pebbles

Oh, the ocean waves usher me into the thick, silent
Womb of the Present Moment. I ride alongside her pebble clucking
Lion roaring call, calling me home, dragging me into the silent core of
My self, universal heart pulse. Silent core of this and every moment,
The ocean waves, the pebbles cluck.

This weekend I went to Kochi, the prefecture south of Ehime, facing the pacific. Went there with Ty who surfs. Also with Andy, a physicist. I met beautiful people. We camped on the beach, and in the morn, round 6:30, a man pulled up to us in his van, probably about 40, and chitchatted about the weather, “beautiful morning” and then gave us beer and drank it with us, expensive, delicious beer, then he gave us a cd of his favorite okinawan singer, a porno mag, a sandwich and rice balls for breakfast. Generous fella. And actually, it didn't feel too strange, for we were met with kindness and generosity from almost everyone. Friendly, generous, eager to help…wonderful place, Kochi.
Andy, a Cambridge graduate, gave me many debates, mind, morals, language. Ty, bless him, continuously brought me back into my body, into the beauty of nature, the cathedral of creation arising continuously around us. “Oh wow, guys, look over there!” he would interrupt. A true angel. While he was surfing, Andy and I decided to swim in the ocean. Getting in was easy enough, but we almost died trying to get back to shore, the waves kept dragging us out. A scary moment.

Right now I'm on the porch at one of my middle schools writing in my journal. I only have two classes today and I finished my Japanese homework. So, I'm writing and reading Tenzin Wongyal Rinpoche’s ‘Tibetan Yogas of dream and Sleep” which I originally found in India at the bookshop next to the Dalai Lama’s monastery. I gave away the three copies I bought there, and ordered this one off Amazon. Rinpoche reminds us “The teachings are not ideas to be collected, but a path to be followed.” I think of my friend Zack who recently distributed some of Rinpoche’s teachings across the Internet.

I recently drew a pinecone in pen. its a tiny drawing and i like it a lot. i drew it for the cover of an Ehime English teachers' Journal. Also, I'm working on a painting of the moon, a rainbow chakra system running down and as a tree in autumn, and beneath the surface, the roots, a dark space illuminating the reminder. Also pictured is an old drawing of Amida kissing a dying man (the mirror of death) and a bodhisattva whose heart is exploding into dark shards of light and energy (India ink and charcoal) with a jewel feather wrapped in mystical fire above her head.
I've also started painting the portrait of a stone. I feel like Georgia O’Keeffe, as well as Robert Brawley, but to be fair, I have been painting rocks ever since I could paint. I had a rock collection that I considered holy when I was little, and even now, my shrine is adorned with them. In Kochi, along the beach, I spent hours with my head down, eyes racing across the tiny islands, each glittering, licked by time and transformation, water and sunlight, Picking one up, its cold body filling my palm, I look deeply into its face, a perfect abstract painting, a perfect shape, and my gaze opens up see a million tiny faces beaming, each one different, each one whole and complete, each one changing so slowly, each one reflecting the light, flickering reflections of infinity, a vast carpet of precious gems, the wet pebbles on the beach, and then, as if that were not enough, the waves arrive and recede, grabbing the stones, pulling them away. They tumble, cluck cluck cluck, the sound rolls through me like a rain cloud with fingers and drum rolls, how do I describe that sound, the clucking of a thousand small stones rolling across each other…deep within me, the stones cluck and roll, grabbing my attention like Jazz, the music of the spheres. Dissolved into the sound, I’m gone, and in my place, delight, and tiny pebbles jumping out of the water.

I thought of this story: A single grain of salt stands on a cliff. He looks at the ocean and wonder’s what it feels like. “Jump in,” says the sun.
He does, but in the water he gets frightened and clings to himself, refusing to surrender to the water. “Come on, relax..” a million voices whisper around him. When he can’t hold himself together any longer, the tiny grain of salt lets go, surrenders, and immediately becomes the entire ocean.

I just finished Ken Wilber’s ‘Integral Psychology” and have already ordered his new book “Integral Spirituality.” I originally discovered Ken through the painter Alex Gray, for he wrote the forward to all of Gray’s books. I remember looking him up on Internet with my mother and her asking me why I was so interested in this guy. I don’t know,” I said. I know nothing about him.
All I knew was that his forwards to all three of Gray’s books blew my mind, and so, I went to Border’s and bought “The essential Ken Wilber” an introductory reader, which, to say the least, blew my fucking mind. Not only was he saying everything that I already thought to be true, but he was weaving together ideas that stretched my mind so wide I felt spacious and clear and open and also more alive and in awe at the mystery and unbounded beauty everywhere; his writing put me in an altered state of consciousness sometimes so intense I had to put the book down and just bask in the glow of the new insight unfolding…I had never read anything like that before. He also had a way of honoring and including everything I considered important, from Dzogchen and Zen Buddhism to post modernism, social activism, and art…it appeared that this man new everything, read everything, understood everything better than anyone. I later found out that he practiced Zen and Tibetan Buddhism and came from the Midwest. Also, my beloved painting professor read his work. And, interestingly enough, there is a new Jet here from Newton Kansas, where my family is from, who also reads Wilber. And now my artwork is on Integral Naked and is used by Integral Institute which Wilber pretty much started…. anyway, I first learned about Dream Yoga from Ken Wilber. Then from the Dalai Lama, and then my mom heard that Lama Surya Das was giving a dream Yoga empowerment and retreat near Lawrence Kansas and decided to pay for me to go as a birthday present. And that retreat blew my mind.
And now I'm reading a mind blowing dream yoga book in the pink morning sunlight, drinking coffee and cool air.