DeMarco kind of looks like the melting face nazi in raiders of the lost ark, or maybe I just want to see it...

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.

Angels / bad signs / near misses / hit and runs

Someone asked me about my angel chapbook at the poetry reading, and then on the ride home, I'm listening to my IPOD alphabetical by song, and I get to the series of Angel songs, 12 total. Although I first counted 11 and that felt mystical. Two of the McLachlan ones are identical, so maybe 11.

Angel-Belly
Angel-Eurythmics
Four different versions of Sarah McLachlan's Angel
Angel Bell - Cranes
Angel, Angel, Down we go Together- Morrissey
Angelene - P.J. Harvey
Angeles - Enya
Angeline-Faithless
Angel's Weep-Mythos

Then I made Dana Teen Lomax cry, talking about her father's death, but I don't think it was in a bad way, but it is recent.

Then walking home, right at my intersection, I saw a very bad car crash, the car was upside down, hit and run, but I heard they caught the guy.

The guy who'd been in the upside down car, was fine sitting on the sidewalk, someone was telling him tomorrow your ankle is going to hurt a lot you have a lot of adrenaline right now.

There were all these boxes all over the place, like he'd been moving, in the process.

There is not much you can do about bad signs, but just know it is coming.

Cool! I'm a revolutionary!

Devoting one’s life to an activity with little chance of bringing any sort of significant cash reward is a revolutionary act within the virulent capitalism we inhabit.

Completely harmless — no threat — and so completely allowed. But my power, I think, comes from the fact of not buying in to the competition, the market place, somehow creating peace and art in a sphere outside the sphere of power is itself a power. I may not be noticed much, but I am outside their power structure, which may make them slightly nervous, but not so much since I am broke so what can I do (until I start Occupying some street or other). Also thinking being in a sphere outside the power-marketplace sphere, in my space they cannot hurt me. The safety of not playing the game.

Eleven Eleven Reading on 11/11/11 with 11 poets.

Really liked Eric Selland, but he is very academic type, a little unconscious of anything outside of that, and went way over his time limit. He asked rather late, am I over my time? And a woman in the audience said Yes! But he went on like he didn't hear her, and then Hugh finally got up and went over towards the end of the aisle and started clapping at the end of the next poem, so everyone else clapped and the poor guy realized he was done.

I liked what he was reading a lot. Lots of translations of Japanese haiku, which he says originally was one line, it was only through English translation that they became 3 lines, to fit with the english language. He wrote in the kindof abstract poetic style I love. "Self as grammatical formality" "To confront interpretation" a lot of lines with that device - "To..." "To..." is that called something? "The body, geology of the unimagined" (not sure if I'm remembering that one right). I'm not sure if that is him or the Japanese poets originally but I'm going to look for his books...

Also liked Rusty Morrison, she is always deep, mostly talking about death. I was thinking during her reading how there is so much pain in everyone, in all of us, and how at the same time, we make this stuff, this poetry. What are we doing? The life force attempts itself. Loved seeing Jessica Wickens again, who I read with a while back, does Twitter poems. She has a book too I need to find.

Regretted not making the Black Surrealism thing at Poetry Center at the same time, and MISSING Will Alexander! How could I? But got my cool African-american poetry fix through Amaud Jamaul Johnson, who I'd not heard of and want to look up his books now. He read in a very slow paced way, which made me feel spiritual, sat up straighter, aligned my bandhas. Felt focused. "It's all pie-chart & phylum."

The rest of the people were the prose writers so I really have nothing to say but they were funny.

Have been wondering the place for yogis in the Occupy movement. Haven't heard any teachers mention anything in regards to it until Marie today says The Silent Revolution begins, or something to that effect, which is only a reference by inference. Wondering if there are many churches or spiritual group directly involved? Haven't heard of it but I am really an outsider to it. Maybe not this:

http://www.facebook.com/occupychurch

I'm not part of it mostly because of no time. Work + Commutes=12 hours every day. Also yoga will always take precedence to a march, usually even to a poetry reading, or socializing. I can't go without, so really there is really no time. And I think also perhaps a slight aversion to going, although I agree with everything in spirit, don't think I actually want to be there in the midst of all those people, rubber bullets, and tear gas. I will just be meditating over here.

Also even though it is mostly non-violent on the activist's parts, it seems not quite; received a pamplet at the poetry reading last night, and there seems to be a discussion about whether non-violence or violence is the way to go. Yikes. From that I understand my aversion. How to Occupy while honoring ahimsa. An essay on ahimsa in activism would be very interesting to read.

Yoga teacher, Rene, said you should be able to balance in Tree pose or Utthita Hasta Padangustasana, even during an earthquake! I never can balance. I used to be so good when we would do everything all in a row, my ankles were so strong. Tree, then Utthita, then dancers pose, then Ardha Baddha, then warrior 3. Whew! I should try and do that sequence on my own some time, 5 breaths each.

Did Garbha Pindasana for the first time in full lotus, but now with the arms through the legs. It is kind of easier. My hips are finally starting to open up, but only on Sundays. Craving more Primary Series'. ironically, because we do the second/third series mixed all together Rocket series usually, when we do the primary series, I feel like this is so wacky and wild, but it is the most traditional series there is.

Rene said "notice the fluctuations of the mind" and I felt so happy because that is SO Patanjali. And how breathing calms the mind, and to notice how it does, and something about the way we control what our body does, so we can control what our mind does. And finally feeling free of my emotional problems of last week. But it will probably start all over again tomorrow.

Probably the best poetry reading I've given to date, I mean the one I felt the calmest, and most serene, was the one at Loretta Clodfelter's house in Oakland. sitting on the floor, barefoot, wine glass bedside me. But I'd had a major acupuncture for nerves treatment a day or so earlier, for anxiety. Need to remember to do that again. I though my recent readings were just horrible. But I didn't do acupuncture beforehand.

Read Derrida all weekend, but it wasn't that great. This essay all on Heidegger's Hand, which really seems to me a silly subject. But it is Derrida so it is kind of cool. There was a lot of German so I may not have understood it all. Also a lot of Derrida, so I many not have understood it all.

Taking this Chinese herb for my congestion problems plus fatigue, and woke up at 7am this morning HYPER, didn't know what to do that was quiet and wouldn't wake my roommate, so I rearranged my to read pile, I made it worse seemingly (much longer), but instead of having all these different categories of to read books,(different small piles) I put them all in a linear pile (very big), and the plan is to only ever read one book at a time. I think I will feel less frazzled. This thing leftover from grad school, where I want to read every book in its entirety, but maybe I don't have to, if I'm not feeling it, and fell like I want to switch to something else, maybe I just will put it in the bookshelf, and never read from it again. Until such time that I am dying for it.

John Taggart and C.S. Giscombe

Grooving out on the bus reading this poem from New World Journal that David Highsmith let us take, much more so than I was feeling about him in the reading, I think it might be his masculinst reading style that makes me feel incapable of paying an ounce of attention to him. But the poetry is actually nice with this repetitive lyricism thing.

From "That This May Be":

"As if no one no one were seated beside you no one beside you as if you were alone yourself completely alone in a room a room without Ezekiel as if you were completely alone in a room in a finite room as if no one were seated beside you when a tongue when a tongue feeds a train when a violet tongue feeds a violet train into a violet room when a tongue feeds a train into a room made all violet in waves of a wide wave on wide wave of a as in father mist of a thousand waves over you ...."


He talked so much in his reading it felt almost more like a lecture which was nice, albeit also masculinist stance-ish. He mentioned Robert Duncan and Oppen as two of his major influences, and then later on after reading a poem with the line "walls do not fall" he started to talk about a third influence, and I knew, just knew, it was H.D. But then he said it was Zukofsky. Oh, just Zukofsky. I felt SO disappointed in him.

Then he spoke of a 70 page poem that couldn't make it into Is Music, so it went into There are Birds, called "Unveiling/Marianne Moore." I frowned.

C.S. Gisocombe, I can't remember as much because he didn't upset me. I liked how he had a project about trains. Trains as sexual and trains as racial. Want to read more of him.

Love a 2 hour beginning yoga class where we do handstands, but I didn't get home in time to make it to the grocery store. Had three fails, with random stuff in the pantry. The German potato pancakes with applesauce seemed great until I realized I followed the directions wrong, mixed the egg with the package and then added water, should have mixed the egg and water together first, then put the package in, totally not mixing and disgusting so I threw it out and made a bowl of baked beans, which seemed great with my twist off french wine, until I realized it tasted wierd and looked at the can and it expired over 6 months ago. Third try spiral noodles with butter, and wine. Hard night except have discovered James Blake on Spotify and Love Him. It's like ambient experimental R&B? Totally headphones in bed kind of music.




My scoliosis spot is screaming and my rotator cuff is acting up again, and my left knee is hurting. Maybe its the rain. I feel I should stay in bed for a week but I have to work a 6 day work week.

The difference between exhaustion and fatigue. One is kind of funny, the other, utter despair. I want the funny kind where its alright because it is temporary.

Destroyed myself this weekend trying to do vinyasas in half lotus - I kind of did it, but now. Right arm is spazzing and left knee ham string, probably not related to that actually, but also doing yoga utterly fatigued. Slept 11 hours Friday, couldn't believe I slept so much, so set my alarm to get up at 9 on Sunday (more than 3 hours later than my usual time) and I was sound asleep. Think I'm getting CFS. And I have to work a 6 day work week this week, and I have no sick or personal time left.

I have all these texts just waiting for me to put them together, and so in a month, with only rewriting and obsessing over forms, I have a second full-length manuscript ready, sent it out to an open reading submissions period, but even if that doesn't pan out just cool having it and can send out to other places... So now I'm working on my third manuscript.

Blogs

Reading blogs again, having figured out Google reader, and wow, I feel so satisfied reading words. That become paragraphs, how odd!

I want to learn the history of my street.

There is a war on teachers?

I love this project of Michelle Detorie's.

Love reading these on facebook, had no idea they came with pictures!

Not going to yoga, is somehow relaxing, I'm "being" tonight more than doing. Ironically.

Incisor teeth

Re: Amy Winehouse. We need good drugs, and we need them to not kill us. Don't we have scientists?

I asked God for an epiphany about my life while I was lying in the dentists chair, and all I got was Life is suffering and misery, try to stay stoned as much as possible.

Nitrous breathing meditation: around breath 12 I started to feel really good, around breath 30, really horny.

I'm not going to have any juice in the morning, I am drinking it all right now, and having a little fear of no juice in the morning thing going on.

Told my boss I couldn't work overtime on Saturday because I am being interviewed for a radio program, and she didn't respond and I realized she thinks its a job interview!

Thinking of getting back into mudras.

Is it because of twitter that I actually think in snippets now?

After the procedure, they asked me to rinse, and I spit, and I spit out a screw, a very small screw, and I asked is that a screw, and the dental assistant looked at it and said yes but I think its from the sink.

And I think now, it feels sort of deja vu, like maybe I've spit out a screw before, but I can't remember, and why am I spitting out screws, and second of all, why are there screws in my mouth at all!

I know I'm exhausted this week because I haven't been able to move my kundalini at all. But a few weeks ago (maybe I was ovulating) I was splitting it in two, not splitting apart, but splitting like branching off, growing. I guess that is good, I think eventually my whole body would just be kundalini fire, or could be, but not sure I'll ever have that energy.

Also wanting to get back into sahaj marg, i need a cleaning very bad. I don't know any of those people anymore though.

For me that split second that changes everything, lasts so long.

And finally, guitar music, with the lead singer singing "C'Mon" over and over again, is just not proper dentist office music, is it?

ADVENTURE STORY

I called in sick, I am sick. Because it is Friday and I leave my cell phone charger at work during the week, to play Pandora all day, I now have no cell phone charger all weekend. so clearly I have to buy one. I would think that I need to. But I feel awful. So, adamantly refusing to go downtown where it would be pretty easy to find I think, I wander through Mission, dizzily. First I went into Community Thrift, got a great yoghurt maker there once. I don't find any that fit, but am trying them all in this crate located under the regular phones. Then this guy brings this small tv over and asks me do I think it is black & white, or color? I don't have any idea, I say. I have no idea. He wanders off, a little later he comes back, do you want to watch a black & white movie with me? I do my Tenderloin-learned I cannot hear anything you say and have no consciousness that you are even speaking to me thing. He wanders off.

Then I walk down thinking to try the T-Mobile store -- why, in a neighborhood that refuses to let in american apparel and apparently starbucks, and even peets, is there every single cell phone company in existence? And why is there a Chase? Is there any Mission Community Bank or Credit Union?

Although I am the only customer in the store, the T-Mobile people don't help me, seemingly not noticing me, wrapped up in their own conversation, and it looks like their chargers are for their phones, as far as I can tell, so I wander out.

Then I think, Mission street. I go down and try the Goodwill. Taking a number 8 for my bags, and remembering to slip my cell phone in my pocket, I try all their cell phone chargers, but none of them work. I almost buy a wall clock that looks like a disco ball. 99 cents. This whole time I am dizzy, slightly naseous, and pretty sure I am going to faint at any minute.

Then I go over to the dollar store, they may have elctronic something. They have a phone section, but only old school phone type things.

Then I'm walking along Mission street, thinking to give up and go home, and I see actually there are a lot of stores on Mission street that have the word Electronics on the outside. I go in one but he says no, we don't have those. There is mostly DVDs. Then I see a pawn shop, maybe, who knows. They don't, but the guy is magically informative, this guy has answers. What a relief. He says go down to Giant Value, and there is a guy with a table outside, he sells phone chargers. I go three blocks down to Giant Value, and there he is. I ask, doubtfully, do you have cell phone chargers? It all looks like car phone chargers. Yes, he does. I show him my phone, it is the kind it looks all usb-like, he says no problem. He takes one out of the box, plugs it in, plugs it into my phone, and magical red lights pop up. Yay! Then, oh, how much? He probably does not take credit and I am wary of how much cash I have on me. He says $10. I look and don't think I have enough, but then find a hidden $5, which means I have exactly $10. Magical Story! All True.