Alleys That We Run Through



"It's a fact that Swayze men have never lived to ripe old ages. My father died at age fifty-seven, the same age I am now. My paternal grandfather also died young, and most of my uncles never saw the other side of forty." ~ Patrick Swayze (1952-2009)
 

At the time Swayze was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he was signed up to play the lead in a US cop drama called The Beast. Instead of quitting the Ghost star determinedly worked 12 hour days, getting five hours sleep a night - while undergoing gruelling chemotherapy sessions on the weekends.

Describing how the family felt when they found out he was ill, Patsy said: 'It was a massive shock to everybody. We were all just devastated.'

However she was amazed by her son's resilience and determination to keep working. He just kept working right up until the day he couldn't work anymore and never complained.

'He never acted sad, he would go and do things and make personal appearances and people wouldn't know he was in a lot of pain.

 

'I would know but he never talked about it. He was just convinced that he was going to live through it, he never lost hope.

'He never wanted sympathy he just kept going. Even when he was so sick he could hardly walk, you wouldn't know it. He never wanted to be a burden to anyone.'

 

Extract from Mail Online

Approaching Chöd

Rosalie Gascoigne : The Apple Isle

The Five Slogans of Machig Labdron:

Confess your hidden faults.

Approach what you find repulsive.

Help those you think you cannot help. Or, help those you do not want to help.

Anything you are attached to, give that.

Go to the places that scare you.

Originally published 15 September 2012, 4:27AM PST

Be Running Up That Hill

 

 

 

 

 

Tuolumne Meadows 1963

 

 

 

On the Cremation of Chögyam Trungpa, Vidyadhara

By Allan Ginsberg

I noticed the grass, I noticed the hills, I noticed the highways

I noticed the dirt road; I noticed the car rows in the parking lot

I noticed the ticket takers, noticed the cash and the checks and credit cards

I noticed the buses, noticed mourners,

I noticed their children in red dresses

 

 

I noticed the entrance sign, noticed retreat houses, noticed blue and yellow flags

Noticed the devotees, their trucks and buses, guards in khaki uniforms

I noticed the crowds, noticed misty skies, noticed the all–pervading smiles

and empty eyes

 

 

I noticed the pillows, coloured red and yellow, square pillows round and round

I noticed the Tori gate, passers-through bowing, a parade of men & women in formal dress

Noticed the procession, noticed the bagpipe, drums, horns, noticed high silk head crowns

and saffron robes, noticed the three piece suits

I noticed the palanquin, an umbrella, the stupa painted with jewels

the colours of the four directions

 

 

Amber for generosity,

green for karmic works,

I noticed the white for Buddha,

red for the heart

 

 

Thirteen worlds on the stupa hat, noticed the bell handle and umbrella,

the empty head of the white cement bell

Noticed the corpse to be set in the head of the bell

Noticed the monks chanting, horn plaint in our ears, smoke rising from astep the firebrick empty bells

Noticed the crowds quiet, noticed the Chilean poet, noticed a rainbow

I noticed the guru was dead

 

 

I noticed his teacher bare breasted watching the corpse burn in the stupa

Noticed mourning students sad cross legged before their books, chanting devotional mantras

Gesturing mysterious fingers, bells and brass thunderbolts in their hands

I noticed flames rising above flags and wires and umbrellas and painted orange poles

 

 

I noticed,

I noticed the sky,

noticed the sun,

a rainbow around the sun,

light misty clouds drifting over the sun

I noticed my own heart beating,

breath passing through my nostrils

My feet walking,

 eyes seeing

 

 

I've noticed smoke above the corpse, I've noticed fired monuments

I noticed the path downhill, I've noticed the crowd moving toward the buses

I noticed food, lettuce salad, I noticed the teacher was absent

I noticed my friends, I've noticed our car,

I've noticed the blue Volvo

 

 

I've noticed a young boy hold my hand

Our key in the motel door, I noticed a dark room,

I noticed a dream

And forgot, noticed oranges lemons and caviar at breakfast

 

 

I noticed the highway, sleepiness, homework thoughts, the boy's nippled chest in the breeze

As the car rolled down hillsides past green woods to the water

I noticed the houses, balconies overlooking a misted horizon, shore

& old worn rocks in the sand

 

 

I noticed the sea, I noticed the music –

 I wanted to dance.

 

 

Image sourced from Peeks Into Joyce

Poem swiped from Chronicles of CTR

Only the Rocks Live Forever

 

Crazy Horse memorial

 

 

 

Oh, Great Spirit
Whose voice I hear in the winds,
And whose breath gives life to all the world,
hear me, I am small and weak,
I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes ever behold
the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have
made and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand the things
you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have
hidden in every leaf and rock.

I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother,
but to fight my greatest enemy - myself.
Make me always ready to come to you
with clean hands and straight eyes.
So when life fades, as the fading sunset,
my Spirit may come to you without shame.

(translated by Lakota Sioux Chief Yellow Lark in 1887)

Crazy Horse Memorial

Take Your Time

"Tell them I've had a wonderful life."

~ Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1951

It matters where one starts when one thinks about value, especially the kind of value we call moral. Often people begin focusing on commands, rules, proscriptions. Confronted with a command that one ought not to do such and such, it is natural to ask, 'What if I do?' Once that question is asked, the search is on for the justification of morality, typically, for whether moral rules serve our (enlightened) interests - social and personal.  If they don't, many people believe, then morality has no rational justification. If moral rules do not serve the purposes for which they are devised, they think, then morality is merely a gratuitous interloper in human affairs.

Extract from A Common Humanity: thinking about love & truth & justice by Raimond Gaita


 

Smoking Hot Scorpio Moon Man

Kevin Tod Smith (1963-2002)

 

 

 

 

Love is a stranger in an open car

To tempt you in and drive you far away

Cerebral Edema: and why taking a Bex and having a nap is not a good idea

"I am learning to understand rather than immediately judge or to be judged. I cannot blindly follow the crowd and accept their approach. I will not allow myself to indulge in the usual manipulating game of role creation. Fortunately for me, my self-knowledge has transcended that and I have come to understand that life is best to be lived and not to be conceptualized. I am happy because I am growing daily and I am honestly not knowing where the limit lies. To be certain, every day there can be a revelation or a new discovery. I treasure the memory of the past misfortunes. It has added more to my bank of fortitude." ~ Bruce Lee (1940-1973)

An article of the S. China Post writes "When a doctor warned him not to inflict too much violence on his body, Bruce dismissed his words:

'the human brain can subjugate anything, even real pain' --Bruce Lee.


When asked in 1972 what his religious affiliation was, he replied "none whatsoever." Also in 1972, when asked if he believed in God, he responded, "To be perfectly frank, I really do not."

On 10 May 1973, Lee collapsed in Golden Harvest studios while doing dubbing work for the movie Enter the Dragon. Suffering from seizures and headaches, he was immediately rushed to Hong Kong Baptist Hospital where doctors diagnosed cerebral edema.


On 20 July 1973, Lee was in Hong Kong, due to have dinner with former James Bond star George Lazenby, with whom he intended to make a film.  Lee met producer Raymond Chow at 2 p.m. at home to discuss the making of the film Game of Death. They worked until 4 p.m. and then drove together to the home of Lee's colleague Betty Ting, a Taiwanese actress. Later Lee complained of a headache, and Ting gave him an analgesic (painkiller), Equagesic, which contained both aspirin and a muscle relaxant.

Around 7:30 p.m., Bruce Lee went to lie down for a nap.

Lee was 32 years old.

Donald Teare, a forensic scientist, concluded that death was caused by an acute cerebral edema due to a reaction to compounds present in the prescription pain killing drug Equagesic.




Image and text thieved from Bruce Lee as Munna

Ex'selen: we are here

Baby squirrel, by Yarndude
 

 

Inside a cave in a narrow canyon near Tassajara
The vault of rock is painted with hands,
A multitude of hands in the twilight, a cloud of men’s palms, no more,
No other picture. There’s no one to say
Whether the brown shy quiet people who are dead intended
Religion or magic, or made their tracings
In the idleness of art; but over the division of years these careful
Signs-manual are now like a sealed message
Saying: "Look: we also were human; we had hands, not paws. All hail
You people with cleverer hands, our supplanters
In the beautiful country: enjoy her a season, her beauty, and come down
And be supplanted; for you also are human."

 

— Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962)

 

 

 

 Esalen is a state of consciousness as much as it is a physical place. It is a pagan monastery, a school of the mysteries, where seekers of every description come to find light. ~ Richard Tarnas, 1978

The Ignatian Squirrel

Once upon a time an Irish Jesuit was trying to be a trendy catechist with the communion class in Junior School.  In his Religion Education class he drew an analogy from his science class about how all parents feed their young.

He asked the class, “What’s small and furry and eats nuts?”

To which there was bemused silence. So Father tried again.

“What’s small and furry and eats nuts?”

There was now stony silence. Father then picked out Billy and asked him for the answer. After several awkward moments, Billy tentatively replied,

“Father, this is religion, and I know the answer to all your questions in religion is “Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ”.............. but it sounds like a bloody squirrel to me.”

The Cleft of the Rock

 

 

 

 

Oh Sinnerman, where you gonna run to?
Sinnerman, where you gonna run to?
Where you gonna run to?
All on that day

Well I run to the rock, please hide me
I run to the rock,please hide me
I run to the rock, please hide me, Lord
All on that day

But the rock cried out, I can't hide you
The rock cried out, I can't hide you
The rock cried out, I ain't gonna hide you guy
All on that day

I said, Rock, what's a matter with you rock?
Don't you see I need you, rock?

 

The cleft is a hard place, it is rock. It is dark. It is a dead end place we cannot see what is ahead. It is also a place of shelter. A place of refuge, A place of safety, A place of protection. It is a place by God. It is a place whose foundation is a rock. It is a place where God’s hand supports my leaning weak frame.
 

 

Say It Ain't So, Jack!!

Illawarra flame tree, Brisbane, Queensland

Concerning the vanity of astrology
John Flamsteed's 1674 criticism



And tell me, reader, how it is possible that the planets, reflecting only a small part of the sun's light, should have more effect on us than a good fire or candle, which despite their superior light and heat have not the influence on our thoughts and actions that the astrologer says comes from the stars.


Since astrology finds no natural grounds to sustain it, and since experience shows us its falsehood, I hope my readers will withdraw any credit they may have given to this imposture. As for astrologers, I have no hope of reforming them because their profession -- no matter how foolish and opposite to reason -- is too lucrative.

My reward for this plain speaking will no doubt be the title of "ignorant and peevish".


Further Undeceiving

Astrology: a tool not a source of knowledge.

Using Astrology as a Counselling Tool: strategies that work

Many Mothers

Moon, Sun and Earth/Underworld - The Mothers
Monica Sjoo

2000

 

Meyn Mamvro is the magazine of ancient stones and sacred sites in Cornwall. It has been published regularly 3 times a year since 1986, and, taken together, all the editions contain a wealth of original material about the prehistory and ancient customs of Cornwall.

 

 

Sometimes I feel a lonesomeness for the ancient stones and sacred spaces of my ancestor's small green soggy island.  As the Australia spring yellow-wattle dances towards me, I ache for lands I may never set my human eyes upon in this lifetime. 

 

I remember Monica Sjoo, Merlin Stone, Asphodel Long and Marija Gimbutas and experience the depth of my own perceived inadequacies, the width of my imagined failures and the heights of my pie-in-the-sky ambitions. 

 

I remember the old days, the days of bronze and story.  I miss my people.