Satya

I've never much understood what Keats meant by Truth or what truth means in a religious context, but just came across something describing Satya, which states that Truth is a form of constancy and unchangeability, and I understand that better. Merely avoiding lies seems annoying and pointless, everyone lies randomly - it doesn't seem to be a great spiritual thing to not do that, like white lies or lies from not thinking clearly. But to be constant in a larger way does seem so. If you love something or someone, then to always love it/them, that sort of mental stability, that kind of "decision," is great and spiritual it seems, and yes one of the 8 limbs...

Tried to go to this, but it was so packed I left shortly. Long walk for not much!

He is going to be speaking at the Occupy Move-in Day Rally Saturday (someone gave me a flyer) - maybe I will go. Haven't been to a single Occupy thing yet, what kind of intellectual am I?!

I want to get his book Debt, but $32.
Standing near the Surrealism wall, I also want Women in Dada: essays on sex, gender, and identity, and In the Shadow of its Shadow: Surrealist Writings on the Cinema. Funny how I prefer reading books about Surrealism to reading Surrealist works themselves, with a few exceptions...

Did a two-hour arm balancing workshop this weekend and neither my arms nor my wrists are sore in the least. Boo. But my hips are killling me and I have a gigantic black bruise on my right hip from "bouncing" from koundinyasana to eka pada koundinyasana I, my new trick kind of. Or what ashtangayoga.info calls kaundinyasana a to kaundinyasnan b.



then a fun little bounce to:



Sort of ouch.







So I learned that, and I learned to get one foot off the wall in my pincha mayurasana. Which I just recently am able at all to get both feet on the wall for.

I cannot do the jump throughs or backs still forever.

But did realize, in Bhuja Pidasana that I can lift my feet off the ground, by just lifting my feet off the ground. Not ready to put the head forward though, but wanted to try it in primary series this morning but could not go because I could not sleep last night, because I acted in my first Poets Theater tonight. Nerve wracking, but once I was up there, it was much much less nerve wracking than giving a poetry reading because all the people up there with you, your energy is diverted into them or something...

Went to acupuncture before-hand, and she gave me some "calming pills" Thank You. And then I had rum in my coke, and then we did tequila shots so even though I flubbed a line, I still felt calm about it and it didn't lead to a catastrophe of flubbings.

Three One-line Friend Facebook updates in a row all together

I wish it were otherwise


you'll find my truth in the relentless mid.sentence, listen close . . .



my former residence is essentially on rent strike. sad i missed the party.

Have been, I think, meditating too much, an hour a day, sometimes almost two hours. Think sometimes too much is too much, it brings up darknesses, buried emotional stuff from long ago I didn't know was still in me. But realized today as I bought this Krishnamurti book, that, unlike P. Jois' view of yoga, you really can't or shouldn't do meditation without theory, remembering these ideas - say, like all problems come about because of the conception of time. So realizing that in my little miseries, I can come out of it. And what mediation does really is increase your energy, life force, kundalini, but how do you use it? If you let it, it will attach itself to the dark stuff swirling around in you, but if you use that extra energy - using your thoughts in these ways - then I don't think necessarily the dark stuff will come up.

This has happened to me so much in my life that I thought it was a part of meditation, and maybe it is. But I never quite know what to do with it and I wonder if just diverting the energy away is the answer, or is that repressing? I do remember thich nhat hanh, i believe, in his book on anger, saying giving energy to anger as it rises only makes it worse, and you should transform it. So I think he is right because he doesn't seem repressed or like he is harboring unresolved issues. The issues are there to see for a moment and then dissolve.

Chardonnay Enlightenment!

December 2011

PROACTIV $49.90
BART $180
EATING OUT $142.60

HEALTH COSTS - ACUPUNCTURE/HERBS $84
DENTIST $174.34
PRESECRIPTIONS $130.59

WALGREENS-$105.81

GROCERIES=$196.30:

PUBLISHING COSTS $135.08

MUSIC/BOOKS/CLOTHES:$250.50 (OOPS)

ATM WD:$160

BILL PAYMENTS: $481.54

RENT: $900

$2,990.66 spent, NOT INCLUDING AIR TRAVEL RELATED, or CHRISTMAS PRESENTS (december only)

TAKE-HOME PAY $2,122.56

$868.10 IN THE RED

Would be almost OK if I bought NO music/books/clothes, quit all publishing endeavors, and ignored my health entirely.

Will try again next month... Feel like I'm always making the biggest mistake eating out/shopping at Bi-rite, but doesn't appear to be the big issue...

Also did not include yoga which I only pay for every four months but is $105 a month...

Just cut my own bangs, so don't need a haircut. But I do need shampoo.

2012

Thinking through a very complicated math problem during corpse pose tonight, my first night back at Asta after over a week. And after corpse pose, Rene talks to us, and brings up math, synchronously. As a parallel to ask us why we are doing yoga, what is it for... and always it is always for spirituality for me. Not necessarily mastering the asanas. Have been wondering though, as I am starting to get pincha mayarasana, what is a parallel in real life to gaining that pose, which is strength based almost entirely (also fear issues), and it finally occurred to me that "strength" in real life would be self-confidence. So that plus more extroversion are my new years resolutions.

I think an alternative to black eyed peas on New Years Day might be red velvet cake flavored ice cream?

Also as I am reading the Collected Lectures of Jack Spicer, I want to start writing a poem a night, dictation style. A series called Dictation? Also to combine my long time desire to write a project of project-less poems (ever since reading Poetry is not a Project).

Also doing another budget to see how far off I am. Will do another at end of January since I lowered 401K contribution and am no longer getting a commuter check so will have a little more cash flow... Budget Blog Post coming soon.

The math problem I was trying to do was, as someone once said, for every day you are off of yoga, you have to do yoga twice that amount to get back your practice. So I had my last SF yoga class of 2011 Thursday the 23rd, then I took a Power Yoga class in Austin on Tuesday, then a Baptiste class in Ft. Worth on Friday, then tonight's class which is Sunday. So that is four days off, one day on, two days off, one day on, one day off, and then I am back. So, 4 days means I need 8, then I took one day, so I'm at 7, then two days off, so I'mm at 11, then one day on, so I'm at 10, then one day off again, and I am at 12, then today I'm back, so won't be back to normal until January 12. Although I'm not doing 12 days in a row...

The Texas yoga was OK, as far as exercise goes, but there was no chanting, no meditation, no pranayama, no bandhas. Kind of Methodist yoga... I think they all already have a religion so they ignore that part? Or maybe I just picked the wrong studios. The other Really Weird Texas Yoga Moment, was this girl was wearing a bandolier with bullets on it, though she took it off before class started, and placed it in one of the cubbyholes, which was right by where I was, and I stared and stared, are those bullets!? Namaste! The light in me salutes the lightning in you.