hi all,

It's been awhile. Somethings been fermenting and germinating inside, sleeping 10 hours a day, remembering happiness and recuperating. From what? I do not know, but I firmly believe that if my body stays asleep for 10 hours a night, it must need the sleep. With all of the energy (cosmic, emotional, extra-terrestrial, astrological, etc.) that is bombarding our planet right now, many of the the sources I'm reading are saying: if your body wants to sleep, let it sleep. So, I'm letting it sleep.

Two fun things from the Universe last week in the form of movies. First some background info...I have met two ladies lately who have made my heart go pitter-patter...both have been reciprocal-neither sexual. On some level, they have both been off limits for many reasons (emotional, domestic, schedule, etc...can you tell, I'm trying to be diplomatic so as not to incriminate anyone...I hope I am succeeding!).

So, the first movie was Bridges of Madsion County...Sheeesh...I bawled like an infant at the end of this one. I think I missed most of the last 10 minutes or so (and, toning afterwards vibrated EVERY part of my body from the tips of my toes to the crown of my head...there was a little circle of skin on the top that was vibrating at about 45 Hz while is sang "eeeeeh" at the top of my vocal register!). But what a beautiful story about two people finding love, knowing the implications of it, experiencing it to the fullest and then taking it for what it was: earth shattering for both, but not life shattering for others. I have to buy that one!

The second movie was Steve Martin's Shop Girl. Another beautiful story about love, but from a different angle. It shows a contrasting spectrum from completely and honestly incapable to dishonest and capable of expressing and experiencing love. I don't think that sounds right...but I'm not going to edit...dirty, incomplete and ambiguous is better than sterile...

I was all of the characters in both of these movies simultaneously, and those that I have fallen in love with recently are too. It made me realize that deep love comes in many guises (if one can get past the emotional infatuations): some physical, some emotional, some psychological or spiritual, some a combination of all, but that the template of how these loves are lived out, followed through and realized is NOT what I have been taught, or what I have thought. These beautiful loves come in many forms and shapes, and they ALL are to be cherished for what they are, not for what they "could be"..."might have been"...or "wanted to be." And suddenly, taken like this, they are all beautiful, teaching and precious (man...I really need to find another word for that...thanks Dana Carvey...) experiences to be stored in life's chest of gold and jewels.

My toolbox of love is getting bigger, and life is flowing easier because of it. The vibration of love is the utmost goal. To achieve it makes life such a joy...so easy...so content. Barbara Marciniak says in "Family of Light" that "The true victories of humankind always involve the frequency of love." I believe this...I know this...

and happiness follows.

peace and love to you all,

paul

Hi all,

I know...this is my third blog in a week. I can't be held responsible when ideas come to me tho and if i've learned anything in the past two years it's to follow the energy in the moment without delay...or question...

One of my earliest memories as a child is driving down the highway (fast!), leaning against the car door when it came open. I started to fall out, and I remember a wind pushing me back in and slamming the door shut. I'm guessing that's why they have childproof locks on cars now, but back then, I guess I was "lucky" although that's not how I look at it...it was as if a voice said "it's not your time to go little man, so get back in the car..." Luck had nothing to do with it.

Was it the wind? Did mom catch me? was it "God?" This is an interesting question, but in the end really doesn't have much relevance. It's not so important exactly what happened, because I believe it is the WAY I have chosen to interpret it my whole life that has shaped my life given it meaning and freedom. In other words, I've created the reality of what happened: I assigned the meaning to it long ago...the "reality" of it is academic and insignificant.

My life has been fraught with close calls...There's the time I was roofing a house and got hit in thd head with a hammer full swing. My friend caught me before I hit the deck and [would have] rolled off. I sat for a couple of hours, then went back up on the roof and kept working...there were the three times I was nearly struck by lightening in the Rockies. Talk about no control...Just duck and hope that the lightening misses. I'd be lying if I said THAT didn't scare the living shit out of me. I learned to head down at any sign of brooding clouds....I've been on mountains where they hauled dead bodes out over my head...places where I should have been roped up but wasn't...one wrong move and splat...it's not the fall that hurts...it's the sudden stop at the end. I used to ride bike to school down Boulder canyon in the winter time with full speed traffic, hard pack and ice on the road. I never hit the pavement once...There was also the time that I went backpacking on January 31st. I climbed Pikes Peak and set up my tent at about 13,000 ft (alone...), then hiked to the summit and got there at sunset. After watching the lights of CO Springs come on (very magical), I decided to head back to my tent, and for the first time in life was confronted with pitch black (at 14,000 ft! in the middle of winter), and a feeling that I was totally, and utterly alone. I'm not sure anyone even knew that I was even up there. I wanted to put myself in a situation where I had only me to depend on. Whatever happened, I'd have to deal with it. The sunrise the next morning was beautiful. I never know what the temperature was that night, but I'm sure WELL below zero...there were other solo climbs...winter and summer.

Then there's the days working at camp when I was in charge of the barbecue (100-200 pieces of chicken). I'd burn the ground in the pit off to dry it from rain the night before. After that would burn down, I'd put the charcoal in the pit and pour another 3 or 4 gallons of gas in. As the second round of gas would hit coals left over from the previous week that had lit from the first burn, gas would vaporize and ooze out between the cinder blocks. I should have probably gone up in flames many times...I was young, stupid and probably very careless on many occasions, but because of that childhood experience of NOT falling out of the car when I should have, i've lived with an undeniable sense that I was put here for a purpose, for a reason. I used to search for that but now, it is coming to me. I just have to listen and pay attention, and let go.

These close calls with death have not instilled me with a sense of fear...quite the contrary: they have given me a sense of freedom from fear...freedom from death and to know that, when it is my time to go, i will be ready to go, and I needn't worry about till then...well...and not even then!

So, what's my point?

I guess it's probably that I shouldn't be alive...

and yet I am

Life is truly a miracle and a gift.

I know that un-manifesting and re-becoming energy will be natural and easy when it happens, and that life is a struggle to invest this low-physical vibration with the ease [nature's "path of least resistance") that we all know from higher manifestations, but that's what makes THIS even more special...more poignent...more poetic and beautiful. As much of a struggle as this manifestiation can be, I know that there is something special in it...something unique...something to be cherished. The crows at Stone Henge told me that one of the special things in this is to not always go solo. I'm working on that.

Forgive me for working this out on your time, but I needed to work it out, and offer it freely and openly. I don't know why I am thinking so much about death. Perhaps because I have good friends who have it in their lives in one way or another. Perhaps it is because I have reached the middle of my own manifestation. Perhaps, it is what I'm supposed to think about now. Perhaps it is that thinking of death leads to thinking about life. And life is where it's at...right here...right now.

peace,

paul

A pair of dice...
amid tableaux
Deuces? Sevens, Carelessly thrown?
A pool table at break time

Whew...
close call...
A skinned knee...non of that road rash, the kind that leaves a terrain looking different than its surroundings...
no casualties...no injuries...perhaps even some, something made
a suit of armor…burn proof…
call it close
whoa…

Not steel
nor stone...
soft, malleable, pliable, playable….
free falling happily...
not lost, anchored, open,
damn!
Still…

I feel a song coming on
A Bicycle Built for Two? or maybe The Girl from Ipanema...
No...I'm pretty sure it was about falling...about spring time in Paris...I forget the name...I try to forget the name…
Walking into sea...
See, it fades...
resonance on a lapel...

At the craps table
Roll the dice!
Why don't they land?
No winning without throwing!
No game...
Plenty of smoke...
no battle but admiration, respect and a glass window

Between I, and myself, the usual game, me was wiser...I floating around the anchor…me knew better…stayed the course to nowhere save readiness to set sail for something new...something prepared...something not made…
Ready?

None lost, some found
It's gravity versus harmony...melody against silver
subterranean...only the ground heard
a tune danced on
On
And on
on until it stopped going nowhere except around
round an anchor it knew…
where was it?

The anchor lets loose, what direction is clear? What way unprepared...no doubt...no spinning of dice not a guess, only energy...a belly laugh of vegetable soup...
Little girls rubbing a fat tummy...dancing Tchaikovsky...
Free
Free
from eye...
not flame to moth...
The flame never caught anyway
choked by oxygen
riches even interest a dance of destruction
tempted fate,
but for smart
smart
smarter than three, four five or six.

No fatality
Only the trees,
None fell, not the forest
Planks floating, round...and round...around again,
drifted away stuck
Maybe it's just made up…been done before…
It's warm down here...in this chemical mossed forest...
Charred flame
Deuces
A pair of die…

Hi all,

I've been doing a lot of journeying to new places as many of you who've been reading this blog know. This journeying has let to new directions in my music for sure...recent successes over the last year are enough evidence of that, although the most compelling evidence is that I am HAPPY with what I am doing for the first time...ever...but, so far I haven't made many connections between these new thoughts...these new experiences...these new directions, and music beyond the toning I've mentioned before (which I did this morning and started seeing chakratic energy in addition to feeling my feet, hands, torso and head vibrating...).

In researching a local free jazz artist Mark Southerland to do a writeup for a brochure, I came across Sun Ra. I had known of Sun Ra before, but never really understood him and his message. It turns out, that his message is the same message as leading edge quantum physics, metaphysics, psychology, mathematics and the list goes on: that what we call this reality is more lie than any lie we could possibly make up. (see Tor Norretranders "The User Illusion" for a great survey of the research behind this thinking, or also see the movie "What the bleep..."). Sun Ra was also a third prong in civil rights beside Martin Luther King Jr.and Malcolm X and changed a lot of thinking.

I came across some great videos of Sun Ra on You-Tube. In "Brother from Another Planet (Pt. 4) he says:

"Those of the reality have lost their way, now they must listen to what myth has to say. Those of the reality have been slaves of a bad truth, so there's nothing left now but the myth. The myth is neither bad nor good, it's potentials are unlimited."

Without being too presumptuous, I think Deepak Chopra would agree.

Here's a great short clip with a really powerful message, aimed primarily at young black people in the 1970's but incredibly contemporary and potent for all of us.



"They can judge whether I'm really telling a lie or the truth…if I'm telling a lie, they have to judge whether the lie I'm telling them is more possible than the truth…" (Sun Ra, Brother from Another Planet, Pt 4)

Does it make sense ("truth") that people go to movie theaters and actually receive enjoyment out of watching people kill other people? Does it make more sense that people kill each other or love each other? Does it make more sense that a doctor can heal me, or that only I can heal myself? Does it make more sense that I get sick from some set of external realities (germs or otherwise)or that I have chosen to be sick in order to learn a lesson? Does it make more sense that people "make me angry" or that I choose to react in a way that is angry? Does it make more sense that someone else ruins my day, or that I ruin my own day? Does it make more sense that we are the only life in the universe, or that there is life teaming at all vibrational levels (up to Gamma rays and beyond) but we just can't perceive it? Does it make more sense that I arrived hear randomly or because of a genetic sequence from combining my parents, or that I chose to manifest in this body? I know my own answers...I'll leave you to your own.

When I was a child, I constantly asked the question: "How do I know i am me." This question, less than actually bothering me, more fascinated me. Having connected with some of my past lives this summer, I know now why I asked this question. My young self, before being indoctrinated with the "reality lie" was perhaps already in touch with those past lives, maybe even had memories fromthem, and realized that I am much bigger than this single manifestation. This is not so difficult for a child to understand or accept, and I suspect that I was asking the question when I was learning that I am [supposed to be according to the reality lie] separate from everyone else. I just wanted to be one...I KNEW I was one with everything...but was learning how to build a big box for myself with the help of adults that "knew much better..."

Alas, I learned my separation well, but fortunately am unlearning it, thanks to people like Sun Ra...bold prophets that have the courage to say: "this" is NOT what you've been taught that it is. It is much less...it is much more...

Sun Ra again:

"In my music I speak of unknown things, impossible things, ancient things, potential things."

Sun Ra - Brother From Another Planet - Pt.4



I like impossible things because the only thing that makes them impossible is the "reality" that I have learned, and I'm learning that that reality is very easy to shed-unlearning is easy...all I have to do is stop believing, and poof...what I thought was reality disappears... There are no boxes except the ones I choose to create, or the ones others choose to create that I choose to buy into.

There are no boxes...

peace,

paul

Hi all,

I'm walking down memory lane a bit here. I was looking at my birth certificate (July 26, 1962, 11:50 AM, South Bend, Indiana, USA in case there are any star talkers out there that want to tell me more about myself...I'm still learning!) and came across a pretty big window into myself. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I was raised a Mennonite preacher's kid. My dad was a chaplain at LaJunta Medical Center (CO) so was only "in the pulpit" during my elementary and first junior high years when we lived in Ohio. In 1974 we took a vacation to Colorado, and unbeknownst to us kids, dad was taking a job interview in LaJunta. In 1975, we moved out there. That was the best move they ever made in my view...I fell in love with the west nearly instantly. My brother had a rougher time because he was a bit older and just putting down roots in Ohio (you know, girl friends and stuff like that...I was just at the beginning of the "hey girls aren't yucky...they kinda make me tingle" phase).

Anyway, when I was a junior in high school in 1978/79, the Vietnam war was pretty recently over and the draft was on everyone's mind who was turning 18 soon. You may or may not know that one of the things that sets Mennonites off from most other Protestants (why did we "protest" so much anyway...oh, yeah, Catholicism...that's right...), is that they are pacifists. That goes all the way back to Menno Simons (d. 1561) in the Netherlands who did not believe that fighting was a way to solve problems. So, in the fall of 1978, we had a Sunday school class on "conscientious objection." Mennonites had a history of objecting to war in the US. In WWI some refused to fight and were persecuted pretty harshly-I think this even happened in the Civil War too. In WWII the government created Civilian Public Service so that Mennonites and other objectors could contribute to society in service rather than in killing. They build many dams, roads, hospitals, etc. There was also a movement in the Korean and Vietnam War. The church had created a mechanism to register as a "Christian Peacemaker" so that if the draft ever became an option, we would be on record BEFORE being drafted (CO status was a common thing to claim during the Vietnam War to try to dodge the draft). I thought it was interesting to read some of my 17 year old responses to questions.

I began by citing beliefs that God has given the right to life, so how can I be the one to take it away? I also cited scripture such as "be at peace with everyone" (from Romans) and the 6th commandment: "thou shalt not murder." I also gave credit for these beliefs to my older brother in addition to the church and family. John, my bro, was a big influence on me, and to this day is still a "Christian peacemaker." He recently returned from 6 years in the south of the Philippines (the same place Martin Burnam was killed a number of years back) where he was a peace and reconciliation coordinator for a Mennonite organization. He traveled all over Asia (and even Persia) giving workshops on peace and non-violence. He has been on the front line between terrorists, civilians and governments, trying to get them to talk instead of shoot. He is a hero's hero in my view, doing some of the most important work possible. Thanks bro!

I thought my answer to question 4 was pretty interesting: "Explain what most clearly shows that your beliefs are deeply held."

Answer:

"It takes two to fight or argue and one to stop it. I try to always be the one that stops it, and not the one that starts it. I try to get along and live in harmony with everyone and everything."

How interesting to read this nearly 30 years later (when I'm riding a motorcycle called "Harmony"). My journey to peace has not been direct tho...peacemaking for me, translated into "pacifism" which led to passive aggressiveness and an avoidance of conflict (I saw this often among Mennonites). That's a part of my failed marriage that I own completely...just rolling over and getting angry inside instead of finding constructive ways to express it and work through it. Again, I think my brother has been a roll model for that! So, it's taken nearly 30 years to get back to my ideals of peacemaking and were I answering that question today, even thought I'm not a Mennonite anymore, I would say:

"If I kill someone, I kill part of myself. There can be no peace outside, if I am not at peace within. I can not make peace with someone else if I am not at peace with myself. It takes one to create peace within that radiates out towards others. It takes two to create a peaceful solution to their problems, and three or more...becomes a community that supports peace and can show the world a different way."

I am creating that peace every day, and I have noticed peace growing around me. I read once that all it takes is 8% of the population shifting their energy...radiating this peace...to flip the polarity of the whole planet...the other 92%. I am learning to be a part of that 8% and notice that my energy is attracting like energy-new friends with the same peace or on the same path. A stone dropped in water or hands clapped in the air diminishes as the waves move out...a deed done in peace and love actually proliferates...defies gravity and strengthens as it radiates out into the universe, and it attracts others along the way.

It is fun to look back and see some seeds that took 30 years to germinate, die, re-seed, and then grow. I did not come from a vacuum, nor will I return to one when this body is gone. There is too much out there of wonder...I'm only just beginning.

peace,

paul