on crafting ritual

The other morning, NPR aired a show about a woman who traveled across the Sahara desert to witness a 7-year-long ritual performed by the Dogon people every 53 years. A few hours after listening to the program I read in the book Healing With Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford about the importance of making a ritual out of preparing and consuming one's food, and how by staying carefully interested in the actions of our lives we imbue then with a subtle and special magic. The second son of a Lutheran pastor, my childhood was saturated with ritual, with songs and prayers tailored to religious events, with select colors worn on certain days. During my mother's premature death I rejected these early teachings and delved instead into those of Laozi, forgetting however to craft new rituals for my new modes of thinking. Now is come the time, then, for me to design new rituals of a new phase of life, that of healer and yogi and writer and sage. So as not to overwhelm any part of my being, I shall start small, with the act of bathing in the Pacific Ocean on the first day of the new year. Huzzah.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on freezing cold

A few mornings ago, I made the mistake of stepping off of my yoga mat while squaring it to the wall in preparation for doing Forearm Balance. I do my yoga practice on a concrete floor in an unheated room in the rear of the house, and the floor is so cold that I usually wear sandals when walking on it. For hours after having stepped with my left foot onto the icy surface, the extremity was so cold I could barely feel it. I am used to such conditions – I try to heat my house only when such action is required to keep the pipes from freezing, and I prefer an extra layer of clothes and a second pair of woolen socks to firing up the furnace or wood-stove. My foot was saved that day not by me but by the rump of the neighbor's tan bitch, who sat on it, warming it with the type of love that dogs express when they lick our wounds and sit with us when we are sad. At the time, the act seemed so selflessly compassionate that it nearly me cry, and I have thought of it repeatedly, a bright yellow, comforting memory. The bitch merely did what she considered necessary; she would have done the same for just about anyone else; and it changes not how I treat her – with patience and respect, with long pets and scratches, and by staying vigilant to her needs for fresh water and getting outside to pee. Puppies dearest, how you shine, gone for good your fearful whine. With you bellow, prance, and heal, we your friends whose hearts you steal. Gone your worries, gone your stress, with your presence we are blessed. Huzzah.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on taking breaks

For a handful of days now I have been taking a break from my normal yoga routine. This break is due in part to a patch of swollen and bruised flesh that halfway through last week blossomed just below the knee on the outside of my right leg. I suspect that I sustained the injury a couple of weeks ago when I crashed twice while bicycling down an icy alley on my way to teach yoga, although it could also be old energies bubbling to the surface that were released during one of my periods of meditation. I am loathe to take this break because on some level I am convinced I shall not ever start back up again my standard 5 day-a-week, 2-hour-long yoga practice, even though I really want to do so. On another level, I know that once I can kneel comfortably again I shall dive right back into my regular practice. It is a massive win for me to have developed emotionally to the point of being able and willing to feel and probe at the different urges raging inside of me and being able to take a break from my efforts without giving up on them completely; I credit my development in these matters to the Forrest Yoga Foundation Teacher Training, to the Embodying Enoughness series of yoga classes taught by Turbodog Yoga Chicago, and to the courage I have learned and support I have received from parents and siblings and friends; two years ago I would have at this point backslid into substance abuse and wallowed for 6 months in a state of regret-tinged depression. The curtains are lifting, the demons they flee, they will soon return but that's OK with me. Praise be to the sages who don't live and do, we honor your teachings we walk proud and true. Aho.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

change the self

It is tempting in our time of statistics and trends and tendencies constantly quoted to lament the Standard American Diet of meats and cheeses and food-like products; it is more tempting to engage in such lamentation while not altering one's own life, eating less flesh or more leafy green vegetables, getting more exercise, dining while seated, and chewing one's food into liquid. Choosing to practice proper nutrition has far-reaching consequences, among them a decreased risk of sickness, greater vitality, beneficial weight loss, a hardy disposition, sound bones, firm tissues, and freedom from toxicity. The first step toward healthful eating is to use products organically grown – they tend to contain greater levels of trace minerals and vitamins that our bodies need than their chemically compromised cousins that grow up being sprayed with poisons in artificially fertilized soils. In keeping with Michael Pollan's argument, one does well to eat real food, avoiding anything refined, processed, or enriched (which rules out most items but fruits, vegetables, legumes, grains, and greens). A healthy life you too can choose, there's good to gain and bad to lose. Mahalo.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on seeking cover

For nearly five years now, during some of the most prime years of my life, I have been living in a rural backwater of a town in south-central Pennsylvania. Ostensibly, I relocated to this spot to care for a piece of family property located here, but in reality I came here in hopes of weathering the storm of the World Financial Crises and hiding from the brutish realities of human existence. Of the many things I have learned during my time here the first is that the only place one can hide from life is in death, and the second is that life is best lived in a place where one feels comfortable, welcomed, and at home. Of all the places on this planet California best meets these criteria; I yearn for her vast and sun-drenched soils; I think of her almost daily and fantasize about once again living among her peoples. Therefore, it is time for me to pony up and get the fuck out of dodge, leave this place for good, sell the land, burn the bridges, and ride off toward the sunset with nary a backward glance. Where I currently live, Happiness is a luxury maintained only by persons with extreme wealth or steadfast discipline, and while I do not have the former I am learning the latter, getting better at it one day at a time. The time has come, then, for me to leave the lair I have built for myself here, to bid farewell to a handful of friends, and to venture once more out into the world, joyful as a hero to victory. Wish me luck, please, and mahalo.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on drawing stares

A few days ago, while negotiating some deep slush on my primary bicycle and trying not to crash, I slammed my left knee into the front gear shifter, breaking it. After trying but failing to put the exactly nestling pieces back together I conceded defeat and ordered a replacement part on the Online. Not three hours after entering my credit card information I remembered the two discarded bicycles leaning against the leaky wall in my cellar, broken machines festooned with spare parts. I chided myself for not following my usual practice of asking myself “Do I really fucking need this?” before confirming Online purchases, used Ujjayi breathing to clear my head of negative thoughts, and when next I was home stripped my once-trusty Specialized of its forward shifter. There it was, a working part, except its cable was too short for my current needs. Unperturbed, I rolled out my replacement whip, a woman's Epple Boogie bicycle complete with fenders, cargo carrier, dress catcher, kickstand, and functional DC generator to power the running lights. I am used to people staring at me riding my bicycle in all types of weather; now, though, I really blow their minds. Here I am, a 210 pound heavy, 6 foot tall, grown-ass man mashing pedal on a 10 pound woman's velocipede with his back straight and his head on a swivel, hauling ass through rain and snow and dark alike. The psychic energy I sponge while doing this is a crazy mix of hatred and encouragement, fear and concern and disbelief all blended into one. My favorite is when I am gawked at by rugged-looking, baseball-cap-wearing men driving lifted pickup trucks. “Who's the rugged one now, you warm-bottomed, gas-guzzling, dry-clothes-wearing wannabe?” I ask them silently while pedaling past them on my mother's rusted old bicycle. Instead of confronting their own hypocrisy, they immediately look away. Huzzah.
© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on creature comforts

Heat has been on my mind lately – how to make and store quickly and efficiently. Promptly with the arrival of a frigid winter my furnace stopped working; I now heat using wood. A well-stoked and roaring fire warms well the space in the house I have partitioned off so long as I am there to stoke it and keep it roaring; when, however, I get back after work, the temperature inside is in the mid 40s, so cold that I have trouble typing. My knuckles have cracked from wind and cold; I cover them with hydrogen peroxide and Eucerin lotion at night and with a protective cream during the day, but still they sting and bleed. It would be OK to have the furnace going, but then I would likely become lazy and stop making wood fires and leave it on during the day and burn through all my oil and have to order more and pay an arm and a leg for it. So, for now, I adjust to the realities at hand, haul and load logs, and rejoice in the fact that, although I am cold, I am still alive. Huzzah.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on crashing hard

This morning, bathed in the light of dawn, on my way in to teach yoga, I crashed twice on my bicycle. Although the roads had been largely cleared by the end of last night some of the more dismal alleys and less-frequently-used side roads exhibited broad sheets of ice. With temperatures this morning around 15 degrees Fahrenheit and tons of snow still piled up everywhere I should have known that my path would be slick and that I should slow down while traveling, but this was the first snow-and-freeze of the year and I was rusty. The initial crash occurred in a paved alley a half a block from the town's municipal motor-pool storage shed; I was traveling as fast as I normally do under optimal, ice-free conditions when I lost control of my smog-sled. Although I nearly corrected myself I went down left side first, crashing violently enough that I threw my handlebars out of whack. I hit so hard that I triggered an adrenalin rush that woke up my bowels and gave me the spins for a moment while I used an Allen wrench to move my handlebars back to their proper, perpendicular position. Not a full city block later I fell again, next to an elementary school, while trying to figure out what the rubbing sound was I was hearing, going down on my right side not so hard as to require additional fixing but bruising my right ankle and knee. From then on, for the next three blocks, I took it really, really slowly, creeping along the streets and treating every patch of road as suspect. Upon reaching my destination I found my entry barred because the metal box where the key is stored was frozen shut. There's no rush and much less reason, to be bandaged up this season. Mahalo.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on nightly developments

After bicycling yesterday for 10 miles through the season's first heavy snowfall I stopped at friend's house to get warm. Cuddling up next to a crackling fire I watch with him and his family the movie Boondock Saints entirely, and partook in a half dozen puffs of dat shweet shweet sticky sherm. Refusing his offer that I stay over on the couch or in a spare bedroom – to avoid bicycling back down into town the next morning on ice-slick roads as I do 3 days a week to teach him yoga – I instead pedaled up to my house, which because of the slush and the freezing rain took about 45 instead of the customary 25 minutes. Arriving back home dehydrated and sheened with ice I made myself a sandwich piled high with lunch-meats which I ate a mere hour before going to bed while stoking a wood fire to warm my house. With hunger sated but thirst uncorrected I brushed and flossed my teeth and then went up to bed knowing well the torment I was about to endure. Oh how I did sweat and thrash throughout the night, waking frequently with an active and queasy stomach and dreams of improbable and disturbing content. Then of a sudden there were great crashing and tearing sounds as something heavy gave way and collapsed either inside or just against the outside of the house, which I from betwixt warm covers could not exactly tell apart. I dozed as I listened but the crashing was brief and I decided my life was not in immediate danger and that therefore I could go back to sleep. Having chugged water whenever I was lucid enough to recognize the thirst burning in my throat by 3:45 am I had finally stabilized my body's fluid balance enough to sleep for more than fifteen minutes at a time; I reset my alarm for 6 am and hurried back under the covers, fell asleep quickly, turned off my alarms in a daze and awoke finally at 7:21. It was not until after apologizing via text message to my student for missing class and getting an hour into my own yoga workout that I happened to glanc out onto the rear patio. There, in a tangled heap, lay the motorized retractable awning that my grandmother had purchased but never used and my father had then bolted to the side of this house. I had forgotten to retract it at the start of Sunday's snowstorm and it had collapsed under the weight of snow and subsequent frozen rains, pulling clean from its moorings and splitting a round plastic table in half on impact. Now I know that the only real sound I heard last night was the shattering of my pride. Bows break, cradles fall, forgetfulness will kill us all.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on fueling rage

For the first time in many weeks today I ate fast food. I was driving around with a growling stomach and stopped at the house of Thomas for a spicy chicken sandwich. It cost in dollars twice what I normally spend on lunch while gainfully employed yet sated only half of my hunger. And instead of recharging my batteries and girding my loins for the tasks at hand this food, this fuel, awoke in me a deep and simmering anger. How I fumed and fussed, loathing and spiteful, as the lukewarm meal churned through my guts – so much so that to vent my seething fury I beat up with a broom an innocent office chair, with each strike freeing from it clouds of dust. After the venting I felt so much better than before that I was able to reflect upon my condition and trace my discontentment back to its source – my bowels. Since taking up a virtuous path and starting to heal myself body and soul through a daily yoga practice I have been blessed with an increased awareness of myself inside and out, which allowed me to see with my inner eye the food being wrung through my intestines, and it contained twisted and dark energies that fascinated and scared me such that I will not soon eat fast food again. In contrast, my evening meal – a half cup of organic corn grits with unsalted butter preceded by a half cup of organic white and brown rice cooked with organic carrot, beet, and paprika topped with organic soy sauce – is nourishing and supporting me as it worms its way through my entrails. As seems often to be the case these days I am relearning a lesson so often repeated that it has lost its color but not its bite: I am what I eat, and fast food turns me into a shitty, angry, spiteful person. Steer clear, chanticleer. Aho.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

getting shit done

America's elected representatives rarely deal with the people these days, preferring instead to interact with middlemen known as lobbyists. Citizens who try to schedule a meeting with their Congressperson, who try to get some face-time with them, must instead acquiesce to the notion that a majority of their supposed go-to-guys in the national legislature spend a larger amount of time raising money for their reelection campaigns than they do handling the affairs of the people they were chosen to represent. This normalized form of corruption is so widespread and endemic that municipalities and towns across the country must now hire lobbyists just to get enough money to replace a broken manhole, among the most basic and standard elements of any liquid waste treatment system. Instead of being beholden to the septuagenarian widow eating government cheese and surviving on the generosity of her neighbors our elected officials beg and scrape for chump change at the feet of bailed-out bankers; instead of looking past their own personal job prospects and focusing instead on the wellbeing and Happiness of their constituents our elected officials kowtow before anyone with pockets deep enough to keep them in office. America's population has grown dramatically since the republic was founded, and we would do well to increase the number of representatives in our houses of parliament proportionately; our systems of government continue to reside in assumptions and circumstances nearly a quarter of a millennium old, and we would do well not only to incorporate into these systems methods for rapid communication but also to demand vociferously and incessantly of our current leaders greater transparency; and the realities of our time compel us to alter our systems of government to meet the changing needs and capacities of our modern age in anything but a light or transient manner, which we can do by abolishing those agencies that infringe generally upon the rights of the people and allow instead the heavy mantel of Liberty to guide us through these stormy seas of largely our own creation. The only clear way out of our current stagnation is loosen the fetters, shed heavy-handedness, mind our own business, and replace ships of war with freighters of trade. Dial back, dig in, and do good things. Mahalo.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on simple measures

For a long time I turned to complex and difficult arrangements such as alcoholism and drug abuse and sadness and fear to address the challenges of my life, but now I meet them with yoga. In the discipline and the daily practice of yoga I find the time I need to root through and clear out the troubles that plague my mind; it helps me stay out of the head-space and in the Here and Now, in the moment, which is where I am coming to feel that life is best lived. The heights to which I might climb are great with yoga; the depths to which I would have sunk had I stayed with my old patterns are now beyond reckoning. The virtuous path is straight and easy, but people prefer the side-routes. Curious is this human existence. Praise be as always to the ancient masters, to Spirit, and to the sage Laozi. Aho, huzzah, & mahalo.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on fighting raccoons

Today, a young boy saved a toy bear who had spent the evening fighting an angry raccoon. The bear had wrapped himself in a plastic blanket and hid himself in a woodpile but not before leaving clues around the backyard of the house to help his young friend find him. The boy and his aunt and uncle and father had been alerted to the plight of the bear, named Guy by a text message Guy had sent from the cellphone he took off the angry raccoon before the angry raccoon had fled into the night. Now that the boy and his bear are reunited, all is well. Aho.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on sleeping late

Some people have no official business to attend to on a regular basis and they choose to sleep in until noon and do little more with their lives than eat and shit and sleep. Other people have no official business to attend to on a regular basis and they choose to fill up their lives with activities such as yoga, writing, drawing, bicycling, and reading books on topics as apparently unrelated as medicine for mountaineering, the etymology of English, Andean fairy-tales, and the history of modern China. Is the one type of individual better off in the long run even though everything that is alive at some point dies? Can a person be happy in a state of lethargic ignorance or does joy come from living in enlightened and self-respecting effortless activity? These questions will likely persist through time, and at the end of the day they must be answered by the person himself without undue outside influence.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on slavery, briefly

Last Tuesday, I watched 12 Years A Slave, a film adaptation of the autobiography of Solomon Northrup directed by Steve McQueen. Never in my life have I been closer to the reality of slavery, to its horror and misery, to its psychopathy, to its cruelty and incessant malice, than while watching this movie; the two hours and fifteen minutes of the movie's length afforded me a glimpse into a period of American history that lasted more than two hundred and fifty years, a short and comfortable look at a wrong done to innocent humans, at insanity beyond reckoning, at the very worst mankind has to offer. Since last Tuesday I have had nightmares about being myself a slave, and I have caught myself at work looking over my shoulder to make sure someone wasn't sneaking up on me with a bull-whip so as to hurt and rend my flesh. The image the movie portrayed of a life lived in slavery reminded me of growing up in the same house as an alcoholic parent and living in a world populated by a sociopath who struck without warning, who took and punished rather than giving and rewarding, where one was never safe from rebuke or threat or injury and where one could never be good enough because one was seen as having no intrinsic worth. While I was a teenager living in Germany our Gymnasium made all its students walk down to the theater and watch the movie Schindler's List as soon as it released, and in my opinion America's schools would do well to show this movie to everyone in employ and attendance. The Constitution of the United States of America doesn't even ban slavery, it merely relegates it to a form of legal punishment known today as prison. My name is Platt, and I'm a slave from Georgia. Oh, brother, I weep with shame.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on mastering puppets

Often, people become entrenched in their ways to the point that they are incapable of making meaningful change. Once one has determined this to be the case, however, all one really has to do is keep playing into the person's hand in order to keep them feeling as if they were in charge and on top of things. These people dance to the tune played by an outside force; they have allowed themselves to become puppets of entities outside of their immediate control; and their lives progress to rhythms other than those dictated by the shifting circumstances of life, which is in a constant state of flux. Such is its changeability that the only way to really thrive in it is to be on one's toes, to keep the head on a swivel, and to be wary of falling into the rut of the comfortable and the familiar. Huzzah then, and mahalo.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on meeting babes

In the past couple of weeks, three different beautiful women have waltzed into my life only to promptly waltz back out of it. In response to this good fortune I stayed polite, was well-mannered, and acted in no way aggressively. Consequently, I wrote down no telephone numbers, got no new names, have no new leads, and continue to go to bed without hugs or snuggles or kisses goodnight. On some level it is rude of me not to pursue these women and honor the urges and desires that surge through me when I cast my eyes upon them – the universe was kind enough to thrust these beautiful creatures into my path, and I am savvy enough to pick up on the possibility of them maybe liking me enough and finding me attractive enough to want to spend time with me, and it is in some ways insulting to the Fates and to God herself for me to stay mum, alone, and silent. But on another level I refrain from acting because I understand that when I pursue something, when I grasp after an external goal, that thing nearly invariably eludes me, and on another level I simply cannot fathom how anyone could be attracted to me sexually. My perceptions, then, are what are keeping me back more than most anything else, and it is my brains that prohibit me from experiencing something akin to a healthy and happy sex life. So many synapses mixed and entwined, slow is the process of changing the mind. Huzzah.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on failure

For most of my life, indeed from a young age, I was taught to avoid failure at all cost. As a younger man I encountered failure in the form of poor marks at school and rejection from the pretty girls whose orbits overlapped with mine. In my twenties and early thirties, failure was still something to be avoided, only that it had grown and morphed into a concept of monumental and cataclysmic disintegration of career and independence, the idea that my entire self-worth hinged upon my ability to meet some arguably low expectations and pay my bills on time. Since having started exploring a virtuous and simple life of yoga and meditation and writing and just being Me, however, my understanding of failure has changed dramatically. On some level, I know that I am indistinguishable from the Great Omnipresent Knowledge that is everything we know and see and everything we cannot fathom; some part of me understands that I am the Deity, the Chosen One, the Kwisatz Haderach, and, therefore, on a cosmic level, nothing I do will ever be wrong, and nothing I have ever done was a mistake. For the time being, though, I inhabit a human form, and my human form lives in a society of other humans, and the others call themselves Americans, and with this common Ynki horde I share certain mores and customs, traditions and habits, dreams and hopes and fears. Instead of looking upon the concept of failure with disdain, however, I am learning how to embrace it, redefine it, use it, cherish it, and harness the its power to achieve the spiritual calm and personal fulfillment that I never managed to find in success. As I stand before the precipice of grand and life-changing decisions I find myself acknowledging the dozens of little failures I achieve every day, things such as not holding a yoga pose for as long as I could have held it or letting my thoughts dictate my actions instead of breathing and taking a moment to become clear. I am adept at seeing my shortcomings but nearly blind to recognizing my own success, and instead of continuing to bash my head into that thick brick wall I am trying to trick myself into a positive state of mind by cherishing failure, that ubiquitous bogeyman, that damaging wraith. Ultimately, I am learning how to give myself permission to fail, which is perhaps one of the greatest of all of life's lessons. Aho.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

delighting in misfortune

For most of my adult life, I have delighted in others' misfortune. One part of my tendency to find joy in the sadness of others comes from having been educated to a high standard in the German gymnasium system, so that now I have the capacity to intellectually browbeat most persons I meet. Also, I am a multilingual American mutt raised by a self-loathing, genius-level, alcoholic country pastor and his codependent, artist wife; one of the things I am good at is reading another person's weaknesses and relentlessly exploiting them to my own short-term personal gain. Furthermore, I stand about six feet four inches tall, with a muscular and athletic build, and I am accustomed to using my physical presence as a means to tap into deep-seated fears that many people have of persons taller than they are. More than a dozen years ago, however, I began to follow a path other than that followed by most of the people I meet, a method for living codified in five hundred Before Common Error by a warrior-scholar named Lao Tzu. Chapter thirty-one of his book contains a simple guideline for living a virtuous life: If one is bound to action, proud of victory, or delights in the misfortune of others, one will never gain a thing from this world below Heaven. Over the years my ability to understand and practice this lesson has changed and evolved, but my recent dedication to a daily practice of yoga and meditation has greatly strengthened my grasp of the deeper meaning of the Tao Teh Ching. In modern American society it is difficult not to delight in the misfortune of others – the tendency to do so is popular among hosts of television and radio programming, so much so that it is unusual for these role-models to treat the people around them respectfully and with feelings of universal love. How can one avoid finding delight in the misfortune of others? By breathing instead of speaking, by staying silent instead of hurling that delicious verbal barb, by rooting out the source of one's own dissatisfaction and desire instead of blindly following the knee-jerk reactions that pettiness and neediness demand. Not one thing slips by the Great Aether, not mine nor yours nor those guys' either. Huzzah.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on being comfortable

A desire has gripped me this winter – to be comfortable, and warm. When arriving home from a shopping trip or bicycling adventure I don thick woolen socks and finish outstanding business quickly then throw myself onto the couch and crawl under a well-padded blanket. Since we turned our clocks back a few weeks ago, this desire for warmth has seen me falling asleep before 8 p.m., as I tend to snuggle into the covers after dinner instead of chasing away the deep cold of my unheated house by making a fire; once my feet thaw out my eyelids begin to droop and I slip unwittingly into Morpheus's embrace. By following this pattern I write less and sleep more, which has me sitting by myself after my seasonal job trying to come up with interesting and useful things to write about here and on my other blogs. On some level, it is easier to get warm using my own body heat than it is to use wood or oil – it costs less, it produces fewer greenhouse-gas emissions, and it runs solely on the food churning through my guts. Guests change my house's heating dynamic entirely, especially guests young, attractive, and female, of which there are however few. So long as I keep the peeps away and stick to my lonesome this winter season, wiling away the evenings in a heavy-lidded stupor, my carbon footprint will be as low as my self-esteem. Huzzah.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

ban the trans

On the radio tonight I heard that the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) of the federal government of the United States of America (the fed) is planning to ban trans-fats from foods. I learned something from one of the specialists on the news program: trans-fats are bad because of their tendency to clump and harden within blood vessels, which can cause heart-attacks and disease. We are long overdue in this country for a serious reconsideration of the continued legality and general public acceptance of alcohol as the drug of choice for weddings, funerals, cookouts, romantic encounters, fraternity parties, afternoon outings, Christmases, and New Year's Eves. Deaths in America resulting from the consumption of alcohol outnumber those resulting from the eating of trans-fats by a ratio of 10 to 1, yet alcohol is still legal. Alcohol is involved in most reported cases of domestic violence, yet sports teams across this land proudly play in stadiums built and named by Coors and Busch and their ilk, drug manufacturers and drug distributors who profit from continually undermining the foundations of an orderly and safe society. When soldiers return from war with post traumatic stress disorder, they often reach to alcohol, thus compounding damage already sustained and confounding efforts toward recovery: we owe it to our mentally challenged servicepeople to provide them with treatment and help in their time of need, and the last thing we should be doing is standing idly and feeding them fifths of Beam by as they crawl down the rabbit hole of chronic alcohol intoxication. One avenue for the fed to consider is the Swedish model, which involves making alcohol prohibitively expensive to purchase in the hopes that sticker-shock will keep people from drinking; the other paths for the fed to take is to deregulate and legalize all drugs and get the fuck out of the personal business of 337 million Americans, which however would mean admitting that its meddling and its guidelines and its nitpicking were total crap from the get-go, and that it used tens of trillions of taxpayer dollars to build a massively bloated, heavily armed, hyper-paranoid nanny state. Fuck that noise; it's time for anther motherfucking revolution.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on being enough

Last week, on Thursday, I finished the Embodying Enoughness (EE) series by Turbodog Yoga, Chicago. For persons who use yoga to heal themselves body and soul, I recommend completing two full rounds of EE in six weeks time, with classes four times a week. Using but a handful of meditations and just six different classes made up of Hatha yoga poses in the Forrest style (with some exceptions thrown in), the people at Turbodog Yoga helped me rekindle a feeling of wholeness and spiritual calm that I have not felt in years. Due perhaps to the great strength of my newly rediscoverd feelings but mostly to my tendency to try to operate in isolation, however, soon after completion I engaged in the harmful practice of excessive and habitual consumption of the sweet sweet sticky, which since completing my training I have been largely able to avoid. And, lo!, I am now laid up, sweating through two nights of fever-dreams and aching in muscle and bone, one molar infected and confidence in self and abilities wavering. Perhaps the lesson here is that the practice is the goal, and that few things come easily that are worthwhile. Healing oneself from psychological damage and harm done in the past is a lifelong endeavor, something one would do well neither to rush nor judge too harshly. Through practice man reaches god. Huzzah.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on spinning plates

For a number of reasons, I have not been working as much lately as I could have been working. I used to organize my days as I saw fit, with long segments set aside for writing and reading and studying and drawing. Now, however, I am once again an employee of somewhere, and while there are no set hours I still have to be somewhere beside where I maybe totally want to be for a good five hours each day. No more putting off writing until I'm in the mood – it is now part of my new evening routine, coming right after supper (and before the grumpies set in). No more mashing pedal into downtown to blog without having written anything yet confident in my ability to pull kazoo and huzzah and whizzbang out of my arse – now I must be prepared, ready, steeled, and focused. On top of writing I am finishing up the homework for yoga teacher's training, reading many books and a thick binder and writing many book and binder reports. But few of my plates are spinning – how on Earth do people it who have children and full-time jobs and significant others and emails and phone calls? I cannot really fathom being so very busy with my life that I could neglect friends and family and acquaintances more than I do, now. In essence, I have tasted a stress-free and productive (though not affluent or all-too exciting) style of living, and I like it. Take your dozen plates and spin them – I'll be just fine eating rice, making art, and bicycling. Aho.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on being clear

For many years I have lived in this hunting shack frugally and quietly. During that time, I finished writing a book, stopped smoking cigarettes, became a yoga teacher, and started using a bicycle as my primary means of transportation. The transformation from wild-eyed, self-mutilating addict to calm-hearted, self-respecting mastermind is just beginning, and I'm not sure where it will take me or who I will be at the end. Certain things are beginning to make sense now; certain things are becoming clear; and with a daily yoga practice and a renewed dedication to living a virtuous life (one devoid of attachment and suffering), I think I am finally on a path that leads away from slavery, deceit, and gluttony. One of the single, clear lessons I have learned is that I must take responsibility for myself in the Now, in the Here And Now, and not worry about what came in the past or what may come in the future. There is great clarity, I find, in abandoning undue concerns for things completely outside of my control, in allowing life around me to unfold without my conscious intervention and in treasuring equally calamity and success, heartbreak and joy, delight and misfortune. In the paraphrased words of Lao Tzu: Prize calamities as your own body, for without your body, what calamities can you have? Huzzah.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

fuck the state

The Red Son costume is finally complete – authentic ushanka hat with Soviet emblem, hand-drawn Commie Superman t-shirt, weathered gray worker's cape, hammer & sickle belt buckle, and gray pants tucked into high leather work boots. The party is for D.C. political types, mostly Libertarians. I am Red Son, Proletarian Superhuman, and I fear nothing. “Stalin?” people ask incredulously, gawking at me as Obama Robbin' Hood or Spiderman, American Revolutionary or Roaring Twenties flapper. A doe-eyed woman in tight dress and fake-fur coonskin cap says she will go home with me if I make good on my threat to PETA her ass with a gallon of blood. Later, I watch her reluctantly let a man kiss her on the mouth. I am a Proletarian Superhuman; my heart is pure. The inside of the house on the quiet residential street is lit by black-light, and someone has used black-light sensitive tape to write Fuck The State over a prominently-placed Gadsden flag. We chant this slogan while dancing to techno beats, our bodies gyrating wildly as our hearts swell with thoughts of Freedom. I find a flashlight in the grass out back and return it to the mercenary types guarding the front gate, who assure me that their semi-automatic rifles are fakes spray-painted black to look real. I am faster than a speeding bullet; I fear nothing. Next to the backyard bar, near the fire-circle, someone has placed a pumpkin engraved with a hyper-accurate likeness of Lindsey Graham. Our ardor is high, our spirits flicker, aroused. “Have you heard about the revolution?” a man dressed as Trotsky keeps yelling from his post by the kegs of beer. For a spell, he and I harangue all passersby, speaking vehemently of revolution and demanding that our voices be heard. I am a Proletarian Superhuman, and I would like to speak to you about something important. I make a game of pretending to mistake both guys dressed as Where's Waldo for lighthouses – they are gracious and laugh with me; they refuse to be offended. A sexy border patrol agent and I briefly suck face, with me grabbing her mammoth breasts through her shirt, but she is a smoker and I am repulsed by the taste of her mouth. The night deepens; a neighbor calls the cops. “I wish we could smoke some more weed,” a man in a strap-on Amish chin-beard says while inhaling candy from a table over by the kegs. I a Kal-L, chocoholic. Tell me: Do you have a moment to speak about the revolution?

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

booze solves nothing

In one month, this author has reminded himself the hard why he has been laboring to renounce the path of the addict for that of the warrior. Twice now, this month, he has indulged in alcohol and other stimulants, and twice now he has rued the error of his ways. It is not in cloudedness or confusion that his brain finds solace, but in sobriety; it is not in indulgence and excess that his soul finds comfort, but in discipline. His work with the yoga series Embodying Enoughness has helped him considerably so far, and he remembers always this quote from Machiavelli: “There is no more delicate matter to take in hand, nor more dangerous to conduct, nor more doubtful of its success, than to set up as the leader in the introduction of changes.” Aho.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on the atlas

As an essential tool in the ongoing shaping of the fictitious Central Asia nation of Grigovia, I drew of it a map. And while adding the final touches to this map, in order to correctly determine its bordering states, I consulted a pre-Unification Diercke Weltatlas (world atlas) from my days at the Gymnasium in Germany. I had forgotten how fascinating it was to look at an atlas, at my leisure to follow the contours of a random chunk of the Siberian landscape, to examine the living conditions in and population data for a township in Apartheid South Africa, to puzzle over a detailed and colorful analysis of the economy of Argentina in the 1989. Only with effort did I remembered my task, flip to the proper page, and write down Iran, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan. My task completed, I looked back at the atlas fondly and appreciated it for having no bright display, no DSL uplink, no spyware, no malware, no netbook battery indicator counting down the minutes, no Tumblr feed to scroll through, no email to answer, no hyperlink to follow – that for ten minutes of my life on a Tuesday evening it was just me and a 20-year old book filled with pictures of countries, some of which no longer exist.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on making ripples

If I have learned anything while reading the books I have been reading this year, it is that the decisions that a few people make can greatly affect the rest of human society. When a Chinese student dared to glue his poem to the Democracy Wall in Beijing after it had been outlawed, his words helped change a nation; when a group of Germans invaded the British Isles and chose to stay there and settle, our fascinatingly complex English language was born; when a rambunctious researcher discovered the opiate receptor, her research helped unlock the secrets of how emotion works; and when a single person writes about an imaginary press conference held in a tree-house by a fictional girl, he touches the minds of persons living around the world. It is impossible to know how far one's ripples will reach, whether they will be accepted with curiosity or hostility, or – especially in our digital age – for how long their potency will continue. Unlike in centuries past, however, when in order to be heard or read or seen a person had to scrape before and beg at the feet of a wealthy benefactor, today even the lowliest among us can start a blog, speak out, and make waves. What a fascinating modern age we live in. Huzzah.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on exerting power

Yesterday, while playing disc golf with a few friends, I was granted a glimpse into the inner workings of my psyche. At about the 12th hole my spirits began to flag and I unconsciously decided to allow the innocent banality of the others' conversation bother me. Having said nothing during the first part of the game about people grunting approvingly and saying “Nice” every time someone else even touched a disc (regardless of how that disc actually flew), I finally explained the course etiquette to the new member. “When a person says 'Nice' while someone else's disc is still in the air, it's called nicing the disc,” I said. “And nicing a disc is a breach of course etiquette, especially when the disc does not in fact fly well and the person who niced the disc then retracts his initial statement and says something like 'Uh never mind' or 'Bummer dude'.” The man laughed dismissively and I noticed the two other men in our group stiffen slightly around the groin. As soon as I registered these reactions to my brief explanation about nicing discs, I realized that the only reason I had said anything was because I was trying to exert power over the other players, to make them stop grunting and moaning and cursing out loud whenever a bit of colorful plastic didn't fly exactly the way they had hoped it would. Thinking back I realized that most of what I had said that day had been in part intended to make others dance to a tune of my liking, to get them to see things the way I saw them, to coerce them into adopting a pattern of My choosing. This realization flooded me with awareness and as I traced my subsequent actions back to their source I found that most of them – from using my netbook instead of focusing fully on the other person in the room to the topics I brought up for conversation – were somehow related to the exertion of power within the dynamics of a group. The need to feel powerful pulls subtly but inexorably at the cockles of one's heart, and one of the best ways to keep it in check is to remain humble, speak little, and remember that each person is entitled to his or her own opinion, that each person walks a path of his or her own choosing. The power that comes from controlling others pales when compared to the might of self-control. Aho.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on bicycling cuffs

Inspect closely the hose of any hardcore and regular velocipedist and you will find his ankle cuffed. Held firmly in place by clasp or tie or tiny bent teeth the leg-cuff serves one main purpose: to keep the pant-leg from fouling in and being soiled by crank or gear or spoke. In the course of their duty the parts of a bicycle that spin accumulate grit and grime and soot and dirt, which swim in a soup of chain-grease that upon contact instantly impregnates clothing with tenacious and tar-black patterns removable only by excision. Furthermore, when a loose pant-leg catches on the teeth of a gear-wheel it can bring the rider's legs to such a sudden stop that their momentum unbalances and unships him, an undesirable event that results in bruised egos, skinned elbows, and cracked skulls. During his life this author used to laugh upon seeing individuals wearing the bicycling cuff, until he himself ruined a few pairs of pants and nearly crashed more than once due to his clothing getting caught on protrusion, nub, or gear-wheel. Now, he cuffs both legs. (The cuff on his right leg he sewed together using a discarded Velcro clasp and the reflective tape from a bloody safety vest he found in the woods during hunting season; the cuff on his left leg is battery-operated and at night flashes a bright red light.) The only disadvantage to cuffing the pants while riding is that people will laugh and point and wonder what the balls one is up to, which is a small price to pay for improved safety and the knowledge that one will arrive in pants soiled only by the tears of the traffic-jammed drivers one passed along the way. Huzzah.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on using gasoline

While visiting a museum I came across a poster from the time of the Second World War (see here). In it, a dashing man fully-formed sits in his cabriolet coupe next to the outline of Adolf Hitler. Across the top the poster reads: When you ride ALONE you ride with Hitler! Across the bottom it says: Join a Car-Sharing Club Today! In an age when the needs of the many tended to outweigh the needs of the few, when sacrifice and diligence and cooperation tended to trump convenience and wastefulness and selfishness, this poster probably have changed a few minds or convinced a handful of housewives to pool and conserve their resources. How, though, would such a poster work today? Would replacing Hitler with the outline of a religiously extremist Central Asian in turban and Kalashnikov (instead of the hardcore, genocidal Teuton in iron cross and side-part) convince today's Americans to understand that every gallon of Saudi Arabian gasoline they burn in their vehicles supports terrorism worldwide (see here & here)? I believe it is possible to win hearts and minds by using a slogan such as this: When you ride ALONE you finance Al Qaeda. I believe that if more people realized that America's addiction to combustible petrochemicals is her glaring, fatal Achilles heel, and if more people actively and consciously fought this addiction, we could move into a phase of human evolution marked not by death and pollution and destruction but by compassion and bounty and cooperation. So long, however, as we stay addicted to gasoline, as we keep driving alone, as we keep believing in the myth of American exceptionalism, as we keep voting for politicians who sell out to corporate interests, as we keep rejoicing at the subjugation and destruction of foreign lands by our military, and as we overdose on television we Ynki shall remain what we have become – a sea-anchor tearing apart the fragile structure of our common tender humanity. America delenda est.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on going numb

He went numb this weekend, following the old patterns of his adolescence, and felt once more the stupor and cloudiness he had for two decades lived under. It was intended to be a celebration of his hard work over the past months, and he rallied his self-esteem only by reminding himself that his lapse had been a one-time thing, a brief exploration of the old habits, and not a resumption of the old ways. Onward and forward, now, so that this lapse not collapse the whole tower. Aho.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

earthworm – a tale

A young dashing earthworm, his skin never cut, was digging a passageway through a deep rut. He ate down the one side, and on up the next, much soil he processed, much muscle he flexed. Then lo to his wonder, against judgment sound, he found Krukuv's root-cellar, under his mound. Fair welcome, fine fellow, old Krukuv did say, Come munch on these wood chips, and eat of this hay. The earthworm ate gladly, until he was full, he summoned his kinfolk, so great was his pull. Now listen, my earthworms, the dashing one said, we make this our home base, from here out we spread. If times should turn sour, if grass should grow sparse, man Krukuv will save us, he'll cover our arse. For our part we'll digest, all dead things we can, and transform these mountains into fertile land. The earthworms they allied, with Krukuv that day, as payment took wood-chip and compost and hay. They fanned it out in numbers, they transformed and roamed, they turned the clay soils right back into loam. The banks of the Yalung, with dark soils abound, so rich and so fertile, they reach meters down. They work well with tubers and legumes and rice, they're sacred and precious, their worth has no price. Grigovians their blessed homelands do cherish and for it they spill blood and will gladly perish. It all started long ago, one fateful day, when wise old man Krukuv let an earthworm stay. By one simple gesture he helped bless this land, with deep loamy soils, with crops tall and grand. So be kind to all things small big young and old, and you will get loyalty that can't be sold. This is Krukuv's lesson, and it is well known, by wise men and women – now make it your own.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on hunting graff

Oh how I miss hunting graffiti! How I wish to have the wind in my hair and a blunt in my teeth, to be hurtling through the flashing voids on a trusty velocipede in search of street art, my elusive and mysterious quarry. Oh – and oh! – to apply my whorphans as I diligently photograph and thereby preserve the wonderful phenomenon of urban art wherever it should arise, and to rejoice in its chaotic meritocracy, actions that are among my favorite things to do. It matters little in which city I do it, for every metropolis has its own flavor and rhythm of street art, its players major and minor, its hot spots and dead-zones, its tenors and vibes, colors and styles. Finding a piece I have never seen before or discovering a work of art that within hours could be painted over by a city technician evokes within me emotions best described as joyful. Another piece of this riotous, fleeting beauty has been preserved (!!), and once uploaded it will bring smiles to faces from Capetown to Seoul, Tashkent to Los Angeles, Auckland to Murmansk. I recognize the collection and display of graffiti as among my greatest missions in life, and while I do not know where it will take me, I sure am loving the ride. Huzzah.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

no voice superior

Beethoven's 3rd Symphony was the piece I chose to listen to while composing this piece. As I stared out the window watching the remnants of a tropical storm hammer us with rain and trying to think what I should write about, a pattern coalesced before my mind's eye. In it, I could see the unity and balance that characterizes the forces raging within me, those of immune and nervous and endocrine systems, of musculature and skeleton, of tendon and vessel and fiber, that rather than having to judge them I could merely accept that they were all pieces and parts of the greater awareness I have come to know as Me, and that they are all of equal importance in the grand scheme of my existence. I knew suddenly of this unity as I sat pondering on the wondrous vibrations of the Ludwig Van, music that always quickens my heart and helps me to focus on the task at hand, be it driving, studying, writing, jogging, musing, or simply being. It was instantly clear to me that no single instrument in the orchestra that had performed the piece was greater or more important than the other, that every note was in just the right place to do exactly as was intended that it do, that the 3rd Symphony was something magical, something far greater than just the sum of its parts. I am nearly finished reading Molecules of Emotion by Dr. Candace Pert, and just last week I finished Anatomy of the Spirit by Caroline Myss, and so I am not surprised to be experiencing events such as a clarification of my inner vision and the patience needed to recognize and incorporate Fundamental Truths. Living in the modern Western world we learn to think in forms of strict delineation, to think of one thing as superior to another, as one cellphone or political party or style of clothing or automobile or hairstyle or lipstick or television show to be the best, the greatest, the non-plus-ultra, and it is only with due diligence and conscious humility that we can step back from this worldview and retrain ourselves to look for beauty in all things, to marvel at the whole rather than squabbling over the pieces. In the words of Lao Tzu: Piece by piece the treasure of the world is amassed. Mahalo.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on avoiding traffic

Recently, I wrote an article about sponging anger, and how when I am bicycling I would often get angry for reasons I could not place. After carefully analyzing this hatred and noting when it tended to arise I have concluded that I am allowing myself to be controlled by the mostly negative emotions of the drivers I come into contact with while out on the road. Oh how they must hate me for daring to ride on the sliver of pavement that runs to the right of the single white line and to the left of the edge of the road, as witnessed by a recent increase in the number of cowards who shout out of their windows at me as they speed by, often saying things such as, “Get out of the road,” and, “Move over.” (Soon, I hope to find the courage to stop responding by telling drivers to go fuck themselves.) I have taken to occupying the entire lane while climbing a particular hill on the last stretch of byway before the last turn toward my house, as in the past on this short rise people tended to floor their engines and squeeze daringly between me and opposing traffic as we were all trying to squeeze up a blind, sharp incline. During this maneuver the transference of hatred and loathing from the drivers to me is particularly strong, as I take up the entire lane for fifteen whole seconds while powering my way up to the top of the rise, dragging myself across the asphalt landscape silently and without belching noxious fumes from a metal tailpipe. Once I reach the top I immediately vacate the lane to allow the vehicle that has been tailgating me to roar past toward business that – I am certain – has to do with curing cancer and saving a stranded kitten and eliminating hunger in the Global South. I am happy to be doing my part to honor and conserve the mineral resources of this our only Earth, and to be saving hundreds of dollars a year on car maintenance and fuel and registrations and fees and taxes and fines. I have been lucky up to now, for which I thank the gods of the traveler, among them Legba and Ganesha and Christopher and Hermes, lifting my supplications to the heavens and saying: “Please guard these travelers along their path, keep them this day from Fate's patient wrath.” Aho.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on rising panic

A deep pit opened in the depths of my bowls as he spoke his last words and hung up. I knew – simply knew! – that I had already burned the document he was asking for weeks ago, that it was now merely a pile of ash, that it was my fault that this crucial piece of our puzzle was gone, forever. Instead of allowing the rage to blossom within me and overwhelm my Spirit, however, I breathed deeply in the yogic way, bashed the sofa a few times with a steel bat, stopping when I felt frustration and self-loathing and panic abate. Immediately thereafter I tore into my work, opening this box and that, moving and stacking and re-stacking them, scrutinizing each scrap of paper, each fragment of text, desperate to exonerate myself of the terror building in my loins. I opened a cheap plastic folder and, instantly, the feel and the look of its cheap plastic pages reminded me of where I had hidden the requested few papers, of exactly the steps needed to clear the clouds of rising panic. And, indeed, there it was! Crisp and safe and well and calm, these few leaves of satiny paper that may just change the game for good. Huzzah, and aho.






© americanifesto / 場黑麥A deep pit opened in the depths of my bowls as he spoke his last words and hung up. I knew – simply knew! – that I had already burned the document he was asking for weeks ago, that it was now merely a pile of ash, that it was my fault that this crucial piece of our puzzle was gone, forever. Instead of allowing the rage to blossom within me and overwhelm my Spirit, however, I breathed deeply in the yogic way, bashed the sofa a few times with a steel bat, stopping when I felt frustration and self-loathing and panic abate. Immediately thereafter I tore into my work, opening this box and that, moving and stacking and re-stacking them, scrutinizing each scrap of paper, each fragment of text, desperate to exonerate myself of the terror building in my loins. I opened a cheap plastic folder and, instantly, the feel and the look of its cheap plastic pages reminded me of where I had hidden the requested few papers, of exactly the steps needed to clear the clouds of rising panic. And, indeed, there it was! Crisp and safe and well and calm, these few leaves of satiny paper that may just change the game for good. Huzzah, and aho.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on sponging anger

During my yoga teacher training, I discovered that I have powerful skills of empathy. When persons choose to direct their feelings and emotions at me, in my current condition I receive that power mostly intact and largely unfiltered. If others direct love at me I am learning to let it buoy my heart; if they thank me I am trying to wallow in gratitude for as long as I am able to; but if it is anger or disgust or discontentment that they feel toward me my heart grows cold, rage builds in my chest, and I become deeply irate. At some point in my life I learned that sponging anger in this way makes me feel powerful, that it is proper to answer like with like, hatred with hatred. My fellow Americans exhibit this type of behavior frequently, and over the years I have been wont to retreat into it much as my compatriots do. As however I study the ancient truths and leave behind the clouded and the confused path for that of the warrior I am beginning to understand that anger and hatred frighten Spirit and that our connection to the Divine is severed if instead of compassion and grace we cultivate in our hearts loathing, coldness, and fear. My path is for me alone to walk and I am not saying that other people are acting incorrectly, only that they seem to have abandoned action for reaction, consciousness for unconsciousness, beauty for ugliness, and that it shall take a lot of effort on the part of each individual, individually, for our the soul of our nation to become bright, once more. The greatest journeys of the world start with just one person stepping forward, and so I lift my foot. Mahalo.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

our enemy – television

Television is the creative person's bane, a threat greater than most others are. Watching TV feeds the human need for companionship without ever really satisfying it and crushes creative capacity by tricking the brain into thinking it is doing something and being productive when it is just sitting idle. Creativity, power, assuredness, and passion all reside in the 2nd and 3rd chakras, the lower half of the torso that extends from the breastbone to the genitals. Look down at your own belly for a moment. Can you see your belt-buckle or waistband as it sits atop the pelvic bone? Can you feel and move the abdominus erectus, that muscle that runs from the bottom of the breastbone to attach to the top of the pelvis? If you cannot, you are not alone – more than a third of all Americans are obese, and many of these individuals carry a large portion of this additional weight in the lower halves of their torsos. The decision to sit down and watch television has disastrous consequences on the 2nd and 3rd chakras – it numbs and dulls them, confusing and stifling the free flow of energy through the regions of the core, an area central to living the best of possible human lives. Man is a gullible animal; after seeing just a few commercials related to food he will get food from his kitchen and eat that food (without focusing on what he is eating) while staring longingly into the beautiful bright lights of his TV set. If he repeats this sequence often enough he will get fat, and his increased girth will further stifle the free flow of energy through the region of his core and exacerbate the unhealthiness that stems from a lack of regular exercise and from a preference for prepackaged foods ready to eat over meals carefully and consciously crafted. Persons who wish to lead lives full of creativity and passion avoid watching television; they know that there are more constructive ways to fill their time than by staring at an electric light-box; they paint, draw, dance, or write; they make educated and intelligent decisions about what to eat and what to put through their orifices of eye and mouth and ear instead of numbing out the intestines by shoveling in as much sugary and salty and fatty foods as the gut can handle without bursting; they lead happy lives untethered from groomed and glossy but ultimately vacuous material. Downtrodden and passionless masses of the world, awake! Turn off your television sets! Humanity, and Mother Nature, need you now more than ever. Aho.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on watching movies

I have an interesting relationship with movies. I have come to understand that when I was a teenager I would watch movies in order to escape from the reality of living under a genius-level, PhD-holding, self-despising, alcoholic father. Some movies I have watched so many times that I can run the dialogue almost word for word, delivering cadence and timing nearly perfectly. (Among these are The Hunt For Red October & The Untouchables.) The ability to memorize and regurgitate long portions of dialogue is one that serves but a few purposes; I am not currently working as an actor, and so my skills in this area are limited to entertaining myself by regurgitating long portions of dialogue while watching my favorite movies. Additionally, I have found that I can recall, even months or years later, who starred in a particular movie when all I saw of that movie was its trailer, one time. Having pondered upon these curious powers, I realize I tend to use them mostly in social situations when speaking to others similarly endowed. My skills, however, carry over to the realm of books; I can recall in great detail portions of books as well as give extensive summaries – without prior planning – of their contents. Again, my recall abilities endure for years, even decades, after having read a book I enjoyed. To what end do I employ these gifts today? I use them most when smithing lies about one of my favorite Central Asian countries: Grigovia. Heavy hangs the crown, white grows the hair that frames it.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on reprogramming memories

Under the guidance the Embodying Enoughness series by Turbo Dog Yoga Chicago, I am learning how to change the null-loops that infest my brains. The process is simple; it is honest; to borrow from the language of the computer, it uses the basic technique of writing over old memories with new data. After a thorough yoga session, one lies in corpse pose and delves deeply into the psyche, rooting around for stuck or toxic patterns. Then, once one has selected a memory and it is playing before the mind's eye, one re-imagines it as if it had had the best of possible outcomes, as if all the bad things that happened were instead good things, as if pain and suffering had instead been relaxation and joy. It is liberating to be able to change one's personal perception of the past in this way; it is a salubrious activity to step back from daily self-flagellation and free oneself from attachment to past events, lost hopes, and broken dreams. To walk this path requires guts, and determination; it is not for the weak of heart, or for those people who are not yet ready to heal. But once begun, addictive is a fitting term for the process of exhuming one's buried skeletons and snipping loose the threads of thought that tend to tether one to events and people reachable only within the time machine we call the mind. Chest up, breathe hugely, self-liberate! Aho.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on discovering Liberty

I am reading the Constitution of Liberty by F.A. Hayek, and my life is changing fundamentally. For years, I have felt strange when arguing certain political points or chasing one or the other topic down its respective rabbit-hole – this book is helping me understand why. Most of my life I have lived under the sway of unsound theories, of counter-productive opinions, of methods that more often than not have lead to failure, sadness, contempt, and woe. Now, however, as the awesome brilliance of the Torch of Progress shines into the dank and fetid recesses of my psyche, the foundations of my soul are beginning to dry out, and solidify. The shrill voice of nagging doubt loses its biting edge as my soul rejoices at the majesty of Liberty's countenance; my energies align as I perform the ancient practices of yoga and meditation; my being soars as mind – free of thought – merges with body to beholds the deep essence of the Universe. It has taken many moons of studying a plethora of unrelated texts to reach this point, and I dare not suggest that following in my footsteps would lead anyone else to the same conclusions. For now, though, perhaps just for today, I see a brightness on the horizon I have not seen in years, and it finally feels as if I am starting to truly understand myself. Huzzah.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on starting fresh

As part of the process of healing from addiction and childhood abuse, I am learning to keep coming back to square one. If things start getting squirrelly up in my brains, I breathe deeply using the Ujjayi method until the oppressively swirling thoughts recede. If I find myself descending into old habits and patterns, I take a few moments to examine the situation before choosing consciously to go a different route, even one that seems illogical or inefficient. I am merely at the start of this process; many of my actions are still rooted in past trauma, and often I find myself thinking self-mutilating and derogatory thoughts. I am learning however to not believe the mean guy who lives inside me, to always congratulate myself for having caught my negative behavior, and to move cautiously and with a mind to the future as I ponder a new way of things. Soon, perhaps, I may even reach a point where I can stop punishing myself for being rusty at sweet-talking a wholesome American girl. Wish me luck...

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on moving in

As the temperature outside drops, the mice move in. I hear them in the walls, clawing and scratching their way into their winter quarters, sprinting and slinking from one place to the next, going about their business without fear of trap or cat or poison. So familiar are they with the rhythms of this house that they boldly help themselves to my left-overs: recently, I found a baby mouse trying frantically to escape the filthy depths of my recycling bucket; I released the greasy mouseling on the deck behind the house, where he sat in the warm sun staring blankly up at me as if to say, 'Yeah, see you back inside in, like, a few hours.' One of the reasons I am loathe to replace the house's exterior covering is because I wish to avoid disturbing the leagues of tunnels my rodent roommates have burrowed into its dry-rotting timbers. Besides nesting in old pairs of lederhosen and making creepy noises as they invade the walls, the mice do me little harm; if anything, I welcome their presence and see it as a sure sign that Fall is near. Come one, come all, you little creatures, have herein a welcome stay, I'll clean up your furry corpses, chase you neither night or day.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on making sense

One part of fulfilling the requirements for certification as a yoga teacher is to read Courage to Heal, by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis. After finishing the first chapter, some things about my life began to make sense, including why I sabotage myself in the opening phases of relationships with beautiful young women and why I am always on edge when men touch me. (I am totally comfortable sleeping next to and in the same bed with my male friends, whom I trust to not violate me, but I find myself reacting violently and forcefully whenever touched by a person I don't fully know or trust.) I have done shameful things in my life, things which only make sense if I was abused as a child too young to talk. I apologize to anyone I might have hurt; please know I was confused and scared and corrupted by the actions of persons older than I was, persons who violated the sanctity of a child's fire and crushed his tender soul. I started confronting these demons during the teacher training in June of this year, but have gradually retreated into the solitude and depression I tend to experience living in this rural backwater. It has been a subtle shift, but I recognize it now, and vow to make my life as fruitful and happy as I can make it by confronting and moving through the shameful thoughts, remembering that I am a survivor, and keeping in touch with the persons my support group. I know not who I will be once the healing really gets going, but the foundations of my soul are built on a rotten core, and so I must dig everything up and start anew. Aho!

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on pulling back

During the second week of September, 2013, I eased off my regular hardcore yoga practice in hopes of letting my back heal. While bicycling the week before, I had turned my head to scan for traffic and felt something shift in the tissue surrounding my second and third lumbar vertebrae. Not a violent or agonizing pain, it would flare when I bent from the waist or turned into standing poses such as Warrior II Interlock or Twisting Warrior I. Having already slacked a bit over the weekend while visiting friends (and meeting a beautiful young lady) in Washington, D.C., I did only rudimentary morning practices until Wednesday, when I could stand and move without experiencing any pain in the low back. The rewards of easing off of the daily full yoga sessions have been manifold: I am more enthusiastic about and have more energy to complete my 2-hour-long, predawn practices; I am proud of myself for listening to my body and respecting the information it was giving me; once the pain was gone I dove right back into the discipline, selecting challenging classes and not just giving up as I would have done in the old days; and I have used some of the energy and love generated in my practices to clear my mind of worry I have been harboring about what the aforementioned young lady thinks of me, for I have been thinking about her a lot, I enjoy her presence, and since this is the first time in a long time I find my attraction and interest reciprocated by another, I am over-analyzing everything and trying really hard not to fuck things up. Regardless of what occurs, I shall remember that pulling back is sometimes necessary to getting ahead. Aho!

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on anti-graffiti

Cities go to great lengths to try and thwart the application of street art. They send out minions to paint over graffiti and scrape it away, apply materials that keep stickers from sticking, raise street signs and utility boxes higher to make them harder to reach, and cake on a cottage-cheese-like layer that diminishes a pole's available surface area. Not one of these measures keeps the graffito from pursuing his trade; rather, they force the SDUBS (self directed urban beautification specialist) to seek out new surfaces upon which to make his art, higher and less accessible areas to cover with paper or paint, new and craftier ways to make a name for himself in the riotous and anarchic meritocracy that is graffiti. We hope that someday the leadership councils of these cities will choose to promote and support the dazzling and intricate arrays of free artwork that the graffito spends his time and money creating and risks his life and liberty applying rather than them wasting limited resources on destroying beauty and making the asphalt landscape visually uniform. A barren phaltscape compels people to go home, draw a picture on a piece of paper, and tape or glue their creation to a neighborhood tree, pole, post, box, booth, or sign. Graffiti is among the oldest forms of human artistic expression we know of; for tens of thousands of years, mankind has been free to alter his surroundings, and there is indication he will be stopping anytime soon. Street art is here to stay and it will not be forced away so gather pen and pad and brush and get you outside – hurry, rush!

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

on staying calm

In the past, upon meeting a beautiful young lady whose interests and tastes happened to overlap with mine, I would have freaked out and started trying to spend as much time as possible talking to and being near her. With my jettisoning of the old ways however and my conscious efforts to stick to new methods, I managed to keep my shit together. I was neither too coy nor too aggressive, expressed myself honestly and calmly, enjoyed the time she and I spent together, and left when it was my time to leave. Caution and courtesy were foremost among the patterns of my mind, and I managed to honor the primal urges while not backsliding into sleaze-ball mode and trying to go in for erotic physical contact right off the bat. Having started to sow the great in with the small, I find myself taking the first beautiful steps on the journey of a thousand miles. Aho.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

on processing hatred

Recently, I have had heaped upon me a spiteful woman's scorn. I know not for sure why she hates me, and she knows not for sure why she hates me, but she has taken it upon herself to loathe me with passionate tenacity. The situation would be different if I were to choose not to go to their house regularly in order to make free lessons available to the whole family; the husband is so far my and only student however and I cannot bail on him, for I enjoy his company and watching his practice progress. I process this woman's hatred by accepting it and allowing it to wash over me without letting it get stuck to Spirit. I meet her injuries with kindness and her barbs with soft words. I greet her when I meet her and listen when she speaks. Perhaps responding in this way keeps the fires of her hatred alive – as one who cultivates within her soul dark and sad and dismal energies, she is likely intimidated by the brightness and Happiness I have sown within my own. So, what to do? Do I stay away entirely, ceasing to teach and canceling the friendship? Do I bear the slings and arrows of this misfortune, accepting them as tests of my compassion, courage, and dedication? I aim to live a life free of the shackles of woe and sadness and suffering, and I injure the Tender One within me every time I expose myself to negative emotion. I alone am responsible for my emotional status and for how I react to my environment and the people in it. Therefore, having abandoned slavery and taken up a hero's path, I shall continue to meet lies with truthfulness, loathing with love. Aho.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

few others walk

Ich versuche einen anderen Weg zu laufen als den von Bekannter und Freund; ich suche nach dem neunten Pfad, den den Helden betreten und dessen endgültiges Ziel nicht genau zu bestimmen ist. Bei meiner Suche bin ich schon in Schwierigkeiten geraten: Haß und Neid stehen mir entgegen, die Sucht nach Rauschgift gerinnt nur langsam, ich nehme mir zu viel Zeit beim Räumen und Verkaufen dieses alten Hauses, und die Versuchung ist groß einfach aufzugeben und wie die anderen ein bedenken- und moralloses Leben zu führen. Zum Glück habe ich eine neue Übersetzung des Daodejing gefunden, die mir dabei hilft die Radspuren der Kleindenker zu entweichen und wie den Wind ziellos durch die Gegend zu wehen. Fortan sehe ich mit originaler Reinheit, umschliesse ohne Anspruch, reduziere Besitz, und drossle Begierde. Der Heldenpfad ist breit und gemäß, aber die Leute bevorzügen umgänglichere Wege. Weshalb?

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

things heat up

As the temperature rises, memories of comfort fade from mind. The pedals whirl and spin and my legs under my pants' cinched cuffs begin to sweat. I drag my bicycle and myself up a low hill flanked by rows of tall and swaying corn, the wheels humming across the baking asphalt, moving swiftly and quietly across the Pennsylvania countryside. It is half 3 in the afternoon and I am returning from getting my new photo driver's license at the DMV in Gettysburg. Having taken main roads on the way there, riding in the breakdown lane next to semi-trucks and speeding drivers, I am returning on country byways. Safely back home, I can feel the dehydration settle into my bones. The next day I use a muscle-powered push mower to trim the lawn, once again working in the afternoon, once again sweating through a number of t-shirts, afterward aggressively hydrating using electrolyte tablets and copious amounts of hot tea. The day after that, I trim my septuagenarian neighbors' hedge and cut down some of their bushes, chipping the cut pieces with a gasoline-powered chipper, once again sweating entirely through my clothes. Today, friend, today I've really felt it, the major muscle groups aching through my 2 hours of personal yoga practice and subsequent hour of teaching, the fibers and tendons gearing up for more manual labor this afternoon, another hedgerow to trim and gather and chip. Yes, oh yes, things are heating up.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

on growing wild

Grig, the capital of the Glorious Republic of Grigovia, is encouraging its citizens to let their lawns grow wild. The gir, as denizens of the city are called, who eschews a Western-style grass mono-culture in favor of a biotope of wild plants native to the high steppe upon which Grig sits will see their municipal taxes decrease. “Fewer boring lawns means greater overall happiness,” said Enddo Slamnyust, the city's mayor. “Also, there will be fewer pesticides and chemical fertilizers entering our sewers and more places for birds and beneficial insects to nest, feed, and grow. My planning committee and I expect the increased levels of shade to help control the heat of summer, and more good bugs means increased yields of fruits and vegetables from the community gardens that are being installed on rooftops across our fine metropolis. Wild lawns make Grig a friendlier, healthier place.”

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

on EBOS

Last year, I made up the acronym EBOS. It stands for Entire Battery Operating Session, or the amount of time I pledge to spend each day using my computer to manipulate words, images, and websites. During the couple of months before I bought a new and larger netbook battery, EBOS kept shrinking until I could barely get a solid hour in before the lights started flashing and my system began reminding me every few minutes to save any unsaved material and prepare for imminent shutdown. I read somewhere that batteries work best when they are drained to the last before being filled back up again, but I read somewhere else that such behavior damages lithium-ion batteries. (I have not noticed a significant or rapid decrease in battery life resulting from wringing the last electrons out of the battery before recharging it to its maximum.) Running Ubuntu – Precise Pangolin helps stretch battery life; I have installed a widget to manage CPU usage and learned that making backups to my 3 external drives sucks juice like a mugfug. So far, EBOS has been a success: I blog 6 days a week; my unique page-views (across 8 different sites, without using paid advertising of any sort) number in the hundreds each month; and I just launched a number of new, stand-alone sites based on what I have learned about how to use the Internets good. Huzzah. Blog-writers of the world, EBOS!

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

on Phyrgian caps

While the American republic was still being formed – that is, before it outgrew its britches and started pining for global full spectrum dominance – the concept of Liberty was vibrant, and alive. Today, however, as we approach the 9th month of the year 2013, the colors of Liberty have faded from her shores; preferring conformity and convenience to individuality and self-sufficiency, preferring television and nutritionism to simple pleasures and real food, the American people are in a sorry state. How do we shake them out of their stupor? How do we shock them back into passionate dialog and community-conscious living? One method for awakening them from their trance is to show them that most actions done with a car can be done on a bicycle. Another way to quicken their tepid fluids is to don a Phyrgian cap and prove to a candid world that we few who are mocked and ridiculed and looked upon with scorn have doffed the shackles of materialism and freed ourselves from greed and need and avarice by wearing a red and floppy hat. Look no further than the War Office Seal, which features a Liberty cap; find its collapsed contours in the symbols of the American Revolution's own Sons of Liberty. Perhaps we pampered modern Ynki would be able to pull this land out of its tyrannical tailspin if we emulated the men and women who risked Fortune and sacred Honor to create a nation dedicated to the principle that all persons are created equal, a republic founded on the notion that all choices and thoughts and decisions should be allow so long as they do not directly violate the Life, Liberty, or Property of another person. If, however, a majority of the public keeps pumping gasoline into slaves' chariots and numbing itself out to five hours of TV each day, the idea of Liberty will continue to sputter and wheeze, suffocating from lack of believers. Citizens of America, awake!

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

on stealing fire

Cultures around the world celebrate the bringer of fire, the bringer of knowledge. In the Christian tradition, the bringer is called Lucifer, who fell from heaven, whose name in Latin means Light-Carrier. In First-People traditions of the Pacific Northwest, the trickster-god Raven steals the sun from the world-house and gives it to humans, bestowing understanding upon them. In Greek mythology, Prometheus steals fire from a lofty perch and hands it over to mankind; as punishment for his actions he is chained to a rock and must endure having his liver pecked out by an eagle every day (until his rescue by Heracles). These examples from historically and geographically divergent areas speak of the same idea – that some external force physically descended form somewhere above the terrestrial plain and downloaded into the fabric of the human race the ability to ponder and think and reason. And these are but a few of this type of story; many others tell of the sudden arrival of knowledge from somewhere else, of the ability to reckon and mull and fly fancily unexpectedly arising in the minds of theretofore troglodytic bipedal mammals. Did we uplift ourselves, our intelligence arising of its own accord out of the vast and inky aether? (David Brin explores this concept in Startide Rising and his other Uplift books.) Were we genetically manipulated by a rogue extraterrestrial visitor who decided to fuck up his boss' plans and infect us homos sapiens with a full dose of thought's holy fire? These questions have kept our race up at night since the beginning of recorded history, and I don't intend to find answers for them here. I shall hazard to say, however, that I think I see a pattern emerging in the belief-systems of peoples living largely independently of one other, a pattern that suggests that we are not the only sentient beings hurtling through space-time. Keep one eyes on the stars and the other on your six. Mahalo.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

on hidden enemies

Lo these many years I have thought that my foes lurked on the outside, when all along they have enjoyed free rent inside my brains. I have been blinding myself to reality, forgetting that the very classification of something or someone as an enemy destroys the tender inner balance, forgetting that a self-deprecating mindset is not predisposition or life sentence but daily choice. How simple the Way is, and how easy it is to grasp, once one has burned and breathed and cleansed through the ego's incessant attempts to hijack the thought process and pervert it to devious ends. Lay aside the ranger, indeed.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

beyond all control

No matter how magnanimous or calm I am, no matter how understanding or sober, I shall never be good enough for some people; their moods will remain forever beyond my control. The need to be accepted and liked by people is a holdover from my life before I completed the training, when I tended to tether myself to others' opinions and moods, before I came to understand how strong is my empathy, how powerfully I am affected by the energies people emit when they think or talk about me. The Warrior's Path differs from that of the average mortal in that it entails breathing through and unlearning one's habits rather than repeating or perpetuating them; it helps one center body and spirit rather than flying off the handle and always blaming the world for one's problems. For me, this means staying quiet and not responding when others heap fear and woe and frustration upon me, feeding their egos silence instead of the hatred and discontentment they so desperately wish me to bounce back at them, maintaining purity of vision instead of letting it become clouded with rage. Few are they who know this Path, fewer still who walk it. Aho.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

on waking up

This morning, I woke up in my Kelty Tempest 2 tent feeling an urgent need to pee. As I crawled out onto the lawn to relieve myself, I had the sneaking suspicion that I would not be getting any more rest. Before I had even expelled the last drops, my alarm sounded, signaling 3:45am. I reached into the gear loft, put the alarm on snooze, finished my business, crawled back into the tent, zipped up all the zippers, and dove back into the last remnants of my dream, in which I was a pregnant woman wearing a jacket stiffened with ropes living in the collapsible racks of a big-box store right next to a train station. Moments before I had climbed into a train that was carrying a large bronze frieze honoring the persons involved in China's Long March, the buzzer rang once more, waking me up fully. I went inside, did my 2 hours of yoga, bicycled into town, taught another hour of yoga, and am now blogging and handling biz. So far, it's been a good day.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

on strong temptations

The urge is great to meet anger with anger, frustration with frustration, pettiness with spite. Many people in my life do this; they seem to expect to be belittled and spoken over, ignored and verbally abused, browbeaten, denigrated, and ridiculed. I am learning once again to breathe deeply before speaking, to pause before responding, to hew to the ancient codes I have studies for the past dozen years, to hold myself to a higher standard than that of the average mortal. All the tools are here before me, now I must but use them. Aho.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

actio = reactio

America should not be surprised to find itself under attack by extremists of all stripe – for a century, the United States has installed dictators in Central America (see the actions of its School of the Americas), fucked up Middle Eastern politics, and engaged in illegal wars of agression against the sovereign nations of Iraq and Afghanistan. The old saying goes: Every action will have an appropriate and timely reaction. Keeping this in mind, it should be obvious that the attacks of 11 September 2001 were little more than a fraction of the woe and heartbreak and torment and bloodshed that the Ynki has visited upon the innocent peoples of the world being visited back upon himself. I do not condone terror, nor do I support war or hostility of any sort; what I am saying is that given America's track record of genocide and destruction her citizens should not be surprised that other people have begun to fight back, and hit them where it hurts. If Americans wish to be safe from similar attacks in the future, they would do well to ring up, email, or visit their representatives in their houses of parliament (the House and the Senate) and demand that their federal government stop waging wars, selling arms overseas, warmongering, and imposing sanctions upon or otherwise blockading foreign nations, that it cast aside the arrows of war and lift up the laurels of peace. A dictatorship of fear has descended over the American nation, and only when her citizens stand as one and call for an end to fascism and officially-sanctioned corruption will she once again join the ranks of competent and just nations. Let us pray this happens soon.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

third time combing

Thrice now I open the boxes of my parents' household, perusing the remnants of the past for things of worth and beauty. Some of the boxes were first packed up in 1989; they moved with us to Germany, stayed shut there and forgotten, then came back in 2000, when circumstance dictated our return. My mother was an artist – what to do with all her art? I digitize what fits to scan, but where do all these framed works go? I've thrown out the brush-nubs and pencil-stubs, yet still remain mounds of useful artist's tools. Her Noah woodblocks, full of meaning, give the house a westward leaning. On Katherine von Bora, she gathered much, great stacks and reams, thee binders all but bursting with a lifetime's shortened focus. My own stuff I take out, but most of it's junk, I add it to trash-bags that line the far curb, the fruits of a lifetime all bound for the dump. My father was pastor and seaman and drunk, his sermons and watch-caps, his beer-steins and stoles – to keep them or trash them, to let them grow mold, to stuff them in storage and further delay, the simple decisions that face me today? By times it's rewarding, by times it is hard, to comb through the stacks of shit my parents prized, to toss what is useless and keep what is good. Enough of this writing, more boxes await, I welcome the challenge and accept my fate. Aho.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

with scrawls aplenty

Their screams are silent, free of sound, their fates are fickle, market-bound, who tether heart and hope and soul, to present body-frequency. Not much remains but pent-up rage, at king and country, wife and knave, at things far past an easy grasp, at politics – elephant, ass. With scrawls aplenty they do fill, their fleeting time on earthly crust, updating Bob and Jack and Jill, and countless others they mistrust. Now all that's left are silly rhymes and windless talks about old times, all filler-words and fancy -isms, the listeners they droop and nod, they sit down heavy with their pods to reblog sleepy puffball kittens. So all things are proper, and nothing's awry, young hearts they are empty, and old eyes are dry, the talk it will go on, as rightly it should, we'll not sit and judge or choose bad over good, but welcome each syllable, jape dig and jest, we poor foolish humans, we men of the West.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

on going deeper

This morning, I awoke at 3:45 and stumbled over to sit on the toilet. There I sat for 7 minutes, dozing and finishing up the rest of my dream. With a start, I forced myself awake, stood up, pulled on my underthings, and went into the back room, for yoga. I lit sage and prayed to the four directions, sang three morning songs, and at around 4:10 am started my two hours of sweat-lodge yoga. It was a new class, one I had not done before today, one focused entirely on going deeper and peeling back the layers of self-mutilation with the intention of healing the psyche's rotten core. After stretches but before starting abdominals I paused the playback and went into the living room (taking care to keep the heat in by shutting the sliding door) in order to write down the fading details of the dream I had been having just before I woke up. (In this dream, I was about to run cross a 6-lane freeway during heavy traffic, even though I had the option of using a nearby bridge to cross over it.) After writing down the details of my dream I stepped back onto the mat to do many sets of abs with a roll and as well as twisting abs with a roll, during which I began to feel muscles and tendons in my pelvis that I haven't felt in an age. The class continued and I followed the spoken instructions, breathing into and peeling back layers of hatred and self-doubt, delving with each pose deeper into the ripples of my mind, rooting around in the dank and fetid cellars of my​ soul. Oh what I found there! Thoughts and feelings, heartbreaks and ecstasy, all types of energies twisted up into complex knots and pulsating balls, all types of memories choking the free flow of chi, of prana, of joy. The distress I felt upon discovering these choke-points was so great that I turned off the recording and finished my session on my own, warming down gradually and granting myself a long final resting. I know that these blockages won't dissolve by themselves; it will take many more years of effort and breathing and yoga to loosen their deathly grasp, to bring healing to the zones they but poorly hide. Sitting there on the mat frustrated with myself for ending class prematurely, I remembered that in my dream, just before waking up, I had run through a gap in traffic and successfully crossed the freeway, eschewing the beckoning footbridge and landing in an entirely new world, in a place with giant walking robots and mists shining in soothing neon light. Patience, I told myself, salvation lies in patience, in practice, and in persistence. What tomorrow holds is mystery, but today is drenched in hope. Aho.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

on morning dreamings

I awoke this morning in a panic, convinced I was being accused of larceny by a ticket collector on a train in Russia. In this dream I had gone to the restroom after plugging in my cellphone and was making my way back to my seat when the uniformed agent approached, whereupon I discovered that my passport was missing from my person and my luggage was missing from the rack. So vivid and lifelike was this dream that I woke up, had a look around, ascertained my whereabouts, went back to sleep, and dove right back into the tale, only to realize I was clawing my hands bloody looking for my stolen things in huge bins of jagged ice. (There were other people on the train with me who also had their things stolen; I have forgotten their faces but not their aura.) So great was the clarity of this dream, and so flawless were the details, that I am 50% convinced that I was looking through the eyes of a person who was actually enduring this trauma, a person on the other side of the world who had been robbed of his passport and cellphone and who was about to spend the weekend in a Russian jail. Let's hope the poor sop cleared his name. Aho.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥