The Power of Evocation

its been a long time since i've simply started writing, without any particular direction or goal, as i usually begin. its as though i need to filter my thoughts before i can let them expand again...

i just read an entry of mine in this blog nearly 2 years ago. what insightful and observant entries about things that i no longer place in such high wonderment that i would be moved to write about them...and yet, all of the items are now thoroughly infused in my being and pop out as normal ways of perceiving the world such that to speak to them might come more in the form of an offhand remark then in the well elucidated form i was reading.

and a thought, perhaps quite a dense one, came to me- that among the many virtues of keeping a diary is that the writing becomes a place to process our lives. i just came across a reference to constantine's sleep work in which to overcome insomnia, one should relive the day in as much sensory connection as possible as though being inside it again. constantine says that it allows the nervous system that much more space to unwind, permitting deeper sleep sooner. the 're-living' seems to be about integrating the day, much the way that i now see writing can have.

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today i made a personal vow to integrate deeper meditative practices into my day. in the search for an exercise program that can be flexible with me while encouraging me to stay engaged, i'm hitting a system that is feeling good. it consists of sets of exercise program card decks that i've collected over the years. Each day I draw a number of cards from each deck and that forms the basis of my workout.

my decks:
- 'the yoga deck' I & II  - which contains breathing and meditation exercises
- '50 ways to work out on the ball' - balance ball exercises
- 'pilates box'
- 'hot bod in a box' - the newest addition- has some really good routines

I assemble the cards into a routine, starting with a breathing exercise then going into yoga, doing the things in a yoga routine that i've feeling called to do and placing emphasis on the cards drawn. I work into the mix the various other cards so a balance ball activity is followed by a yoga pose.

The used cards are placed at the back, ensuring that i get through every card before shuffling the deck and starting again. this keeps things changing but contains cycles so there can be progression.

Yesterday I did one of the yoga podcasts that i've stayed away from (for various reasons) and realized that interspersing the days of card-determined workouts would be longer guided yoga. And now I can see incorporating the more intense workouts from the 'hot bod' cards (what a ridiculous name- but eye catching with it's red letters).

this is a fun way to approach the recurring workout dilemma- lack of routine.

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the entry from 2008 presenced me to the fact that the place of my greatest growth, especially as it pertains to my capacity to engage the world these days comes from internal explorations rather than external observation. these days its all about relationship and interpersonal dynamics. the life metaphors are always thick and juicy and as relevant to the workings of the world as every other one i've had. just an observation...

my current situation is all about relationship. i have been living with ember and another couple, two friends from the area where we lived previously. we came together in the effort of intentional community, and moved to santa cruz to do a trial run. its been an enormous learning and growing experience, even when at times it has felt so contracting. i could write volumes about my observations and perceptions....i ought to be...well, perhaps thats where my writing practice can be incorporated. i just wish i didn't have to put it into a computer so i can step away from it before bed time...

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things for ember and me have been great. it feels super sweet, always striving to engage lovingly, juicy, supportive. it feels solid and real. Our next big step together will come soon as we are given responsibility for  caretaking off-the-grid land for 6 months. its a great precursor to the next move of having a child and being in the community-oriented space.

Amazing!!

I'm a huge fan of well done psychadelic displays and this one has to be the most amazing I have ever seen. Wow, in person it must have been unbelievable...

Essentially it is a 'mist screen system' with an array of projectors below. check it out...


Primal Source (video documentation) from haque d+r on Vimeo.

11/15/08 outside pomona at borders on way to phoenix to vist grandma

we are reading godel, escher, bach, among a bunch of other great reading. i've been making a habit of underlining important feeling passages and i want to record them here so they push a little further into my brain. the book so far is about the nature of self-referentiality that these famous folks explored and the implications of the concept which spans up to the formation of the human consciousness (or at least that is where i think this is going). he makes this statement about escher dealing with a painting of his in which a person is essentially watching themselves from above:

"these two levels might be the only explicitly portrayed levels. but the mere presence of these two levels invites the viewer to look upon himself as part of yet another level; and by taking that step, the viewer cannot help but get caught up in escher's implied chain of levels, in which, for any one level, there is another level above it of greater "reality", and likewise, there is always another level below, "more imaginary" than it is. this i itself is mind-boggling. However, what happens if the chain of levels is not linear, but forms a loop? what is real and what is fantasy?"

powerful stuff. we've only read thru the intro and partway of the first chapter. in it he gets into the mathematical basis, posited by godel, that there is no infallible system of logic, that there can be inserted paradoxes in all systems, which calls into doubt anything we think we know. these are self-referential paradoxes which seem to cancel each other out by the nature of them being true. for instance, "i am a liar. i am telling a lie". where does reality begin- what is creating its sense of realuty? one is defining the other, and yet they are mutually exclusive. 

and here hofstadter sums up the three men of his book:

"i realized that to me, godel, escher, and bach were only shadows cast in different directions by some central solid essence."

i love this analogy, it sums up many things that feel similar that i experience.

i was explaining to hunter this past weekend as we were having a journey at land's end in sf about my awareness of structure and form. i hadn't talked explicitly about these ideas since the famous harbin trip with ember. structure is the underlying essence, the core framework. form is the way that structure may appear. the structure behind contact improv is a set of agreed-upon approaches to interacting. the form it can take is new every time there is engagement. 

this came up with him where we were doing one of my partner flow deep stretches. i was getting into my yoga awareness, engaging here, releasing there. it feels as though i have been bringing together the structures of yoga and contact improv. hmm, interestingly, both disciplines could be called forms of the structure of kinetic awareness....have to sit on that one. it would look as though structures can be forms themselves.

good stuff!

we've been camping out in the truck. last night we were in a back corner of a residential area in galeta, ca, abotu 80 miles from LA. its funny living out of one's car. it feels illegal and sketchy. sometimes i feel anxious about safety and security of our things. there's also the concern of being locked into the back of the truck. i guess someone would have to have smoething to lock us in with, but all it would take its a stick. at least we could escape from the windows....

today we continued our search for a good beach to work on and came across a nice one in santa barbara. as most of the beaches we've come across in so.cal, the beaches have been very slim, even on these really wide swinging tide days. yesterday we did a long ropy, 'cell' style. today we continued dipping into the designs we've held for these types of situations. i even pulled out my phone and started looking through for photos i've taken of designs. we settled onto one that is quite abstract, of what looks like a collection of ocean rounded pieces of cross-sections of wood. it came out stunningly. its our first abstract truly design. so far we've worked from natural underpinnings. this one was as well, but its overall composition feels much more abstract than anything we've yet done. i really like the direction this is going and what this can open us up to.

"until there is commitment, there is hesitancy"

"genuine beginnings begin within us, even when they are brought to our attention by external opportunities"

from artsist way book: "possibillity is far more frightening than impossibility. freedom is far more terrifying than any prison." 

Southern Coast trip, day 2

Ember and I have been onthe road for the past 2 days, taking the coastal route to Los Angeles, checking out beaches along the way. Today and yesterday we are at my pal's house in Santa Cruz.

We did a playa design on the northern side of Bright Beach, just south of the amusement park. We did it on a broad piece of sand, the first we've seen so far that wasn't steep. It was situated alongside a stream emptying directly into the ocean. Pics soon to follow. The design came out very nicely, looking like a stress fracture in rock, or soemthing along those lines. Its somethign I would like to investigate further as a design. For being developed, proposed and implemented in a matter of minutes, it came out quite nicely. I have to remember to have a point of focus so that I am 'growing' the design correctly. Its easy to get caught up in what some part of the design is doing and lose sight of what I was doing...of course, the 2 go hand in hand.

Reflection waves have been on the brain ever since a few weeks ago when we attempted to do lines inspired by zen rock raking around these pillars. The lines became reflections of water bouncing from them. The design was a good attempt, but off the mark. It did, however, got my brain seeing reflections in water and noticing how waves of energy interact with each other. Like the solitons from 'Turbulent Mirror', the standing waves of energy, the waves maintain their integrity as they pass through each other at various angles, and sometimes catching up and overtaking each other. What we found really amazing was that a wave from the ocean would instigate a propogation of an energy line (essentially a wave) upriver! So check it, the water that is forming the upriver advancing wave is itself moving downriver. How the hell does that work? Its like the ocean wave is traveling back through time. The medium is resonating, not any particular water particle. And yet, each particle is responsible....awesome!

A note from our car trip yesterday. We passed by pebble beach, on hwy 1 just south of the pescadero turnoff. We will have to make a plan to return and get into the art possibilities here. The underlying rock formations are diverse and very interesting- the sandstone clusters with a ton of small holes sandblasted into their sides. And the pebbles...of all colors, but all smaller than my pinky nail. 

we've been reading the intro to 'escher, godel, bach', which is essentially about strange loops and their role in self-awareness. he says that escher's work of multiple levels of reality, or reality creating itself, as revealing that there is always a level higher (as in higher reasoning, meta levels), and always a level lower. or as he says it, levels of increasing reality, and levels of increasing fantasy....