haiku 6 Feb 2019

Choose a random path

And follow it to the end.

Fuck consequences.

[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

haiku 10 Aug 2018

Hearing of The Path,
How can one not follow it
To liberation?

[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

a dreaming carnivore

​To my rear was a broad and flat stretch of railway bordered by a low metal fence. To my left, parked upon a darkened cobblestone street, sat a police car. From within it I was being watched by something of infinite and massive proportions, That Which Cannot Be Named.

I had bought a piece of meat in a nearby store, which I cooked using a pocket-sized flamethrower. The thick steak bent in upon itself sharply as it reacted to the scorching heat. Every juicy tendon and sinewy muscle fiber, the milky envelope of fascia, was clear to me, as was the essence of the beast slaughtered to produce it. (Soon after awakening, I realized that eating animals raised in conditions of torture and neglect contributes to sad and aggressive thought patterns.)

Other dreams followed in the hours I spent sleeping rather than practicing my usual morning meditations. They have vanished, however, from memory.

americanifesto / JPR / whorphan / 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

on charging Pickett

Twice now we have made the Pickett's Charge, once both ways and at night, today in the original direction, once through some patches of poisoned weeds, today walking on a mowed path. We well-fed, well-shod, well-rested modern persons can hardly imagine having to make this walk into volleys of hostile fire, tired from days of marching, and weak from chronic starvation. Hats off to the brave and hardy persons who walked it under orders, through clouds of black and choking smoke, into the bared teeth of their brothers and cousins and friends, they who fought for a cause that was already on its knees, who brought the fight to the bosom of their northern aggressors. Huzzah.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

on shambles

Small were the stumbles that brought him to his knees, old the pitfalls that sent his card-house tumbling. Still chained he is to bells rung too soon, to sloppy routines that once helped but now harm. He won't explain his torment too openly, lest he appear pitiful and lacking in direction. Wise words and simple advice on deaf ears fall.

Caused less by the ever-present specter of failure, his torment is rooted instead in the potential for success, Happiness, and contentment. Part of his psyche is malicious and evil; as long as he is alive, it will never fully go away, nor will it ever stop being a part of him. (For him, this is a new and exciting revelation.) His hope for controlling and channeling the evil that lives inside him lies in showering it with love during yoga and remaining vigilant of its power for the rest of his life.

For some years now, he has scoffed at the saying, “fall down seven times, stand up eight.” He thought it a groovy way for people who had their shit together to gloat about being resilient, tough, and smart. Now, however, he realizes that this whole falling down and standing up business happens not at one particular fulcrum point but every day. By staying in the moment, taking nothing for granted, and learning to cherish those things he has for so long tried to destroy, he can find salvation as well as a way back to where he had strayed from the path. What good fortune that it always sits at at his feet, waiting.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥