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2022
Essays
SPRING

by Michael Erlewine

© Copyright Michael Erlewine 2022

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These are not all, but they are the most
useful essays from 2021, sorted by the
seasons.

I don’t have time to ‘fine edit’ them and still

get them out there, but these are certainly
in good-enough shape to be readable.

And I don’t expect many, but hopefully ‘any’

folks will find these useful.

They are eclectic, yet the overriding theme

is dharma and dharma practice. Those of
you who reach a certain point in your own
trajectory of dharma practice may find some
of these useful.

[email protected]

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Contents
THE JUPITER CHAKRA: GURU ....................................................... 7
THE MARS CHAKRA JOURNAL: I AM LED TO THE SEA OF LOVE . 36
JOURNAL: AWAKENING OF THE EARTH OR ‘HEART CENTER’ .... 59
ADDENDA TO “ASTROLOGY OF THE HEART” ............................. 82
THE LIGHTS: SUN AND MOON April 4, 2022 ............................. 87
ANN ARBOR’S FORGOTTEN JAZZ SCENE .................................... 97
THE FIXED STARS AND BEYOND THE FIXED STARS................... 105
THE TRAP OF TECHNIQUE ........................................................ 118
A TRIBUTE TO BARBARA LEWIS................................................ 122
THE ASTROLOGY OF SOLAR INFLUX ......................................... 126
TOUCH THE SKY, TOUCH THE EARTH ....................................... 132
INTERESTED? ............................................................................ 135
GETTING TO KNOW YOU .......................................................... 147
A DHARMA STORY -- THE DRAWING........................................ 157
MAKING BLUES TIME ............................................................... 192
ARE PLACES SACRED?............................................................... 207
THE ANN ARBOR BLUES FESTIVAL The First of Its Kind ........... 223
INTERVIEW WITH HOWLIN’ WOLF ........................................... 247
GROOVE AND BLUES IN JAZZ ................................................... 263
JUKE JOINTS AND SATURDAY NIGHTS...................................... 304
THE DARK OF THE MOON ........................................................ 316
ENJOYMENT BODIES ................................................................ 319
ONE TASTE ............................................................................... 325

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DHARMA: THE POLE STAR........................................................ 328
HELD TO OTHER’S EXPECTATIONS ........................................... 331
STAY IN YOUR OWN LANE? ...................................................... 336
USE IT OR LOSE IT ..................................................................... 341
I’LL TAKE MINE NEAT, PLEASE .................................................. 346
"I’M TIRED AS A RETIREE" ........................................................ 352
A SPIRITUAL GROUNDHOG’S DAY ............................................ 357
THE ZEN OF ZEN ....................................................................... 360
SOLAR OVERLOAD .................................................................... 363
HAIR-TRIGGER EMOTIONS ....................................................... 367
THE WELL-TEMPERED BLOG .................................................... 370
WHEN THE MND IS AT REST..................................................... 374
RELAX, AS IT IS.......................................................................... 376
‘FILLER UP PLEASE’ ................................................................... 379
SOMETIMES A FEELING ............................................................ 383
BEAUTY IS A WAY TO THE HEART ............................................ 386
THE GRAVITY OF DHARMA....................................................... 389
WELTSCHMERZ (WORLD SORROW) ......................................... 392
NOT FADE AWAY ...................................................................... 396
DHARMA SCAFFOLDING........................................................... 401
LET BEAUTY IN.......................................................................... 403
THE DARK OF THE NEW MOON ............................................... 406
BRIDGING A DREAM................................................................. 411
TRANSFORMING SAMSARA ..................................................... 416
TIMELESS .................................................................................. 422
GETTING THE POINT OUT OF LIFE ............................................ 425

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NOT FADE AWAY ...................................................................... 433
THE DEFECTS OF REIFICATION ................................................. 437
FIRE & BRIMSTONE .................................................................. 447
ME AGAINST THE WORLD ........................................................ 451
YOU DRANK THE KOOL-AID, WHAT NEXT? June 6, 2022 ........ 455
‘REGINA’ -- THE ORCHID QUEEN June 9, 2022 ........................ 463
DRIFTING TOO FAR FROM THE SHORE… .................................. 467
CAN YOU HEAR THE MUSIC?.................................................... 470
PULLING THE PLUG ON THE JUKEBOX OF LIFE......................... 474
ESCAPE VELOCITY AND SAMSARA............................................ 480
THE CHEESE STANDS ALONE .................................................... 486
DHARMA AS WIDE AS THE SKY ................................................ 490
THE TERRIBLE CRYSTAL ............................................................ 492
CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM ....................................................... 499
WE BECOME WHAT WE WANT ................................................ 502
FREEDOM FROM BEING ’SPECIAL’ ........................................... 511
A MANDALA OF WORDS .......................................................... 515
“TALK LOW, TALK SLOW, AND DON’T SAY TOO MUCH”.......... 518

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THE JUPITER CHAKRA: GURU

April 1, 2022

[This section represents the most nitty-gritty detailed

account of one of the main chakras, Jupiter, complete
with journal entries from my 1960 writing as examples,
although some entries are quite graphic. Again, we are
using the maxim that the key to each planetary chakra is
the next planet immediately within the orbit of the

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planet chakra being considered. For example, those who
are stuck in their Saturn Chakra, struggling to exist, the
key to the Saturn Chakra will be to explore and invoke
your Jupiter Chakra (career and life path), and so on. I
have used this method for doing client readings for
many decades with great success.]

The Key to Your Saturn is Your Natal Jupiter

Life, for one lost in the Saturn chakra, was briefly

described above in the previous blog. While most
astrological clients that will seek you out may not be so
completely lost in the Saturn realm, many will have had
or still have some problem traversing that realm,
perhaps the most common being difficulty jump-
starting their Jupiter function, establishing and
maintaining their career.

For these folks, an introduction to their natal Jupiter is

what is required, a reading from the Book of Jupiter, so
to speak. Using the concept of the inner being the key
to the outer, here is some Jupiter prose, which should
help you get the idea:

THE SANSKRIT WORD IS ‘GURU’

The Sanskrit word for Jupiter is "Guru," so that tells us a

lot already. Jupiter is the KEY which unseals and
overcomes our natal Saturn. Jupiter is in a very real
sense the heart of Saturn turned inside out. It is the

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guide and light (the guru) that sees each of us through
the darkness of time or Saturn — the straight and
narrow path by which we are able to pass through
Satan's test.

Jupiter is our particular way of going or our religion —

our dharma path. It is the way we go or continue, our
particular “luck” or solution to time’s (Saturn) test.

Jupiter is the only way or doorway open to us and

through which we may pass through time. Jupiter is
expansion, because life unfolds or continues at this
point. It is here that we find the extension of the present
situation: the way through or on. Jupiter is continuity,
how we may continue.

SUCCESS OR SUCCESSION

Jupiter is the endlessness of life regardless of the

particular form. Jupiter is how and where things
continue or happen. Jupiter is an endless round of
passage, the lamp or light that will see shadows fail.
Jupiter is above all the KEY or reverse of Saturn. It is the
recognition or realization and use of Saturn for:
Jupiter is the way we must go through life, our way to
go, the recognition that: that through which we have to
pass is the way we go through life. Jupiter is success or
succession through time.

THE VISION OF JUPITER – BAPTISM OR REBIRTH

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The invoking or awakening of Jupiter is somewhat of a
big deal for each of us. It is how we first awaken from
the 30-year sleep of Saturn, learn to take care of
ourselves, and begin to find our own way through life.

Many will have an active Jupiter long before the Saturn

return, for Jupiter takes about 12 years to make a return,
so by 24 years of age, each of us has been shown twice
how Jupiter can work for us, how we CAN make it
through the obstacles of Saturn. From those two
complete Jupiter cycles, we should have extracted or at
least be on the path to a vocation or career that will
work for us, one that will handle our particular Saturn.

Regardless of when that awakening experience is, the

opening of the Jupiter chakra, the finding of the life path
or career is a major initiation for each person, for at that
time we are, for the first time, born above or get beyond
Saturn’s rule. Here are some details:

Through the two-fold repetition of the Jupiter cycle (24

years), thus the invoking of Jupiter in the natal chart, we
first overcome Saturn and begin to awaken from within
the womb of time itself. Up to that point, we have been
wrapped in the sleep of time, Saturn’s womb, going
through what have been aptly called our "formative
years."

BORN AWAKE IN TIME

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When our Jupiter chakra opens (as we start to get the
idea), we are still within (or under) time, but we are
gradually being born awake, yet still within time, and
from that point onward we hold in our hands the key to
the unraveling of time. We have figured out how to
succeed in this world. This Jupiter awakening to faith is
like the crowning (in childbirth) and appearance of the
head of an infant, and that first breath of life.

In its own way, this is a baptism, but not an immersion,

but an emergence in the waters of Spirit for the very first
time, and with it, the resulting knowledge and ever-
growing faith that we can overcome time, it can be
done: this is the message or 'Word' we hold. In the
beginning was the Word, and all that.

What is faith? In this case faith means that once we have

seen the light beyond Saturn, that we can overcome
Saturn, we cannot (we will not) ever forget that
experience. We will never go back to that sleep, for
something within us has stirred. We will ever hold out
for more of what we have only now glimpsed.

FAITH AS A FORCE

Faith, no longer an endless waiting (or hope) for

something good to happen for us, but now a force itself
(this faith) more powerful than time: for through faith,
we end all time. Once in the Jupiter chakra, we begin for

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the first time in this current life to awaken to our eternal
life, call it awareness, our true self, what-have-you, and,
although still living partially embedded within the world
of time, we have now open eyes (awareness), and this
amounts to the proverbial word of God or Spirit that,
when it shall be made flesh, will set us free over time, for
all time. It is no wonder that the world's religions value
faith. Faith is fueled by insights, an awakening.

After our Jupiter chakra is activated, we shall never again

fall back to sleep in total ignorance, for our eternal
memory has revived, stirred, and WE CAN NEVER
FORGET. We have awakened in time, for all time. We
have time, and not vice versa!

THE SWORD OF FAITH

To use the Christian metaphor: with this first seal of the

seven seals laid open, we rise above Saturn (Satan) or
time as a warrior in the army of the Lord of Life, our
Spirit, and can now wield time mortal blows as long as
life lasts. We are now, as it is written in the Bible, one of
the warriors of God's Word, carrying forth his sword of
faith that cuts at time's heart, and always opens Saturn's
seal and, even now, today, is forging ahead into eternity.
The lightning quick sword of the awakened mind can
never rest, but rides from victory to victory over time's
rule. Jupiter is succession through all time. Jupiter is
succession, continuity — simple continuing, success.
Jupiter is the key to Saturn or time.

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POEM: THE FORCE OF FAITH

When we begin to awaken from under Saturn’s seal, our

mind stirs, and we glimpse life in a new way. This is what
all those that have born-again experiences are referring
to. Our eyes are now open, and we cannot close them in
ignorance again, but we are still a long way from
mastering the Saturn chakra. At this point in our journey,
faith becomes about the only way we can cope with our
experience, as this poem shows.

A poem by Michael Erlewine:

THE FORCE OF FAITH

The form of force enforcing form,

Finds freedom from that form in fact.
And in fact forced is freed,
A form of force with faith in form, that finds in fact:
Faith itself a force.

Thus, force finds itself in form on faith.

And force enforcing faith in form,
And form informing faith of force,
Faith is that force in form.
Faith is our form of force.

EXPERIENCE OF JUPITER: AWAKENING AND TRIAL

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The opening of the Jupiter chakra, being the first of the
chakras or seals to be opened within Saturn, can be a
major life experience and initiation. For one, it opens up,
perhaps for the first time, the whole world of spiritual
awakening. It is the first breath of life beyond Saturn,
and it can be somewhat of a big deal for each of us,
although, for reasons unclear to me, our society does
not openly celebrate this inner opening.

This whole idea of spiritually awakening in the middle of

life, of being, somehow, as the Christians say, "born
again," is not a just a passing phase, and it is not just for
Christians. It happens to each one of us and this
opening is more or less permanent, and although it may
take months or years to stabilize this insight, once the
awakening has occurred, many (if not most) are at first
very sensitive, and so vulnerable. It is like a baby's skin, a
skin that is very, very sensitive.

HANDLING SATURN

With the Jupiter awakening, each of us begins to get the

idea of how to handle our Saturn, how we might actually
be successful working in the world, and just what we can
do to be a success. We get it. For most, however, it is a
long way from the initial insight or awakening to
stabilizing that vision and becoming an experienced
person in this new-found world or chakra.

Those of us who are at this point in our lives older,

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encounter this every day in the young person who has
an intellectual understanding of life, the “idea,” but no
real-life experience. They have all the answers, right out
of the books, but they don't yet know what they are
talking so glibly about, and they don't know that they
don't know. They get the idea, and they think they now
know, and that is all there is to life! As we say: they still
have a lot to learn. They have the "word," but that word
has not been made flesh and yet lived. This is similar to
what happens in the Jupiter awakening.

JUPITER IS THE LAWYER

In fact, it is a very long journey indeed for most of us,

from having an intellectual grasp of what makes life tick,
an idea of how we might handle Saturn, to becoming a
grisly old veteran of life, with deep experience, and what
we might call: wisdom.

Perhaps this can be made even more clear by pointing

out why Jupiter belongs to the realm of lawyers and all
those who are quick with the mind, those who use the
mind to outwit the world, that is: to manipulate Saturn.
The Jupiter lawyer handles the law. It is like handling
poisonous snakes. This is not intended to knock lawyers,
who perform a real and necessary task in this world, but
to point out that often their sheer facileness and
slickness, while successful in getting around the law,
leaves something to be desired in the way of life
wisdom. Agreed? This is what I am pointing to. Of

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course, there are good lawyers.

The journey from the slickness and intellectual power of

the Jupiter chakra through the search for the meaning
and sense-of-it-all in the Mars chakra to the stability and
union of the Earth chakra is for most of us a long and
often difficult passage. It is the process of learning what
life is all about. What follows is just a brief sketch of
some of the possible phases that may occur in that
journey and includes quotes from my own journals from
experience in the Jupiter chakra, so if this kind of writing
is not your cup of tea, then skip on to the next sections.

JUPITER PHASES

After the initial Jupiter awakening, it seems that no step

of the way is easy, yet the hardest may to be the test
each soul goes through AFTER that first awakening has
taken its course, as we begin to get the idea of how we
might make life work for us (and not vice versa) and
begin to settle down to daily living. Once we awaken
and begin to discover or glimpse our inner self, our
awareness (whatever you want to call it), we are forever
changed in our approach to life, yet we find ourselves
still living in (within) the same lifetime and the same old
personal habits that we had before our discovery. This is
almost always somewhat of a problem.

Our old personality (by definition) is never strong

enough to hold the force and power of our new insights

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and approach to life. Our existing personality, with its
bad habits of old, too easily breaks under the strain and
demands of this newfound awareness, plunging us into
instability and all the possible hells or stages of
purgation and house-cleaning. We can see that all our
old habits have to be purged and cleaned up, that there
has to be some kind of reformation, where we reform
our personality. This holds true, until we build a new
body-of-personality or life to hold and reflect our new-
found enlightenment, our awareness. Our habits cannot
contain our new awareness.

THE ASTEROID BELT

It is astrologically significant that relatively the longest

stretch of space exists between Jupiter and on inward to
the planet Mars, passing through the wide asteroid belt
filled with broken dreams. There are many who awaken
to this new faith in life (Jupiter), and of that awakening
much has been written. Stories of being “born again” are
common. Less writing is available concerning the
journey of the soul who has been awakened (has
somehow heard the word, gotten the idea, been born
again) through to the realization of the word, the idea
made into reality, locked into real flesh and solid re-
formed habits.

This is the great desert, the guardian at the threshold (of

the beast itself) that must be slain and overcome as we
each cross this seeming endless stretch of life in

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accordance with our own personal mistakes or errors.

Catholics call it purgatory, and it is good concept. I can

only present to you my own experience to give you
some general idea and feeling of this journey. Your story
will, of course, be different, but the end or goal for each
of us remains the same, regardless of the path followed.
Here is one story of that rite-of-passage:

JOURNAL: FIRST MOMENTS OF JUPITER AWAKENING

Context: Like the lives of the stars in the heavens above,

some burn slowly, some flare outward, and some
supernova. They are ways to live and die. I have done
many hundreds of one-to-one readings over the years
and can testify that there indeed are many ways to wake
up.

For me, there was almost total darkness for most of my

young life, and then, one night, in the middle of a bar
scene, standing on stage, playing music, it came all at
once. This is a rather vivid and poetic account of the
Jupiter chakra awakening, in this case a sudden
awakening, rather than a gradual one.

"All I remember is haze — red shifting to orange — as I

strained under the infinite pressure of my past, like a
baby being born, and then, through the strain of this
labor (so intense that time slowed) in which somehow I
was involved, through that slowness like the head of a

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child in birth, I crowned, and for the first time came I,
me, a glimpse of my eternal self — real awareness. I saw
myself. I found myself.

“Emerging right up through the top of my head, I was

born as through a veil and vale of tears, surrounded on
all sides by people living in eternal slowness. Tears stood
in all our eyes, for I was them — huge catlike creatures,
winking and blinking in the slowness of expanded time.
We moved together in this, the rhythm of our birth,
rising and falling like the cry of some great beast. Living
was so slow that it took forever. We were all, together,
one, born out of suffering, born out of and beyond time
itself, born through a veil of tears, itself an endless rain."

JOURNAL: IT COULD NEVER HAPPEN TWICE

Context: Here is more journal of my own Jupiter

awakening from within the Saturn chakra.

“And I remember one white-hot-flash-like-electric blast

that went dead in my mind. I could never have it happen
twice. I was absolutely not (as if all stopped) and then it
started again. And after, I wavered, awash like a flower
on the sea — a lotus. And as I found faith in my new
awareness, I rose above time in knowledge of myself, in
this new awareness. And as I lost that faith, accidents of
a deathly kind became very possible. It was not subtle.”

“There was I, born again and living, alive in a world that I

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never really knew and that knew me not at all. I was still
in the world, but I was no longer of that world. Like a
newborn child, I searched everywhere for those who
would recognize me and welcome me alive. Mine was a
back-room birth, enacted in a century that could no
longer afford to act out a drama as old as time itself."

JOURNAL: THE WORLD KNEW ME NOT

Context: Awareness, awakening, insight, these

experiences are very addicting, as in: we want more of it.
We don’t want to slip back into the endless sleep out of
which we just emerged, and we search through our
world for any signs of recognition, to see if any others
can verify what we are experiencing. Can I find a
witness?

Getting a witness is very difficult to do, and this lack of

acknowledgement, lack of recognition, can make life and
confidence very difficult. It is very easy to go overboard,
trying to verify if we are just dreaming or really awake in
our new vision. Here is a journal entry from that time:

“The fulfillment of this ancient ritual of awakening and

the celebration of it was a bother in this time. The world
knew me not, and everywhere all I got were short
services, the barest sign of recognition, and then:
ignorance. I became my own welcoming committee,
born alone above a sea of persons. I wrote:

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“Ah! Who could let such a bargain pass,
As this poor century will allow,
On coming in, I'm asked to leave,
And when asked to leave, I bow.”

“I never thought to wonder what others might feel or

think. I shared my newfound openness with all I
contacted, never doubting that they experienced what I
was experiencing, and that I was the only Johnny-come-
lately. At best, we laughed and cried together, and
paused in our lives of time to celebrate some moments
of eternity. I wandered where I would and went
searching through the towns and universities for men
who shared my realization. I just walked into their offices
and caught them in their lives, some too stiff to share,
but others wept with joy, and held my hand in
encouragement and thankfulness for the grace of life.
They had been there too!"

JOURNAL: ETERNITY’S DOOR

Context: Once the Jupiter awakening occurs, we could

not go back to sleep, even if we wanted to, and become
prone to all kinds of highs and lows, in particular:
dualisms. And dualism kind of creeps into the picture, as
we cannot keep our new eyes open, but, against our will,
slip back to sleep, time and again, only to reawaken,
terrified that we have somehow agreed to forget what
we found so hard to remember. Here is an entry:

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“Eternity's door lay open before me, and, for weeks I
went all through the nights in a celebration of the end of
my personal darkness and the return of the prodigal son
- awareness itself.

“I cannot remember exactly where the first doubt crept

in as regards other people — dualisms. I guess it came
with the realization that the rift of time (this openness)
remained open only as long as I endured in a
conversation and that, if I let it go, it just closed, and
there was no curiosity forthcoming from those around
me. I was subtly told that most persons would just as
soon I left them alone, that my vision was my own, and
was too them painful to behold. Gradually I was
ignored."

JOURNAL: READING FROM THE OUTSIDE.

Context: Falling backward or wandering into zones of

fear and terror can be very much a part of any
shamanistic-like experience, where we have entered a
new state of mind, but are unprepared to hold it, unable
to stabilize ourselves. Stabilization, depending on the
degree of awakening, can take many months and years,
and is often accompanied by much fear and trembling
that we will forget again. Here is an entry:

“Somewhere along here I tripped, stumbled, and I know

now why I have such an intense fear of high places, for I
plunged from eternity back into time's hell like a

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lightning. I doubted.”

"Up to that point, I had been taking from within myself,

bearing out the new-found truth, and surrounding
myself in an atmosphere or aura, itself protective. But
from some point, I began the fatal error of reading from
the external — taking the outer as a sign to follow. I
began to follow the external, and, without realizing it, I
ceased to draw from within myself. I was suddenly cut
off, separated from my own well of awareness and self,
veiled from grace once again by time, yet unlike before, I
had now known what is called by believers the 'Grace of
God,' known something of my true self, and I seemed
like a fallen angel separated from all I loved, yet not
understanding why. What had I done to deserve my fall
from grace?"

JOURNAL: MY TRIAL OF FAITH

Context: A very common experience in the Jupiter

awakening is the sense of having tasted real awareness,
only to fall back into where we came out of, but not
quite back to ignorance. We are only one mind shift
away from grace but trapped in the past. I call this: to
fail ignorance, by a meter or a foot. I could no longer be
blissfully (or painfully) ignorant. I wrote:

"We slide through it all, the state of grace I sought to

regain appearing and moving in unison beside me, yet
now not within my reach. At my strongest moments, I

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can offer a vessel, hope for more, and yet gnash at what
I have. The blood is in us all. And I taste blood when
time quickens, and I am born again. I smack it inside me
and laugh the laugh, insane as it is, that announces my
arrival, and my remembering that I have been here
before. I am back. I have found myself again. Then I am
happy.”

“Try me. Take more of me. Give me again a show of

strength and let me learn endurance in your favor, so
that I may taste again of my only hope and life."

JOURNAL: THE BEAST CLAIMS THE WHOLE

Context: Here is more on being locked out of our new

state, held to the past by our own bad habits. Spiritual
awakening, like a swan looking for a lake, can only rest
in a personality that is somehow purified and stable. I
am not speaking here of “holier than thou,” but the
simple fact that a lifelong set of inefficient or “bad”
habits cannot be changed by one glimpse of freedom. In
that glimpse of awakening, I could clearly see what I had
been doing wrong (where I wasted time), but the
changes required were vast, nothing short of a great
change in attitude, and this kind of change cannot be
perfected in a day, a week, month, or even a year. And
given that about half the time I ended up off course and
causing as many problems as I was solving, it is no
wonder that I did better than one step forward, and two
steps back.

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I understand that to many of you this will not make a
whole lot of sense. Yet, a few of you will have had or be
having similar or related experiences. This is the primary
work of shamanism, to catch the stragglers who fall
through the cracks of society, let them know they are
not alone, and help them to stabilize and rejoin that
society. This is why this story is shared. An entry:

"Without this pure awareness, I am lost, alone, and wait

on its coming as on the break of day. I hear it breathing,
and know I am often only steps away from the health of
the spirit, yet I am bound in my pattern, unable to move
the least inch to it home.

“It knows this. I am trapped in this form, and yet the

form holds all my bid for its favor, trapped so close to
the Lord of Life. Yet, it is everywhere perpendicular to
myself. If I were stronger, I would come at it, and be
forever in its hands. More of it, I cannot but cry for more
of it. It breathes and moves under, around, and over all
of me, yet I cannot grasp it. It is behind me, then in
front, yet I cannot hear it direct. It moves in the corners
of my eyes yet defies my pursuit. I must get back to a
clear state.”

“The wolves of the flesh howl for my soul, for the beast
in us stands forth at every handout and claims the
whole. Way be clear to my heart. Open. Open up."

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JOURNAL: TEST OF FAITH

Context: And, in the beginning, our faith, no matter how

strong that faith may be, is tested, because our personal
vehicle cannot yet reflect or sustain our new vision. The
ensuing instability sends us careening off path, only to
wake up days or weeks later, remembering that we
forgot to remember. And worse, we can end up in very
real and dangerous life situations. Here is another
experience, one that came waist deep in the middle of
an icy rushing trout stream.

"Surrounded on both banks with overhanging trees, I

rose and fell, step by step along that stream, as my faith
was or was not, as I kept faith or lost it. It all came at
once. Again and again I snagged (and hopelessly) my
fishing line in the overhanging branches. And, as I found
my faith, that line would melt like cobwebs, falling back
into the water. And, as the experience peaked (and this
is no drug experience), I began to lose my footing, and
be pulled away into the rushing waters.

"And as, in my fear, I would open my mind, humble

myself, and trust myself, that ground would catch on,
hold, and raise me up. You would think perhaps to read
this that there was no danger. But the thread of my
lifeline was so tenuous during this whole period of
conversion, that this entire adventure was lived in like a
dream state. I was awake and living in my own dream,
and I would fade in and out of the possibility of

26
existence, as I believed or did not believe in myself, as I
opened myself to trust, as I had faith. And I did! And
after, I took off all my clothes, and dove again and again
in those ice-cold waters in celebration of my decided life
of faith."

JOURNAL: A WORLD THAT KNEW ME NOT

Context: Spiritual progress, once an initial opening or

realization takes place, is most often very slow, as we
struggle to escape our own past. And that we cannot
escape. Problems of self-reference, dualisms between
our self and others are unavoidable and very painful.
Here is a journal excerpt:

"Like an animal trapped in a net struggles in vain until

exhaustion, so I struggled against all restriction. The
harder my struggle, the more polarized my hell became
— the 'other,' the 'they' and the 'them' quality. I was
born into a world that knew me not, a world that shut
me up, that turned me away, ignored me, and it rapidly
became for me a world of the devil. And I was to fight
for my life in a world hard-edged to cut me off from
myself. The joy of my birth was turned to bitterness, as I
realized there was no place for me, no room in the 'in.'

“I just had to get free from the world in which I seemed

to be trapped. I wanted desperately to somehow
confirm my spiritual insight. The more I tried, the more
my world became a living hell."

27
JOURNAL: DO NOT DO A THING

Context: In the mind's map, one of the most painful

places to be is where our own reaction or suffering
becomes how we know or recognize that we live, our
reaction to others. For instance, I then wrote:

"They were all around me now, waiting on me, easing

my pain. But my pain and suffering were all I had left of
my awakening experience, were the only ways I knew I
still lived — that I could still feel, when I could
remember. To lose my sense of aloneness or uniqueness
might mean never waking up again, becoming average,
lost in vanilla.

"And they asked me in every subconscious under-the-

counter way to: DO NOT DO A THING. Relax, be still. Do
not struggle so. Yet, at this time, it was only in the
struggle that I knew myself (great stallion that I was),
when there was a 'them' and a 'me,' I against them, me,
and the devil. And now they wanted me to let go and
even cease from that struggle. Not gonna happen.”

"I was overflowing energy, and they came in endless

lines like ants to each take a part of my nervousness, my
energy. They consumed me, willing it seemed to suffer
any abuse from my person, but they kept on eating me,
taking my pain away."

28
JOURNAL: I WAS MY PAIN

Context: When we become (identify with) our pain, and

if pain is how we know ourselves or remember, then to
lose that pain or to let it go is synonymous with dying or
falling back unconscious — a terrifying thought and
state of mind. Entry:

"And at this point, I WAS my pain. My pain was all I had,

all I had ever known up to that point. Pain stood
between me and that melting sea of mediocrity, where
no difference remained. I did not have the faith that I
could let go and still be distinct, still be me if I let go and
fell into that sea of silence. I fought all attempts, signals,
and messengers of peace.

"After a life of nothing, of being no one, at last I had

tasted real life and was 'someone.' I had known myself
and the joy of overcoming time or Saturn. It was as if I
had taken my first breath and was afraid to let it go out,
so much did I value it. I did not have the faith that
another breath would ever come. This is why they used
to spank newborn infants, to get them breathing. Life
was kind enough to knock my breath out for me."

JOURNAL: REFUSING TO BREATHE

Context: Becoming attached to our spiritual experiences

and clinging to them is another common way to suffer
in the Jupiter chakra. We all do it to some degree:

29
"Not ever having known the experience of breathing, I
was indeed being born, but this infant refused to
breathe, refused to accept breath or change — the rising
and falling cycles of our lives. Life had to knock the
breath out of me to start me breathing. And so, it did,
and gradually I could breathe.”

"I wanted so badly spiritual knowledge and

enlightenment that I clung to the high side of each life
experience, clawing to get away from the heavier
material side of this world until, exhausted, I would fall
senseless back into time's arms, only to awake later,
terrified, and struggle all over again. It was like trying to
climb up out of the center of a deep lake. I wanted out
of the body forever. I did not know that all out ends
turning in, or returning. I knew nothing yet of the returns
of life."

JOURNAL: ROAMING PURGATORY

Context: Something we all are intimately familiar with,

but seldom discuss, are questions of personal power or
the lack thereof. Not being able to let go of people and
experiences that strike us, and struggles with personal
power, the power of the personality are pretty much
standard fare, and have to be negotiated on a daily
basis. Spiritual experiences and insight, before these
experience have settled into some kind of stable
realization, are fraught with all manner of very real

30
problems. For example:

"And so, I roamed the purgatories of my existence, just

burning and burning. And rising through this waking
dream came the great spinning wheels of Pride, as I
attempted, again and again, to lay personal claim to the
power of the spirit, to make it 'mine.' Again and again, I
would know awareness for seconds or days and yet,
sooner or later, I would make the fatal attempt to
associate that power as somehow my 'personal' power,
only to plunge into yet some new kind of hell.”

"And there I remained, in that torment, until I could find

some way to surrender, let go again, and to open
myself. This was never more obvious than when I was
with others. I was, during that time, in total confusion as
to who I was. And, if I was who I, in moments, knew
myself to be (having had some realization), what did this
mean in my personal life? Was everyone like me? Was I
the only one? The answers to these questions found me
struggling through other persons with my self and my
'God’.”

JOURNAL: PRIDE’S EXAMPLES.

Context: Pride and feeling superior to others is another

very painful state of mind, filled with intense suffering,
and one that can take years to work through:

"... As he rises above them, they raise their weapons. As

31
he sinks back, they relax. As he becomes in all his
strength, they unite to hold him back. As he gives away
his strength, they once again support him. He controls
himself = self control. His struggles attract their
attention, and they seek to ease his pain, to assist him to
relax.”

“They guide and direct his energies. They give all they
can to him. They take away his pain, his nervousness,
and share it with him. They take his pain on themselves.
The light of spirit does not penetrate the flesh. They
flock to him, because he is dead to this world and
cannot hurt them, yet he does not know this yet …"

JOURNAL: SELF-RELIANCE

Context: At this point in the Jupiter chakra, we can't yet

live with our new realization and we sure can't live
without it, so we are torn between two seemingly
opposing worlds, the world of God and the world of the
devil, push me, pull you. Matters of self-reference are
thorny, even to philosophers and psychologists. Imagine
what they are like to a young person, trying to figure out
which piece of the pie might be his or hers. This is when
shamanic counseling can be a real help. Journal entry:

"I left off at listening to my inner dictation and became

fascinated and terrified at what I saw reflected in the
mirror of my exterior world, especially through
interpersonal relationships. I sweated through moments

32
in total fear for my life, in fear that all would pounce on
me, and tear me apart for what I was thinking about
them. I knew that all thoughts were a common
experience, and that there was no such thing as privacy,
but had not yet been able to accept others as I accepted
myself, as a reflection of me. I was dualistic, and it hurt:”

"I was lost in thoughts about personal power and self-

reference, in checking the IDs of every person I met to
see if they 'knew' what I now knew, when I could
remember to know it."

“I became the censor of all persons. I tested them to the

quick. I fought to keep possession of my powers, and
never even thought that this might be what is called
"personal power" — the power of the personality. I
became enamored with being a "great" person or genius
in my own time:

"You are too much for this century, little man. You
bloom embarrassingly along Main Street. You delight to
pain and terror the businessmen. You ARE too much.”

“How could they bear you at once? But a pinch is all

they will ever know. You have seized the time, and your
grasp froze to life itself. Your happiness, time and again,
emerges behind them, yet first. You hold them in a
cloud and waft them on to nowhere, hold them back
from their future, their fate, and their destiny. You kiss
them on the fly, and they are so shocked that they

33
emerge in that moment. A conversation and meeting,
and then they fly on over life in their coffins. What
woman waits senseless fated for your love? "

And now, we are going to transition to the Mars chakra.

Or, here is the whole course: “Astrology of the Heart”

(2022)

http://spiritgrooves.net/pdf/e-books/Astrology-of-the-
Heart%202022%20V4.pdf

34
35
THE MARS CHAKRA
JOURNAL: I AM LED TO THE SEA OF LOVE

April 1, 2022
[This is the next-to-the-last article in this series on
esoteric astrology, the Mars Chakra, which is concerned
with the activity that generates space, and this includes
activity and reaction, as well as emotions , meaning, and
marriage. Mars (emotion) is the key to Jupiter (Intellect
and direction), and Earth (non-dualism) is the key to
Mars, which will be the final article.]

Context: Trial and error, trial and error, that is how we

learn. In time, very slowly, and usually through a lot of
personal anguish, we gradually stabilize and do move
forward. Our stability is commensurate with our
unbalance, with our "sins." I wrote:

"Gradually, I righted myself and slowly built a vehicle in

which some kind of normal life was possible. I gathered
around me the whole body of occult literature and
searched through endless thousands of pages for the
meaning in it all. I was certain that, given time, I could
figure it out. The new god which, I came to worship was
the god of 'Meaning' — deeper, deeper meaning,
deepest, heavy, grave. Through all of my search, I
thought to find the very bottom of, the grave of, truth —
gravity. Across this vast intellectual framework crawled I,
and became an expert on verbal gravity, the specific

36
density of words and phrases. Gradually I came to this
(for me) most shocking realization: All thought depends
on its meaning."

JOURNAL: THE SENSE OF LIFE

Context: Jupiter maps the vast extent of the mind, of

thinking, and complicated intellectual frameworks. It is
no accident that the most terrible lightning storms in the
solar system occur on the planet Jupiter. The lightning of
the mind strikes again and again, but the life of the mind
gradually dries up, ceases to satisfy, and, in time, is
gladly traded for actual real-life experience. I was finally
getting stabilized:

"The essence of thought was what it means or conveys

— the sense of it. The world of thought stretching
around eternity all finds its end or meaning in the sense
it makes, the sense world — the senses. All thought and
thinking only ends in action or simple existence —
experience. This was, for me, a profound realization. I
would never have guessed it.”

"My joy in the life of the mind slowly had dried up, for
all my intellectual studies, however refined, depended
on what it all meant. Meaning is not intellectual, but
sensual. I could intellectually talk about what it meant,
but unless I had experienced myself what it meant, I
didn't 'know' what I was talking about. In other words,
MEANING is a simple act of referral, nothing more than

37
a pointer that says: over there is the sense of it.
Experience it for yourself. Go and see for yourself. Feel of
it. Know it."

JOURNAL: BALBOA AND THE SEA OF SENSE.

Context: Reaching the brink of the Mars chakra is a

major initiation, which amounts to getting engaged and
beginning, perhaps for the first time, to understand what
the term marriage might actually be all about. It is
humbling for the intellectual to discover that all thought,
all words of philosophy or what-have-you, are
dependent on what they mean, and meaning is a simple
act of referral, a pointer that points out where this can
be experienced and known. Amazed:”

"Suddenly the world of the senses stretched before me,

an almost unknown and discarded item in the diet of my
life. I had done all I could to avoid physical contact and
had driven myself high into my head to keep from
feeling anything 'wrong.' And now, in all justice, my
thoughts (and esoteric studies) had led me (their every
conclusion the same) to that ocean of feelings, the
senses — the sea of love. I had no idea!

"I stood like Balboa before an endless sea of sense, all

the sense in the world. All I had to do was to jump in. It
was the end of the intellect, for I was about to lose my
mind forever, and no longer to mind every last thing
that came to pass, whistling through my world, into

38
eternity. I entered this sea of sense like a middle-aged
old maid enters a very cold swimming pool, by inches
and degrees, and shivering all the time. In my own way, I
TOOK THE PLUNGE."

MARS IS THE ACTIVITY THAT GENERATE SPACE

Mars is the energy that moves us. The kind of energy or

activity that we have determines our personal
atmosphere or aura: the kind of room or space in which
we have to live, our living room. The kind of our living
room determines how we feel about our life —
comfortable or cramped.

Mars is the bringing across of spirit or room into matter,

the injection of space into time, of anti-matter into
matter. An injection of Mars energy frees things up and
creates an atmosphere for things to move and re-form.
Mars expands time with space or room. The kind of
room or atmosphere in which we have to work
determines the way we work — the kind of our action.
Mars has come to represent the sphere of action, the
kind of way we do things. Mars is our way of working,
the possibility of work. Mars is the energy or room that
makes work possible.

MARS IS MEANING

Adrenaline, activity (Mars) creates space and space

orders (Jupiter) time (Saturn). The room or space we

39
each have to live in - call it our aura -"effects" how we
experience life, how life feels to us. Mars is how we feel
about life, the kind of "living" room we personally have.

Mars is meaning, or the direct road to meaning. The

meaning of something is how we feel about or toward it,
like a blind man feels about a corridor. It is an active
feeling of a thing on our part, an action or movement.

The Martian world is the world of sense and feeling or

pushing our way along. How we feel about life is the key
to success. Mars is the Key to Jupiter.

JOURNAL: THE VISION OF MARS IS OUR MARRIAGE

Context: The following is pretty much self-explanatory

and self-documenting, as marriage is something our
society does celebrate, but not much is spoken of about
the process of engagement, the road that leads to
marriage.

When the Mars chakra is awakened, one begins to feel

and not think so much. Jupiter is about thinking and
calculating, without feeling — handling the law. With
Mars, one learns to feel and not always think. The world
of feelings and the senses is the path to actual
experience, and experience leads to knowing.

Marriage is a change of life or perspective as natural as

the physical change at puberty. The vision that leads to

40
engagement and marriage, union, and yoga is a major
initiation in any lifetime. Some take another person as a
sign of their marriage, and others are married to their
work in this world. Any way you spell it, marriage is the
end of personal affairs. Mine was like this:

"It was that fast! One minute I was talking to another

person that I had just met, and the next saw me through
her person standing in eternity. Bells rang and lights
went on, just like I was always told. I finally got the point.
After having spent years at constant attention and worry
that I might miss my wife in the shuffle of life (pass her
by in an awkward moment of non-recognition or
inattention), the reality was ironic to say the least. How
could I have ever missed her, for she was to be my very
wife. In fact, there was no way in the world that I could
have avoided HER."

JOURNAL: MARRIAGE IS QUITE AN AFFAIR.

Context: The discovery of the unity in all dualisms marks

the point of engagement with the actual physical body
of life itself. It is the end of living only in the mind. By
"unity in all dualisms," I simply mean that after a lifetime
of dualistic thinking (you versus another), you realize
that in fact that the two are already (and have always
been) one. Here is an example of how that might come
about:

"The actuality of the moment of marriage was nothing

41
like I had anticipated. For years I had sponsored an
impression that marriage was like the joining or fusion
of two spirits into a union or 'One'. The great spirit that I
had come to recognize as my real self was looking for
another 'great one,' with whom to join together in a
marriage of the two. But that was not it!

"What WAS totally clear when I met my wife, for the first
time in my life, was that there were no two spirits to be
found. We were already, everlastingly ONE. There is one
and only one Spirit. Not some spirit over there in her
body tying up with my spirit here, but one Spirit and two
bodies. My 'alone' had become 'all-one.' I was 'one' with
my wife. We were already one and not two. Or as the
great Les McCann jazz tune puts it: 'Compared to
What?'"

JOURNAL: THE DEWROP SLIPS INTO THE SHINING SEA

Context: The bigger the front, the bigger the back is an

old Macrobiotic axiom. I suppose that "the bigger they
come, the harder they fall" says the same thing. That's
what falling in love is all about, once you tip over the
top and start to fall, it is one heck of a ride. There is no
going back! Responding to another person is the key to
the Mars chakra. Journal:

"My overriding experience was one of response,

response to her person, and not to her spirit. Not
another spirit. For the first time in my life, I responded

42
and cared for another person as much as I did for
myself. I responded to, rather than resisted, her
personality, and in the opening of that second was
swept away a lifetime of fear of OTHER persons.

"The dewdrop slips into the shining sea."

“So, this is what that dreaded word "responsibility" really

meant -my ability to respond or love. After a lifetime of
pushing forward, I was at last responding, and all I
wanted to do was to endlessly care and provide for the
unfolding of this person before me. I felt protective for
the first time and wanted to forever serve and assist in
the care and the fulfillment of the one spirit. And this
particular person just happened to be the one through
which I first realized this experience. I took it as a good
sign, and she became my wife. I was never to fear
persons and the power of persons again, although the
purification process was to go on.

And so far, so good. As of 2022, we are looking at our

51st wedding anniversary.

JOURNAL: WHY MARRIAGE IS LIKE A FUNERAL

Context: As we move out of the intellectual sphere of

Jupiter, where handling a problem was more a matter of
manipulation (how to handle it) than understanding, we
increasingly engage the experience of life itself. Where
before it was "us or them," now we are beginning to see,

43
in reality, it is "us and them," and search for a unified
solution. Once the dualistic concept of two becomes one
in our experience (when we are engaged), we have no
more enemy "out there," and have to change our
behavior. Entry:

"Marriage is the end of our personal existence. I had

been a warrior of truth, wielding the sword of the mind
(Jupiter) and cutting any excess to the heart. I spared
neither persons nor institutions but went from victory to
victory over time in my mind.

"Marriage is the union between subject and object. The

two are seen to be, in fact, one. No more 'enemy.' I was
out of a job, so to speak, in that, by the fact of marriage,
I chose to 'lay down my sword and shield... down by the
river...' of life and to study war (Mars) no more."

For I had become one with the Martian sphere. It was

the end of life as I had known it. It was like being at my
own funeral.

JOURNAL: RELIEVED OF DUTY

Context: When we begin to get beyond the reach of

time or Saturn, that is, after we are about thirty years of
age, we gradually lose the push and rush of time that
drove us all these years. If we do not know to look for it,
to expect it, this experience of peace can be frightening,
as this entry shows:

44
"To be relieved, finished, the one thing I had never
expected. Maybe at life's long end of eighty or ninety
years, sure; it might make sense. But now, in the prime
of my powers, in the middle of my life? To be relieved of
duty? Are you kidding me?

"No one ever told me about it. I heard no talk of it. I

didn't read about it anywhere. Am I the only one? Am I
to remain silent? Who is even interested? No one seems
to notice.

"Relieved of duty in the middle of the war, I must be a

traitor. I must have made some terrible mistake, to be
relieved. I mean, I looked forward to a life long-filled
with searching and suffering. And now this, this terrible
guilt of non-involvement, of really not caring like I used
to care, and I would rather die than not care. Caring did
not mean love to me; it meant worry and suffering
continued. To be carefree, this I never thought to ask for.
I had lost my edge, my suffering."

PEACE TERRIFIES

Context: When time stops at thirty years of age, we

begin to enter the "silence," as it has been called. It is
easy to fall into the view that we have lost something,
and that we are of no use, when in reality we are just
beginning our voyage of spiritual discovery. Here:

45
"It is like someone turned off the engine, as far as we
personally are concerned. All at once, this great silence
and sense of peace, and when you first begin to hear the
silence, it terrifies. We can now see younger persons still
driving and pushing their birth, yet we don't feel that old
drive like we once did.

"There is the feeling that we are somehow washed up,

finished. We have lost that old drive or 'thing' which
made us, ourselves. And all of this unspoken or,
unmentioned in public conversation, simply ignored. As I
can see, many just cannot accept this change, and
wander stunned in a stupor and state of shock for years,
or fill their lives with noise and activity — anything to
drown the sense of silence and rest that they feel.

"Lifted out of our life's sorrow, we refuse to

acknowledge the incredible and obvious lightness of
being we now feel. Unburdened, enlightened, we feel no
gravity or weight. Up until now, life beckoned and lured
me running fast through time's meanings. What does it
mean? What does it all mean? Where is it all leading to?
What exactly is the point? And then, this: Silence."

JOURNAL: THE SHELL OF THE SELF.

Context: What is called the middle-age crisis can come

much earlier than that, and many who experience this
make all the noise and busyness they can, in an attempt
to cover up the sense of inner peace and silence they

46
now feel coming over them. For myself, I struggled hard
against it, with all my might:

"I tried desperately to get back into my old self, to get

into other people, into my work, anything but face what
was actually happening. I was forced to continue living
in the shell of a body, the life of which had now passed
on into the hands of younger persons who cared for life
now like I used to. I simply wanted to be alone, and to
not be disturbed in this, my terrible loss. It was like a
funeral, and I was in mourning.

"Perhaps more than anything else, I was mortally

embarrassed that, after all my years of fierce aggressive
intent, of meaning well, better than average, 'BEST!', to
be now caught short, found empty. Me, who had always
been so full, now empty. I did not have the heart to
continue on in my life's direction, which had suddenly
just evaporated.

"There was no 'more' out there. I turned aside, hoping to

lose myself in hard work. I had no plans, no future, no
'more.' But I was to discover that I could not even rest in
peace in the grave I had made for myself. After some
extended period of time, disturbed by every passing
thing, I at last gave up 'giving up,' and resigned myself
to return to the world to do what I could."

AWAKE IN MY OWN DREAM

47
Awakening to the Martian or emotional sphere is the
end of ignorance. It is like rising from some torpid
dream, rubbed awake by our attention's endless
demands. We wake from our dream of ignorance, much
like when, in our daily sleep, we dream of getting up and
getting ourselves a drink of water. Again and again we
get up and drink that water, yet we are thirsty, for we are
still asleep and cannot raise ourselves to the physical act.

Spiritual awakening, at least after that first flash, is like

that. We try to shake off the irritating demands on our
attention, so that we might dream on undisturbed, but
these demands become increasingly sharp, until we are
literally rubbed awake in response.
This constant nagging at us is just plain annoying, and at
first we attempt to get rid of it, to quickly attend to
these irritating demands on our attention, so that we
can return to our sleep. Yet, they only increase in
strength, and in the end, their persistence is stronger
than our ability to sleep. We find ourselves forced to
wake, and reluctantly responding more and more of the
time, until our entire life seems to be one of complete
response to the demands and questions of our person
or of other persons. Our action has become passive.

A LIFE OF RESPONSE

And many come to this, the ability to respond, very

slowly. For most young people, "responsibility" has long
been something to be avoided and put off. Yet we soon

48
find ourselves identifying more strongly with our waking
state of perpetual care and attention to life's demands,
than for our once-longed-for dream of more sleep. One
day it strikes us that we are now living what we had only
dreamed about before. We have made our dreams real
or have somehow awakened in our own dream. We are
now taking care of ourselves, like we would take care of
a garden of flowers, giving constant care and attention
to whatever needs and demands present themselves for
our attention. In this state of constant attention, we
discover the heart of all meaning to be: simple existence
itself. We are waking to the Earth sphere and the Heart
Center chakra.

JOURNAL: AWAKENING IN RESPONSE

Context: When we cease to struggle with our new-found

peace, and allow ourselves to fall to rest, to accept, all
the remains of our previous life, what has been held
down, what we could call our subconscious (or placenta)
begin to rise to the surface and has to be looked at and
dealt with:

"Bobbing at the surface to bloom. Opening now. Letting

go. Letting it go. Letting it go on. Allowing it to go on.
As if I could stop it anyway."

“My acceptance and cessation of struggle against the

world released all of the material that I had repressed or
ignored through all of the years of my intellect's

49
domination. All of the unrealized desires began to
present themselves in an endless procession before me,
each with its very plain demand. The world of sense, of
the flesh and body that I had ignored for so many years,
came to mind. A phrase that my teacher had told me
over and over now began to make sense. He said,
"Michael, the student closes the door. The teacher never
closes the door, and the day will come when the winds
of change will blow that door wide open, and there will
be nothing we can do to stop it."

“I had no alternative but to look. I feared that, as I

started to look, I would be swept into that sea of sense,
never to be heard from again —-tormented by lust and
unfulfilled desires, a pornographic idiot staring till
doomsday at all the bodies that he wouldn't let himself
see enough of before.

JOURNAL: TAKE A GOOD LOOK

Context: Whatever we have pushed back or under in our

past, that which has been subconscious until now, is free
to rise to our attention, and cries out to be taken care of,
once and for all. As we take an ever-increasing embrace
of life, we are no longer clinging to the top of the
pyramid, but begin to accept more and more of the raw
stuff of life that we have put out of our mind (and
experience) previously:

"The corner of the eye glance became the: 'TAKE A

50
GOOD LOOK FELLA.' All of this came to a head as I was
led into the sea of senses, or should I say: at this point I
lost my head for good. I was at last losing my minding
of every last thing. My head had roamed far in front of
my heart for many years, and my heart found it very
hard to carry out all of the dictates or orders of my head.
It became clear to me that just because I was ahead (a
head) of my times did not mean that I personally felt like
carrying all these ideas into effect. It became a choice
between a life lived in slave labor to ideas that I did not
feel like or have the heart to follow, and sacrificing some
of my ideals of conduct to get the sense of it, some
feeling."

“It seemed preferable for me to perhaps die several

years earlier (and perhaps from a worse disease), but to
have enjoyed my life in the fulfillment of what I
personally was able to do, that is: to have relaxed, than
to live to be a hundred and yet be totally uptight in
discipline — a curse to myself and to all who had to
know me. I guess you would call my new reasoning:
moderation in all things, including moderation. I was to
have a little excess.”

JOURNAL: OUT TO PASTURE

Context: Along with whatever else from our past comes

up or rises to our attention, our own personality is at the
top of the list. Even with a new vision, there is only so
much we can do to retrofit and modernize our person.

51
We have to learn to care for it as we would a stranger:

"The metaphysical point I am elaborating here is simple:

I turned my personality out to pasture at this point. I
began to care and love and give it what it needed to be
happy, what it needed to fulfill itself. I did not give it
what my intellect thought it should have (to be strictly
correct), but I gave it what it needed in order to feel
some sense of relaxation. I let my person do more or
less what it felt like doing. I respected its needs, as I
would those of a stranger's needs under my care. I
began for the first time in my life to put on a little
weight, to get over my fear and avoidance of money —
to enjoy myself. I had steadfastly refused everything of a
physical or sensual nature for so many years in some
vain attempt to deny my materiality."

“You would be wrong if you interpret this as indicating

that I thought the dictates of my intellect were not true. I
know they are very true. I still plan to take all the
changes that my head can see, only gradually, as I am
able to feel like taking them, and not just because they
are there or possible. And I can see some changes will
remain for my children to take, that I may not get
around to feeling like enacting. I have learned that we
must be able to feel our changes as well as see them. I
have nothing to offer my children, if I cannot give them
a whole, full-feeling and joyous father. It is better that I
have all the vices of my century, but have love for my

52
wife, children, and this creation, love not just in my
mind, but acted out, in the flesh and with feeling.”

CLEARING THE SUBCOUNSIOUS

Context: Opening up our own past subconscious is not

something we have any choice about, if we want to have
a clear mind. Opening our mind means allowing
whatever we have kept out to rush in, and so it does:

I have too little space to present here all of the material

that I feel should be reviewed in approaching the
opening out of the subconscious. The psychic world or
world of our subconscious is just that: sub or beneath
our consciousness, beneath the ground of our conscious
mind. By definition, we cannot take our conscious
intellect into this sphere, but must leave it by the shore
of the senses and proceed farther by feeling our way,
very much like you might feel around for your shoes in
the dark. Learning to feel our way around without
thinking (to experience life) takes a whole lot of bravery
and practice. It is like learning a whole new sense, and it
takes years of experience to become confident in what
you feel. I want briefly to mention some of the material
we might encounter when we first accept our feelings,
actively experience them, and permit them to rise into
our consciousness, after perhaps years of ignoring them.

THE SEWER

53
First, it is very like taking the seal off a sewer, in that
there is in most modern consciousness a lot of rotten
material that has spent years stagnating and dying to
come up. So, don't expect a beauty parade when you
first begin to feel and experience this material
consciously. This is not something you can just do in the
privacy of your own home, but, once you begin to
relieve yourself, it is something that will happen
wherever you happen to be. You will be in everybody's
subconscious as well, with all the cesspools in the world
at your fingertips.

What do I mean cesspools? I mean the countless

strangled desires, thoughts, and dreams that were cut
off by the tyranny of the intellect or conscious mind, or
that society insists we repress. All of the bodies that
were never looked at, never felt, never loved — all of the
gentle wishes that were shoved out of realization to
become twisted characterizations of themselves, all of
the many parts of yourself that you have ignored or that
your society and upbringing ignored. All of this material
desperately needs care and attention or at least the last
rites, if not complete resurrection — all of the anger,
frustration, horror, and hells we have repressed
ourselves to live in.

OPEN SUBCONSCIOUS

The subconscious, first viewed, can be like a raging

beast, openly realizing all the wounds of a lifetime. We

54
cannot personally realize all of these broken dreams.
Many of our desires will have been so twisted that it is
very hard to find any way to bring them out to relief.
What we can do is to look directly at them, recognize
them for what they are and, in this realization, put them
to rest, one by one, forever. We can trace our feelings
down through all this frustrated material to find the
source itself, the fountain from which all life and feelings
flow, and redirect this flow to good use and a new life. It
is like water that muddies when stirred. The stirred-up
mud will flow off and there will, in time, be just clear
water in its place.

In summary, through the Mars chakra, we learn to "feel"

all over again, to feel pure and true. When we say all
parts of ourselves, we mean to say that this extends to
all persons, to everyone, for we are it all. We all share the
same subconscious, which is little more than the product
of our times, a social convention. There is nothing weird
about subconscious work. It is all too ordinary, all the
obvious that waits for someone to recognize and care
for it — a great shadow. Only those who can respond to
their own feelings and subconscious content can pass
through this great shadow to know the light of the heart
within.

JOURNAL: THE POETRY

Context: What is left after the subconscious, which is

nothing but our own personal past, is clarified as quite

55
clear, a free-floating consciousness, like a lotus, riding
on top of the flux of life. It can be put into words:

"No matter what you think about me, about my person, I

know in time you will learn to recognize me as yourself,
and you will love me, as I have learned to love myself, as
I have learned to love you, like it or not. My person has
not changed. How could it, truly? For person is the
product of time, and my person — like a freight train —
rushes on at the future. It always has. Only I, stepping off
my person, am with you now.

"I am myself. I turned off time's endless matter at thirty. I

dropped my body or sense of gravity. It proceeds on
without me or rather: with my perpetual care and love.

“But I am not only my person. I am, as well, one with the

creator of my body, of any body.

"My faith informs me. Each day's passage frees and

reveals my past, 'presents' my past, and clears it open.
Where before was but an endless accumulation, layer on
layer, is now removed with every passing day. And as the
layers lift, it is clear to me that there is nothing there
worth worrying. All the past lives I have are presently
living, are become clear. Nothing to go back to, no place
to hide, no cover.

"I am born free, held awake by all that lives. Where

before I could not keep my eyes open, so now I cannot

56
shut or close them. No closure. From my subconscious
pours my past. Cloudiness clearing, it is my present. My
placenta is being born, turning out all of that which
nourished me.

"I can clearly see all that clouds this stream of

consciousness is but a searching, is itself but a frowning,
a looking to see, a pause, a hesitation that, caught and
unfurled in the eddies of time, becomes clear and,
laughing, I leave it go clear and turn from a darkening or
dimming of my mind to light. And it came to pass, and I
let it pass."

And the next post will be about awakening to the Earth

Chakra or ‘Heart Center.”

Or, here is the whole course: “Astrology of the Heart”

(2022)

http://spiritgrooves.net/pdf/e-books/Astrology-of-the-
Heart%202022%20V4.pdf

57
58
JOURNAL: AWAKENING OF THE EARTH OR
‘HEART CENTER’

April 2, 2022

[This is the final article for this brief course in esoteric

astrology. I know; it is a lot of reading and can probably
only register with the very few, yet those few may find it
useful. At the end of this piece is a link to the complete
course of these and other articles on this esoteric topic.
Thanks to those who powered through. May it be useful.
The enclosed illustration, which I made decades ago is a
signature of my own access to the Earth Chakra, and
resulted in the logo for this initiation. It is the logo for
our dharma center. ]

THE HEART CENTER

Context: After our Saturn return, we can float above and

just beyond time, held aloft by all that is. This is not
something that requires any action on our parts, but just
the reverse: we must learn to sit back and ride, pushed
forward by all the changes of life around us. Journal
entry:

"The morning's brightness lights the day. And when that

day is gone, the quietness of evening here approaching
settles to sleep this restless world. Hard can I hear the
frantic rush, as I turn away from the edge out into

59
floating rest am I. It is not my conscious direction doing
this, but as a head down-turned all life now turns up a
blossom to the night. The night of time urges me open,
at last a flower, too, open to life. Already the dawn.

"Still, around me, urging caution, a retinue of persons

set my spirit, like a jewel is set, in time. But where before
my worry, now my rest. The tide rolls on beyond me.
Ever changing, it rocks me now asleep. And in my sleep,
awake am I, so clear a bell is ringing.

"The smart of person's lash and crack to drive me at

time's edge. My personal ties are slipped, as floating out,
I'm gently tugged. Too long have fought to force my
thought, and not, at ease, arising like some cloud to
pass. My work undone, yet done, I rise. Drifting through
strains, I sieve, and pass myself, open out to nothing
thoughts to touch back not once more. A clear sleep is
soft, it's ever blooming sound is silence. Now to find my
way among the slips of time. And slip I will, now lost to
striving, and lounge in this room of emptiness. To lie
back in time, behind its edge, and ever look eternally.

“No way to pass this on. This is: passing on. Slamming
against the walls of time, I shove off into eternity.

Spread open a flower, so wide."

THE EARTH CHAKRA

60
The Earth Is the Heart of Meaning

The Earth or Heart Chakra is the KEY to Mars. Mars is

feeling, directionality, and meaning, and the Earth is the
essence of what it all means — the heart of meaning.

Earth is itself what it means, where it all leads to —

meaning, motion and Mars is ever referring itself
onward. Earth is the end of that referral, where the buck
stops and the ‘Silence’ begins..

Earth is its own meaning. This is where we are, the Heart

center of Buddha, the Christ Center itself, the "I AM
THAT I AM," and for no other reason — simple
existence. This is it! On the planet Earth, we stand
between the inner and outer planets, the balancing
point, the middle way, the son, the communion between
the Father and the Holy Spirit.

We cannot see with our physical eyes beyond the Earth

center, for all that is visible is the blinding Self or Sun of
the eternal union between matter and spirit. The Sun is
shining! Beyond the Earth (Sun), veiled behind this
flashing Sun, is the mystery of the godhead itself.

The Earth sphere is where the crucifixion takes place,

what has been called by poets the "terrible crystal." The
personal ties of time (the dragon), in this center, lose
their hold and merge with the divine will.

61
JOURNAL: EVERLASTING LIFE

Context: The concept of the Monad, very briefly

presented earlier in these articles is that of the entire
process of the Sun endlessly generating life, tended by
the souls who happen to be spiritually awake at any
given time, as this poem portrays:

EVERLASTING LIFE

What will in words not wake,

Clear sleeps,
And clear, sleeps on.
What wakes stands watch to see that sleep as sound.

What wakes will serve to set a sleep,

Inset a sleep with standing words,
That wake, if ever, last .
And on that "last," in overlay, our life.

Yes, to lay at the last a life that ever lives,

To ever last that "last" of life,

And in ever "lasting " life, everlasting,

We have a life that lives at last.

JOURNAL: THE CONSUMMATION OF THE MARRIAGE

THE CHILD OR ‘HEART CENTER’

62
Context: Reaching the Earth or Heart Center is what our
life's journey is all about. We cannot know peace or rest
until we have achieved this, until we have taken
possession of Earth, our heritage by birthright. At this
point, we have come a long way. Our awakening within
Saturn, and the struggle for simple survival and to
somehow find a way through life, the province of the
Jupiter chakra, is behind us. We have mastered that.

Our search for something more meaningful, through the

Mars chakra, has led to our embracing (accepting) all of
life, just as it is — marriage. We accept life as it is
because that is how it is. It would be foolish to do
otherwise.

All of this has led us to the very center of our self, or as

Hegel said so well:

"We go behind the curtain of the Self, to see what is

there, but mainly for there to be something to be seen."

The opening of the Earth of Heart center is what follows,

which involves holding life within us, as we would hold a
newborn child. Here is how it was for me:

"The birth of our first child was heralded by a

spectacular series of visions and revelations. It was like
waking up repeatedly from dream within dream. The
finale at the fireworks display is stunning!

63
"I had accepted our pregnancy in the traditional way: I
hoped for the best and prepared for the worst. It never
occurred to me that childbirth was a sign of deep
change in my spiritual nature, or that it meant anything
more than the physical act of learning to care for a
child."

JOURNAL: CHILDBIRTH

"What did I know about kids? I knew nothing of children.

I avoided them, like I avoided every other part of my life
that commanded my attention, and whose attention I
could not command. I had seen children around, in the
outskirts of my life, but never where they could get at
me, never where I had no choice. I guess in my
accustomed style, I prepared myself for the worst, and
yet hoped for the best.”

"As a matter of fact, childbirth has changed me in deep

and real ways, changed me beyond recognition. It is
change itself. I now understand why the world has a
population problem. I was not (perhaps) married when I
married, but I did become a father when I had a child.”

"As if my life were not hectic enough, I had no job. My

wife and I knew little better to do with our time than to
fight with one another. Our dog was pregnant again,
and again, against our will. And now a child. I guess I
had all of the typical thoughts about children, of the
cynical variety, that this was the living end of our

64
freedom, that we had really done it this time, had finally
done something that we couldn't easily wriggle out of.
Along with this programmed variety of thought came
others of a more uplifting nature, basically an
acceptance of the fact as a sign of its necessity. As I like
to tell myself: it was permitted."

JOURNAL: LOOKING OUT THE WINDOW

Context: More on the opening of the Earth or Heart

chakra.

"And there was an ever-growing joy (at first hard to feel)

that this was really the most important thing that had
ever happened to us in our lives. This last idea grew,
shattering the shells of all the others before it, and
progressively overcame us with the steadiness of love.”

"Our child was conceived in a rare moment of deep

tenderness and openness between us. As the pregnancy
moved along, it drew us together and gave us
something more substantial to relate to than our own
endless differences. This pregnancy was a very happy
time for both my wife and I, a time during which we
enjoyed each other more than we had ever before. And
time after time would find us sitting — during those last
days — like high birds looking out the window at:
absolutely nothing at all."

JOURNAL: THROUGH GOD’S LOOKING GLASS

65
Context: More on the opening of the Earth or Heart
chakra.

“I had an interesting experience one evening, while

visiting my brother and his wife who had a newborn
little girl. This was not long before we became pregnant.
And as I was talking to him, I noticed he was not really
listening to my conversation. I turned to see what could
be more important and found him looking into his little
daughter's eyes like he was looking out an open window
from a stuffy room. It was at that instant (unconsciously
perhaps) when I realized that there was more to having
a child than a headache. I believe I wanted one too.”

JOURNAL: A MIDWIFE OF THE SPIRIT

One very important event that happened just before our

child's birth was our meeting a ‘Unity’ minister, a Black
woman in her fifties, who was to be our teacher in so
many ways. I don't think there is an easy description for
what she was or did. She was a very strong believer in
what she called "Divine Love."

I thought nothing out of the ordinary when I first met

her (I was interviewing another astrologer on a radio
program and she came along to support him), until she
began to retell an account of how she had removed a
tumor from her own body. I went on with my own
thoughts. There were several of us listening. When she

66
had finished her account, everyone gathered around
remarked at what a powerful story they had just heard.
At this point I realized that, although I had felt the
power in what she had said, I could not remember one
single word of it. I had not been listening to her words
at all. Instead, I had been looking deep, very deep within
her at her feelings or emotional state — her
subconscious. And, as I gazed, I saw that she was so
deeply expressive and so careful not to let the world
know how deeply she had been hurt and had suffered.

JOURNAL: MY HEART WENT OUT

Context: This entry has to do with how we can recognize

when we have found a mentor or teacher.

“My heart went out to this soul, for certainly did I

understand the state of her being. I understood so very
well indeed. I felt that I could help this person to
become stronger and to bear her inner sufferings out
into the world. She had so much love inside her, if she
could only realize that the ideas and thoughts that she
presented to others, that she felt so important to
maintain, were not important at all. The sheer immensity
of her very presence dwarfed anything her intellect had
to say about it.”

“This is how I met one of my life teachers, and need I tell

you that it was many, many months before I could stand
to realize that much of what I saw in her was just my

67
own self, reflected in her long-gone mirror. She was able
to reflect in its entirety my whole personal drama,
without a ripple of confusion, and I saw inside myself
how it was with me, although I thought I was seeing her
and how it was with her.”

“My wife and I saw a lot of this woman directly after our
meeting. She would drive all the way from Detroit to our
house in Ann Arbor, time after time. At first, I insisted on
ministering to her, and giving her my readings of her
problems, but in time, as I realized that all I was seeing
as her was but my own reflection, I ceased to feel
obliged to lecture her, and took up actively the
contemplation of this great window of eternity.”

And, for those interested, this is one of the primary ways

one knows when one has encountered a mentor or life
teacher, by reflection. Real teachers reflect not their
nature, but our own, and we are not used to seeing our
own reflection through others. We think we are meeting
them, but we are finally meeting ourselves. Watch for
this.

JOURNAL: THE HEART CENTER

“One morning, not long after meeting this teacher, and

after a particularly unsatisfying long night of
conversation with an occult scholar, I awoke feeling as if
my head were encased in cement. Then something very
different occurred. I found myself (without thinking)

68
dropping to the floor and going through quite
automatically some very odd contortion-like exercise.”

“And as I worked, my body began to shake and nauseate

me, and slowly I worked over my head — like pulling off
a sock inside out — and cast off the heavy sickness of
feeling that had occurred from the night before. I was
shedding my mental skin just like a snake. With this
experience came a symbol to my mind that expressed
this process and it has become the symbol we are using
in our work here.”

“When I told my teacher about this strange exercise, she

laughed, and told me the name of it, and that it was one
of her exercises. This was the first of the many truths
that came to us through her, quite unconsciously on my
part, almost by a system of osmosis. We continued to
work together for many years, and my wife and I have
spent some of our dearest moments with this woman.”
We named our first child after her.

JOURNAL: THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH

Context: Opening up the Earth or Heart Chakra.

The weeks before our daughter's birth was one

continuous waking vision. I was finally breaking through
the end of my Martian sphere and opening into the
Earth or Heart Center. Together, my wife and I
consciously walked into and through the valley of the

69
shadow of death. Not death itself, for there is no death,
but the shadow or shade we fear and call death. This
great cleft opened, like the Red Sea once opened,
parted, and, arm in arm, we walked through this valley
and into the light beyond and behind all appearances.
The entire world of wincing pain and personal suffering
was laid open in our vision.

JOURNAL: HARD THOUGHTS

Context: Looking to look pain and death in the face

brings its own rewards.

Up to that point in my life, whenever a painful thought

or "bad" feeling had occurred, I always turned inward
and experienced that thought alone — took it
personally. Now my eyes were open and, as I watched
people in their daily intercourse, I saw that all
experienced these painful thoughts at the same time.
They were like waves that swept through a room -- pure
energy.

And that, as a hard thought arose, everybody winced

and turned inward, each taking this thought in his or her
way, each taking it personally, as their own fault or
problem. All turned inward until the thought was
absorbed, and then, all opened out again as might some
plant or animal that had stopped to digest or absorb a
piece of food. All opened out again at once, like flowers,
and conversation went on as if nothing had ever

70
happened. But something did happen.

No one seemed to be aware that this had been a

common experience. Each thought it was their separate
problem and sorrow. And in those moments of pain (or
whatever we can agree to call them), I looked on
through the experience into life itself. It was simply a
moment of truth or growth, like a plant might shoot
forward suddenly in a spurt of energy. What we call
psychological pain is, for the most part, simply the fear
to share the thought — the loneliness of not sharing the
experience.

JOURNAL: PAIN IS FEAR

Context: More on awareness of pain. “Parting Is Such

Sweet Sorrow.”

The experience I witnessed was not intrinsically painful

in itself. It simply was exactly what it was. The experience
of pain was the fear to share the thought or feeling in
common and to acknowledge a common life. Fear itself
was the pain. Each took privately what they feared to
recognize together. We all agree to forget what we find
so hard to remember.

The growth process of life itself is like some great

amoeba growing, separating into two, and flowing
together once again. The pain of separation was simply
the process of knowing the Self, splitting into one —

71
endlessly dividing to join again. We could call the
pressures of this process not pain, but tone — feeling
our self. It was simply the process of physical growth,
separation, and greater union endlessly going on.

What astounded me was that practically all the pain and

suffering was man-made. It was the pain of being alone,
of taking these changes inwardly or personally. The pain
came from ignorance of the common life and
communion, not from the life process itself. Needless to
say, this was a revelation for someone who had come to
consider pain as a necessary evil.

This endless life process was lie the Bible’s ‘Revelations’,

the trumpets of the Lord of Creation forever blowing our
mind. It was the tree of life set in paradise, and although
my mind is not conscious of this revelation most of the
time, I have never been as afraid of life since.

JOURNAL: THE VISION OF THE HEART CENTER

Context: We have mentioned earlier on about

discovering the silence, as we move beyond the grip of
Saturn, around thirty years of age. Beyond the Saturn
Return comes the experience of what is called "Entering
the Silence," which is what this entry is about:

"The silence had been there all along and was especially
present since my marriage. Yet, as I have previously
written, I ignored it or, if unable to ignore it, I viewed it

72
as the end of everything I had known, which in a very
real sense it was.

"I began to accept this vision at a birthday party for my

two-year-old niece, just for family. The adults stood
around the room's edge, while the children played in the
center. I suddenly saw the children as a radiant source of
life energy and the adults as shells or relative ghosts on
life's periphery. When we went home that night, my wife
and I had to shake our heads to be sure that we had
ever even gone out that evening. It was like a dream."

JOURNAL: COULD CARE LESS

Context: Beyond the Saturn return comes the experience

of what is called "Entering the Silence," which is what
this entry is about.

“With the next night came the main load. I had been a
performer of popular music for many years and,
although I had lost my interest in performing music at
the same time I got married, I still, on occasion, would
perform. I had been invited to sing a few songs at a local
benefit and together, my brother and I got on stage —
just like we used to, a team.”

“My whole singing career had been one of intense

concern for the quality of the music and its expression. I
never ate before a performance. I never was satisfied
with any performance and, almost without exception,

73
when I had finished a set, I was ashamed of the reality of
what had gotten across compared with what had been
my intention and my vision. I invariably could not look
anyone in the eye after singing or else would endlessly
apologize for what I considered to be the faults of the
performance. I felt like I was wearing a scarlet letter and
glowed red with indignation that the circumstances
could affect my intent.”

“Well, this night was to be very different indeed. We got

up and did a few songs. The rush and flurry of the
evening (and the fact that we had not played together
for a time) made some of the songs come off a little
poorly. Poorly, in that they failed to reflect in justice the
potential beauty of the songs. But as I sang these songs,
instead of looking down to dig deep and find my
meaning, I just sang and looked out at the sea of bodies
before me. I just sang the songs. And a friend came up
to sing with us and, when she stumbled in her delivery
(as it sometimes happens) and turned to me for some
kind of company in her "misery" (which I had always
been good for), I just looked at her and I did not care. I
just understood what was happening.

“It was not that I was glad that she felt bad or that I
would not help her. I already was doing all I possibly
could to make the music as good as possible and more
than that I could not do. I was not going to worry that it
was not what it should have been. I accepted it for what
it was.”

74
JOURNAL: THE SILENCE

Context: Beyond the Saturn return comes the experience

of "Entering the Silence."

“And when it was over, I got up, stepped down, and

walked into the crowd with no apology whatsoever. I
went up to another performer friend of mine and the
"old" me started to apologize and managed to stammer
out something about how it had been "up there" on the
stage. My friend looked me straight in the eye and said,
"Yes Michael, it was exactly what it was!"

“There was nothing and nobody to whom I need

apologize, not in the whole world. And that entire night,
in the mad wild atmosphere of that bar, I experienced
complete calm and silence. Silence. It was as if I was the
only one there. I don't mean that I was high above it all
and somehow untouchable at that time. I mean there
was no resistance of any kind at all. I had to snap my
head to see if I was dreaming. It was so very silent
there.”

“And that is how I first began to enter the Silence. I was

in the world, but I was no longer of the world in the
same way. I am living in and getting used to my Earth or
heart center and open to learning something of that
next planet: Venus, not the planet of physical desire as
some think, but of love and compassion. And so here my

75
personal story ends for now. For me it is always still the
beginning.

THE INNER CHAKRAS

Venus Is the Key to the Heart or Earth

Well, there you have it. I am afraid the best I can do is

point out, as best I can, the chakras from Saturn into the
Earth/Sun. I am still stabilizing my own Earth center life.
After all, that is where we were born and where we live,
on Earth.

The planets (Venus and Mercury) within Earth's orbit are

just that, inner planets, and they are in fact our inner life.
They shine within us, as the Sun itself shines within us. I
can't say that I have much experience in these inner
realms, but I have studied them, so let's go through
them, at least in outline.

Venus is the essence of the heart and the Key to Earth.

Venus stands behind the veiled Sun of the Earth or Heart
Center and there is no material here. Venus is a
rendering or loving of all that is — irrespective of the
personalities. The idea to understand here is that Venus
is beyond the material world of Saturn, and beyond
Earth.

Perhaps the best I can do is to point out what all of the

great poets and artists, throughout the centuries, have

76
been telling us about Venus, and that is: the key to life
on Earth is love. Love is all there is. The wise men and
philosophers have said this repeatedly and forever.

Love is the key to life here on Earth or as we might say

here: Venus is the Key to Earth, being the next planet
within the earth's orbit. It is that simple.

There is no way to grasp through our material senses

what Venus represents. We can only experience it as we
come to know our own mind, as we find awareness
within. Venus is all the love there is, the Holy Mother,
and Immaculate Conception, for it endlessly conceives in
love all that is. The Holy Mother or spiritual force has not
ever, is not now, and never will "matter" in this world, for
it is itself beyond the reach of matter. It is the support or
womb of all matter. It is the uncreated or unborn
cornucopia out of which all life endlessly pours itself,
forever immaculately conceiving all life.

THE BODHISATTVA

Matter or form resides with Saturn and learning to find

our way around in form is what Jupiter is all about, our
path. Feeling beyond that took us through Mars journey
for meaning all the way to Earth itself. Don't expect for
your inner life, life within the Earth chakra, to matter
materially. It never will because it only "matters"
spiritually. Beyond Earth, it is all about love and light, no
matter how twisted these concepts may appear in life.

77
Behind or within the form is the love and the light,
Venus and Mercury.

Venus is the Bodhisattva, pure compassion, which is

total appreciation or love. This planet is the key to our
earth life and to our natal horoscope. It is the essence or
divinity itself from Earth's viewpoint. It alone is the key
and mother of Christ, forever giving birth to the Christ
within us. It is for divine love that we pray and worship,
for this love is the key to our life. Venus is divine love
and compassion.

MERCURY IS THE LIGHT OF LOVE

The same is even more true for Mercury, a planet or

chakra that is within Earth, within Venus, and very close
to the Sun-source itself. Mercury is even less physical.

The Sanskrit word for Mercury is "Buddha," awareness.

Mercury is the Key to Venus, the very throne of God or
spirit itself. Mercury is the light of love, the divine light
of eternal truth, the eternal corona and radiance of the
Sun center itself. It is the Voice and direct Word of the
Father itself sent forth — God's messenger or
consciousness and awareness itself. Mercury is the light
of the mind, the light we see shining in each other's
eyes.

THE SUN CENTER IS ITSELF THE WHOLE

78
The Sun, the center of it all, is more than just another
planet or chakra. It is the source and creator of the
whole system, and the entire system of moons and
planets hangs on the Sun. Sure, we can say that the Sun
is the Key to Mercury, but also to all creation. It is the
center itself and only nothing can be said here. It was in
the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.

We do not simply mean the Sun as we find it in our

horoscope, for that is the representative of the
Earth/Sun/Moon relationship. Here we mean the Sun as
it exists in itself (timeless), itself the eternal messenger of
all time. A poem I wrote.

“I am round and such so:

A treading finally and letting go,
As spreading circles open so,
An even inward outward flow.

A CODA: Much of the above, in particular the journal

entries were written in the 1960s. At that time, I was still
trying to filter my experience through the Christian view
of things, which is nothing to ignore. However, in the
early 1970s I found myself outgrowing that view, like a
caterpillar leaving a cocoon, and emerging into the view
which I can only call the dharma.

I needed more than words. I needed to be taught to use

my mind and to become more aware. The dharma was
how I did that.

79
Or, here is the whole course: “Astrology of the Heart”
(2022)

http://spiritgrooves.net/pdf/e-books/Astrology-of-the-
Heart%202022%20V4.pdf

[Drawing and logo by me. This image came to me

spontaneously through my dropping to the ground and
assuming a particular yoga practice I had never done
before. Out of that very physical process came this state
of mind, which lasted for some days and delivered this
image.]

80
81
ADDENDA TO “ASTROLOGY OF THE HEART”

April 3, 2022

Here is the link to final book as of now, including these

important addenda:

http://spiritgrooves.net/pdf/e-books/Astrology-of-the-
Heart%202022%20V4.pdf

A lot of time has passed, water over the dam, so to speak since
much of the text for the book “Astrology of the Heart” was
written. It has been some 55 years since then. I am amazed at
how little has changed in my understanding and
implementation of the interpretation of the planets, both the
planets Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Earth, as well as the outer
planets Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.

What has changed, however, is my view and experience as to

the inner planets, Venus and Mercury, and of course the Sun,
which I am always learning more about each day.

This was because when I wrote most of this, I did not know
enough or all that much about the inner mysteries of Venus and
Mercury. Since that time, I have done little else but learn about
these inner planets and their nature. Of course, in my case, the
way open for me to do that was not so much through
astrological lenses and views as through the views and lenses of
the dharma. These planets are the natural province of the
dharma, if only because it seems they require the rigorous
techniques that only dharma practice provides. We have to earn
it because as a society we know so little about the inner mind

82
itself.

And so, as a kind of addendum to my book “Astrology of the

Heart,” it seems only fitting that I (briefly) add what I can, based
on what I have learned these last many years.

In the original text I pointed out that these inner planets, Venus
and Mercury, are ‘inner’, inside our mind and not outer planets
like Earth and on outward to Pluto. And it seems few of us know
all that much about the mind and what’s in it. If we have run
out of things to master outside, mountains to climb and oceans
to delve, it is time to turn our attention to the mind itself,
certainly more important than even exploring distant galaxies,
etc. although my guess is those two explorations (Deep Space
and Mind) are intimately related.

VENUS CHAKRA

On the surface and in the literature, in the traditional astrology

literature, the planet Venus has been linked to ideas of love and
value, and this includes valuation, appraisal, appreciation and all
that material sensing. I believe we have these outer descriptions
nailed down by now. What is not well-enough known is the real
inner nature of Venus, the esoteric meaning, and to learn about
that I had to turn to the Tibetans and their take on dharma
practice.

In my early writing for this book, I was sensitive enough to link

Venus with the concept of compassion and in particular the role
of the Bodhisattva in dharma. What I failed to understand well
enough at the time, but which I am clear about now, is that the
key phrase for me concerning Venus (at least at this point) is
what is called Bodhicitta. That is the term that rings the bell for
me with Venus exactly.

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In the Tibetan teachings, there are two forms of Bodhicitta
defined, ‘Relative Bodhicitta’ and ‘Absolute Bodhicitta’ and they
are as different, IMO, as night and day, and pretty easy to
understand. In a word, Relative Bodhicitta has to do with more
of an intellectual view as to our intent to benefit this world and
all the people in it. We intend or mean well, better, best, to the
degree we can intend that. Yet, this is mostly intellectual and
conceptual. It essentially is an intellectual practice for the real
thing.

And “Absolute Bodhicitta” (the real thing) seems, in my

experience, to only occur after we have had the actual nature of
the mind pointed out to us by an authentic guru, so that we
actually are empowered with what is called “Recognition,” our
own recognition as to the true nature of the mind.

When that takes place, it seems “Absolute Bodhicitta” naturally

clicks in and what before (in relative Bodhicitta) manifested as
good (mostly intellectual) intentions suddenly galvanizes into
what I can only call an unstoppable and unceasing desire to
share dharma with and to benefit other beings.

And it is THIS that I have come to understand is that natural

nature of the Venus Chakra, pure 'Absolute Bodhicitta'.

MERCURY CHAKRA

As to the Mercury Chakra, there is more of a deeper dive into

the mind to consider than even Venus. And again, I have only
learned of this through dharma training and not through
astrological training, except for some nice words astrologically,
perhaps.

84
And the particular technique through which I was able to better
understand the Mercury Chakra was based on the special form
of Insight Meditation which is part of what the Karma Kagyu
Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism meditation calls Mahamudra
Meditation.

Of course, being a slow learner, this took me many, many years

to even approach and prepare to effortlessly practice this
special form of Insight Meditation, and more years after that to
actually implement it to the degree that I could actually
meditate and stop practicing. And this mostly required me to
reduce my many obscurations to the point where I could (to
some degree) see beyond my own Self, which was the major
obscuration for me. Without a doubt, this particular journey (to
implement Insight Meditation) was perhaps the most difficult
thing I have ever done in this lifetime.

As for what Insight Meditation entails, I have written (so it

seems) endlessly about it over the years. And it involves
immersing myself in the nature of the mind to the exclusion of
me as a subject (Me, Myself, and I) and something or someone
else as an object. In other words, Insight Meditation is non-
dualistic.

Or its like resolving my ingrained habit of dualism (subject and

object) into the non-dual natural state that is intrinsic to the
mind itself. As all the pith dharma texts say, Insight Meditation
cannot be defined in words, no matter how hard we try, and of
course all the great masters have tried.

I have said to myself that Insight Meditation, instead of seeing

‘something’ (an object), is our seeing the ‘Seeing” itself seeing.
However, we word it, it all resolves recursively into ‘insight’
Seeing itself. I could go on and on and probably not get much

85
clearer because, as mentioned, words can’t suffice.

Anyway, THAT is what I understand the Mercury Chakra to be all

about, what in dharma terms is called the special form of Insight
Meditation (Vipassana) as defined in the Karma Kagyu form of
Mahamudra Meditation. Insight Meditation has, so the dharma
pith texts point out, the admirable quality of while in that form
of meditation (which is non-dual) NOT recording karma and
perhaps even reducing karma we have already accumulated. It
is also more addictive than any drug we might imagine, this
non-dual resting in the nature of the mind. Insight Meditation
brings true rest and healing.

[Book design by me.]

86
THE LIGHTS: SUN AND MOON

April 4, 2022
[I neglected to say much about the ‘Lights’, the Sun and
the Moon, so I will say something about the esoteric
meaning of the Sun and Moon for those interested.]

THE MOON

As some of you may have already wondered, where is

the Moon in all of this? That is a good question. For the
most part, these articles have been about the larger-
scale life of our solar system, with the incendiary Sun
and the planets bound in orbit to it. The Moon is really
part of the Earth system. In fact, the Earth and Moon are

87
such a binary system that the shared center of gravity of
the Earth-Moon system is not even within the Earth's
surface. It is out there in space, and at a fair distance!
Does the Moon not have an esoteric side and meaning?

To be sure it does, and a very important one at that, one

that would require and deserves a whole article of its
own. This study of the chakras is not the place for such a
work. However, it may be helpful to point out some
general guidelines when considering the Moon from an
esoteric perspective.

First, when I speak here of the Moon, it should be kept

in mind that I am speaking of the Moon-Earth system
and, actually, the Sun-Earth-Moon system, for most
references to the Moon, such as the lunar cycle and
orbit involve the phase angle of the Moon with the
Earth, and this requires the Sun's position as well.

It is an interesting astronomical fact that, from Earth's

perspective, the relative size of the Sun and the Moon in
the sky as seen from Earth are about equal. This is what
makes total eclipses of the Sun possible. In fact, there
are all kinds of facts about the Moon, the lunar orbit,
and its relationship to the earth and the Sun that are
interesting and call out for us to explore their more
esoteric meaning.

THE LIGHTS

88
In the tradition of astrology, the Sun and Moon are
called "The Lights" and, as we mentioned, we need to
read that as Sun-Earth-Moon in every case. The Earth's
place in all of this is always assumed.

Looking at the esoteric meaning of the Sun and the

Moon has to be distinguished from the use of the Sun in
the chakra system, where it represents the peak or
crown chakra. In the chakra system, as I have presented
it in this article, the Sun represents the entire solar
system as a single entity and the process of
interdependency between the planets and our fiery star.
Esoterically, this process and state is called the Monad,
and I have given some information about its meaning
earlier on. In a similar way, where we spoke earlier in this
text of the Earth chakra and the Heart Center, we were
referring to Earth as a planet in the chain of planets that
make up our solar system.

However, when we speak here of the Sun and the Moon,

the astrological "Lights," we mean here the Sun as the
Earth, in the same way we consider Sun signs
astrologically. My telling you that I am a Cancer sun sign
actually says that Earth sees the Sun in the zodiac sign
Cancer. It is the Earth that we really mean, when we say
the "Sun and the Moon." We mean the "Earth and the
Moon" as a unit, but in relationship with the Sun.

In this section, therefore, we are leaving behind the

concept of the Sun as the monad and all that we might

89
have to say about that and are looking at the
relationship of the Sun-Earth axis and the Moon. Please
make this distinction. Here the Earth is not being looked
at as a chakra, but as part of the Earth/Sun-Moon pair,
"The Lights."

That having been said, the esoteric story and meaning of

the Lights, the Sun and Moon, offer a different
perspective and rendition of the same material covered
in the chakra sections, the same story, only with a
somewhat different view. All of this will come into focus
for you by my just jumping in here with some specific
esoteric concepts.

THE MOON AS OUR MOTHER

In the history of astrology, again and again, it is said that

the Moon is a mystery in that it is both a mother and a
child. The Moon is our mother, because (similar to the
womb of Saturn) everything and every body issues forth
or is born from it. The Moon represents the
subconscious and unmanifest regions from which all life,
literally all ‘stuff’, comes forth. Like an endless
cornucopia, the Moon mothers forth.

The Moon is our support system, all that nourishes us, in

the sense that we literally form ourselves and arise from
within its womb. There are all kinds of historical
paintings, drawings, and text images about life (bodies)
arising and issuing forth from the womb of un-

90
manifestation, from out of the great void. In this sense,
the Moon is our mother. How then is the Moon our
child?

THE MOON AS OUR CHILD

As each of us is born from the Moon stuff, we draw

around our spirit whatever kind of form or body is
appropriate. We individuate or extract our self from
‘Mother Moon’ and take on our individual form. We are
no longer part of the great matrix or womb from which
we came, but at some point have been born and begin
to separate from the mother. We are an individual, now
separate from our mother, and living on our own.

The Moon then, once separated from us, is something

we can remember or look back on. In fact, we can see by
the light of the Moon, by the sunlight bouncing off the
Moon and illuminating it so that it can be seen.
Otherwise, it is lost in the darkness of the heavens.

And as we gaze on the Moon, we are looking at where

we, ourselves, came forth from, looking at the past
where once we were. And here is the point:

Life is a process. As we separate from the Moon, the

process of the Moon giving birth does not end. The
Moon is the womb from which all things emerge, aside
from the place we came. Looking back on that Moon, we
see others, much like we were, now being formed, and in

91
the process of extracting themselves from the womb,
just as we did.

In the Western esoteric texts, the Moon can also

overcome or suffocate us, if we cease to individuate and
move onward, but instead fall back into her arms. I
remember Robert Heinlein's science-fiction novel, "The
Moon Is a Harsh Mistress." Yes, she can be.

I am trying to paint here a word picture, and the point is

that we not only push forward in our lives, always
extracting ourselves from our Moon. In addition, by the
light of the Sun, we also often gaze upon the Moon. We
look back at ourselves, as we once were, and see
younger souls (souls like us) who are now being born,
just as we were. By the light of the Moon, esoterically
speaking, we can see ourselves young. The process is
ongoing, continuous.

In this way, the Moon is our child, because we are no

longer of the Moon, but we came from that Moon. We
remember back to then, and the Moon is all about
memory, about the past, and about where we came
from.

Perhaps this will be clearer, if I give an example: As kids,

we tend to group together. Those of you reading this
who have been through what is called "Middle School,"
the intermediate levels of school, like the 6th, 7th, and
8th grades, know well what a fierce rite of passage that

92
is. At that age, we are socially more a pool or a group
than we are yet individuals, and individuation is just
what happens in those years. As puberty is reached, the
first Jupiter return at 12 years of age, but more
physically the opposition or halfway point in the first
Saturn cycle (15 years of age), we begin lose our
childlike and group-clinging tendency and start to take
on some of the characteristics of an adult, facial hair,
menstrual cycles, and so on.

The intense peer pressure that rules the group mind of

the early teens begins to break down as the more
independent souls struggle to leave the group and
become individuals. The image that many sculptors have
worked with of an amorphous mass of clay, out of which
individual figures are emerging, should be familiar.

Perhaps you can see in this image where the idea of the
Moon being both our mother and our child comes from.
We each go through this birthing process, and we end
up as individual adults, sooner or later. We emerge from
the group mind, differentiate ourselves, and can look
back not only at where we came from, but also see
others now as we once were. We are gazing at "our"
Moon. If we fall back, if we get too close to the past, to
the way we were, we run the risk of getting caught in the
Moon mass and stifled.

Earlier in this article, I gave the example of when I used

to return to see my parents, wanting to show them all of

93
the progress I had made, I would often slip-up and get
caught up in my old habits with them, resort to stupid
arguments, and having them tell me: "See, you have not
changed." This is what I mean when I say the Moon can
suffocate or pull us back into what we have struggled to
get out of by individuation.

THE SUN

Now we have looked a little bit at the mystery of the

Moon, but really, we have only presented one half of the
equation. If you remember, it is always Moon-Earth-Sun,
and we need to bring the Sun into this discussion.

Just as we pointed out that our life here on Earth needs

to keep an appropriate distance from our Moon, less we
fall backward, the same is true with the Sun. We cannot
get too close to the Sun or, like the Greek myth of
Icarus, we will be burnt by the solar rays. The Earth is
always somewhere between the Moon on one side, and
the Sun on the other, located at just enough distance
from the Moon to remain an individual, and just enough
distance from the Sun to feel its warmth, but not be
burnt up by the solar rays.

If the Moon represents, our mother and where we came

from, then the Sun represents the father principle and
where we are going, what we will become. In the
tradition of astrology, the Sun represents the father, the
mentor, the one in authority, what we look up to, what

94
we hope to become, and, in general, our future. We
come forth from the Moon and we go toward the Sun.

The Sun is also said to represent the Self, and everything

about us that is future oriented, what we will become
when all is said and done, how we will turn out. When
we have finished taking all the changes possible to us,
the Sun (our Self) is what remains, our potential realized.

By this point, you should have the idea that this Moon-
Earth-Sun relationship is all about how we are balanced
between our past (the Moon) and our future (the Sun),
not too far and not too close. We are strung out
between the past and the future, the Moon and the Sun.
Our life on Earth is always somewhere in the middle of
these two extremes. We keep our distance from each
one. That distance makes life possible.

When the Moon is strong, we remember and are pulled

toward our past, perhaps getting caught up in reverie
and old habits. If the Moon is too strong, we lose out on
our future and remained mired in the past. When the
Sun is strong, we put all that behind us and surge
toward the future, coming ever more into our own, but
perhaps risking burnout, if we move too far, too fast. The
balanced or middle way is the way of even growth.

As astrologers, you already know how to examine the

positions of the Sun and the Moon in the chart, their
angular separation or phase angle, and measure how

95
strong or weak these two bodies are in the nativity. Is
the Moon so strong that it keeps one from the future? Is
the client drowning in their past? Or is the Sun too
strong and scorching every attempt to get ahead before
it can amount to anything? These are examples of how
this esoteric knowledge of the Sun and Moon can be
used to advantage.

96
ANN ARBOR’S FORGOTTEN JAZZ SCENE

April 6, 2022

[I wonder if any of you youngsters remember Ann Arbor

before liquor by the glass, when the jazz was in the
houses and not the bars. ]

97
How could the repeal of prohibition in 1933 affect the
onset of The Sixties in Ann Arbor? It sounds like Chaos
Theory, where the flapping of a butterfly wing in Brazil
affects the amount of snow that falls in Greenland. But
such an effect did occur. And the sad thing is that the
scene I am about to describe is hardly remembered. I
keep waiting for someone to write about it, but it might
have to be me! That is a scary thought, because what
took place back then is pivotal to understand how Ann
Arbor grew up in the late 1950s and early 1960s, so here
it is:

Prohibition was repealed at 6 P.M. May 11, 1933 at the

Court Tavern on 108 East Huron Street, and
simultaneously at some nineteen other Ann Arbor
beverage businesses that day. But there was a catch.
Although Ann Arbor would no longer be a dry city,
liquor by the glass could not be sold at bars, but only in
private clubs like the Elks and the Town Club, so that
meant that most bars were cut out of it. And here is how
it affected the onset of The Sixties:

Because liquor by the glass (a cash cow) was illegal, it

meant that bars did not have the extra money to hire
musicians and their bands. The result of this was that for
a long time the jazz scene in Ann Arbor was not in the
bars, but instead in private houses (usually student
rentals) around town. This “liquor by the glass” law was
finally repealed on November 9, 1960, but up to that
point there was a special music atmosphere in Ann

98
Arbor that only existed privately. Even after the law was
repealed it took time for music to move back into the
bars again.

As a high-school student interested in all things Beat,

including jazz, I found my way into that private scene,
albeit only as a tolerated bystander, a youngster. So here
was this vibrant music scene happening in private
around Ann Arbor for those who knew about it.

I can remember one large rental on the north side of the

street in the first block or two of E. William Street, just
west of State Street. Hanging from the second story, out
over the front steps, was an enormous flag with a photo
of Thelonious Monk and (if I remember right) just the
single word “Monk” or did it say “Thelonious Monk?”
Then again, it may have only had Monk’s image. It was
in houses like these that the forefront of jazz was taking
place. Jazz players like Bob James, Ron Brooks, Bob
“Turk” Pozar, Bob Detwiler, and many others played
there. Small informal groups formed and improvised far
into the night. Yet you couldn't find this music in where
you might expect, in clubs or bars. It was hidden away in
houses, and it all depended on who you knew.
Not everyone found their way there or was invited.

As a high-school kid, I was allowed in, but had to keep a

very low profile, sitting along the floor with my back
against the walls and just taking it in. No one offered me
any of the pot they were smoking, but a friend and I

99
used to snort the ashes left by their joints. Or maybe we
would find a roach or two in the ashtray, but very rarely.
That was how dedicated we were in our wish to emulate
everyone there. Aside from smoking pot, there was lots
of wine and always the music. When they were not
improvising jazz, they were playing classical music on
the stereo, and a little bit of folk. And although the
atmosphere of those parties was not pure Beat, it was all
serious and “down” as the beats liked it. The sunlight
and nakedness of The Sixties was nowhere to be seen.
"This was heavy stuff, man, so be cool."

The point of relating this story is to point out that these

underground jazz sessions were just one of several
indicators that pointed the way from the end of the Beat
movement forward to what was to come in just a few
years, the full-blown Sixties Movement. I am talking here
of the late 1950s and very early 1960s. What we call The
Sixties didn't start until the summer of 1965.

These houses and their jazz parties were usually held in

one or two largish rooms. The jazz players would set up
in a corner…. drums, a standup bass, and a horn, usually
a saxophone, but sometimes a flute. And of course a
piano, if one was present. There was very little vocal jazz
as I remember. The drink of choice back then was wine,
red wine at that, and you would usually find it out on the
kitchen table in gallon jugs or bottles. We just helped
ourselves or chipped in if we had any scratch.

100
And, as mentioned, there was pot, something that a
high-school boy like myself (who was reading Kerouac)
desperately wanted to get a taste of. And these parties
went late into the night. Time was something we had
back then, with nothing better than that particular night
waiting for us the next day, so we were not in a hurry to
sleep. The right-now of the late nights was just about
perfect. And it was so serious. All of the dark mood of
European movies, art, and literature had rubbed off on
us until “down” was our form of cool. The word “cool”
says it all. We were not hot, not even warm. We were
cool.

And let’s not forget the poetry. Words were big with the
beats, and literature and poetry were the coin of the
realm. It was not all about music; it was cigarettes,
coffee, and endless talking until the bennies or Dexamyl
wore off. And it is not like we had any real experience in
life at that point (at least not me), so it was pure
speculation. We were all entrepreneurs investing in the
promise of the future. And it was hard for me to be cool
or "down," when the future looked so bright.

If I was on speed and also drinking wine or coffee, some

sort of high nausea would take hold of me as it got
toward morning. My hands would shake, but I also knew
that in that state no sleep would come for a long time
yet, and any attempts to rest would find me lying there
wide awake, slightly in the zone, when dawn came,
staring at the ceiling. Any sleep would only be a half-

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sleep. By that time I would be telling myself that I never
wanted to take speed again, but I probably would. And I
am talking about those little rolls of Benzedrine wrapped
in aluminum foil… about ten or so, the size of aspirin. It
was like a tiny roll of Lifesavers, only these weren’t life
savers, but life burners.

So those were the two places where I felt (at the very
least) the presence of the Beat muse, in those all-night
house parties in Ann Arbor and sitting in the Michigan
Union Grill (MUG) by day. For Ann Arbor, that was it.
And although the beat stereotype image might be of
the solitary thinker, the beats (or wannabes) I knew were
remarkably social. They seemed to like gathering
together. Of course there were one-to-one talks in
apartments or even single rooms, but as often as not
they were about administering drugs. The rest of the
time we grouped together… somewhere.

And many of the Ann Arbor Beats were just university

students, although students that were conspicuous by
their berets, long hair, and Navy Pea Coats. And of
course the folks I hung with seemed to always be older
than I was. That was because there were. I so much
wanted to be older and to be part of all that.

And then there were the women. I was too young to

really deserve much attention from the Beat women,
although they were so beautiful. As I was really just a
townie, I gravitated to the townie women who, like

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myself, hung at the edge of the student scene. And
there were not many of us and we were treated a bit like
a minority, which I guess we were. We townies knew
each other on sight.

I remember a tall skinny blonde name Francis that I kind

of hung out with. Fran was shared by a number of us,
and she was more a friend than anything else. I do
remember spending the night with her at this or that
place, but we were just crashing together; probably
nothing much happened. She was also a townie.

And places to have sex or even cuddle in Ann Arbor

when you were in high school and living at home were
very hard to come by, the empty room or apartment, the
tiny side room off from where others were partying, the
back seat of a car, the summer grass – anywhere
possible. It was a constant problem. I can remember my
grandmother who lived at the corner of East University
and Hill Street had a little basement room that she
would rent out to students. Sometimes it would be
empty and I would sneak in with my current girlfriend (if
I had one), file down the basement steps and past the
old furnace and slip into that tiny room. What a godsend
it was to be out of the elements and alone with
someone you wanted to make love with. Of course
grandma, good Catholic woman that she was, would
have hated the goings on there, or would she? Yeah, she
would.

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Back in those times the world was vast, but the places
we met were few. This was before coffee houses and
there were no dance clubs. There were places like
Drake's Sandwich Shop at 709 N. University, but these
were preppy student tea houses, where you sipped a
soda or had a sandwich from which the crust had been
cut off. They did have booths with tall sides, so private
conversations could happen there, but none of the folks
I knew ever went there.

Really it was only the Michigan Union Grill and live

music at private houses on the weekends back in the
late 1950s and early 1960s where we hung out.

[Photo by Torben Hansen.]

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THE FIXED STARS AND BEYOND
THE FIXED STARS

April 6, 2022

The space beyond the outer planets is not empty, but

filled with all kinds of matter: stars, nebulae, quasars,
black holes, and other deep space matter. Although

105
there is a lot of matter scattered out in space, it is not
evenly distributed, not even remotely so. Most of the
matter in the universe beyond our solar system is
severely grouped or clustered in just a few areas of the
heavens. In fact, clustering is the rule, not the exception
with stellar matter.

Stars tend to occur in small groups. These groups are

themselves part of still larger groups and, as the size of
the groups increases, it is clear that they cling to one
another to form vast stellar planes. The most obvious
plane is the plane of our local galaxy. When the galactic
plane is overhead on a summer night in the Northern
hemisphere, it is a blazing mass of stars, packed
together in a single narrow zone.

As mentioned, stars are not randomly placed out in

space, but hang out together in a group. Even stars that
appear as singletons are usually just stars so near that
we can’t pick up on the group to which they belong. We
are right in the middle of the group ourselves.

‘Everything’ out there in space is all about stars, about

their lives and deaths. Stars, like people, are born, live
for a while, and then fade out and die. Even exotic stellar
objects like black holes, quasars, neutron stars, and
supernovae are simply stars in one stage of their lives or
another. And the vast gaseous wraith-like nebulae are
nothing more than clouds of gas in which proto stars
(young stars) are being born. It is all about the life and

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death of stars. That’s all there is. Period.

In our inner and esoteric sky, the fixed stars that shine
are what serve to guide us through the dark hallways of
life. Here there is not space for a thorough discussion of
the fixed stars and other deep space objects. I wrote a
book on this deep-space astrology that was published in
2006, called “The Astrology of Space," and even more
detail can be found there.

http://spiritgrooves.net/pdf/e-books/The-Astrology-of-
Space.pdf

If you have read this far in the article, you must have
some general idea as to how to approach getting at the
esoteric meaning of exoteric facts and signs. Let’s give
you a test. In what follows, I will present a rough
description of the fixed stars, along with their life and
death cycle. I will stick more toward the scientific facts
about these bodies. Let’s see if you can follow the life
story of the stars and apply it to your life, based on the
chakra-based material given earlier in this article. I will
give you some hints as we go along.

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF STARS

Once born, each star must live and die, much like us. The
death of stars is inevitable, and the life process is often
conceived as one of thwarting or putting off of this
inescapable death and thus prolonging life. The most

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fascinating aspect of a star's life is the intense struggle
between the forces of gravity and contraction on one
hand (so called outer forces -Saturn) and the internal
forces of radiation pressure on the other (solar). As long
as there is radiation coming from within, the forces of
gravitational contraction are resisted or balanced, and
stellar life as we observe it continues. The star shines. In
fact, the entire life of the star can be conceived of in
terms of a continuous conversion process.

Within each star, these two archetypical forces form the

stellar shell, which is well below the actual surface of the
star itself. The thickness of this shell as well as its
position near to or far from the inner stellar core suffers
continual change and adjustment throughout the life of
the star. In the end, the inner comes to the surface and
is out.

The incredible weight of the many layers of gas first

initiates and then continues to contain and maintain the
radiant process — a cosmic crucible. This pressure and
the inevitable collapse that must occur in time is
forestalled and put off by an incredible series of
adjustments and changes going on within the core of
the star. First of all, hydrogen burning (initiated at the
birth of the star) continues for around ten billion years.
This constitutes a healthy chunk of the stellar lifetime.

Our sun is about halfway through this stage at present,

and we can expect the sun to continue as it is today for

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another five billion years or so. However, the eventual
exhaustion of hydrogen signals the onset of drastic
changes in the life of the star and brings on the next
stage in that life.

The radiant pressure of burning Hydrogen within was all

that held back the initial contraction of the protostar,
and when this is gone (like with the Saturn return) the
star's core continues to contract. It then has no material
strong enough to stop this contraction and the core
again shrinks, causing increased pressure, density, and
temperature. When the temperature at the center of the
star reaches l00 million degrees, the nuclei of helium
atoms (products of the Hydrogen burning stage) are
violently fused together to form carbon. The fusion of
this helium burning at the stellar core again produces a
furious outpouring of radiant energy, and this energy
release inside the star's core (as the star contracts)
pushes the surface far out into space in all directions.

The sudden expansion creates an enormous star with a

diameter of a quarter of a billion miles and a low surface
temperature between 3,000-4,000 degrees — a red
giant (the Jupiter Chakra). Born again.

In about five billion years, the core of our sun will

collapse, while its surface expands. This expansion will
swallow the earth and our planet will vanish in a puff of
smoke. The red stars like Antares and Arcturus are
examples of this stage and kind of star.

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This helium burning stage (red giant) continues for
several hundred million years before exhaustion. With
the helium gone, the contraction process again resumes
and still greater temperatures, densities, and pressures
result. At this point, the size or mass of the star begins
to dictate the final course of the life. For very massive
stars, the ignition of such thermonuclear reactions as
carbon, oxygen, and silicon fusion may take place,
creating all of the heavier elements. These later stages in
stellar evolution produce stars that are very unstable.
These stars can vary or pulsate in size and luminosity.

In certain cases, this can lead to a total stellar

detonation, a supernova.

A star may end its life in one of several ways. When all
the possible nuclear fuels have been exhausted, all
conversions or adjustments made, the inexorable force
of gravity (the grave) asserts itself and the remaining
stellar material becomes a white dwarf. As the star
continues to contract, having no internal radiation
pressure left, the pressures and densities reach such
strength that the very atoms are torn to pieces and the
result is a sea of electrons in which are scattered atomic
nuclei. This mass of electrons is squeezed until there is
no possible room for contraction. The resulting white
dwarf begins the long process of cooling off.

Becoming a white dwarf is only possible for stars with a

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mass of less than 1.25 solar masses. If the dying star has
a mass that is greater than this limit, the electron
pressure cannot withstand the gravitational pressure
and the contraction continues. This critical limit of 1.25
solar masses is termed the Chandrasekhar Limit after the
famous Indian scientist by that name.

To avoid this further contraction, it is believed that many

stars unload or blow off enough excess mass to get
within the Chandrasekhar Limit (middle-age crisis). The
nova is an example of an attempt of this kind. In recent
years it has become clear that not all stars are successful
in discarding their excess mass, and for them a very
different state results than what we find in the white
dwarf. We have seen that the electron pressure is not
strong enough to halt the contraction process and the
star gets smaller and tighter. The pressure and density
increase until the electrons are squeezed into the nuclei
of the atoms out of which the star is made. At this point
the negatively charged electrons combine with the
positively charged protons and the resulting neutron
force is strong enough to again halt the contraction
process and we have another type of stellar corpse: a
neutron star.

We have one further kind of "dying" star. There is a limit

to the size of star that can become a neutron star.

Beyond a limit in mass of 2.25 solar masses, the

degenerate neutron pressure cannot withstand the

111
forces of gravity. If the dying star is not able to eject
enough matter through a nova or supernova explosion
and the remaining stellar core contains more than three
solar masses, it cannot become a white dwarf or a
neutron star. In this case there are no forces strong
enough to hold up the star and the stellar core
continues to shrink infinitely! The gravitational field
surrounding the star gets so strong that space-time
begins to warp and when the star has collapsed to only
a few miles in diameter, space-time folds in upon itself
and the star vanishes from the physical universe. What
remains is termed a black hole.

It should be clear at this point that all of the many kinds

of stars and objects in space could be ordered in terms
of the evolutionary stage they represent in the life of the
star. Just as each of us face what has been called the
"personal equation" in our lives, so each star's life is
made possible by the opposing internal and external
forces. In the end, it appears, the forces of gravity
dominate the internal process of adjustment and
conversion that is taking place, just as in our own lives
the aging of our personal bodies is a fact. And yet fresh
stars are forming and being born, even now. The process
of life or self is somehow larger than the physical ends
to the personal life of a star or a man and our larger life
is a whole or continuum and continuing process that we
are just beginning to appreciate. Some of the ideas that
are emerging in regard to the black hole phenomenon
are most profound and perhaps are the closest

112
indicators we have of how the eternal process of our life,
in fact, functions. Hint: true teachers are like black holes.

In conclusion, a very useful way to approach the fixed

stars, as pointed out above, is to determine what stage
in stellar evolution a particular star may be. Is the star a
young, energetic newly formed star in the blue part of
the spectrum or an old dying (red colored) star? Are we
talking about a white dwarf or a super dense neutron
star? I have found this approach to the endless millions
of stars so much more helpful than ascribing particular
characteristics to existing stars and objects, most of
which are too new to have any history in astrology
anyway. As mentioned earlier, learn to read the writings
of science from a personal or esoteric astrological
perspective. It is very instructive.

THE SOLAR MYSTERIES

OUR SELF AND THE SUN

In this modern era, the esoteric traditions of the West

and the East are being examined and compared. For the
most part, Western thinking is becoming aware of
Eastern thought and rightly so; we are going to school
on that. This difference between these two views, East
and West, is perhaps nowhere clearer than in the
concept of the Self.

Here in the West, the concept of the Self has been, and

113
still is, considered important, if not central to our
thinking. I would vote on “central,” and it is very much a
love-hate sort of thing.

On the one hand we are, from childhood onward,

exhorted to get to know our Self, to find or discover our
Self, and above all to “be” our Self. At the same time, we
are told by almost every spiritual and religious
persuasion to not be selfish, to not think of our Self too
much, or not think only of our Self, but rather to think of
others. In fact, we are asked to put the needs of others
above those of our own self. And then we wonder about
schizophrenia. What is this all about?

In modern Western astrology, virtually in all traditions,

the identifying of the Self (whatever we might agree that
is) with the Sun is standard. The Self, at least in standard
geocentric astrology, is considered synonymous with the
Sun. A legitimate question might be: are we talking here
about the Sun as in “Sun Sign” astrology (where Earth
sees the sun in the sign opposite where it is), or are we
speaking of that great fiery orb, the center of the solar
system?

The answer from my understanding is: both. The Sun as

the Self is a standard correspondence in Western
astrology. This is not so in the East, and we will get to
that in a moment. For now, let’s say more about this
Western astrological identification of the Sun as the Self,
and the Sun having to do with self-development and the

114
like.

The Sun, so most astrological definitions go, is who we

are in essence, our very Self. It is also our goals, who we
are aiming to be, what we will become in the future,
after we finish going through all our major changes. We
will end up there. The Sun is as much into the future as
the Moon represents the past. I won’t spend a lot of
time on the common definition of the “Sun as Self,” as
most of you already know this or can Google it in a few
minutes.

I want to return to this dichotomy of the Sun as being

who we are in essence, or the essential Self we will (or
are trying to) become, and the endless admonitions on
every side to not be selfish. How can we be asked to find
or discover ourselves on one hand, but to not be “self-
ish” on the other. Which is it?

Well, the answer, of course, is both, and this is the

source of the confusion here. It would seem that, no
matter how we try to be unselfish, every road of inward
discovery leads to our Self. It is our Self that is somehow
“in there” and stands like the proverbial guardian on the
threshold. When we try to find ourselves, and to look
inward, we come across no other than our Self. That is
what we have been told to find.

And yet, we are told not to take our Self too seriously,
not to get too enamored or attached to our Self, and to

115
try to put thoughts of our Self out of our mind, or at
least on the back burner. Hey, don’t be so selfish!

And did not Copernicus point out to astrologers, some

500 or so years ago, that everything does NOT revolve
around us (the Earth), but rather that we revolved
around the Sun. Astrologers, even in the 21st Century
have yet to be empowered with that thought!

I THINK I AM

“I have gone to paint the sunrise in the sky,

To feel the cool of night warm into day,
The flowers from the ground call up to me,
This Self I think I am is hard to see.

A poem I wrote. And I wrote another poem more about

the dark side of our Self as a personality.

PHOENIX

Personality,
Bright beauty of the night,
That terrible crystal,
Burning in the darkness,
At the very edge of time.

Watching,
In rapt fascination,
Fires,

116
Impossible to ignore,
Forever frozen,
On the face of age.

It is a dark light,
Indeed,
Funeral pyres,
Signifying nothing,
But impermanence.

This is a fire,
That does not warm.

[Logo by me (Saturn and the Sun) for an astrology

group in Ann Arbor, Michigan, "An Ann Arbor
Astrological Association.']

117
THE TRAP OF TECHNIQUE

April 7, 2022

Everything is right here and right now. This is it! What it

depends on is our sensitivity to and ability to be aware
of what’s here and now, such as the influx of solar
radiation, or what-have-you? We can conceptualize it as
much as we want, but can we feel it in the flesh? Is it
part of our actual experience or is it just another
theoretical pursuit for which we have no physical
familiarity?

118
Astrology is strewn with ‘blue sky” theorizing for which
there is no experience, much less any realization of that
experience. Because astrology is filled with what are
called ‘Great Circles,” imaginary divisions of space that
an aspiring astrologer can parse and divide into
imaginary circles as much and fine as they wish. Whether
they have any sensitivity to these divisions, these
imaginary lines, is another story. Most often not, IMO.

It's the same with dharma or anything for that matter.

Thinkers are many, yet those who can actually
experience what is thought about are rare, and even
more rare are those who actually realize what they
experience. So, there is some sorting out that has to be
done, sorting the conceptualizers from the experiencers,
and then the realizers from the experiencers to find the
tip of the top of that pyramid.

Nothing is more potent than a technique, astrological,

dharma, or otherwise. A technique is the residue, what
remains, from someone who has not only experienced
what they at first only conceptualized, but they then
became aware of their experience to the point of
realization. The resulting technique, the concise list of
the steps involved, if followed, will produce ‘some’ kind
of result, but nothing approaching actual realization. The
problem with using techniques we have not realized is
that we don’t know what we are talking about.
Unrealized technique is like a black box. You put
something in one end and some result comes out the

119
other end, but that does not mean you know how it
works, much less are actually empowered by the
technique. We live in layer upon layer of unrealized
technique.

To me, this is kind of a crippled way of doing things, to

use techniques we have not personally realized. Of
course, this is done all the time, but if you are a master
of your field, astrology or otherwise, more is required
than bare repetition and duplication of techniques. In
my experience, empowerment is required before we use
a technique, and that is not so easy to find or acquire.

To repeat, nothing is more powerful than the technique

that is the result of someone’s realization. The resulting
technique of an actual realization is like freeze-dried
realization and seminal. It is the residue of a full-grown
realization reduced to a series of steps that if done
correctly will produce a result. Yet, even that result, while
perhaps useful, is only dimly similar to an actual full
realization. Techniques are everywhere. We and our
society are rule-ridden.

If we mindlessly are using techniques for which we have

no realization, all we have to do is add the waters of
realization and awareness to restore the technique to its
actuality as something fully realized. Of course, for most
of us that is like trying to put the toothpaste back in the
tube. We don’t know where to begin.

120
And when we build a life of techniques that we have not
ourselves realized, its like walking on thin ice, IMO. Or it
is like making a house of cards. Sooner or later that
house of cards is going to collapse, and we don’t have
the fundamentals to rebuild it. So, I feel it is better to
build our practice from a few techniques that we have
actually realized and been empowered in rather than to
have a bag of techniques that we have never grounded
in actuality.

How rare is authenticity? How far do we have to go to

be authentic? What is it about authenticity that makes it
authentic? Why do we hunger for that? There is
something about authenticity that satisfies us, through
and through.

The human condition is fragile enough as it is,

assumptions built on assumptions, an elaborate veneer
of meaning that only serves to hide our essential
emptiness. As the pith texts say, our ‘being’ is becoming.
It never has been here. A little poem I wrote:

ON LOCATION

Can you locate where the mind is?

If not, can you find where the mind isn't?

121
A TRIBUTE TO BARBARA LEWIS

April 8, 2022

This is just a brief tribute to Barbara Lewis, one of my all-

time favorite singer/songwriters. I have been listening to
a lot of her songs these last few days. You all know
“Hello Stranger,” but there are a lot of great songs that
you may not have heard. My daughter May was brought

122
up on Barbara Lewis tunes. Lewis and Irma Thomas,
along with Billie Holiday, were my favorite woman
singers and May heard them a lot. Yesterday, I posted
May singing out in L.A. at the Moroccan Lounge, where I
believe she is recording an album or a group of songs.

Barbara Lewis is from the Ann Arbor area where I grew

up. She was born in Salem Township, part of Washtenaw
County, and just outside Ann Arbor. Lewis was managed
by Ollie McLaughlin, a local DJ that we all knew.
McLaughlin not only produced Barbara Lewis, but
several jazz players, and also Dion Jackson, a local singer
who was a friend of ours. And our one-time manager
Hugh "Jeep" Holland and McLaughlin worked together
in the same Ann Arbor music scene.

I could give more bio details, It is best to just listen. Here

are three from Barbara Lewis that I feel are among her
best, so if you have time, these are the tunes.

Barbara Lewis: “Just the Way You Are Today”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRHDo3__aDU

Barbara Lewis: “Oh, Be My Love”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4SbPHn_U6E

Barbara Lewis: “How Can I Tell”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqyGbc6aG0w

As for me, up here in north Michigan, it’s still too wintry,

123
blowy, snowy, and cold, with not much sun. Not much
for me to do outside as of yet. Spring cleaning here
indoors is up for grabs and I’m going for it. The ‘feel’ of
spring is hardly what I would call near yet. My internal
clock tells me that I should be outside. I need to be
active, just to feel physically well, so I’m digging into to
whatever has to be done around our place.

We haven’t moved north yet, because we can’t find a

house we want to live in that we can afford, so it’s too
soon to pack our house and the dharma center next
door, although that would keep me busy, so it’s what
should I do?

I guess what I am doing I would call ‘consolidating’,

sorting the keepers from what we will sell, give away, or
donate to ‘Habitat for Humanity’. And I can label things
that need labeling. I can do that.

I just don’t feel much like just sitting around, although

obviously I have done that all winter with no problem.
Now I have a problem with it because it should be warm
enough to go outside and do a hundred things. Yet, it’s
not.

I found a lot of my old leather boots and shoes, all

pretty stiff and dry, so I rubbed lanolin into them. That
was something to do. And I completely reworked my
upstairs workroom, quite the task, physically moving
everything in the room around, and its better now, or at

124
least I am better for being active.

I can count the days until we drive north, way up to

Whitefish Point at the tip of the top of the Michigan’s
Upper Peninsula. This is where the great raptors (eagles,
hawks, etc.), flying north, come to where they have to fly
across a part of Lake Superior. Margaret and I want to
see them as they funnel down to the tip of this
peninsula to cross over to Canada, and I will try to
photography some as well.

One of these weeks, two of my granddaughters (Emma,

Josephine, and their mom Anne) will visit and I plan to
make potholders with them, either that or if we can go
outside and search for micrometeorites.

As you can see, I’m just treading water, biding my time

until the sun comes out. The permafrost (or whatever we
call it) is out of the ground, so we can turn the outside
water back on. That’s about all the news I have. Enjoy
the Barbara Lewis tunes and thank the lord she was
there with the music!

[Promotional photo of Barbara Lewis.]

125
THE ASTROLOGY OF SOLAR INFLUX

April 9, 2022

An astrologer friend said what’s with this solar influx, like

the sun with its solar flares and CMEs (Corona Mass
Ejection)? We can’t predict them. Of course, we can’t
predict solar variation to the degree we can predict the
moment of the New or Full Moon(a momentary event),
but that does not mean that solar intensity is not
predictable. With solar activity, we are working with a
continuing process that varies constantly, which is no
reason not to become aware of it. For one thing, as
astrologers we don’t get to ignore heavenly events that

126
we don’t know how to interpret. Cosmic events don’t
cater to us, but quite the reverse: we cater to them,
whatever is out there. That’s the role of an astrologer,
interpreting celestial events, if we can.

In fact, our Sun is a variable star, meaning the energy

output of this sun varies by one-thousandth of its
magnitude (0.1%) over an 11-year solar cycle. And this
has been dutifully monitored for centuries and ever
increasing as we come to understand the importance of
the variation of solar energy.

The fact that astrologers don’t study the solar variation

is a mystery to me. It’s staring us right in the face and
the Sun is literally the source of life for us. The problem
is probably that we don’t know how to interpret solar
intensity and variation, even though it’s not exactly
rocket science. We are unfamiliar with studying our Sun.

What kind of astrologers are we? How can we ignore

something so prominent and invasive as the effects of
solar flares and the CMEs that our Sun hurls at Earth,
huge masses of energy that literally change us, yet we
seem dumbfounded when it comes to interpreting these
effects.

I believe that astrologers don’t know how to work with

the solar variation and the 11-years sunspot cycle of
solar intensity. We can rectify that. Here are two sources
through which you can easily monitor the state of the

127
sun’s activity and solar variation:

SpaceWeather.com (general overview)

www.solarham.net (detailed graphs)

I have come to understand that solar variation, ranging

from the quiet sun (normal daylight) to an ‘angry” sun
(CMEs) is best understood in its effect on us as ‘change’,
meaning the quiet sun provides a normal amount of
change in our lives, while the active or over-active sun
also provides an injection of enhanced change, and
much more energetically, usually enough change to
overwhelm us and possibly upset our current apple cart.

We can only take so much of a change overload before

we, well, perhaps are forced into a change of course. The
conservative in us likes everything to remain constant in
our lives, while the liberal in us may welcome change.
We get both. Yet, in the next few years we will get a lot
more overload of change, since the sunspot cycle is on
the rise and, according to scientists, this particular rising
cycle appears to be unusually strong, and not vice-versa.
And so, we best hold on to our hats.

As mentioned, I find it helpful to equate solar intense

influx with sheer change, and it can be harder to absorb
(without blinking) large packets of change than the
average amount of change of the quiet sun. Lately and
for the next couple of years we can expect ‘big’ change
and we best learn how to deal with it.

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Because intense change can be overwhelming to folks,
many just go and lie down or otherwise find some way
to weather the incoming increased change, like stick our
head in the sand or otherwise denying change. It is our
habit to ignore what is too difficult to acknowledge or
absorb, so that can be our first step in learning to cope
with increased change in our lives. Take it standing up,
so to speak. Look change in the eye. Allow yourself to
become aware of it.

The awareness of the incoming effect of solar change to

us psychologically and emotionally is something we can
develop consciously. It’s like hardening off a plant in the
garden that has grown too ‘leggy’ and thin. We are
going to get hardened-off in the next few years of
increasing change. We learn not only to accept change
as it comes, but to use bursts of change to further our
trajectory through life. In other words, we don’t have to
take it lying down. We can learn to handle change.

As for myself, I find that when the scientists tell me (see

above links) that a large solar flare (or CME) has
occurred on the surface of the sun and about when it
will reach Earth, I should not only pay attention to the
when the energy surge will hit Earth, but to also pay
attention to when the solar flare or CME originally
occurred on the surface of the sun. We all know it takes
about 9 minutes for sunlight to travel from the Sun to
Earth, and I seem to experience the effect of these solar

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explosions when (or soon after) they actually take place
on the sun, and not just when they are predicted to hit
Earth’s atmosphere some time later. This is an important
finding, IMO. Somehow, we are connected with the sun
so intimately, that any change in the sun’s output is felt
by us.

And so, I am speaking to those astrologer Facebook

‘Friends’ out there, of which there are a couple
thousand. It’s time that we astrologers as a group upped
our game and learned to account for, measure, and
monitor solar influx. It goes with the turf of being an
astrologer in this modern world. Of course, how we use
solar influx is up to us, yet we first have to become
aware of it.

And I find it fascinating and very helpful, not only for

myself, but also of use to others who don’t know what is
happening psychologically and emotionally when times
of sudden change can overwhelm us. Here are three free
books that may help:

“Solar Flares: Their Inner and Outer Effects”

http://spiritgrooves.net/pdf/e-books/Solar_Flares.pdf

“Sun Storms: The Astrology of Solar Activity”

http://spiritgrooves.net/pdf/e-books/sun_storms.pdf

“Solar Biology: Monitoring Space Weather”

http://spiritgrooves.net/pdf/e-

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books/SOLAR%20BIOLOGY%20pdf.pdf

And of course, I am here to do my best to answer any

questions, if you will just ask them.

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TOUCH THE SKY, TOUCH THE EARTH

April 10, 2022

Of course, reach for the sky, because as we know, the

sky’s the limit, at least the limit of ‘UP’, yet before you
do, the sage advice is to first reach down and touch the
earth as the Buddha Shakyamuni did, rather than just

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starting off reaching for the sky. With the Buddha, this is
called the ‘Earth-Touching Gesture’. As the historical
Buddha of this age, he did that for a reason that is worth
understanding.

Reaching up into the mind or seeking out-of-body

experiences without first being grounded is like flying a
kite without a tail. It makes sense to reach up only when
we are firmly grounded on Earth, yet if we are already
too high, already too much into thinking and our head,
reaching up will not benefit us at all. On the contrary.
Like the image of the full lotus, which can only bloom on
the surface of the water because its roots are established
in the mud.

Our taking refuge (hiding high in the head) in the

conceptual mind until the life of the flesh passes might
be some form of cosmic humor, if only it were not so
sad. We can’t assume that we are automatically
grounded when we enter this life as a child and that we
have nowhere to look but ‘up’. Many, if not most, folks
would benefit from first looking down and make sure
they are secure, firmly grounded, and have touched
earth as the Buddha did and pointed out.

I know that was originally the case with me, that I was
too much into my head, spent too much time out-of-the
body and that, later in life, it is much harder to get
grounded than when we are young and full of energy,
under thirty years of age. Over thirty, past the prime of

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life physically, it is much harder to move things around
because we have already entered the space beyond
time’s grip (Saturn Return) on us and have less grip. The
time to get grounded is when we are younger.

Of course, sooner or later, life will ground us anyway,

and I am reminded of a poem the artist Michelangelo
wrote (yes, he also wrote poems) which said something
like “What if a little bird should escape death for many a
long year, only to suffer a crueler death."

That is the food for thought I bring to this piece. As my

first dharma teacher would say to me, again and again,
using this circus analogy. “Michael, if you spend all your
time in the sideshow, the main tent will be gone.”

[Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical Buddha for this age,

as drawn by the Bhutanese artist Sangye Wangchuk
during his several years stay at our dharma center here
in Big Rapids, Michigan. Some 500 drawings like this by
Wangchuk are now a part of the permanent collection of
the Ruben Museum of Art in New York City, specializing
in the culture and art of the Himalayan regions.]

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INTERESTED?

April 13, 2022

As I have mentioned many times here, when in doubt,

examine your interests. Even when not in doubt, look to
your interests. The threads of our interest all lead
somewhere important to us. They are like tributaries that
lead to a larger river that will eventually sweep us away
into the sea of effortless activity.

What may start as a trickle of interest, if followed, as

mentioned, lead to larger and larger veins or tributaries
that indicate where we want to go. It’s not like attention
to our interests is just a sidetrack or a waste of time.

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What naturally interests us is, IMO, key, although like
everything else, we may have to become more sensitive
and actually learn how to recognize our own interests.
One thing about ‘interest’ is that we are interested in it,
meaning interest is self-propelling and needs no other
fuel to keep us going.

Obviously, if we, for example, are not interested in

working our current job, we better tread carefully, lest
we blow up our current situation with no forethought to
the future. We will certainly learn from such an action
(turning over the applecart) but perhaps not the things
we most need to learn just now.

It is best to have a plan about turning our interests loose

and going hog-wild about following our interests. In my
case, following my interests has been a lifelong
endeavor and I have moved very slowly, but steadily, in
the direction of what interested me.

Of course, there is some purification that has to take

place, like if we are interested in in eating Hostess
Twinkies until we fall over, that will have consequences
that we don’t need just now. So, some common sense
has to be maintained.

My point here is that, based on a lifetime of following

my interests as best I can, I can assure you that, as
mentioned, little trickles of interest (at first), lead to

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streams, which lead to tributaries, which lead to rivers,
and end up in the ocean of interest. That idea.

I don’t know of any other way get the job done. Of

course, we can read books, where we are told to do this
or that and we will get a result. Good luck with that! It
sometimes works, but just as often it is a waste of time,
and we give up on rote instructions. There is no driving
energy there.

With ‘interest’ we never tire because we are interested in

following any thread of interest farther. As mentioned, it
is as close to a perpetual motion machine as we will ever
find. We do have to find out (until we can learn to trust)
our own interests and prove to ourselves that our
interests, no matter how circuitous, lead in the general
direction we need to go in life. We each have to prove
that to ourselves. I can only tell you about it.

“Interests” work like magnets, pulling us in this or that

direction. We don’t have to trump up the energy to keep
going. Our interests are naturally self-propelling and
sustaining.

What more can I say? I have done this my whole life,

starting very young and being raised out in the country,
where there were no neighbors and no kids my age. I
ended up studying nature and without realizing it, just
naturally began to hone my interests. The whole process
was self-directing, and just naturally unfolded.

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By the time I was any age at all, I was already onto
following my own interests and these only became
clearer as I wound my way through school, being
carefully to protect and follow my natural sense of
interest all the way.

By the time I was a young man, I knew of no other way

to live than by following whatever I was interested in to
where it led. Also, I became very skilled in differentiating
what interests led to the future and which did not.

So, there you have it, something about my view of

interest and following its threads. If you come up with a
better approach, do let me know, but until then I will
continue to stick to what interests me. Nothing else is of
interest!

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TRYING TO BE KIND

April 14, 2022

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Here is a point that deserves some clarification, IMO, the
idea of making an effort to be kind, to be kind by intent
rather than actuality. We mean to be kind. We intend to
be kind, yet we are driven to this intellectually, because
we feel we ought to or should be kind, rather than that
we are impulsively kind by nature. There is always this
‘middle-man’ of making an effort.

This may be hard to describe, yet you should instantly

understand what I am pointing at when I say “make an
effort to be kind.” I’m not saying we should not make an
effort to be kind (or whatever), only pointing out the
conceptual effort. In fact, the dharma teachings even
have a word for this kind of effort, which is ‘Relative
Bodhicitta’ as compared to the more natural ‘Absolute
Bodhicitta’.

As mentioned, this is not meant to demean relative

bodhicitta, our going through the motions of kindness
and so forth, basically intellectually or because we ‘think’
we should or that it’s socially correct, rather than being
driven to kindness by nature and acting without a
thought.

Understanding the difference between the two

definitions, as mentioned, is not to shame us for being
unable to rise to the occasion of what is called absolute
bodhicitta, but rather to point out to us that we may be
well-meaning and going through the motions of
kindness by design or obligation, rather than just being

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kind. It is best not to confuse the two.

In other words, just going through the motions of

kindness or compassion in an obligatory manner, which
basically amounts to “kindness sounds like this” when
that’s the best we can do for the moment, is part and
parcel of relative bodhicitta. We can’t help but do this
because we are learning to be kind, trying it out, or
feeling that is what we should be doing as opposed to
just already doing it.

In other words, relative bodhicitta is OK to do, if only

because we have no choice. We don’t know better. And
so, I guess the big question is how do we make the
transition from relative to absolute bodhicitta? How and
when does that happen? This blog is clarification on this
point.

You might imagine that the transition from relative to

absolute bodhicitta is just gradual, meaning that
gradually we shift from well-meaning to meaning well or
however you want to phrase this. Yet, as far as I can tell,
in dharma terms, that’s not how it works. We don’t just
shift from relative to absolute bodhicitta gradually, like
watching the sun rise.

Instead, there seems to be a specific event that triggers

this transition, rather than a gradual morphing that
brings this on, and that event traditionally in the dharma
is called ‘Recognition’, which simply means our

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recognizing the true nature of the mind after having this
nature pointed out to us by an authentic dharma
teacher.

That little cog in the wheel is far reaching in its

implication and amounts to one big fly in the ointment
of dharma practice. While almost everything in dharma
practice is gradual and graduated, the trigger for
‘Recognition’ as to the actual nature of the mind is more
like a switch, a switch that is either on or off, and not a
graduated seamless process.

And this is made even more of a sticky point because

‘Recognition’, at least in all the pith dharma books I
know, requires each of us to actually seek out an
authentic dharma teacher that can point out to us the
true nature of the mind, and that pointing-out is what
precipitates ‘Recognition” in us. And of course, we as
students have to be able to receive these pointing-out
instructions, which itself is not a small task.

In other words, there comes a point in learning the

dharma where we seek out these pointing-out
instructions from an authentic master. And thus crossing
this impasse or bridge can be a problem or pickle that
each of us are in, the fact that we are just waiting around
for something like that to happen to us, which is not the
same as our getting off our duffs and seeking out an
authentic dharma teacher to work with us. And by
‘authentic’ I mean authentic for us, finding a teacher

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whose direction or help works with us. In other words,
one that we can learn from.

And for those of you new to the dharma or who have no

dharma teachers where you live that appeal to you, what
I am saying here may have to be just information that
you take in for now. I am doing my best to inform you.
In fact, I am here pointing out the ‘pointing-out
instructions’, so at the very least you are aware such a
situation and instructions exist.

As to why recognition of the true nature of the mind

exists and how that enables Absolute Bodhicitta, all that
I can tell you is that, as far as I can tell, that’s just the
way it works. It is an age-old tradition, being introduced
to the mind’s nature by an authentic lama.

Perhaps this is because once we have been successfully

introduced to the true nature of the mind, we begin to
actually become familiar enough with our own mind to
become more confident. ‘Recognition’ marks the
beginning of a process of realization that will continue
until we are, perhaps lifetimes from now, enlightened. It
is an articulated event, with a before and after.

With ‘Recognition’, it's also like we have finally realized

something after perhaps years of work, and that’s a
huge load off our mind. We are no longer paying it
forward or kicking the can of realization down the road.
We can afford to stop striving, give effort a rest, and

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actually look around.

And what we see when we look around is that, finally,

we have at least reached some kind of resting place, a
turning point. Let’s call it a view. If nothing else, at that
point, after Recognition, we also want to share our
‘view’, with other fellow travelers, and spontaneously at
that, sharing what we have confidently now experienced
and we have a place to stand from which to do that.

At least, that’s the best way I can express what ‘Absolute

Bodhicitta’ is all about and how it differs from ‘Relative
Bodhicitta’, the imitating of kindness and compassion.
Instead, with absolute bodhicitta, we cannot but have a
deep urge to share and be of use to others, if only
because we have finally had some actual dharma results
ourselves.

I know… talking about a result in the midst of an

ongoing process is like taking a freeze-frame out of
motion-picture movie. Perhaps this is why explaining
this inner change in view is so difficult, and yet it
happens. With greater confidence, our view does
change, and one of the byproducts of that change is
that suddenly we have the time and energy to step
beyond our own self and struggles, at least enough to
be of use to fellow travelers.

And, as condescending as that may sound, I find it to be

true. When we have something like a result with our own

144
dharma practice, such as ‘Recognition,” along with it
comes space and time to think about someone other
than ourselves. In fact, it is better than that. The moment
we can see beyond our own needs and confusion, there
is nothing else to see other than the needs of others and
we cannot but recommend what we ourselves are finally
seeing. We want to help others have the same view as
we are realizing.

To me, it is that simple: beyond ourselves there is, by

definition, something ‘beyond ourselves’ and that is
everyone else. And this insight does not require any
thinking or conceptualization on our part. It is as direct
as the sights we see with our eyes or the sound we hear
with our ears. There is no ‘middle-man’, so to speak,
between our view and how things are. Take away our
own need and we find the needs of others and respond
to their needs naturally. We find that we are naturally
compassionate. That is what is called “Absolute
Bodhicitta." I can share this story.

This is something I learned many years ago at some

15,000 feet of altitude in the high plateaus of Tibet,
when I first met the 17th Karmapa face to face. I was
used to experiencing, when I met powerful spiritual
leaders, the majesty and power of their presence, and I
expected the same to happen meeting H.H. the 17th
Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje.

Yet, this is not what happened. When looking the

145
Karmapa in the eye, as I sat there before him on the
floor, panting from the thin air from having climbed up
the steep ladder-like stairs (several flights) Tibetans use.
What I realized in the presence of the Karmapa, was not
how spiritually powerful he was, but rather, to my total
surprise, what I realized is that at heart, despite my often
brusque and direct manner, I was a deeply, deeply
compassionate, and caring being. That was the
Karmapa’s form of effect, to cause me to realize my own
inner nature. “Who woulda’ thunk it,” as they say.

That’s the power of the Karmapa, not to communicate

his strength, but to help me to realize my own inner
nature, just how deeply compassionate and caring I am
at heart, and all of us are that. I had never realized this
before and have never forgotten it since.

[Photo of the “Water and Moon Guanyin,” the

Bodhisattva of Compassion, at the Nelson-Atkins
Museum of Art, Kansas City.]

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GETTING TO KNOW YOU

April 16, 2022

In this piece I am talking about getting to know our own

Self. Something any LSD-taker (like we did back in the
1960s) should be able to attest to is that on acid we can
see that we project our inner values out onto the world
and then proceed to watch them and live in our own

147
movie.

For those without that insight from LSD, it may be more

difficult to recognize that the objective world is actually
quite subjective and very much all about us, because
basically what we see in the outside world is essentially
our own inner projection. It’s easy to say that in words
yet realizing this can be a lifelong task.

How to unwrap that situation of our watching our own

movie is not easy, although still possible. Any way you
look at it, eventually the two must become one,
meaning the outside (outer world) and inside (who we
that are looking at it) are joined at the hip, one and the
same. The problem is that we can’t see this.

Once convinced of that (a feature of LSD), it is only a

matter of time until, as Sir Edwin Arnold pointed out,
“the dewdrop slips into the shining sea,” that is, until we
stabilize and become familiar with the nature of our
mind. Although with the aftermath of acid, that can still
take a good 10-20 years to stabilize. However, it can get
the job done, but so can a supervised dharma practice.

Although, first catching ourselves in our habitual

dualism of me inside here and the world (you) outside
there, can be tricky, and that was one of the values of
psychedelics.

It’s so easy to fall into the habit of reifying our own Self,

148
so that the dummy (our Self) ends up controlling the
ventriloquist (our true nature). This is why so much
space in literature is devoted to defining just what is the
Self. We could just say that our Self is the sum total of
our attachments, likes and dislikes. And we equally could
say that ‘attachment’ (for or against) is the glue that
holds the Self together. Attachment is the whole deal.

And it is helpful to point out that what we call our Self,

as a kid might include attachment to our new bike, while
at 24 years or so, it could be our new wife or husband.
Our attachments are constantly changing and so is what
we call our Self. The Self is not a permanent or static
thing, but rather an ongoing process of attachment.

And so, if we are landlocked into regarding our Self

(with all of our reification) as something more
interesting than life itself, we have a problem, a Catch-
22. If we can’t see beyond our Self (which is made up of
attachments that we chose), then we are stuck with an
endless self-referencing instead of the freedom of life
itself. In other words, we are stuck on ourselves.

In some of the dharma practices, we imagine an image

of our lama or the Buddha himself in front of us or on
the top of my head; this is at least an attempt to short-
circuit our habit of always referencing our Self. It is hard
for us to tear ourselves away from our Self.

And no one is going to stop us from doing that,

149
referencing our Self, yet I am pointing out that we are
not about to learn from a collection of our own
attachments that we, ourselves chose and put together.
It's just kind of a foolish waste of time. There is nothing
there that we don’t already know and nothing to learn
except what I am mentioning here, that this has to be a
colossal waste of our time.

Yet, how do we distract ourselves from our own habitual

distraction of constantly reifying (building up) and
glorifying our Self? It’s been there for so long and the
Self is so carefully manicured, that apparently, we can
hardly take our eyes off our Self.

Yet, every now and again, some kind of external (or

Internal) shock will jar us awake and offer us a brief gap
or opening to see beyond that Self to what, so to speak,
is out there.

This is the veil or problem that faces all dharma

students, to find a way to look beyond (or through) our
Self and mostly this takes a gradual thinning out of the
obscuration or cataract that a Self imposes.

In my own case, my approach was first to learn to accept

myself, just as I am (warts and all), and (much harder) to
actually like my Self that I was more or less worshipping.
In other words, make friends with yourself or at least
learn to treat your Self as we would any other person,
with acceptance and hopefully kindness. That should

150
make sense.

Next, put your Self out to pasture like you might an old
and well-known cow. Give your Self plenty of hay, water,
sunshine, and just let it fade out in its own time, as we
learn to become interested in other factors in life other
than our own Self.

If you don’t just fight yourself, hate yourself, or

otherwise keep interacting, in time the Self will become
increasing transparent, meaning we will begin to see
through it to what is beyond ourselves, which of course
includes other people, the world, and life itself.

The Self admits to fading out, while if we struggle with

the Self, it only grows stronger. It’s sad to see folks
struggling with themselves, hating themselves, and any
and all other self-involvement. All they think about is
ego, ego, ego or hate ego, ego, ego. The more we
struggle with the Self, the more we take it with us
everywhere we go.

In dharma practice, we learn to, as mentioned, see

beyond our Self, or better put, see through our Self. We
begin to transfer our identity from exclusively our Self to
everything else: other people, places, things, and life in
general. We change our focus, so that the Self becomes
transparent (fades out) and everything else comes into
focus. That amounts to a change of venue.

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ROLLING WITH CHANGE

April 17, 2022

Now is the beginning of solar excess, as this new solar

cycle takes charge by today throwing off the first X-Class
solar flare, the strongest class of flares. And by ‘solar
excess’ I mean ‘change’ within us and probably too
much of it to easily absorb and toss off without some
awareness of it happening.

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This recent flare emerged from a very active sunspot
nest that is just now reaching the sun’s northeastern
limb, thus emerging from the far side of the sun into
view. Even though not directly aimed at Earth, it
managed to cause a shortwave radio blackout over
southeast Asia and Australia and was accompanied by a
CME (Corona Mass Ejection).

As many of you know, although of course I note the

physical effects of solar activity, my main interest is how
this intense solar activity affects us emotionally and
psychologically. How do we accept change? And I
equate solar activity simply with what we call ‘change’,
the internal impetus to change and with intensive solar
change, our inability to deny or avoid the increased rate
of change within us.

Of course, the normal, ‘quiet’ sun with its steady rate of

light-flow takes about nine minutes to travel from the
Sun to Earth. With these more extreme bursts of change,
not only do we absorb the regular light from the sun,
but these additional packets of extreme energy and
change take varying amounts of time, usually a few days
of travel, to reach Earth’s atmosphere. That’s the
mechanics of intensive solar activity.

How this surfeit of change affects us and the world’s

events, scientists have finally gotten around to
beginning to study our internal response to change in

153
the last 20 years or so. And astrologers, as a group are
just as tardy as the scientists in telling us what this
change can mean for us psychologically, although I
believe we can no longer ignore what is right before our
eyes.

And, as mentioned, this is just the first of many volleys

of X-Class ‘change’ that will mark the rise of the current
sunspot cycle’s activity. It would be redundant to say
that it would help for us to wake up and take notice of
what goes on internally within us with such change.
After all, astrology can be defined, and has been, as
cultural astronomy, what celestial events like solar flares
mean and how they affect us.

So, it would be helpful to us if we could learn the way

this solar change rolls and what it means for us to be
inundated by these waves of more extreme change
because they are just going to keep coming (and
increasing) for the next several years.

Of course, as mentioned, we can watch the external

physical effects of solar change as they affect radio
transmissions or at times the electrical grids, yet I direct
your attention to our internal changes and the emerging
awareness that these packets of excessive change affect
us beyond our ability to simply ignore them and toss
them off.

The point here is that with such extreme change, we

154
change at core (we change), and are easily overcome by
more change than we can handle and, so it appears, we
seem to seek refuge in lying down or otherwise ignore
being buffeted by the waves of change as they arrive.
We do our best to soldier-on, when at some point we
have to just stop ignoring change and wake up to
handling it.

And this affects the whole earth and every one of us on

it at roughly the same time. As mentioned, I feel it is
time that we learn to monitor solar change with our
awareness rather than seek to avoid (put it out of our
mind) recognizing this change moving within us.

How such change affects something like Russia’s attack

on the Ukraine, I can only imagine; being pushed
beyond our limits requires discipline by all of us. Of
course, those of us who are teetering on the edge
changing our lives will appreciate the shove of solar
energy, making that change unavoidable, while others
not wanting change will struggle against it. This is how it
has always been.

Either way, change is coming and not in small

increments, but in large packets and quanta like we have
not see for a while. Up to now, these quanta of change
have more or less gone without saying on our parts. I
believe it is now time for us to, instead, acknowledge
this coming change and learn how to use it.

155
And we have a solar eclipse coming on April 30, 2022.

156
A DHARMA STORY -- THE DRAWING

April 18, 2022

Although I have shared this story some time ago, it’s a

fun read. Many years ago, it was in the 1980s, I had a

157
dream. It was very vivid. And in that dream, I presented
my dharma teacher the Ven. Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche a
drawn image or portrait of himself. It was one of those
dreams that is magical, somehow more real than waking
life. It left a deep imprint.

For that reason, I felt it was important that this dream be

made real and acted out in actual life, if I could figure
out how to do that. After the dream and its imprint in
my mind, I began actively to consider how this could
happen. I tried on many ideas.

I finally settled on a sketched portrait but finding an

artist good enough was not easy. I only knew of a single
such artist, one of the finest draftsmen in Michigan, a
man named John Felsing who was renowned for his life-
like portraits of wildlife, especially birds.

I contacted Felsing and asked to visit him. Then

Margaret and I traveled to Lansing where he lived and
sat down with him. I explained my dream and what I was
hoping he might do. After some discussion, he agreed
to do a drawing and I gave him a really nice photo of
Khenpo Rinpoche.

Several months went by and I heard nothing. Then one

day a large envelope came in the mail. It contained a
rough sketch of Khenpo Rinpoche. To my dismay, the
drawing he sent was a sketch of an elderly oriental
gentleman, but not the dynamic rinpoche I knew. This
was disappointing and would not do. I got on the phone
and carefully explained this to John Felsing and he said

158
that he would try again. To assist him I then sent him
some of Rinpoche’s dharma teachings and one of his
books, a book I also worked as an editor called “Dharma
Paths.”

Again, several months went by and then one day

another large manila envelope showed up in the mail. I
hesitated to look inside; and then with bated breath I
carefully opened the package. When I did, this time the
image was actually of the Khenpo Rinpoche Margaret
and I know and love.

Apparently the books and Rinpoche’s own teachings

helped to communicate the idea of the man himself. I let
Felsing know that he could now do the finished drawing.
And the ending to this story is remarkable.

When the artist Felsing finished the final drawing, he

personally called to notify me of that. And as it
happened Khenpo Rinpoche, who (of all things) was
visiting our dharma center that very day, and was about
to do an empowerment for our local group that evening.

Felsing did not hesitate a moment, but said he was

coming to Big Rapids to see Rinpoche. He jumped into
his car, drove through the oncoming night to our center
and, when he arrived, he formally asked Rinpoche to
give him “Refuge.” Refuge is a short ceremony that takes
place when someone discovers that they have great
respect for the dharma, respect not only for the
historical Buddha, but also for his teachings (the
dharma), and the sangha (those monks and nuns who

159
embody the living teaching). It is a request you make of
a teacher. Felsing’s request was honored and Rinpoche
gave the refuge ceremony, which includes giving those
who ask for it a dharma name.

Apparently during the months that John Felsing was

working with Rinpoche’s image and reading some of the
teachings, he was moved by what he learned and had
developed a true respect for the dharma. He was
inspired to become more actively involved in the
dharma and so asked to receive the refuge ceremony. I
am struck by how a simple contact with Rinpoche, even
at a distance, made such a difference.

[Here is the drawing that the artist John Felsing made of

Khenpo Rinpoche]

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THE FOLK MUSIC REVIVAL IN ANN ARBOR

(The late 1950s-early 1960s)

April 18, 2022

[For those of you who are younger, I can stretch Ann

Arbor’s music history back at least to the late 1950s, for
those interested. Try this out.]

THE PROMETHEAN COFFEE HOUSE

These days when I visit Ann Arbor it takes twenty

minutes just to drive across town. If I have one phrase to
describe the difference between Ann Arbor back then
and now, it is “overly caffeinated.” Today there seems to

161
be a coffee shop on almost every corner and it makes a
difference. Back then there was just one coffee house
and that was Mark’s Coffee House on East William
Street, and for those of you who are as old as I am you
might remember the actual first coffee house in Ann
Arbor, “The Promethean” on the other side of William
Street from Mark’s and about a block west, just down
from where the Cottage Inn pizza place is today.

The Promethean Coffee House served (non-espresso)

coffee, mulled cider (with cinnamon sticks!), and played
jazz albums, not to mention the Shelly Berman comedy
albums. Once in a while folksingers like Al Young (today
Poet Laureate of California) would play there. This must
have been in the late 1950s. I went there as often as I
could just to sit around, drink coffee, smoke cigarettes,
look serious, look for beatniks, and (most of all) hope
that I would meet the love of my life.

Nothing much really happened there aside from all of

the sitting around and sneaking glances at one another,
and after a while it just closed. It was not really much of
a hangout. It had somehow already been sanitized and
stiff, too formal. It was a business, not a place to hang,
and few of us hung there. Ultimately, it was uncool, not
"down" or real enough.
The Michigan Union Grill (MUG) was where the real
“beats” hung out anyway. As a high-school student I
used to work there busing dishes and what-not. When
not working, my high-school buddies and I would hang

162
around in the Michigan Union, either playing pool on
one of the upper floors or having fun in the tiny bowling
alley that was there. I suppose we were trying to pass for
college students, but with our antics, I doubt that was
successful except maybe in our own minds.

Still, for someone like me, who was reading all of

Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, and the Beat writers, this
was as close as I could then get to joining up with the
Beat Movement. I was still in high school. Unfortunately,
the beat movement was already almost over, only I
didn’t know that yet. I still hoped I could catch a ride on
that train before it left the station. But I would have to
wait for the next wave, which turned out to be the Sixties
and (I hate this term) the “hippies.” I was never a hippie.
I am a couple years older than the hippies, so call me a
pre-hippie or a post-beat.

And at that time in Ann Arbor, I would be at parties with

Anne Waldman, Norman Mailer, John Cage, Bob Ashley,
Bob James, and others. And I read anything that had to
do with alternative spirituality, books on Zen,
Existentialism, Confucius, astrology, numerology, etc. --
things like that.

And I inhaled the beat literature. It was everything I was

not. Where I felt that I was trapped in a middle-class
button-down society with crew cuts and permanent
waves (the 1950s), Kerouac and kind were out in the real
world glorifying the blue-collar working types, the

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Blacks, or those not working at all. And I liked that.
Instead of a future of fitting into some job that I could
not imagine, how about no job at all? How about that
for a future?

The beats dreamed of an intellectual life of poetry,

music, the arts, and they talked and talked, staying up
late, smoking cigarettes, drinking wine, and taking
substances. Meanwhile I was facing the status-quo
head-on and didn’t even have the status of a high-
school diploma as a door opener. My lack of a diploma
had already sealed my fate to working outside the
middle-class, so the beats indeed seemed like an
alternative: little to no work at all. What a wonderful
idea!

Back then I was not in the least phased by “down,” by

living on the edge or even beyond it in relative poverty,
forced simplicity, and even discomfort. It was all cool to
me at the time. The fact that it was mostly a drug and
alcohol scene while living on next to nothing and (a dirty
nothing at that) seemed something of a solution to me.
A little dirt never hurts. Picking up and smoking other
people’s cigarette butts was kind of cool in a way, at
least to tell others about. It was what beats did. Getting
handouts at a shelter or free health care at a clinic was
just beating the system. Pilfering some food here or a
little wine there was what everyone did. I had no trouble
with that. I was an apprentice to that.

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Back in 1960, as I have pointed out, there were no
hippies and for that matter it was not even the Sixties
when I studied up on the Beat Movement; it was still the
1950s and a life (up until then) lived in school, forced to
study (which I did not), made to hide under the school
desks because the Soviets might bomb us with atomic
bombs any day, and having ourselves labeled by the
idiot psychology of the time as manic-depressive,
paranoid, schizophrenic, etc. I was not personally these
things, but these were the kind of terms that were
applied to our minds and psyche by society. This was my
introduction to the mind – sick labels. So, I left. I just
dropped out. It was a relief.

All that I cared about is that I was at last out of boring,

boring school, on my own, and free to experience for
myself what I could only read about and imagine in the
books of Kerouac and the poems of Ginsberg. As
mentioned, the Beats were very educated in the liberal
arts, often self-educated. They were not academics, but
amateurs in the truest sense, in love with literature,
music, and the arts. That is what I deeply wanted as well.
I have always educated myself in all things. Back then I
was my own teacher.

In 1957 freshman student Al Young and Bill McAdoo

founded the University of Michigan Folklore Society.
Young went on to become Poet Laureate of California,
and unfortunately passed on April 17, 2021. The Folklore
Society was a natural interface between the University

165
folk and the townies – music. As a high-school dropout, I
had no trouble integrating and being accepted in the
folk circles. No questions were asked. We were all just
‘folk’ and it was a culturally rich scene.

And Michigan was not the only campus with a folklore

society. Folk music was popping up on campuses all
over the nation and we were interconnected by what
came to be called the ‘folk circuit’, a constant stream of
folk enthusiasts that traveled from campus to campus
playing and sharing folk music. The circuit went from
Cambridge to New York City to Ann Arbor to Chicago to
Madison to Berkeley and back again. We were
hitchhiking or piling into old cars and driving the route.

Musicians like Bob Dylan would hitchhike into town,

hang out, play a gig or two, and be on down the road.
And well-known folk singers came, folksingers like
Ramblin’ Jack Elliot and groups like the New Lost City
Ramblers and the Country Gentlemen were regular
visitors to Ann Arbor and this was before anyone was
famous. They didn’t stay in fancy motels, but with us.
They stayed in our houses, slept on a couch or in the
spare bedroom. We all hung out together and played
music or sat in the Michigan Union Grill (MUG) and
drank coffee all day. Whatever music and culture they
brought with them really had a chance to sink in. They
shared themselves and their time with us. They were just
like us.

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Ann Arbor had its own players. The president of the
Folklore Society was Howie Abrams and we sported folk
musicians like Marc Silber, Al Young, Dave Portman,
Peter Griffith, and Perry Lederman. Marc Silber is still
playing. There was also an important lady named "Bugs,"
but I can't remember her last name. Anyone know? And
we put on festivals and events.

For example, the folklore society raised money to bring

Odetta to Ann Arbor where she gave her first college
performance. And a young Bob Dylan gave an early
performance as part of a small folk-music festival in Ann
Arbor put on by the U-M Folklore Society. I can
remember sitting in the Michigan Union with a very
nervous Dylan, drinking coffee and smoking, while we
waited for the review of Dylan’s performance the night
before to come out in the Michigan Daily newspaper. It
was something like 10:30 AM when the review surfaced,
and it was positive. With that good news Dylan
proceeded to hitchhike out of town. And when Odetta
sang at the Newport Folk Festival in 1960, Al Young,
Perry Lederman, and Marc Silber hitchhiked there to see
her. And there was also a subtle change taking place.

Folk music in the late 1950s and early 1960s was part of
what is called the “Folk Revival,” and those of us who
were part of it were very much aware of the need to
protect and revive our musical heritage. A player like
Dylan was not writing his own tunes back then but
rather reviving and interpreting songs that harkened

167
from other generations. What made you a good
folksinger back then was the ability to authentically
reproduce or reenact a particular song. The keywords
then were “authentic” and “revive.” Folksingers went to
great lengths to locate and reproduce the most
authentic versions of a song.

Writing our own songs came years later. We were busy

rescuing this part of our cultural heritage from oblivion.
Folk music at that time was mostly White folk music with
maybe a peppering of Black country-blues artists or a
virtuoso Black singer like Odetta. They were the
exception, but they were treated like the rule: revive
them and be authentic. When we heard the country
blues, we also wanted to revive and sing them as
authentically as we could, Ebonics and all.

So, it was somewhat confusing when we eventually

found out that the blues not only didn’t need our
reviving, but were alive and well, playing at a bar just
across town where they were perhaps separated by a
racial curtain. We didn’t go there because… well, just
because. Another insidious form of racism.

But in fact, blues, especially city blues, was very much

alive, very seminal, and very, very available. In the early
and mid-1960s, young White Americans began the trek
to the other side of the tracks, took the trip downtown,
and eventually the journey to Chicago and other places
where electric blues were being played. Ann Arbor

168
played a very significant role in introducing White
America to city blues. The original two Ann Arbor Blues
Festivals in 1969 and 1970 were landmark events and
the three succeeding Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festivals
just opened it all up to a wider audience.

There is more on this general topic in my book “Blues in

Black & White: The Landmark Ann Arbor Blues Festivals,”
which was picked as one of the top 20 books published
in Michigan in 2011. You will find it here:

http://www.amazon.com/Blues-Black-White-
Landmark- Festivals/dp/0472116959/ref=sr_1_1?s=book
s&ie=UTF8 &qid=1321295671&sr=1-1

And of course, there were the folk festivals, of which the

one in Newport, Rhode Island is perhaps the most
famous, if not the first.The Newport Folk Festival was
established in 1959 by George Wein, the same man who
in 1954 established the Newport Jazz Festival. The first
Newport Folk Festival was held on July 11-12, 1959 and
featured, among other acts, the Kingston Trio, a group
that had exploded to national prominence only the year
before. Flanking the Kingston Trio were classic folk
singers like Odetta, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee,
and of course, the ubiquitous Pete Seeger.

During a set by the singer/songwriter Bob Gibson at that

first 1959 festival, a young Joan Baez made her national
debut to a wildly enthusiastic audience of over 13,000

169
people. The Newport festival is still considered to be the
granddaddy of all folk festivals, even though it has been
reduced in size in recent years.

The folk scene in the early ‘60s was very active and
organized enough to have a well-established set of
venues (coffee houses, church sponsorships, etc.) and
routes that stretched across the country and over which
performing folk artists traveled, mostly by hitchhiking.
By the early 1960s folk enthusiasts everywhere were
learning the rudiments of music research, at least to the
point of tracing particular songs back through time to
their roots or at least trying to. It was axiomatic at that
time that the original version of a song was preferable to
later versions, almost always enriching the listener’s
experience and enjoyment of the tune. “Sing Out!

Magazine” was one of the main repositories of this

research, our musical collective-heritage. It should be
remembered that the folk-music revival emerged
perhaps in the late 1940s, and exploded toward the end
of the 1950s and the early 1960s, a time when more and
more young people were rejecting the culture of the
1950s (the flattop haircuts and what we felt was a
cookie-cutter mentality) and thirsting for something a
little more real. It is a simple fact that most of us looked
to the folk music tradition as a way of grounding
ourselves, a way to somehow get underneath or break
through the social veneer in which we were raised.
Future events cast their shadow and the counterculture

170
hippie revolution that was to come later in the mid-
1960s was already emerging.

The Folk Scene

Unlike folk music, whose roots were often in England or

Ireland, with blues, to the surprise of most white folk-
blues lovers, a trip into the history book was often as
easy as venturing into a different part of town, only we
didn’t know it then. The folk music scene was flourishing
on college campuses and what started at Newport in
1959 was echoed in the next few years by startup folk
festivals all across America, including the Berkeley and
Chicago Folk festivals, both of which debuted in 1961.

And, although these folk festivals also featured some

blues (country blues), the blues at those festivals was
mostly treated as part of the folk genre, and as a
sidelight at that. For example, one could hear Jessie
‘Lone Cat’ Fuller at Hertz Hall (Berkeley, CA) in 1959 and
at Newport in 1960. In 1960 Robert Pete Williams
performed at Newport. Other festivals in the early 1960s
had Lightnin’ Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb, and Mississippi
John Hurt, Rev. Gary Davis, Sleepy John Estes, Jesse
Fuller, and occasionally John Lee Hooker. It is hard for
me to imagine John Lee Hooker or Lightnin’ Hopkins not
getting mainstream attention wherever they played. In
1965, an electrified Bob Dylan, backed by the Paul
Butterfield Blues Band, shocked the Newport folk crowd
and helped to bring awareness of modern city blues to a

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mostly white folk crowd. Dylan was booed. Dylan's
album "Highway 61 Revisited" was released in August of
1965, including the hit single "Like a Rolling Stone."

[To be continued as I find time.]

[Photo of the Michigan Union, inside of which was the

M.U.G., the Michigan Union Grill, which is where
everyone we knew hung out.]

172
THE FOLK REVIVAL (PART II) -- LOOKING FOR ROOTS,
"THE BLUES"

April 19, 2022

Here is a continuation of the preceding article on the

Ann Arbor folk scene. I will repeat a couple of facts I
mentioned in the previous article to set the stage, so
hang in there. This folk music revival in the later 1950s
and early 1960s was just that, a revival, an attempt to

173
revive a music that most felt was already deeply
embedded in the past. The revival started out looking
back and, for the most part, stayed that way for many
years. We sought to revive and find our future in past
songs rather than writing our own songs for the future.

Initially, younger folk artists were just too shy. Emerging

players like Bob Dylan, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot (and scores of
now-unknown players schooled in traditional folk music)
were (at first) not focused on writing songs themselves.
Their favorite contemporary songwriter was probably
Woody Guthrie, but most of the songs they played came
from even earlier times, sometimes all the way back to
England and Europe. The great majority of folk artists
did covers of earlier songs, Dylan included.

The goal then was to do them well, make them live

again, i.e. to revive them. Pivotal artists of the time like
Joan Baez and the New Lost City Ramblers were not
writing their own songs, but instead re-enacting and re-
presenting the finest in traditional folk music. Their
technique was flawless, but it was not their own
songwriting creativity that was being featured. Groups
like the Kingston Trio and the Weavers are perfect
examples. The folk music magazine “Sing Out!” is a
written testimony to this approach. White America was
exploring its roots, but we were looking backward to
find what we felt was missing in the present – our living
roots. Folk artists as a group had not yet empowered
themselves to write for the present, much less for the

174
future. They were too busy trying to make the past live
again, reviving their heritage. That’s why it is called a folk
revival.

I was fortunate enough to be part of the early folk scene

in the late 1950s and early 1960s. There was a route we
all traveled that went from Cambridge, Massachusetts to
New York City, to Ann Arbor, to the University of
Chicago, to Madison, Wisconsin, to Berkeley, California,
and then round back again. For the most part we all
hitchhiked or piled into cars that could barely run all the
way across this wide country. If I remember right, I
believe I hitchhiked the distance from Ann Arbor to New
York City some ten times and hitchhiked to and lived in
Venice Beach and North Beach, San Francisco as early as
1960. I even travelled with Bob Dylan for a while,
hitchhiking together with my friend Perry Lederman,
who then was already a legendary guitar instrumentalist.

The folk route also included side trips to places like

Oberlin and Antioch colleges in Ohio, and so on,
wherever colleges and universities were. In Ann Arbor,
folk artists like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez were frequent
visitors, while groups like the New Lost City Ramblers
and the Country Gentlemen were pretty much regulars,
and Ramblin’ Jack Elliot spent a lot of time there. We
met mostly in houses or apartments, and it seems we
spent an inordinate amount of time drinking coffee and
smoking cigarettes in the cafeteria of the University of
Michigan Student Union, the place called the M.U.G, the

175
Michigan Union Grill. I can recall sitting around the
Union with a nervous Bob Dylan who was awaiting the
Michigan Daily review of one of his earliest
performances in Ann Arbor. He couldn’t bear to leave
town until the review came out. When he saw that the
review was good, Dylan was on his way, hitchhiking out
of town.

For the most part, the folk movement at this time was
oriented around covering traditional folk tunes. The folk
artists originality was in how well they sang the song
and not yet in the writing of contemporary songs. This is
not to say that no songs were written; some were. My
point is that back then it was all about the ‘singer’ in
‘singer/songwriter’ and not yet so much about the
‘songwriter’. For most of us, that came a bit later.

I can remember well traveling in 1961 with Bob Dylan

and stopping at Gerde’s Folk City on West 4th Street in
New York. Gerde’s was ‘the’ happening place back then
and the folk star of the moment in that club was a guitar
virtuoso named Danny Kalb, who later became part of
the group known as the “Blues Project.” Dylan was
obviously jealous of the attention Kalb was getting (you
could hear it in his voice), but it was not just petty
jealousy. He honestly could not understand what Kalb
had going for him that he didn’t. It boggled his mind. I
didn’t know then that my traveling companion was “The”
Bob Dylan, but I am certain he must have. After all, he
had something to say that we needed to hear.

176
Remember, all of this was in the early 1960s, well before
Haight Ashbury and the hippie scene. Most folkies (like
myself) were ‘wanna-be’ Beatniks, but that train had
already left the station. We stood outside conventional
society, but we were not so much politically alienated
from that society as we were repulsed by it, and
fascinated by the world of music, literature, art, and our
own little social scene. Things were happening man! I
was 19 years old.

The Folk Blues

Real folk-blues artists like Elizabeth Cotton and Jessie

‘Lone Cat’ Fuller began to be featured at festivals like the
Berkeley Folk Festivals in the late 1950s. Many of them
came to Ann Arbor where I lived and we heard them live,
songs like “Freight Train” (Cotton) and “San Francisco
Bay Blues” (Fuller). To folk enthusiasts like myself, this
was still just folk music, but you did get a different
feeling when you heard the blues. To me at the time, the
country blues just sounded like really good folk music –
‘really’ good. Back then we didn’t know much about the
blues, but we sure could feel that music.

While folk enthusiasts heard some blues early on (as

mentioned), it was at first mostly only the folk-blues, and
folk blues were seen as just another form (albeit, with a
lot of feeling) of folk music. Later, and only very
gradually, more and more country blues began to

177
appear, but usually only southern acoustic blues, not
music from the North and nothing at all from the inner
cities. There was no awareness of inner-city blues or
electrified blues and no interest either. At that time
electric folk music was an oxymoron.

Being Part of the Scene

As a folkie myself, I can remember listening to acoustic

folk-blues and really loving it, but I treated it the same
way I treated traditional folk music, as something that
also needed to be preserved and revived – learned,
played, shared - kept alive. It was a natural assumption
on our part that we were listening to the vestiges of
what had once been a living tradition and we wanted to
connect to that past, to revive and relive it. We had an
emptiness inside us to fill.

We had no idea that modern electric-blues music was

not only ‘not-dead’ but was playing ‘live’ most nights of
the week probably only blocks away, separated from us
by a racial curtain. We just had no idea. The folk music
scene had few Blacks in it (other than perhaps a handful
of performers) and those that were present were usually
the older folk-blues artists like Sonny Terry, Odetta, and
so on. Their music was perceived by folkies as coming
out of the past, not part of the present.

Please don’t get the idea that our exposure to folk music
was only at concerts or folk societies. Like most

178
musicians, we played or practiced music all the time, if
only to learn the songs and how to play our instruments.
We were also exposed to a lot of jazz. In Ann Arbor in
the early 1960s, before bars could serve liquor by the
glass, everyone met in apartments and houses around
town to drink, smoke pot, and play music. This was
primarily a jazz scene and young folkies (underage high-
school kids like me) were tolerated as long as we kept to
the shadows and sat along the far edges of the rooms. It
was not yet out time.

And quite a scene it was. I remember one house on E.

Williams Street in Ann Arbor. Protruding horizontally
from its second story hung a huge flag with a picture of
Thelonious Monk. At nights, especially on weekends,
there was impromptu jazz in that house that went on
most of the night, with players like Bob James, Bob
Detwiler, Ron Brooks, and many others. It was music,
music, music plus wine and pot. High school kids like me
sat on the floor, squeezed in along the back wall.

We didn’t yet rate any pot, but we used to snort the

ashes from joints that others had smoked. That should
tell you how desperate we were to be part of the scene!

Searching for Roots

We experienced jazz along with our folk music, but still

not much blues. And the jazz was anything but bluesy
jazz; it was more frenetic, like bop. And if it wasn’t jazz

179
we heard, then it was classical music played in the
background on the stereo. Again: not much blues. This is
an important point, because when the mostly white folk
musicians like myself were suddenly exposed to modern
(and virile) inner-city blues players like Junior Wells,
Magic Sam, and Howlin’ Wolf, we were astonished.

As folkies made the gradual transition from studying

and researching traditional folk music to also searching
out historic country folk-blues and then on to
discovering modern city blues, all of a sudden things lit
up. We got it. Blues was not simply R&B or pop music
like you heard on the radio, but music by plain folks –
folk music! We could see that blues was the same as folk
music, only modern, fresh – still alive, well, and
incredibly potent.

What we had assumed must already be lost in the past,

like folk music that depended on our efforts to restore
and revive it was, when it came to blues, very much alive
and in the present – staring us in the face and more-or-
less happy to see us at that. This blues music we were
hearing also lived in the present and not just in the past.
It did not need us to revive it. Our idea of folk music as
something to restore and treasure suddenly moved from
the past into the present in our minds. We made the
connection. Blues didn’t need restoration. It was still with
us, and it was powerful. It was like the movie Jurassic
Park; we had found a living dinosaur, a kind of folk
music that lived now, in the present! And this music

180
revived us and not vice-versa!

The blues scene in the early 1960s, as played out in the

small clubs and bars of Chicago, Detroit, and other
major industrial cities, while very much still alive, was by
then itself on the wane, only we newcomers didn’t know
that yet. To us, it was way more alive than the standard
folk music we knew. Intercity electric blues music was
still authentic and strong, but (for the most part) the
next generation of younger blacks was already not
picking up on it; they were just not interested. Chicago-
style city blues was, to younger blacks at that time, old-
peoples music, something from the South, a past and
history they wanted to get away from rather than
embrace.

Younger blacks had already skipped ahead to R&B,

Motown, and funk. Forget about those old blues. My
band played in a black bar for something like a year or a
year and a half, a bar filled with mostly older black folks
and a sprinkling of hippie whites who had come to see
us. This was in 1967. Right next door was another black
bar, where all the younger blacks hung out and where
they played only the latest R&B hits. The younger blacks
seldom came into our bar and, in general, were
embarrassed that their parents and elders were listening
to blues played by a racially-mixed band – listening to
white boys play the blues. How embarrassing! Interest in
the classic Chicago blues was just not there for the
younger generation of blacks. They felt that blues was

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music from an older generation, music for old people.

While within the black community the door was slowly

closing on the Chicago blues artists (even the artists
knew this), another and much wider door for this music
was opening onto white America, an open door that
would extend the careers for many of these artists and
secure their music well into the future.

B.B. King said in Time Magazine in 1971:

“The blacks are more interested in the ‘jumpy’ stuff. The

whites want to hear me for what I am.”

As pointed out, in the early 1960s the folk music revival

was one of the main things happening on all the major
campuses across America: Cambridge, Ann Arbor,
Chicago, Madison, Berkeley, etc. What happened to it?

For one, in the mid-1960s, pop music groups like the

Rolling Stones were busy recording covers of blues
classics and pointing out the source – the artists who
originally wrote and recorded them. White players like
me, eager for guidance, hunted down the original blues
45s, which were a revelation to us. I can remember
rummaging through bins of old 45s in downtown
Chicago and finding just incredible music.

That first “Rolling Stones” album, of the same name, was

released in April of 1964. It contained tunes like Jimmy

182
Reed’s “Honest I Do,” “Willie Dixon’s “I Just Want to
Make Love to You,” “I’m a King Bee,” plus songs by
Chuck Berry and Rufus Thomas.

The Stones second album, also released in 1964, veered

away from the blues and contained tunes recorded by
Chuck Berry, Wilson Pickett, Dale Hawkins, songs like
“Under the Boardwalk.” It also included the blues-R&B
tune made famous by Irma Thomas, “Time Is on My
Side.” In 1965, the album “Rolling stones, Now!” had the
Dixon-Wolf classic “Little Red Rooster.”

From that point onward, the blues content of Rolling

Stones albums decreased. In 1965, their album “Out of
Our Heads” had no real blues tunes, and neither did
their other 1965 album, “December’s Children.” It was
those first two albums in 1964, and in particular that first
album, that pointed the blues out to many in the white
audience. The U.K. was all about authentic blues well
before white America ever heard of them.

In the wake of the Beatles and Rolling Stones, late

summer and early fall of 1965 saw the emerging
dancehall scene in San Francisco and the arrival of bands
like the Grateful Dead. This was the beginning of the
hippie era, and it’s when my own band, the Prime
Movers Blues Band, formed in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We
knew nothing of the Grateful Dead, yet we too arose at
the same time and represented a new era in music and
lifestyle.

183
In fact, the summer of 1965 was the trigger point for so
very much. It marked a change in the folk scene with the
advent of groups like the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. If
there was a single band that opened up blues to white
players, it was the Butterfield Band. That first Butterfield
album appeared late in 1965, and it totally kicked ass.
IMO, the Butterfield band in person was way more
powerful than anything they managed to record.

This racially mixed band playing authentic Chicago blues

sent a lightning bolt-like signal through all of us who
were just waking up to the blues anyway. Their message
was that white players could overcome their fear to play
black music, including the blues. The Paul Butterfield
Blues Band set the standard and set white musicians on
notice that anybody was free to try to play the blues, if
they could. We were emboldened to try.

Unlike many areas of folk music, modern electrified city

blues at that time was anything but a dead art. While the
lineage of most folk music required revival, resuscitation,
like trying to trace out the history and line of the music,
this was not true of blues. The blues lineage was not
only unbroken, but indeed very much alive, both on
black record labels and in thousands of bars and clubs
across the nation.

Perhaps some forms of country blues were endangered,

but inner-city blues (at least for the older generation of

184
Blacks) was in full swing. White Americans just knew
little or nothing about it. During the later 1960s, all that
changed. And last, but not least, many of the modern
city blues players were still reasonably young and more
than willing to be discovered. They needed the money
and appreciated the recognition.

Historians would agree that from the middle to the late

‘60s, music in general was, to a real extent, fusing. The
whole psychedelic era blurred the boundaries of
different music genres and emboldened white players to
play music of all kinds – black, Indian, Asian, etc. The first
extended psychedelic-like guitar solo/jam was recorded
by Michael Bloomfield and the tune “East-West ” on the
Butterfield album of the same name in 1966. It was over
13 minutes in length and inspired legions of heavy metal
players that followed. My brother Dan and I recorded an
early version of East-West sitting behind a black stage
curtain in Chicago before the album ever was released. It
later came out on a compilation by the Butterfield
Band’s Hammond B3 player Mark Naftalin.

[Photo of the first Butterfield Blue Band album in late

1965]

185
Michael Erlewine interviewing the legendary Muddy
Waters.

186
Michael Erlewine interviewing legendary songwriter and
bass player Willie Dixon.

187
Michael Erlewine sharing thoughts with blues singer
Howlin’ Wolf.

188
Michael Erlewine sharing thoughts with blues singer
Howlin’ Wolf.

189
Michael Erlewine interviewing blues singer Koko Taylor.

Left-to-Right: Michael Erlewine, Johnny Shines, Daniel

Erlewine.

190
Michael Erlewine standing at back with legendary
bluesman Robert Pete Williams. Brother Philip Erlewine
on right. On chairs, Lazy Lester and Johnny Shines
(closer).

191
MAKING BLUES TIME

April 20, 2022

This article is about musical time, something we might

agree to call “making time.” The classic blues players,
like all great musicians, literally “make” time with their
minds. They don’t just follow along in time like most of
us do when listening, tapping their foot. They set the
time, inset the time with their music, but it goes deeper
than that. Every once in a while, you and I might look at
our watch and see what time the clock says, but the time
in between those clock checks goes unchecked. It just
passes, like the old song from Sandy Denny, “Who
knows where the time goes?” I certainly don’t know
where it goes. My point is that while clock time seems to
be regular, what goes on when you and I are not
watching the clock can be anything but regular. In other
word time contracts and expands like an accordion,
especially when it comes to musical time.

The really great blues players, and we all have our

favorites, actually can ‘make’ time. Time is also
something we make. My favorite for “making” time
would have to be Big Walter Horton, the Chicago blues
harmonica player. In my opinion he could make the best
time I have managed to hear. He could show me the
best time I have ever had musically, the very best time I
have ever experienced.

And I have of course (like we all do) my own sense of

time, you know just going along each day, like each of

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us are doing now, reading this – taking our own sweet
time.

But with Walter Horton, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf,

and other blues greats, somehow their music takes over
time as I know it. They can overtake my personal sense
of time and replace it with the kind of time that they
make, which is for me a much more vast sense of time,
you know, more time, time enough to do other things in
-- extra-ordinary time. I can synch up or resonate to
their time and it becomes (for the moment) my time. Big
Walter Horton (for me) is a great director or conductor
of time and I gladly groove along with him to his beat.
You can experience this on the Vanguard “Chicago/The
Blues/Today!, Vol.3, the cuts with Big Walter Horton and
Johnny Shines, like “Black Spider Blues.”

Great blues players can expand or stretch time and, in

that expanded time, these musicians give us more room
to experience or listen, creating an envelope (almost like
an aura) with their music, an envelope in which we have
more room or space to know ourselves, to relax, to be
ourselves, or to just think and be here now. Making time
and being in the time that is made (whether our own or
made by others) is what this article is about.

Musical Time Beyond Time

‘Making’ time is one of the hallmarks of the great blues

musicians. Most of them are gone and I have resigned
myself to not hearing their kind of expanded musical
time played live any longer, although I can still hear it on

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some recordings. It is gone. However, to my surprise, I
actually experienced this form of blues time live some
years ago after a very long hiatus. It was at a Michigan
music festival called “Wheatland,” held not far from
where I live here in mid-Michigan. Perhaps 20,000
people attended it.

They had a musician there named Aubrey Ghent, a lap-

steel player from somewhere in the southeast; I believe
it was Florida. Ghent plays gospel music and, sure
enough, that day he was making time like the old
masters. I was spellbound. I had not heard profound
“blues” time like that since back in the day around
Chicago and places like that. And Aubrey Ghent was
sitting up there on the stage making blues time, making
it just like they used to.

Sure enough, Aubrey Ghent was ‘making’ the time. It

immediately put me back in a musical space when I used
to listen to players like Muddy Waters, a space where a
blues player would take over time as I knew (and lived it)
and would put me through something I could not put
myself through, taking me on a trip and to a place where
I sure liked to go, but did not know how to get there by
myself.

Aubrey Ghent had that kind of sense of time and one of

the songs he displayed it on was, to everyone’s surprise,
“Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” the Bobby McFerrin tune. The
whole audience just stopped whatever time they were
having and went on Ghent’s special sense of time for a
while. And of course, the rest of the night we were all

194
telling each other about that incredible music. What I
am after here is what makes that kind of music time
incredible?

Maybe at the end, after you listened to Ghent, you

would say to yourself, “Wow, that music was ‘really’
good,” yet, IMO, it is way more than just the music being
‘good’. Most of those present had just experienced
something that they never had before and that some of
us hadn’t heard for a very long time. And maybe they
can’t quite remember it or maybe they remember it
later, slowly, over a period of time, calling it back into
memory with satisfaction, a little bit of that time, reading
it back to themselves.

Anyway, Howlin’ Wolf would put me through something

like that when I was with him. And another blues player
who did that to me was Chicago’s Magic Sam. Some of
you may not know of Magic Sam, but he was one of the
most virile, seminal guitar players that have ever played
the guitar. And he also was an incredible singer, and I
‘mean’ incredible! You can hear what I am pointing out
here on the Delmark album “West-Side Soul” by Magic
Sam here:
http://www.amazon.com/West-Side-Soul-
Magic- Sam/dp/B000004BIF/ref=pd_sim_m_2

And in the re-release of his Cobra and Chief Recordings

from 1957 here:

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Magic-Sam-
Cobra- Recordings/dp/B000059RVO.

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I first heard Magic Sam live in Chicago back in the mid-
1960s in one of these large rooms like you used to find
in some of the Chinese restaurants in the major cities,
the ones with really low ceilings. I am talking about big
rooms, where they have all these little tables and chairs
that kind of go way back in the distance. You can’t even
see the end of them and in this case, everyone was
already standing. I couldn’t see Magic Sam. I had just
squeezed in the door and was flat up against the back
wall, and the place was packed. All I could make out
were heads as far as I could see. Yet I could hear this
incredible sound coming from somewhere way up front.
It was Magic Sam’s voice, which immediately made the
hair stand up on the back of my neck. I had never heard
anyone sing like that. It was literally a shimmering sheet
of sound. It was Magic Sam making his own special time.
That kind of time was rare then and almost impossible
to find live now.

In my opinion what we are getting from blues players

today, and I don’t mean to offend anyone, so I will try to
say it gently, is that with the blues music as it is today, “it
sounds like this,” as in: “it sounds like Howlin’ Wolf.” To
myself, I just call it “reenactment” blues. Today we are
now reenacting something that used to be there but no
longer is like: Howlin’ Wolf used to be there, but he is no
longer with us, and so on. Or we could just say that no
one sings like the Wolf, and those who try are just re-
enacting Wolf, trying to sound like Wolf. Obviously, they
are not Wolf.

196
The problem with younger players re-enacting Wolf’s
songs is that they always make me think of Wolf, and
whoever is singing does not really sound like Wolf. This
spoils it for me because there is no comparison. I would
rather these young players just sing Wolf’s songs in their
own voice and with their own experience, so I could hear
‘them’, and not hear them through a Wolf filter, and
almost by definition a lousy one at that. That’s just me.

Consider this: Most musicians listen to someone like

Howlin’ Wolf or Big Walter Horton and they set about to
learn Wolf’s style, to play Wolf’s licks, and so on, perhaps
in hopes that they can make the kind of music Wolf
makes. But this is just exactly backward to what would
actually be needed to create the effect of a Wolf or a
Muddy Waters, and this point may be a little subtle.

Playing Wolf’s licks, and so on, will never get you there.
Wolf was not doing that. Aside from some earlier
influences, Wolf was not trying to resemble anyone. He
has managed to get his mind and consciousness
(whatever we want to call it) into a certain state so that
ANYTHING he played already has that sound and
perfection. It is already perfect “Wolf” because it was
Howlin’ Wolf. You can’t imitate perfection and why
would you want to?

Therefore, to play like Wolf played, you would first have

to perfect not just your guitar, voice, and harmonica
licks, but your very mind, your consciousness, pay your
dues, and get yourself into a state where anything you
do, including playing music, will already ‘sign’ and be

197
significant, and will exactly signify you and where ‘your’
head is at. Do you understand? Don’t work on the licks
only, but work on perfecting yourself, your life, your
consciousness, and where your mind is at. Then
whatever you do will sound right, at least right for you.
Anyway, back to “making time.”

The main blues players from back in the 1960s were all
incredible, but the greatest time-maker of all time (for
me personally) was the harmonica player Big Walter
Horton. He could set or make time better than anyone I
have ever heard. I refer you to Volume Three of the
“Chicago/the Blues/Today!” album on Vanguard, and the
song “Black Spider Blues,” as an example.

Horton is playing there with Johnny Shines and the two

of them are making time together. Here is a link:

http://www.amazon.com/Chicago-Blues-Today-
Various- Artists/dp/B000000EJ0/ref=sr_1_4?s=music&ie
=UTF8& qid=1291988413&sr=1-4

And it is perfect. If you were to add someone else,

another player, the time would probably immediately
change for the worse and the expanded sense of time
that I can clearly hear on the record would be lost,
unless that player too was of the same caliber and
vintage.

And by “making time,” I mean this: We all have a sense

of time. Musicians who play regularly know that on the
really good music nights they can make time slow down

198
or somehow expand; time stretches. I may not have the
best words here.

The energy and effort put out by the musician to build

or create the musical time actually creates not just a
slowing down or expanding of time, but also produces
some kind of mental or psychological space in which the
audience can think or exist in. It’s like making some
space, clearing out the mental cobwebs when I listen to
one of these masters; they somehow give me a timeout
from ‘clock time’, time to perhaps know more about
myself. I learned this years ago in a little bar in Ann
Arbor called Mr. Flood’s Party.

Musicians, at least this one, constantly worry about how

they sound. You know, is it good or good enough?
Anyway, back then, playing harmonica and singing in
that bar along with my brother Daniel (on guitar), I had a
good night. I felt that finally I was playing what I
intended to play, and I looked out at the audience,
thinking, well somebody might be giving me the thumbs
up, like “Michael, you’re doin’ good man!” But there
wasn’t any of that.

As I looked at the audience, everyone was in some sort

of trance. They were all looking into their own mind as if
in some kind of reverie. And I suddenly realized what
was happening and said to myself: “Oh, I get it now. It’s
not about me!” I realized that, like everything else in life,
even music has a “what’s in it for me” quotient, and in
this case, it was about what was in it for them, the
audience. My music only gave them the room or a

199
expanded space to experience their own thoughts more
fully than they could without the music. I just happened
to be playing the music well that night. That’s what
music is about.

Great musicians make space in time. They expand time

into space and make more room. They make room for
us to live in. They ‘make’ time and in that expanded time
people can get some very personal and specialized jobs
done, like thinking or feeling whatever they need to. We
all do this, and music is not the only avenue. For
example, I work a lot. And I get up like at two or three in
the morning and I work until five at night. I might take a
nap. And then somewhere around 6 PM I like to watch a
movie. It doesn't have to be a whole movie, or it might
be two movies. It often is just a little bit of a movie. In
that movie time, that down time, I am, of course,
watching the movie, but I am also mulling things over
that happened that day in my mind. I am resting the
mind or resting in the space of that movie watching.

Movies may be the most common form of meditation

for most people, because we really are just looking at a
spot on the wall and holding very still. Isn’t that what
meditators do? Anyway, in that down time I get things
done in my mind that I need to do, while I am watching
the movie. I am processing the day’s events. For me, it is
very relaxing and actually quite necessary.

When great blues players play, they create a similar kind

of time in which we, the audience, can get into and
experience with and through them. So, the great time

200
setters, the great blues musicians (great musicians of
any kind) take over our sense of time, take over what we
can call clock time, this time or that time. They take it
over and supplant our time and replace it with their
sense of time, what they know how to do. They’re
setting or ‘making’ the time. They are creating or making
the time for us and suddenly our mind is caught up by
their sense of time. We are into it, if only for the length
of a tune. This is why live performances can never be
replaced by recordings.

We might say afterward, “Oh, isn’t that an incredible

guitar player” or we could also say “Wow, he or she took
me on a trip.” Musicians make time and, in that time, we
have our own personal experience. It is not only about
‘their’ music, but also about our life. That is the point
here. That is what great music is all about.

I can remember one example and it’s a good one. In

Chicago, back in the mid-1960s I went into a club, a tiny
little place (I forget the name of it; it might have been
“Mother Blues”) that Howlin’ Wolf was playing in. There
was nobody there. There was only Howlin’ Wolf and next
to him there was his wonderful guitar player Hubert
Sumlin. That’s it. So, we came in and it was almost totally
dark. There was just a little bit of light up near the stage.
Wolf was sitting on a wooden chair way up front and
singing like only Howlin’ Wolf can sing. And for a while,
time just stopped. It was not so much that time stopped,
as it was that the walls, that whole place I was in, faded
and gradually became transparent.

201
Not just the walls, but from the walls on out forever.
What remained was this consciousness (I guess it was
me) floating in an ocean of translucent space. And
scout’s honor, I was not on drugs! Everything just went
void. For that time, I forgot where I was in my life. I had
to reach inside to get a hold on myself, and there was
nothing to get a hold of. Wolf’s voice and the power of
his musical time had taken over mine. I could have been
anywhere in the universe – somewhere, and yet there
still was no place. Place had nothing to do with it.

I was transfixed by Wolf’s time. And of course, I came

out of it, but it was like: how could I forget this? That’s
what I mean by time. Wolf’s time was better than mine. I
wasn’t even prepared for the experience; it just
happened. He took me deeper than I could get by
myself. It is like one of those times when somebody dies
that is close to you. Those events kind of stop you in
your tracks and make you, for a time, more open. You
are popped out of your groove and open to alternatives.
Life is new again. That’s what happened in Wolf’s time.

Toward an Explanation

What am I talking about here and how does it work?

This is where words can fail, but I will give it a try. You
may have to meet me halfway. Have you ever been in
one of those car accidents or near accidents when you
see it coming, but maybe can’t avoid it? It is easy to find
these events when driving on ice. Your mind
concentrates and you are “right there.” Time slows down

202
and everything seems to be taking place in slow motion.
That is somewhat similar to what I am pointing at here
when I use the term “making time.” In times of stress,
intense awareness, or extreme concentration, time
stretches and slows down. You can see it all happen.
Time just somehow expands or makes room. “Making
time” with the blues is like that for me.

The standard blues progression is just twelve bars which

keep repeating themselves over and over. In order to
take control of that progression and go deeper with
time, the blues musician has to concentrate (be aware)
and articulate each bar of that blues progression,
putting the brakes on here and rushing to catch up
there. What matters is to emphasize and willfully stress,
accentuate, or push the time leading up to this or that
chord change here, and drag out the turn-around or
what-have-you over there.

If a musician is aware or present enough, and has

enough experience, he or she can articulate the blues so
that, although clock time just ticks on along as it always
does, the end result of the effort is to expand time, slow
it down, and we go between the clock-ticking seconds
into what can only be described as expanded time, time
in which we are beyond the distractions of the moment
(our regular life) and able to taste or experience what is
beyond, beneath, above (use your own words here) the
normal. I don’t want to call it eternity, because that term
has been overused, but it is somehow outside time,
however marginally or temporarily, our normal sense of
time is.

203
This then is what I mean by “making time.” Musicians do
this all the time (pun intended). And really great
musicians give us such great time or can make time so
well that we can hitch a ride with them, even if only for
the length of a song. For those moments we are on their
time, traveling with them, part of their mandala, and
they are taking us deeper within conventional time to
something greater than that. It is easier to experience
this than to put it into words. Let me try another
metaphor.

The discipline, energy, and articulation of making music

can create more room in time than we normally have –
expansion or extension. Think of it as an aura or
envelope of normal time that somehow expands time as
we know it (and the moment) into something deeper
and wider – stretches time. It doesn’t stretch time
longer, as in making a song last longer; it stretches the
time deeper as in going beyond normal time into
somewhere else. I don’t have a word for it. In other
words, when time appears to slow down, the song in
clock time does not slow down or get longer in duration.
That stays the same. It is our consciousness and
experience that stretches or reaches deeper inside
ourselves. We expand time.

In other words, intense musical activity and articulation

creates space, an envelope or aura, and the ‘kind’ of our
musical activity (the kind of blues we play) creates the
kind of space or room we can experience or rest in.
Different musicians create different spaces for us. Think

204
of it as a living room, room to live, room to move
around in, something like a timeout from whatever
trajectory or line of life we are usually travelling along.

The more that the musician is able to work the time, the
more of an aura or special space surrounds the moment,
and in that space or in that extra room, there we are,
experiencing it, living it. We are experiencing not only
the music, per se, but the music allows us to experience
ourselves as well, to go where we can’t usually get to on
our own, except perhaps rarely. And this brings up the
question: what is music?

I won’t go there just now, but when great musicians

make time, and we experience that expanded time, we
use it like money to think about or spend however we
like. It is not only about their music; this experience is
beyond the music, if you mean labels, lyrics, notes, song
titles, and albums. Music is not only about what it
means, as in the words of a song, but those words and
notes are only references, means and ways to experience
the heart of music, the purpose of music, which is to
experience what I can only point to here.

The words and sound of music depend on what they

mean, the sense it makes. And ‘sense’ is always an
experience, not an idea or thought. When great blues
musicians make time, we sense it, hear it, and have a
deeper actual and sensual experience. We live it with
and through them. Often that experience is ‘special’
because we can’t get there from here, not from our day-
to-day experience. That is why we listen to music. A

205
great musician is capable of transforming our day,
sending us back home in the mind with a deep
experience and sometimes with a new sense of direction

There, you have the general idea of making time. Please

don’t read this article as a know-it-all statement from
me, but more as a question, something I am thinking
about and interested in, something to be discussed.

Making Blues Time (PDF with photos0.

http://spiritgrooves.net/pdf/e-
books/Making%20Blues%20Time%202022.pdf

[Interview photos by Stanley Livingston (C) All Rights

Reserved]

206
ARE PLACES SACRED?

April 21, 2022

Ever wonder about the place where you have lived most
of your life? Places do have qualities and are we also a
product of those qualities? Is the state of Michigan
where I live also a state of mind? I didn't used to think
too much about this, but I got my eyes opened a bit
back in the 1980s, plus back in the 1970s I developed an
astrological mapping/relocation technique called "Local
Space," which is now used by astrologers all over the
world. Here are three things that I have learned about

207
Michigan (where I live in a small town called Big Rapids)
that I consider interesting.

PENINSULAS ARE SACRED

We all know that Michigan is the only state that is a

peninsula surrounded by fresh water, in fact two of
them, appropriately called the Upper and Lower
Peninsulas. I never thought too much about the fact that
Michigan is a peninsula until some years ago when I put
on what I have been told is the first conference on
Hindu Astrology in the United States (August 1986). This
was before Hindu Astrology was called Vedic astrology,
as it is today. And I put on a second Hindu Astrology
Conference in 1987. People came from all over to
attend, especially India.

In the course of putting on those conferences I invited a

number of Indian astrologers, some of whom traveled,
as mentioned, all the way from India. Hosting these
conferences is a story in itself, but I will tell that another
time. I can, however, remember late summer nights as
these Indian astrologers would stroll arm-in-arm (six
persons wide) down the center of the street where I live,
something I would never think to do. I was worried they
would be run over by some American in a hurry.
Fortunately, that never happened, but I didn't want to
spoil their fun.

In the course of welcoming these Indian visitors, they

seemed to have no idea where Michigan was, even
though here they were. They asked me if I had a map

208
and would I please show them where in the world
Michigan is. I soon dragged out an atlas and pointed to
the state of Michigan. There it is, I said. And to my
surprise, my Indian visitors, almost every one of them,
began to ooh and aah about what they saw. Now I like
Michigan, but why would these perfect strangers make
eyes over it? It was the shape of Michigan that caught
their attention; in particular that Michigan is a peninsula.

Apparently in India any peninsula is considered a sacred

place because it is in the shape of a lingam or phallus,
not something that Americans are (or probably want to
be) aware of. They went on and on about it, and ever
since that time I have been curious to see what possible
benefits or consequences there might be for living in a
state that has this sacred shape. If ancient India declares
peninsulas sacred, what is the effect of that? They are an
ancient culture, so it must be something.

THE LAKES AND WATER

Of course, I have always loved that Michigan has more

than 11,000 inland lakes, and this is not counting ponds,
which are lakes of 25 acres or less, and marshlands, well,
forget counting them. And also forget about the fact
that Michigan itself is surrounded on three sides by
water, the Great Lakes.

In fact, as a kid, Michigan license plates used to have

blazoned across them the words "Water Wonderland." I
believed it. Other states have many lakes, but none are a
peninsula and closely tied to 1/5th of the world's fresh

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water supply.

The Great Lakes (also called inland seas) are the largest-
surface freshwater system on Earth. Only the polar ice
caps contain more fresh water and those caps are now
are slowly melting into and becoming salt water.
Meanwhile, the Great Lakes contain 84% of North
America's fresh water, not to mentioned 21% of ALL the
fresh water in the entire world, enough water to cover
the 48 contiguous U.S. states to a depth of almost ten
feet. Lake Michigan, nearest to where I live, is almost
1000 feet deep at its greatest depth. Now that's a lot of
water.

YOU CAN'T SALT THE SALT

And to go with that water, we have salt. Some 1200 feet

beneath the city of Detroit is a vast salt dome, said to be
part of the largest salt deposit in the world, some
trillions of tons of unmined salt, the Detroit Salt Mine.

The Detroit Salt Mine has over 100 miles of

subterranean roads, and is an industry that predates
automobiles, with a product older than the dinosaurs,
some 400 million years. Many miners were killed
building that 1200-foot shaft down to the deep mine
and any equipment that was lowered down in the 6'x6'
shaft never came back up, and this includes the mules
they needed, who once down there, lived out their sad
lives in its depths. What a grotesque thought.

And it is not just Detroit that has salt. Geological studies

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estimate that beneath the 55 counties of the Lower
Michigan Peninsula are over 30,000 trillion tons of salt,
more than any other place in the world. The entire lower
peninsula of Michigan sits on a bed of salt.

Salt is not valuable today, but in the past, it was as

valuable as gold in China, which used salt coins for
payment. Roman armies were once paid with salt, which
is where the term "salary" originated. It came from the
Latin word for salt, 'sal'.

So, there are three things about Michigan I have been

pondering, the fact that it is a peninsula, is surrounded
by 21% of all the fresh water in the world, and that it sits
on top of the greatest deposit of salt on the planet.

Maybe Michigan needs all that water to quench our salt

thirst. Just the fact that Detroit sits on a vast dome of
salt is enough to say that Detroit is Yang, as in Yin and
Yang. Right? In fact, Michigan itself has to be very Yang,
because all of it sits on salt. Does this salt and all the
water (Yin) mean anything to those who live here, and
what about this idea of peninsulas being sacred?
"Inquiring Minds want to Know," as the pulp magazine
says.

Does America have naturally holy places as India and

other ancient countries do? America is not that old, but
the land beneath our feet is as old as China and India, so
what about that?

I have some thoughts about this sacred peninsula we

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call Michigan, but I will have to share it in another post,
as I can organize my thoughts. And I hope to post about
what sacred places America has, spiritually.

What do my Michigan friends think?

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213
A SENSE OF SACRED SPACE

April 22, 2022

Yesterday, I posted on this special place I live in, which is

the state of Michigan. I’m sure we each have our own
special places that we may hold sacred.

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For those interested, I would like to discuss further what
we might call, for lack of a better word, ‘sacred space.’
The word "sacred" comes from the Latin "sacer," which
means for something to be set apart from the ordinary
as ‘holy’ or sacred, as in to consecrate, venerate,
dedicate, or associate a place and time as special or
sacred.

To some degree, I believe we all do that. Actually, it is

not so much something that we ‘do’ (or can do), but
rather we find ourselves in such a space or place and,
when there, can then distinguish our experience there
apart from what appears as our ordinary sense of space
and time. What we feel in a sacred space is somehow
‘special’, and in time becomes sacred to us. A better way
to put it is that ‘we’ feel special in that space and time.
We like how we are when we are there and it becomes
sacred to us.

Many countries, mostly ancient societies like China and

India, have sacred places or sites. That is what
pilgrimages are all about. I have been on pilgrimage to
Tibet, China, Nepal, and India (West Bengal and Sikkim),
etc., yet have heard very little about making pilgrimages
to sacred places here in North America. Why is that
America does not have more of these?

Of course, we have places like the Rock and Roll Hall of

Fame, Elvis's home, etc. that we ‘pilgrimage’ to. And I

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have been to places of natural beauty like Western
Canada, Alberta, Banff, Lake Louise, and Calgary, etc.,
which I also consider special or sacred, at least to me.

Perhaps it is as simple as that North America, being still

such a relatively young country, we have never taken the
time to find and consecrate those places here in America
that we might consider sacred. Certainly Native
Americans have their sacred places and the sense of
sacred.

We who are immigrants probably don't even yet know

where these places are (or if they are), but they no-
doubt exist for us too. I very much believe that the form
of the land itself determines the space it represents, and
we are influenced and imprinted by this as we become
aware of those places.

As mentioned, in the U.S. we have done this with many

of our places of natural beauty and have scores of
national parks and other physical attractions but have
perhaps not had the time yet as a nation to discover
those places with an ‘inner’ beauty, sites that somehow
distinguish themselves from the profane as special by
how they affect us spiritually.

However, it is fair to assume sacred space and places in

this country do exist and are even now radiating
whatever inner beauty they inspire, while they wait to be
found and personally known by each of us. Aside from

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many Native American sacred sites, I don't know of
many spiritual sites in America that are so heralded. Or
were the Native Americans just the first to find such
places. I’m sure that’s it.

The sacred shows itself as sacred by standing out from

the ordinary, usually by transporting us beyond our
everyday sense of time into a special sense of place and
time. The sacred is somehow distinct from what we
ordinarily experience and expect. It stands apart. When
something stands out to us from its surroundings (either
as a person, place, or a natural form), causing us to
become aware of it ourselves, it is sacred to the degree
that we are aware of the change in our consciousness
that it creates. In other words, the ‘sacred” is
consecrated or imprinted by the experience itself that it
puts us through. It’s effect is how we know it.

And just how this works is pretty easy to see in our own
life. To begin with, we can become aware of what
moments or places are already special or sacred to us as
individuals, simply because we feel a sense of the sacred
there. When in that place we experience the sacred. It
makes us aware of ourselves in this special way when go
there.

For example, check out where you go to find peace,

whether it is in the beauty of nature or just to a favorite
chair or corner of the house? In other words, what have
we already set apart or aside as being special or find is

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special? We set these places or moments aside because
when we are there, something is special for us. Most of
all, ‘we’ are special there.

IMO, sacred is as sacred does. Ultimately places are

declared sacred by individuals who experience or find
increased awareness or intuition when in their presence
and note that or point it out to others. Places are
consecrated through this process of our increased
awareness, not awareness of the places themselves so
much as the awareness of ourselves when we visit these
places, and our state of mind, in these places, an
important point.

If we have few sacred spiritual sites here in America, this

is a reflection of our own state of mind and the fact that
we are just not yet aware of these locations, for such
places must certainly exist. At this point in American
history, we may have to be pioneers of inner space and
discover them for ourselves. Perhaps those most
sensitive or aware among us will locate these sacred
places in North America by experiencing them ourselves,
and pointing them out, so that others can travel there,
and see for themselves what makes it special. Does it
work for us too?

After all, is this not why we go to the lake or river or

pond or stream, to mix our mind with whatever natural
awareness we are capable of experiencing at that place
and time? There is definitely a mixing of our mind with

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what we consider sacred going on all the time. Each of
us must have people, places, or things that we
experience (and have consecrated) as "special." Or
perhaps we just have yet to become aware of them. As
the dharma teaches us, it is all about awareness on our
part, sensitivity to, being able to receive, receptivity.

Our opportunity to become aware of the sacred always

comes at the borderline between the ordinary and extra-
ordinary, at the threshold between these two worlds. In
those moments, we cross over. The great writer on these
matters, Mircea Eliade, used the word hierophany as the
manifestation or appearance of the sacred in this
profane world, what Gerard Manley Hopkins called
"inscape," the way inward beyond the profane to the
sacred. A whiff of the absolute always brings relief from
the relative and the ordinary. We wake up in those
moments and are imprinted by those sacred places.

Places that can be sacred to us as a nation undoubtedly

exist, as the Native Americans have pointed out to us,
yet like all sacred places, they must be discovered and
individually consecrated by individuals who become
aware at them, one at a time.

As mentioned, sacred is as sacred does, so to speak. We

can easily see this in our own lives. Perhaps the place
where we first meet a loved one is sacred to us by that
meeting, or the house and town where one of our
children is born. The "sacred," as the root of the word

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itself suggests, is that which is set apart in our
experience from all that is not sacred, from the ordinary
or profane. It stands out as an axis from which we can
"see" beyond our ordinary Self. We do this all the time,
ever creating a personal hierarchy of what is spiritually
important (and thus sacred) to each of us. These special
places enable awareness in us and self-discovery, so
they are hard to miss.

My point is that places of eventual pilgrimage must first

be consecrated by those who are aware of and actually
changed by them. Just as we flock to national parks,
drawn by their natural beauty, places that invoke inner
awareness must first be found, experienced, and then
consecrated (verified) by people like ourselves. This has
to involve our own inner wellspring or spirit.

In other words, someone has to actually do it. Countries

like India have had thousands of years to find their
sacred places. Americans have yet to do this, although
Native Americans certainly have. We non-native
Americans go to the indigenous Native American sacred
places because we have not yet found any (or many) on
our own. Can we use theirs? Of course, yet there also
must be others places yet to be known that we
individually find.

Just as the Buddha did not create the Dharma, but only
became aware of it, Native Americans did not create
their sacred spaces, but became aware of them,

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something we can do as well, through their guidance or
on our own.

Each of us is already well on our way in this process,

which we can see by just making a mental list of those
places and/or rituals that we personally consider
important and thus somewhat sacred to us. What has
affected us?

This could be as close as our favorite author, book,

poem, or any of the visual arts that transport us, and of
course music and movies that move us. Anything is fair
game, but we must consecrate it by being aware that it
is important to us by how it transforms us when there
and treasure that. For sure, awareness is something that
can be sensitized and honed.

Sacredness does not just go without saying. Rather, we

must say it again and again and again by consecrating
and re-consecrating our loved ones, families, wives and
husbands, children, and pets – whatever makes life
worth living for us. This is what is most sacred to us and
we must articulate that space. We don't have to be
religious to have the sacred in our lives. Sacred is
whatever we value above the ordinary. In that sense, we
are all religious.

For example, I know I love to live here in Michigan but

may be unaware of all the reasons why. And I know that
I have little areas of nature that I like to visit that I find

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restful. It may not be a national park, but just a shady
nook by a small stream nearby. Again, sacred is as
sacred does. It is up to me to consecrate what is sacred
with my awareness of what stands out in my mind. In
other words, these special places wait for me to be
aware of my own inner nature when I visit them. Like a
natural ‘treasure finder’ and magnet, we can feel our way
to what is sacred to us.

If nothing is sacred to us, it is because we are not

sensitive to the awareness these places offer and make
possible. But even the most unaware among us has his
or her favorites, those special places or objects in life
that we love and where (or through which) we find
peace, places we have consecrated and that are
imprinted by our own enhanced presence when we are
there.

But in my case, for the record, the most powerful, the

most consecrated places I have ever experienced, aside
from family and climactic life events, were not just
locations or places but rather also special people, those
beings consecrated by lineage and capable of causing
people like myself to realize who we are, right on-the-
spot, so to speak.

And then there is the most sacred space I have known,

the wellspring of my own mind, and thanks be to these
great teachers for pointing the nature of the mind out,
showing me just where and what sacred is.

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THE ANN ARBOR BLUES FESTIVAL

The First of Its Kind

April 23, 2022

[Some have asked for a sample of what happened in all

of the scores of interviews I did with both audio and
video.] Here is a sample of how some of the players and
participants responded to being asked what they
thought of the event]

There is no doubt that the first North American all-out

blues festival for modern-electric, city blues (in fact, all

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types of blues) was the Ann Arbor Blues Festival, held in
the late summer of 1969. It featured blues artists like
Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, B.B. King, Otis Rush, J. B.
Hutto and the Hawks, Howlin’ Wolf, T-Bone Walker,
Magic Sam, Freddy King, and many other modern-
electric blues players. The festival also featured
traditional blues artists like Son House and those in
between, like Clifton Chenier, Roosevelt Sykes, Lightnin'
Hopkins, and many others.

In Ann Arbor at the time, the accent was off folk and
country blues and on modern, big-city, electric blues
artists. While the Newport Folk Festival featured more
than folk music and to a degree helped blues to segue
from folk and country blues to more modern blues, it
was in Ann Arbor that the first all-out extravaganza of
modern-electric city blues was born.

There is no record of any blues festival of any similar

scope and extent that predates that first Ann Arbor
Blues Festival, which was organized in 1968 and held in
1969, much less one that endures to the present day.

ANN ARBOR BLUES FESTIVAL: WHAT IT WAS

The Ann Arbor Blues Festival was just that: a festival of

blues, including (and featuring) modern electric city
blues -- the first of its kind. It helped to mark the
discovery of modern blues music and the musicians that
made that music. However, the festival was something

224
more than just Black music for White people. It was
somewhat of a celebration for the Black musicians
themselves and the list of great blues artists present, on
or off the stage, reads like a Who’s Who of blues
musicians of all types alive at the time. They came from
all over, to play of course, but also just to be together, to
hang out.

Those first two Ann Arbor Blues Festivals in 1969 and

1970, sponsored by the University Activity Center (UAC)
of the University of Michigan and the Canterbury House,
were organized by a small group of University of
Michigan students. Their leader was John Fishel, a young
man who just happened to really love the blues.

Late in 1968, Fishel and a small group of students

formed an exploratory committee to create a blues
festival, tentatively scheduled for the fall of 1969.
Among other things they traveled to Chicago and heard
some of the great blues men in the South Chicago bars
and clubs. They came back from that trip with their eyes
opened, more convinced than ever to organize a festival
that next fall.

Their chief worry was whether, in the commotion of the

returning to school, students would have time to grasp
what a blues festival was all about. Therefore, they
decided to hold a warm-up concert in the spring of
1969, so that everyone on campus could preview the
music and build an appetite for the coming festival. The

225
preliminary concert was held in the University of
Michigan Ballroom, featuring the Luther Allison Trio, a
young blues group from Chicago. It was very much a
success and the larger festival was scheduled for the Fall.
The University of Michigan approved a budget and
Fishel and his group set about making the festival a
reality.

1969 ANN ARBOR BLUES FESTIVAL

And what a festival it was! That first Ann Arbor Blues

Festival in 1969 included such great blues artists as B.B.
King, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Otis Rush, Magic
Sam, Freddy King, T-Bone Walker, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and
many others.1 The 1969 Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz
Festival even made a small profit. It was an enormous
artistic success, and it was decided to make this an
annual event. A proposed budget for the 1970 concert
was formulated and accepted by the university.

It has been said by way of criticism of the first two Ann

Arbor Blues Festival's lack of monetary success (mostly
by the producers of the subsequent Ann Arbor Blues
and Jazz Festival), that the choice of talent was too
esoteric and that these artists were not known to the
general public. It was pointed out that the roster of
those first blues festivals were too focused on the blues,
and not designed to best market the events with a wide
range of performers, including also jazz or some
national act, such as Ray Charles, thereby bringing many

226
more people to the events.

What these critics say is very true, but that is just the
point. In those first two blues festivals, there was no
sense of marketing or taking advantage of the event to
establish a larger audience. It was a lot more like the
movie E.T., where one group of beings came to meet
another group, about which they knew precious little. It
was not unlike some sort of religious experience. There
were widespread acts of kindness in coming to know
one another. And it was not just the Black performers
sharing with their newly-found White audience. The
Black performers were also there for themselves, as the
following quotes by some of them at the time testify to:

Magic Sam (August 3, 1969)

“This festival is like an all-star game.”

Louis Myers

“This blues festival is a big family reunion.”

James Cotton (August 3, 1969)

“I've never seen nothin' like this in my life. This is the

beatifulest thing I ever seen in my life. This is so
beautiful.”

Luther Tucker (August 3, 1969)

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“As for the blues festival, I can dig it. I enjoyin' it.”

Lightnin' Hopkins (August 3, 1969)

“Well, I been looking forward for this for a long time.

And I thought this would happen in the future and it did,
so now I hope it lasts long. Fact of business is, I believe it
will.”

Sleepy John Estes (August 2, 1969)

“When all the children get together, Oh that will be a

day.”

Jim Connely (horn player for Otis Rush) -- (August 2,

1969)

“Blues and jazz, they are one, yet still they are different,
because to be able to play jazz, a musician has to be
able to play the blues first. He's got to know the blues,
because blues is soul. It's what you feel, and jazz is just a
step farther than the blues. I mean it's musically a step
up.

“You see, blues is just the common ground that you

meet on, but jazz you get sophisticated and you move
out a little more. But if you can't play the blues, then to
me you can't play jazz.

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“You play the blues and then you go a little farther and
you go into jazz. Blues is a simple thing that anybody
can understand. Jazz, you have to keep hearin' it, over
and over again to really adjust to it, where anybody can
understand the blues.

“Whereas blues is a story, a story usually of one's life or

somebody's life. And jazz is what a man…it's his life, but
it's also what he lives in a dream world. And it’s also
what he would like to do outside of his life. And he goes
into this world of his own, but they are (blues and jazz)
still close together that its hard to separate the two, like
love and hate. You can't have one without the other.

“You don't learn how to play the blues. Blues is

something that comes natural. You don't go around
studying the blues. It's something that comes as natural
as a baby sucks his mama’s breast.

“Blues is something that's gonna' come natural, anyhow,

and the next step you go, you learn to play with rock
and roll, and the next thing you know, you are trying to
modernize it a little bit. You're tired of that old down
feelin' of the blues, and the next thing you know, your
gonna' be tryin' to play some jazz.

“Blues is me. Blues is the black man. Blues is what we

had. Then you move up a step farther, not what we have,
but what we want and that's jazz -- this other world we
would like to have, when we can set here and imagine

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what we want. Blues is the most common thing that you
have. It's a thing which will bring all people together, the
common ground.

Sleepy John Estes (August 2, 1969)

“When all the children get together, oh that will be a

day.”

Roosevelt Sykes: (August 1, 1969)

“Blues is a part of a man. It's the way he feels. Lot's of

people have the wrong understandin'. They think a blues
player have to be worried. Thinks the blues player have
to been whipped or something, or worried, or troubled
or something to sing the blues.”

“That's wrong. There's doctors. He has medicine. He ain't

sick, but he makes stuff for the sick people. So blues
players. He ain't worried and bothered, but he's got
something for the worried people. With a doctor, your
can see his medicine. He can see his patient.

“Blues, you can't see the music; he can't see the patient,
because it's the soul. So I work on the soul and the
doctor works on the body. Do something for your soul.
Do something for your body. All is mixed in one. Two
makes one.

“I been goin' to Europe since 1960-1961. People all

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appreciated the blues every night I played, eight, ten
thousand people a night, in Europe, even in the small
towns.

“There, nobody could ever become graduated on it, that

they can't learn no more music. You just get to think
you're finished up, and there is something brand new
started that you didn't get. So on and on. It's gonna' be
that way.

“The blues is a talent. You can't learn that. There’s

nobody teaches that. No schools for it. Nobody can
teach it to you. God gives every man a talent. It don't
come in schools. It's something you born with. It's a
feelin'. Can't nobody give you that feelin'. You have to
have it. You can't buy it and you can't give it away if you
got it.

“Blues is a part of a man. It's the way he feels. Lots of

people have the wrong understandin'. They think that a
blues player have to be worried.

Freddy King (August 3, 1969)

“Jazz gets a little too way out. I can't understand it if it

gets too way out. You understand what I mean by too
way out? Away from the beaten track, the common
ground or bond of all men. Away from the heart. Blues is
the heart.”

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Fred Below (August 3, 1969)

“Altogether different beat, difference in chord structure.

Modern Jazz is a measured thing. Blues is not measured.
There's as much different between blues and jazz as
between night and day.”

Louis Myers (August 3, 1969)

“Blues is a whole lot different than jazz. I think blues is

more so the soul bag than jazz. Jazz is modified from the
blues. This [the blues festival] is a big family reunion.”

James Madison (August 3, 1969)

“Blues is like something that's happened to you. You feel

it. You have the blues each and every day. Jazz is more
or less something you learn. You wake up and are
worried about something, try to put it in music, it's
blues.”

Jack Myers (August 1, 1969)

“Improvisation: I think jazz is limited, man. You got

certain changes you gotta' make, while if you play the
12-bar bllues, a cat can just express his self. Blues is
something that is happening every day, that you can
understand.”

James Cotton (August 3, 1969)

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(talking about the blues festival) “I've never seen nothin'
like this in my life. This is the beatifulest thing I ever seen
in my life. This is so beautiful.”

Luther Tucker (August 3, 1969)

“Everyday brings a little change. As for the blues festival,

I can dig it. I enjoyin' it.”

Charlie Musslewhite (August 3, 1969)

“Blues is a thing by itself. You can express it through

music. You can express it by talkin' or paintin' or just
walking' down the street, you know. Blues is a thing,
separate. Music is a medium for it. Music just happens to
be a very comfortable way to express the blues. Jazz is
just like takin a tune, it's just messin with it. You take
music and mess with it. Takin' a chord and instead of
playin' it real conventional, playin' it real crazy. Blues is a
thing.”

Jimmy Dawkins (August 1, 1969)

“I feel like the blues is the truth, because when a guy

sings the blues, he sings what happened. Jazz, you can
adlib. You can do the little things you wanta' do to
please the public. When you're doin' blues, that's the
truth, that's the whole story of blues, tellin' the truth. If
something happened to you that sets you back, that's

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the blues.

“Blues is standard. Maybe the jazzman makes a little

money, so he don't want to be in the bag anymore. So
he try to move away from it, but he never leaves blues.
He just try to play something else.

“When a musician has not paid his dues, he sounds like

somebody else. He does not sound like himself.

“The blues festival gives breathing space for smaller

bands to expand and achieve self-confidence and
standing.

“When you got the blues, you're always searchin' for

happiness, and when I'm up there on the stage, I'm
always searchin for something deeper and deeper all the
time.

Fred McDowell (August 1, 1969)

“You play with understanding. That's the way I play.”

Lightnin' Hopkins (August 3, 1969)

“Now I just have to tell ya'. I never knowed anything

about no jazz, because jazz never affected my life. In my
life, the blues always dwell with me. Now, here's what
the blues is: that is a good man feelin' bad. You ever
heard of that? Now, I'm gonna' show you and it is true.

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Now you can walk right here and have one dollar in your
pocket. You going to the store. You loose that dollar,
before you get there. then you walk on by and you turn
around. Lord, what happened to me? And now what you
got? You got nothin' but the blues.

[about the blues festival] “Well, I been looking forward

for this for a long time. And I thought this would happen
in the future and it did, so now I hope it lasts long. Fact
of business is, I believe it will.

Bob Koester (August 2, 1969)

“What is Jazz? The element of improvisation has to be

present, blues chord structure has to be present.

“Blues is a vocal music and jazz is an instrumental music,

and if you have an artist who is a great guitar player, and
he does not sing well, he's eventually gonna' wind up in
the jazz field, or somewhere else.

“Jazz is the ability to get away from that chord structure

and the 12-bar language. It's a matter of material. But
also I think it is the emphasis on the instrumental
aspects of the music, rather than the vocal. Blues is not
only vocal, it's verbal, where words mean a great deal.

Big Mama Thornton (August 3, 1969)

“Jazz? I don't understand it in the first place. It don't

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have no endin’. Here he is up there blowin' and maybe
he blow till he get tired, then he just stop. What about
rock and roll? Some folks say: It's nothin' but a hopped-
up, fast-up blues. That’s all it is.

“I like to let my audience be close to me, you know what

I mean? And I want them to feel that they are close to
me, anyway, because I wants to be close to them,
because I want to express myself to let them know what
I do and how I do it. And if they can do it, good luck to
'em, is all I can say.

Muddy Waters (August 2, 1969)

“Blues. I lived them. I lived them musically and I lived

them lifewise. Blues is the mother of jazz and all those
things. A blues performer stays in blues when he loves
them like I do. To me, I'd rather remain with the blues
and not try to move into the jazz field. I didn't even have
it on my mind to try a change, to do something else.

Arthur Big-Boy Crudup (August 3, 1969)

“I'm this a way. If I go to work for you, and just whatever

I promise you, that's what I will do. If I promise you that
tomorrow afternoon, me and you gonna' fight, we
gonna' fight. The reason we don't fight is that I don't
meet you, and that's the way I am. I only have nothin'
but my word. And through not nothin' being but my
word, I have to do as I say. A man's word is his bond.

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“And if a man's word ain't no good, he ain't no good.
And I've learned that. You know the life of a musician is
only thirty-three years, if he live it. Somebody will either
poison you; some woman will kill him, or some man will
kill him. And if you go beyond that, you got to treat
everybody nice.

Magic Sam (August 3, 1969)

“This [blues festival) is like an all-star game. The blues

has been handed down from generation to generation.
Blues came from spirituals. It developed and developed.
Jazz is taken from the blues.

T-Bone Walker (August 3, 1969)

“Without Blues, there wouldn't be no jazz. Blues is the

basis of all jazz.

Clifton Chenier (August 2, 1969)

“Blues gonna forever be here. Jazz goes on and off. See?

The blues always standard. Jazz is Ok for those who like
it, you know.

Otis Rush (August 2, 1969)

“Blues is the foundation of all music. They keep buildin'

and buildin' on it, just like these cars. They didn't use to

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look like this; jazz is a thing like I'm saying. They just pep
blues up. They speed it up. They cut it up, all kinds of
ways and pieces. They got time to go by, nothin' but
time, and they can cut it up all kinds of ways. This is
what I mean by cutting it up.

Son House (August 3, 1969)

“Yeah, yeah. It's all right, I think. Mostly all the old guys,
they mostly all are gone. I think Willie Brown was about
the last one.”

The Ann Arbor Blues Festival –1969 & 1970

The following is a partial list of the blues artists and

music-industry personnel that attended the first two Ann
Arbor Blues Festivals. Most were on the program either
as featured artists or as sidemen but quite a few just
came to Ann Arbor to be with their fellow performers
and to hang out.

Stan Abernathy (trumpet) Otis Rush Band

Dave Alexander (vocals piano)
Luther Allison (guitar vocals) & the Blue Nebulae
Willie Anderson (harmonica)
Carey Bell (harmonica)
Fred Below (drums)
Big Joe Turner (vocals)
Bobby Blue Bland (vocals)
Juke Boy Bonner (harmonica vocals)

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Cassell Burrow
Leroy Campbell (bass)
Clifton Chenier (accordion)
James Cotton (harmonica)
Pee Wee Crayton (guitar vocals)
Arthur ‘Big Boy’Crudup (guitar vocals)
Jimmy ‘Fast Fingers’Dawkins (guitar vocals)
Doctor Ross (harmonica vocals guitar)
Sleepy John Estes (guitar vocals)
Lowell Fulson (guitar vocals)
Paul Garon (blues writer)
Ernest Gatewood (bass) Otis Rush Band
Buddy Guy (guitar vocals)
Phillip Guy (guitar) Buddy Guy Band
Ted Harvey (drums) Hound Dog Taylor Band
John Lee Hooker (guitar vocals)
Howlin’ Wolf (guitar vocals harmonica)
J.B.Hutto & the Hawks (guitar vocals)
Bruce Iglaur (Aligator Records)
John Jackson (guitar vocals banjo)
Calvin Jones (bass) Howlin’ Wolf Band
Albert King (guitar vocals)
B.B.King (guitar vocals)
Freddy King (guitar vocals)
Bob Koester (Delmark Records)
Sam Lay (drums vocals)
Hopkins Lightnin’ (guitar vocals)
Manse Lipscomb (guitar vocals)
Little Joe Blue (guitar vocals)
Robert Jr. Lockwood Junior (guitar vocals)

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Lazy Bill Lucus (piano)
Magic Sam (guitar vocals)
Jim Marshall (photos)
Mississippi Fred McDowell (guitar vocals)
John Meggs (tenor sax) Otis Rush Band
Little Brother Montgomery (piano vocals)
Muddy Waters (guitar vocals)
Charlie Musselwhite (harmonica vocals)
Louis Myers (lead guitar harmonica)
Paul Oliver (blues writer)
Jim Oneil (Living Blues Magazine)
Tom Osterman
Papa Lightfoot (harmonica vocals)
Junior Parker (harmonica vocals)
Brewer Phillips (lead guitar) Hound Dog Taylor Band
A.C.Reed (sax)
Jimmy Reed Jr. (vocals guitar) Hound Dog Taylor Band
Bob Reidy (piano vocals)
Freddy Roulette (guitar steel guitar)
Otis Rush (guitar vocals)
Roosevelt Shaw (drums)
Johnnie Shines (guitar vocals)
Harmonica George Smith (harmonic vocals)
Son House (guitar vocals)
Victoria Spivey (vocals)
Chris Strachwitz (label owner)
Hubert Sumlin (guitar vocals)
Sunnyland Slim (piano)
Roosevelt Sykes (piano vocals)
Eddie Taylor (guitar vocals)

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Hound Dog Taylor (guitar vocals)
Big Mama Thorton (vocals)
Jeff Todd Titon (guitar) Lazy Bill Lucas Blues Band
Johnny Twist
Eddie Cleanhead Vinson (vocals sax)
T-Bone Walker (guitar vocals)
Sippie Wallace (vocals)
Dick Waterman (manager)
Junior Wells (vocals harmonica)
Big Joe Williams (vocals)
Robert Pete Williams (guitar vocals)
Johnny Winter (guitar vocals)
Little Johnny Woods (harmonica)
Johnny Young (guitar vocals mandolin)
Mighty Joe Young (guitar vocals)

[Photo: the posters for the Ann Arbor Blues Festival,

1969 & 1970.]

241
LIFE AS A PALINDROME

April 24, 2022

Religion (of any kind) is about the truth, the things that
last or as I like to tell myself, the ‘truth’ is the future
because it will last until then. In other words, the truth
will still be there in the future because it is the truth.
Everything else will fall away like fake news.

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Even so, it's a little scary, like water off a duck’s back,
that ‘religion’ has trouble sticking to me or I to it. Before
you jump at this statement, allow me to be very careful
with my words here.

For me, what I seem to naturally shed, like it or not, is

any effort at authenticity. The accent here is on the word
‘effort and not authenticity. The authentic is and has to
be (and this by definition) effortless. When I say it is a
little scary, what I mean by that is the truth of religion, of
the sacred, is like Teflon; it is non-stick by nature and
sooner or later, any effort to reify (or improve) the truth
will fail and fall away, leaving us right out at the edge of
time peering into the void. As for reification, that dog
won’t hunt.

It is my own foolishness and mistakes that have to be

erased as far as I can tell, all the meaningless effort I
made over those many years, effort which was to no
avail. We make effort in order to find a way, to open the
doors of the mind, and all that effort is because we don’t
yet have the key.

Later, like now for instance, it seems to me that all of

that wasted effort has to be walked back because it
leaves a scar, and it takes even more effort to erase the
effects of all the previous effort, so I don’t see an easy
solution. Do you? In effect, we have a torus here,
something like a perpetual motion machine.

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And it’s not an easy solution, removing the effects of
effort. It took years to accumulate the patina of effort in
the first place and it takes even longer, so it seems, to
remove those misplaced efforts, something like putting
the toothpaste back in the tube.

And the worst part, so to speak, the danger of undue

effort, is that it stains our approach to the mind and to
the degree that it marks or disfigures us, to that same
degree that plaque or veneer must be removed. And all
of this has to be done without damaging the mind itself.

Well, of course, the mind itself cannot be damaged or

stained, yet our wasted effort seems quite able to leave
a trail of debris behind us that no one would want to
follow. That accumulated obscuration on our part has to
be removed sooner or later.

And this non-effectual effort itself seems to repulse,

repel, and obscure the purity of our seeing the nature of
the mind. We know that it can take effort to get started
in the dharma, what is called ‘practice’, or so it seems,
and the stains of that (often wasted) effort are
unforgiving and unforgiven by definition. These stains
don’t just ‘go away’. We have to remove them and do
this without making yet more effort, so that in my view
is a serious Catch-22, an impasse.

And a tired effort it is, a hangover of our ignorance and

a ‘bull-in-the-china-shop’ approach that is so easy to fall

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into. We work so hard to get started, only to find that
much of that effort itself can become a major
obscuration that we have to undo and somehow
remove.

And that word ‘somehow’ is telling, because we have to

do this, as mentioned, without further effort, and that
my dear friends, is about as impossible as ‘impossible’
gets, IMO. It is awkward to, upon finally understanding
how the mind works a bit, after developing familiarity
with the nature of the mind, to then discover that any
(or much) of the effort we made to get where we are
today, is itself an obscuration that now has to be
removed. Yet, how?

It’s like getting to the tip of the top of the pyramid only
to find out that there is no where to go from there other
than down. And who wants to do that? Yet down we will
go, if only because of the effort we made to reach the
top that was misguided. I am reminded of the
Shakespeare quote:

“The expense of spirit in a waste of shame”

As I used to like to say, it is like charging into the cow

pasture only to come tiptoeing back out, carefully
watching each step. Or its like putting on a skin-tight
glove only to then remove it. When all is said and done,
the concept of a palindrome remains. Life reads the
same backward as forward. Exactly! This is IMO a key

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concept to realize.

In other words, life is a simple gesture or mudra that we

make and then dissolve. What’s the point? The point (if
you have to have one) is that there is no point. When
will we grasp that? Well, the answer is ‘never’, because if
we are looking for the point in all this, that is our first
mistake. There is nothing to ‘get’ and no point or end to
it all. The effort itself ‘to get’ is the problem --
attachment.

Life is an eternal process and not a state. And so, I ask

you, is that OK? Because it has to be.

[Photo: well-known historical palindrome, much like the

sentence about Napoleon, "Able was I ere I saw Elba."]

246
INTERVIEW WITH HOWLIN’ WOLF

April 25, 2022

August 2, 1969
Interviewed by Michael Erlewine

[Here is an interview that I did with the legendary

Howlin' Wolf. It was the 1969 Ann Arbor Blues Festival
and there I was backstage talking with Wolf. It was just
the two of us standing in the open sun and it was not
your normal interview. Blues expert (and poet) John
Sinclair says this is, in his opinion, the best interview of
Wolf. It certainly is the most far out, IMO.]

Howlin' Wolf:

247
“Some of them said years ago. ‘We will never make it to
the moon.’ I said: ‘You never know.’ Today, we settin' on
the moon and got a flag up there. You understand? But
they told me that we couldn't do that. Don't never say
what we can't do.”

“Next thing, I'm looking for a man walkin' down the

street with no head on his body. And if they say they
can't do it, I'm gonna' tell 'em, ‘You're wrong.’ He gonna'
come down sooner or later. That's right. This is of the
day. He will have no head and be all heart, just one big
heart.”

“Because these performers probably have the biggest

hearts in the entertainment business, and there were
thirty or forty thousand kids here trying to learn about
heart, about understanding, about developing their
hearts. Thousands of hippies, hipped up children, with
great big heads and tiny hearts, trying to lose that big
head and get that big heart. The big head and the hard
heart of modern rock and roll and psychedelic music has
gone as far as it will go. The heart just has to be
developed and this, the first of all the blues festivals,
promises much to cross the generation gap and bring
the old and younger Americans closer than they have
been for the last decade. Because blues performers have
big hearts.”

“I'm not a smart man. You see, I got a little head and a

248
big heart. Because blues is based on the common
ground shared by all people, black and white, young and
old. Blues is the story of the human life, of its loves and
struggles. All rock and roll, all jazz, all American music
finds its roots in gospel music and in blues. Blues is not
unhappy music.”

“A lotta' people sing, but they don't sing with no

understandin'. When you repeats your words, make sure
to make some understanding of what you're sayin'.
Those men played a clear guitar. They made clear
notes.”

“I've been pushed way back. I don't know why the

people wouldn't let me up to the front like they did. I
was just dirt. I felt like I was just dirt, so I stayed back,
because I was able to back up my own self. I didn't think
I had no right to be out there trying to push and scrap. I
didn't think I had no right to be out there tryin' to push
and scrap up no few nickels, you know, which I needed…
never get too many of them.”

“But, I'm a funny kind of person. I don't never want to

take advantage of nobody, and think I'm takin'
advantage of… you know what I mean. Let the peoples
have it. Then if anything for me, it will come by, and I'll
get that.”

“Well, now anytime anything is pushed back, sooner or

later, they gonna' bring it to the front. They can't keep it

249
hid always.”

“I'll tell you. when people can't make or use you, they
don't need you.”

“There ain't gonna be no trouble. Somebody gonna'

come on up to the front and say "I am the man. I'm
sorry," That's right. There ain't gonna' be no hard
feelings. He didn't come for no trouble, but he gonna'
sure let you know that he are ‘the man.’ Supposed to
be.”

“Just like a flower. You see, we're trampin' on this grass.

We stay here a couple months and tramp right around
here, we gonna' kill it. Just as soon as we stop trampin',
the first warm sunshine, and then the grass gonna' start
a growin' again.”

“You don't never learn it all. You just learn some portion
of it, and be able to, you know, entertain. And I play a
certain portion of harp and a certain portion of guitar.
I'm not a smart man. You see, I got a little head and a
big heart. That's all I need. You take people. When they
got a big head, they don't make it far”.

“You're supposed to make it pleasin' to the peoples ears,

then they don't mind listening to the tune.”

“I heard a negro, howlin' and moanin'. I said: I take it

from you. He was an old man. I said: I'm gonna' take

250
that someday and make something out of it. I took that
howlin' and that yodelin' and put it together and made
me a thing of my own.”

“You got to get in the right position to where you can

control your voice. I'm not a smart man. You see I got a
little head and a big heart. You got to know your
keynote. You got to know your notes from staff to staff.
If you don't know your notes from staff to staff, I can tell
when you pick up your guitar, you really don't know
what you're doin'.”

“I don't mean to be funny, but if you let me, I'll show

you, and tell you, if you will accept it. But if you think
because I'm a Negro, and you're not supposed to be
told nothin', you understand, you're wrong. You're
supposed to be told somethin' by anybody, when you're
doin' wrong.”

“Take a learnin' from anybody. Somebody can always tell

you something that fit you.”

“I hope I don't talk too much. No, I don't know. I'm just
tryin. So, now that's a lotta' ground your covering, when
you say you know better than me. I just know some of
the things that are supposed to be done. When you say
you know it, that covers the whole world.”

"Some people don't want to tell you how it is, but I'll tell
ya.”

251
“If we were playin' in a key, tell me your tonic and I'll tell
you what else you're supposed to do. All I want to know
is your tonic. I'll build the rest of it. See, but you got to
have your tonic. That's your startin' off. Without that
tonic, when you get ready to stop, you stop somewhere
else. Anytime you start on your tonic, when you end
your song, you got to be right back on your tonic.”

“I don't have no education, see. Now you can take my

sense and put it in a paper bag and it'll rattle like two
nickels. But you see, understandin', that's all I need.
Common sense, that's all a man needs now, common
sense. Just get you some common sense and pass on
by.”

“Some of the music is too loud today, because it knock

the eardrums to your ear. Them high speakers, tall as
that fence there, is blastin' your ear down, all the time.
Boom. Bam. Bing. You know what I mean?”

“That's uncalled for. You hear that? I played on a show

one night, and I went home and cut myself all up and
down the back, because I heard that thing in my sleep.
It's too loud. I'm sorry. Ain't no need in me tellin' you no
lie. It's too loud. That go for the white boy, and the
Negro boy, and any old Mexican, anybody! When it's
too loud, it's nothin' but ‘knockness.’”

“Knockness, just some stuff comin' together, and you

252
don't understand what it mean. That's what you call real
garbage. That's the worst garbage in town. That's right,
but the peoples eats it up. Just like the rabbit eatin’ the
carrot. What's up Doc?”

“I don't dominize no musician. I hate to hear a man

dominize a musician, but I will say: music is too loud.
Whether you playin' good or whether you playin' bad,
you know it's too loud.”

“Dominize, knockness. Some knockness. Something

knockin' together. You know.”

Other Notes on Wolf.

As I stood there listening to this huge man, I flashed

back to some years before when I had seen the Howlin’
Wolf performing live in a small bar at the north end of
Chicago late one night. There was no one in the place,
just Howlin’ Wolf and his guitarist Hubert Sumlin. My
brother Dan and I stood somewhere at the back of the
place and it was very dark. Wolf was way up to the front,
with one small light playing on him. He was sitting on an
old wooden straight-backed chair. It was all light and
shadows.

And Wolf was singing as only he can sing, and his music
not only filled the room, and it actually took over all
sense of time as his laser-like voice penetrated deep into
my brain. For a while, I lost all idea of who or where I

253
was. The walls of the room just went transparent, as did
my body, and I found myself suddenly thrust outside of
time, beyond any sense of myself that I knew,
somewhere out there on my own in this vast universe,
just a mind floating there. This was more than just music.
This was a life initiation, as I believe you will get a sense
of from reading my interview with this great bluesman.
John Sinclair, one of a very few blues experts that I credit
with being that, says that this is the best Wolf interview
there is. I don’t know about that, but it certainly blue my
mind at the time. Howlin’ Wolf and I talked together a
number of times. This is one you want to read, IMO.

NOTE: Photo copyright by Stanley Livingston]

254
EFFORT IN DHARMA

April 26, 2022

[This is a piece on the effects of effort (rote practice with

no mind to mindfulness) on learning dharma or, for that
matter, learning anything.]

I feel I have to say something more about the effort we

make to learn dharma and some of its drawbacks. And it

255
has nothing to do with the dharma itself, but only with
how we go about learning it.

And so, by addressing the effects of effort in dharma

practice, this is not, as mentioned, moving against the
dharma itself by our attempting to repair the damage
we made becoming familiar with the nature of the mind
through undue or continued effort on our part that
never worked at all. And at least in my experience, that
effort is legion.

I am not saying here that we don’t need effort to get

started with anything. We do, of course. What I am
saying is that once started, our familiarity with the
dharma need not be driven by effort, but rather by our
increasing interest in the dharma itself. It’s something
like how rockets launched to space need a booster
rocket to get off the ground, yet that booster is
jettisoned once we are airborne. Or it reminds me of the
bobsled runs in the Olympics, where the crew (one
person or a group) push like crazy to get started, but
them climb into the sled and hunker down for the ride.

So here we are working with the antidote for sustained

effort, which is the price we pay for creating whatever
obscuration that undue (continued) effort precipitates.
It’s like a semi-pliable piece of metal that is first bent
one way until it warps, and then has to be bent the other
way for it to regain its original shape. That’s the kind of
pushback I am looking at here.

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Again, it’s not a dharma problem, a problem with the
dharma itself, but rather a problem created by a failure
to teach dharma properly or to learn dharma properly
on our part. What’s needed (and long overdue), is an
examination of the techniques for enabling dharma,
teaching it.

As an aside, it's not so hard to give up the religion we

were raised with and move on, yet much harder to
remove the damage done by the force feeding us with
it.

Probably much of this problem with effort and dharma

came from dharma being, to use an analogy, a ‘stranger
in a strange land’ here in America, and there not being
enough authentic teachers to meet the demand,
coupled with the general hunger for dharma in the
West. Or perhaps too many corners have been cut in an
attempt to bring dharma students quickly along the
path. Even in my own dharma training, I was more than
a little aware that in Tibet (I have been there twice), very
much more time and personal instruction, one-to-one,
were involved.

As mentioned, America (or so it appears) thirsts for

dharma, yet that does not mean we can decipher
whatever foreign flavor (Tibetan, Indian, Chinese,
Japanese, etc.) that dharma appears in. Sure, you and I
may be experienced and sophisticated enough to see

257
beyond cultural difference as for the importation of
dharma to America, but many Americans perhaps
cannot do this.

Americans by disposition, may wait until dharma

appears to them in a more familiar and digestible form. I
am probably too close to this problem to see clearly, but
the sacrifices you and I made to embrace the dharma
(the effort) early in its introduction to the West, may not
be possible for the average bear, so to speak. I don’t
know this for sure, yet I wonder.

The dharma does not in essence have any particular

cultural bias. Yes, it originated in India, but has traveled
the world around ever since. I don’t blame the average
American for looking for the dharma in the world they
live in and not dharma with a foreign accent. And a local
take on dharma has to be in there somewhere too. The
dharma may have been first realized in India, but it exists
everywhere equally, including in America.

I have learned and become competent in a number of

areas of learning, yet for me the dharma is the most
difficult area to master that I have ever encountered. I
doubt that it would be any easier for other westerners.

And this answer to that question, IMO, is that this

depends on how dharma is presented. We know,
according to the teachings, that any realization is not
about to come from the outside, but rather realization

258
comes from within us and is filtered through our own
familiarity with ourselves, our family, and cultural
heritage. That should be a clear indicator of what is
required? American dharma has to be right here as well.

Yet, here I am, 50 or so years later, struggling with the

side-effects of my own efforts to learn the dharma and
realizing at this late date (now) that all of that effort, at
least much of it, was unnecessary and instead of
clarifying my mind, only added to the patina of
obscuration that functions as a cataract, making it more
difficult to see through and beyond itself.

That’s kind of where I am at, realizing that initial effort

and effort sustained are two different things. Once we
are started down the path of dharma, our continuation
depends on our increasing interest in the dharma, and
not by forcing ourselves to do it. In other words, by
continual effort to practice dharma is not by definition
always a good thing. The effort in such an undertaking
should itself not be practiced and made a habit. If we do
habituate effort that itself is obscuring, at some point all
of that effort (or its effect) also has to be removed,
walk3ed back. And so, when it comes to effort in dharma
practice, we should IMO tread carefully as this poem I
wrote long ago points out.

PRACTICE A HABIT

Meditation,

259
While not practice,
Is a habit,
That can be practiced.

Practice builds habits,

But should not itself,
Become a habit.

In other words:
Practice,
To form a habit,
But don’t make,
A habit of it.

And the takeaway from the poem is that to the degree

dharma requires effort, aside from our initial effort, to
not make a habit of practicing the effort itself, which
many forms of rote practice indeed include. We don’t
want to make a habit of ‘practicing meditation’, but
rather we just want to meditate, and there is a
difference.

It’s so tricky to fathom, that the effort to practice

meditation, itself affects actual meditation. Call it the
Heisenberg Principle of dharma practice, that the effort
to practice meditation (that by definition must be
effortless) itself has a pronounced effect, and not a
welcome one at that.

And so, the result of any dharma practice that is done by

260
sheer rote (and not with mindfulness), that is by making
an effort to do it, can at the same time stain the actual
ability to meditate, and will, in time, have to be removed
or toned back.

In fact, we try very hard not to stain our practice with

effort, but that is, IMO, by definition practically
impossible. Effort to do what must by definition be
effortless is ultimately counterproductive and self-
defeating. And if we must apply effort to meditate, it
helps to be aware that somewhere down the line, we will
have to remove the effects of rote or mindless effortful
practice from the equation.

And the ideal way, of course, would be to have an

authentic dharma teacher to gently guide us through
the steps of learning to meditate without our
accumulating so many scars of effort. However, right
now, at least in America, that seems practically
impossible. And so, we must accept that instead there
will be a two-step process, practicing to learn
meditation, after which there will be a second step, to
remove the residual damage that very effort involves so
we can just meditate.

I find that this concept is not so well received by those I

have talked to about it, when seem to think I am saying
not to make an effort to practice dharma. That’s not it.

It may help to understand that I’m not turning my back

261
on dharma, yet I have come full circle and am now
realizing how much my efforts to practice dharma have
been somewhat self-defeating after I actually am
meditating and not just ‘practicing meditation’. Simple
dharma housekeeping demands that I remove the
scaffolding I have created learning dharma. Our
continuing effort is often part of that scaffolding,
perhaps very important to get us going, but ultimately
not needed after we get the hang of it and are
interested in meditating. There is a lot of effort involved,
and while effort can enable learning dharma, that same
effort also eventually becomes an obscuration itself.
What can we do about that?

When we no longer need effort, but are just naturally

interested in dharma and meditation, easing up on the
need for effort seems the only answer and the next step.

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GROOVE AND BLUES IN JAZZ

April 26, 2022

By Michael Erlewine

Also a PDF :

“The Blues in Jazz’

http://spiritgrooves.net/pdf/e-
books/THE%20BLUES%20IN%20JAZZ%202022.pdf

[This article took a lot of work to put together. I did this

because I myself have walked the path of looking for the
blues in jazz. Not that I don’t like the other forms of jazz,
but most of all I like bluesy jazz, but years ago I had no
idea where to find it except to listen to jazz until I found

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the blues in this genre. I share this with those of you
who can appreciate it. This may not quite fit into this
group, yet please accept it, if only for the in-depth
information on finding ‘The Blues’ in jazz music. ]

Music is good for the soul. It is one of the best

medicines that I know of and the better the music, the
better I feel. Hearing the good stuff makes all the
difference. And that is what this article is all about --
how to locate the best blues music in jazz. Blues is so
radical -- such a root music -- that it fuses with and
gives rise to other music genres with ease. Jazz critics
point out that the roots of jazz can be found in the
blues. This article is about where in jazz blues lovers can
hear and feel those roots -- the blues in jazz.

A little background on where I am coming from: I have

been a blues and jazz lover for over sixty years. In the
late 1950s and very early 1960s there was a strong jazz
scene in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I grew up.

This was before liquor by the glass became legal in

1963, after which a lot of the jazz scene moved into the
clubs. Most any night of the week, but in particular on
weekends, there was live jazz played in houses and
apartments. Teenagers like myself were tolerated and we
hung out. Players like Bob James, Ron Brooks, Bob
Pozar, and Bob Detwiler were playing straight-up bop
and exploring some cool jazz. The music and the parties
often went on all night. On occasion, I heard Cannonball
Adderley and others play in one of the many Detroit
clubs like the Minor Key. Jazz records were big too. I can

264
remember staying up all night listening to John
Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things” album over and over
when it first came out. This was about 1960.

I fell in with the folk scene in the early 1960s and

managed to hitch-hike all over the country several times.
A fantastic guitarist by the name of Perry Lederman, a
young singer/songwriter by the name of Bob Dylan, and
I hitched together for a stretch. Later I helped to put on
the first Bob Dylan concert in Ann Arbor. During that
time, I hung out with the New Lost City Ramblers,
Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, the Country Gentlemen, Joan Baez,
and some other great folk artists that you may never
have heard of.

It was in those years that I got introduced to blues and

gospel music. The Swan Silvertones, an a-capella gospel
group of infinite beauty had an enormous effect on me
in 1964 when I first heard their records. I had also been
listening to classical music for a number of years, yet
had no real guidance. I spent all of 1964 listening to and
learning in depth about classical music from a real
expert. Then in 1965 I helped to form a band called the
Prime Movers Blues Band.

Although we never recorded, we were no slouch. Iggy

Pop was our drummer, avant-garde composer “Blue”
Gene Tyranny our keyboardist, music guitar maker Dan
Erlewine played lead Guitar, Jack Dawson (later in the
Siegel-Schwall Blues Band) on bass, and I sang and
played amplified harmonica.

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Sometime in 1965 we heard the Paul Butterfield Blues
Band live. That changed my life. We got to know those
guys and they introduced us to all of the blues we had
not yet found out for ourselves. We became, in an
instant, the Prime Movers Blues Band. That was a time.

The net effect of all of this was that, during the 1960s, I
listened to blues records day and night trying to learn to
play the licks. And I just loved the music. In the mid-
1960s, thanks to Bob Koester of Delmark Records, I
heard players like Little Walter, Magic Sam, Junior Wells
and many others live in the Chicago clubs. Later,
working with various blues and jazz festivals, I had the
good fortune to interview (audio and video) just about
any blues player you could name that was around back
then, and most of them still were.

This article is about the blues in jazz, and I am getting to

that. My first love is the blues and it took me some time
to get much into jazz. At first, about the only way I could
hear jazz was through a blues filter, so any jazz I got into
had to have those blues elements. Now that I can find
my way around the jazz catalog, I know that it contains
some real treasures for blues lovers. But don’t expect
just the standard 12-bar blues progression.

Blue notes are found in jazz, but seldom in the form we

are used to in blues recordings. It is the blues as a
feeling, the soul-full experience of the blues and gospel
elements that can be found in jazz. So, I am writing this
for blues lovers who may want to explore jazz through
the same blues doorway I went through.

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The jazz I love is the blues in jazz whether that means
bluesy jazz, funky jazz, original funk, soul jazz -- terms
which I will explain in due course. I tend not to like (as
much) jazz that does not have some kind of blues or
modal element in it. Swing and bop, to the degree that
they lack the roots sound of blues and gospel, fail to
hold my attention. They are too frenetic for me. I like my
jazz with blues, please.

Something I realized some time ago is that jazz (and

most kinds of music) are either energizing or calming in
their overall effect. If you are the kind of person who
needs something to get you moving (to energize you),
then you will be attracted to music that is agitating and
energizing like: marches, Dixieland, bop, free jazz, and
other forms of progressive jazz. It appeals to those who
need that cup of coffee in life -- get a move on! It stirs
you up.

However, if you are a person (like me) who tends to be

very active and sometimes even hyper, then you need
music to relax and calm you like blues, original funk, soul
jazz -- groove music. It helps to get you in a soothing
groove that dissipates energy -- relief!

Regardless of the fact that as a person we may (in

general) be drawn to music that either stimulates or
calms us, at times all of us may need some pick-me-up
music and at other times some slow-me-down stuff.

You will find that the above (admittedly simplistic)

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concept works very well. Blues and the blues that is in
jazz (for the most part) has to do with the release and
expression of feelings. The effect is calming to the
system. It is “get down” and relaxin’ music. Here is a
brief tour of the bluesy stuff in jazz. I hope you find it
useful.

AN ABBREVIATED HISTORY OF BLUES IN JAZZ

This is an abbreviated history because I want to just skip

over the standard playing-the-blues-progression in jazz
stuff. There is not much of it anyway. If you like blues,
you already know that by now. For now, we will also
pass on all of the old-time blues found in traditional jazz
-- the early New Orleans jazz. There is plenty of great
old blues and blues-like music to hear there and you will
want to hear it someday. But it is just too much like the
blues that you already know.

The same goes for what few blues tunes came out of the
swing and big-band era. You don’t need a guide to
check swing blues tunes out because there are not that
many of them. When you can find them, they are pretty
much straight-ahead blues songs or tunes played with a
big band. Further, the arranged feeling of the big band
is not up to the impromptu kind of blues feeling you
may be used to, so let’s pass on that too.

When I speak of blues in jazz, I mean some get-down

funky blues sounds in the jazz that you have not heard
before, so let’s just get to that. If this history stuff bores
you, skip over it and just read the recommended albums

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list. Start finding and listening to some of the picks. As
mentioned, we will pass over the earlier forms of jazz
including the New Orleans varieties, Dixieland, and
swing. However, since a lot of the bluesy jazz that may
interest you grew out of bop (bebop), you will need to
know what bop is and how this music style came to be.
We will start there.

Bop (bebop) -- Bop distinguished itself from the popular

big-band swing music out of which it emerged by that
fact that it is most often played in small groups. You can
hear each of the players as separate sounds. And while
swing can have a groove that soothes you, bop is wake-
me-up music. Its faster tempos, more elaborate
melodies, and complex harmonies do not tend to
establish a groove. It is more frenetic, even frantic, than
swing. In other words, this is not relaxin’ music. Bop has
an attitude.

Unlike the large swing bands, where there were a few

featured soloists, most members of the small combo
could and did solo --- democratic. In addition to an
increase in improvisation and solo virtuosity, there was
little dependence on arrangements. And fast tempos
too. Bop is more energetic (read agitating) than swing,
with the rhythm section keeping the time on the ride
cymbal. Bop tunes can be very fast, often with elaborate
harmonies and complex chord changes that take an
expert player to negotiate. In fact, fluency in bop
became the benchmark of the young musician. Bop is a
sophisticated music that can be, for many, somewhat of
an acquired taste. In this respect it resembles classical

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music. Here are some bop artists and a sample album of
them at their best:

BOB ORIGINATORS

Charlie Parker (just about any album; the box sets are
the best)
Dizzy Gillespie, “Dizziest”/Bluebird
Thelonious Monk, “Thelonious with John Coltrane”/OJC
Bud Powell, “Genius of Powell Vol. 1”/Polygram
Dexter Gordon, “Our Man in Paris”/Blue Note
Miles Davis, “First Miles”/Savoy
Fats Navarro, “The Fabulous Fats Navarro, Vol 1- 2”/Blue
Note
Sonny Stitt, “Constellation”/Muse
J.J Johnson, “The Emminent Jay Jay Johnson Vol 1”/Blue
NOte
Max Roach, “Freedom Now Suite”/Columbia
Lucky Thompson, “Lucky Strikes!”/Prestige
Tad Dameron, “Mating Call”/Prestige

1950S BOP PLAYERS:

Sonny Rollins, “Newk’s Time”/Blue Note

Jackie McLean, “Let Freedom Ring”/Blue Note
Oscar Peterson, “The Trio”/Pablo
Clifford Brown, “Brownie”/Emarcy
Phil Woods, “Pairin Off”/Prestige
Kenny Dorham, “Una Mas”/Blue Note
Barry Harris, “Live in Tokyo”/Xanadu
Tommy Flanagan, “Thlonica”/Enja

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1970S-1980S BOP REVIVAL

Richie Cole, “New York Afternoon-Alto Madness”/Muse

Chris Hollyday, “Ho, Brother”/Jazzbeat

BLUES IN BOP:
Thelonious Monk, “The Thelonious Monk Trio”/Prestige
Miles Davis & Milt Jackson, “Bag’s Groove”/Prestige
Miles Davis, “Walkin’”/Prestige
Horace Silver, “Senor Blues”/Blue Note

HARD BOP

Hard bop was a reaction to the somewhat brittle and

intellectual nature of straight bop. Hard bop
distinguished itself from bop by its simple melodies,
slower tempos, and avoidance of the (by then) cliched
bop chord changes. The constant up-tempo frenetic
quality of bop pieces is absent. Tunes are often in the
minor mode, much slower paced, and often moody --
more feeling and thoughtful. Hard bop reaches into the
blues and gospel tradition for substance to slow the up-
tempo bop music down, stretch the time out, and imbue
the music with more feeling. It was as if jazz had once
again found its roots and was nourished. The public
thought so too, because it was more approachable than
bop. Hard bop is one big step toward establishing a
groove, but it lacks what has come to be known as a
groove, as in “groove” music. Blues lovers will appreciate
the more bluesy nature of hard bop, but probably still
yearn for more blues yet.

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Hard Bop Pioneers:

Horace Silver, “Pieces of Silver”/Blue Note

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, “Moanin”/Blue Note
Cannonball Adderley Quintet, “Quintet at the
Lighthouse”/Landmark
Nat Adderley, “Work Song”/Riverside
Art Farmer, “Meet the Jazztet”/Chess
Crusaders, “Freedom Sounds”/Atlantic
Lou Donaldson, “Blues Walk”/Blue Note
Kenny Dorham, “Trumpet Toccata”/Blue Note
Donald Byrd, “House of Byrd”/Prestige

COLTRANE-INFLUENCED HARD BOP

Wayne Shorter, “Native Dancer”/Columbia

Freddie Hubbard, “Hub-Tones”/Blue Note
McCoy Tyner, “Sahara”/Milestone
Herbie Hancock, “Maiden Voyage”/Blue Note
Joe Henderson, “Page One”/Blue Note
Weather Report (Joe Zawinul), “Mysterious
Traveler”/Columbia

MAINSTREAM HARD BOP:

Sonny Rollins, “Saxophone Colossus and More/OJC

John Coltrane, “Blue Trane”/Blue Note
Wynton Kelly, “Kelly Blue”/Riverside
Clifford Jordan, “Glass Bead Game”/Strata-East
Booker Ervin, “The Book Cooks”/Affinity
George Coleman, “Amsterdam After Dark”/Timeless
Charlie Rouse, “Two Is One”/Strata-East

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Harold Land, “The Fox”/Contemporary
Blue Mitchell, “The Thing to Do”/Blue Note
Kenny Dorham, “Afro- Cuban”/Blue Note
Oliver Nelson, “Soul Battle”/Prestige
Hank Mobley, “Soul Station”/Blue Note
Wes Montgomery, “Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes
Montgomery”/Riverside

FUNKY JAZZ

Some hard-bop players like pianist Horace Silver began

to include even more feeling in their playing by adding
blues riffs and various elements from gospel music to
their playing. Silver, considered by many to be the father
of funk, describes funk:

"Funky means earthy, blues-based. It may not be blues

itself, but it has that down-home feel to it. Playing funky
has nothing to do with style; it's an approach to
playing... "Soul" is the same basically, but there's an
added dimension of feeling and spirit to soul -- an in-
depth- ness. A soulful player might be funky or he might
not be.”

The hard-bop jazz that they were playing became in

Silver’s hands still more earthy, bluesy or, as it was
called, “funky”. This was jazz, but with a funky flavor. It is
quite easy to distinguish this funky jazz from the all-out
jazz funk described below. I really like funky jazz because
it sometimes has a groove, but I love jazz funk better
because in that music there is a total groove.

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Horace Silver, “Song for My Father”/Blue Note
Cannonball Adderley “Somethin’ Else”/Blue Note
Nat Adderley “Work Song”/Riverside
Bobby Timmons, “Moanin’”/Milestone

THE BLUES GROOVE – GROOVE MUSIC

The whole thing about groove music is that everything

exists to establish and maintain the groove. Solos, egos,
instruments -- what have you, only exist to lay down the
groove and to get in it. There is a steady constant beat
that can become drone-like or trance- like. You get in a
groove and you stay in the groove and that feels good.
There are no absolute rules about what makes groove
music. Anything can happen as long as the effect is to
put you in and keep you in the groove. It often has a
Hammond organ in the sound, but not always. It can
have any number of instruments doing all kinds of solos
and what-not as long as these things don’t break the
groove.

Everything exists to create and maintain the groove.

Blues lovers tend to like groove music because the blues
is nothing but a groove.

Groove music can be up-tempo or slow, bright or dark,

but the net effect of getting in a groove is always to
satisfy and relax. There is always a constant rhythm
section driving the groove, invariably danceable.
Grooves always have a funky, earthy flavor and blues
and gospel elements are essential.

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All grooves are bluesy, by definition. It can be as funky
and nasty as you want to be, but groove is not stir-it-up
music. It is always cool-you-down music. If it is not
relaxing, then it is not groove. Which is not to say that
groove is not energetic or fast paced. It may sound wild,
but the final effect is a ‘groove’. Although I hesitate to
characterize it this way, groove music is always a little
trance-like. The result of the funkiest, ‘baddest’ piece of
groove music is a bit of clear sailing -- relaxation. Get in
the groove! That’s the place to ‘BE’.

ORIGINAL FUNK (SOUL JAZZ)

The transformation of bop did not always stop with hard

bop or even funkified jazz. Some players dove rather
than dipped into the ‘roots music’ and an even more
bluesy music was born that came to be called funk or
soul jazz. For the first time, we are talking real groove
music.

Funkified Jazz, also called soul jazz, jazz funk, original

funk, or just plain funk is a form of jazz that originated in
the mid-1950s -- a type of hard bop. It is often played
by small groups -- trios led by a tenor or alto sax,
pianist, guitar and often the Hammond B3 organ.

Funk music is very physical, usually 'down and dirty'.

Funk or ‘Soul Jazz’ emerged as a reaction to the
bop/cool jazz (cool, intellectualized) prevalent at the
time. Funky music is everything that bop/cool jazz is not.
It is hot, sweaty and never strays far from its blues roots.
The term “soul” is a link to gospel roots; “funk” links to

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blues roots. This fusion of jazz with blues and gospel
elements became known as “Soul Jazz” during the
1950s, partly through the promotion of the Cannonball
Adderley Quintet as a “soul-jazz” group.

Fast-paced funk pieces have a bright melodic phrasing

set against a hard, percussive dance rhythm. Funk
ballads are never more than a few steps from the blues.
Above all, this is dynamic relaxin' music that is easy to
listen to -- the groove. Those of you who like blues and
R&B (and gospel), but find some jazz just a touch
remote, may well like original funk. There is no better
music to kick back to than this.

Jazz funk is sometimes called “original funk” to

distinguish it from the contemporary funk sound of the
James Brown/George Clinton variety. Along with blues
and gospel, original funk or soul jazz had some R&B
(soul music) elements thrown into the mix and the
resulting fusion was even more to the public’s taste.

Soul jazz has remained one of the most popular and

successful forms of jazz to this very day. Bop is stir-it-up
music while funk or soul jazz (no matter how up tempo
or percussive) is at heart calm-you-down or groove
music. Here are some classic funk albums:

Eddie Lockjaw Davis, “Cookbook”vol. 1-3/OJC

Gene Ammons, “Gene Ammons Story: Organ

Combos”/Prestige
Arnett Cobb, “Smooth Sailing”/OJC

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Red Holloway, “Cookin’ Together”/OJC
Willis Jackson, “Bar Wars”/Muse
Ike Quebec, “Blue and Sentimental”/Blue Note
Jimmy Forest, “All the Gin is Gone”/Delmark
Bobby Timmons, “Soul Man”/Prestige
Johnny Hammond Smith, “Breakout”/Kudu
Harold Vick, “Steppin’ Out”/Blue Note
Harold Mabern, “Rakin’ & Scrapin’”/Prestige
Stanley Turrentine, “Comin’ Your Way”/Blue Note
Houston Person, “Soul Dance”/Prestige
Grover Washington, “Mister Magic”/Motown
Harold Maybern, “Rakin’ and Scrapin’, OJC-330
Cornell Dupree, “Coast to Coast”/Antilles
Les McCann, “Swiss Movement”/Atlantic (soul jazz)

ORGAN COMBOS

At the heart of original funk and soul jazz sits the

Hammond Organ, 400 pounds of musical joy. I have had
two Hammond B3 and still have a digital Hammond
today. This unwieldy piece of equipment can do it all --
work by itself, as a duo, trio, quartet, or with a full band.
It is a full band. More important is the fact that the
Hammond-organ sound pretty much defines real funk.
There is something about the percussive sound and the
adjustable attack/decay effects that, coupled with the
famed (rotating horns) Leslie speakers, epitomizes that
music called funk.

Whatever the reason, you will find a Hammond organ at

the center (or as backup) of the majority of soul jazz
recordings, not to mention contemporary funk and R&B

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recordings. Jimmy Smith is the man who tamed the
great beast and turned the Hammond from a roller-rink
calliope into a serious jazz instrument.

The story is that Smith locked himself in a warehouse

with a Hammond for almost a year and came out
playing that sound we all love.

And Jimmy Smith is just the tip of the top. There are
many great Hammond players that are every bit as great
in their own way, names like Richard Groove Holmes,
Jimmy McGriff, Shirley Scott, Charles Earland, John
Patton, Larry Young, and others. Put a Hammond organ
and some drums together with a tenor sax or guitar and
you have all you need for some real funky music. This is
groove music par excellence. And this is my personal
favorite music.

Jimmy Smith, “Back at the Chicken Shack”/Blue Note

Jimmy McGriff, “At the Appollo”/Collectables
Jack McDuff, “Live!”/Prestige
Richard Groove Holmes, “After Hours /Pacific Jazz
Don Patterson, “Genius of the B-3”/Music
John Patton, “Let em’ Roll”/Blue Note
Shirley Scott, “Blue Flames”/OJC
Charles Earland, “Black Talk”/Prestige
Charles Kynard, “Reelin’ with the Feeling”/Prestige
Larry Young, “The Complete Blue Note Larry
Young”/Mosiac
Joey DeFrancisco, “All of Me”/Columbia

THE COMMERCIALIZATION OF SOUL JAZZ

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Soul jazz sometime gets a not-so-great rap. Anything so
potent and popular lends itself to misuse and a great
many so-called soul jazz albums were recorded that had
no “soul” -- bad commercial funk. On the theory that
you never know what is enough until you have more
than enough, artists sought to increase their popularity
by making their music more and more commercial until,
in the end, they lost touch with the roots of the music --
the soul.

To make matters worse, the advent of bop and the

various forms of progressive jazz that grew out of bop,
gave birth to a somewhat elitist, conservative, and overly
intellectualized attitude -- the jazz purist. This purist
looks down on jazz that partakes too much of its blues
and gospel roots, and any R&B influences are really
frowned upon.

These mainstream jazz purists used the overt

commercialism aspect of soul jazz as grounds to dismiss
the entire music off-hand. Funk and soul jazz was
somehow (in their opinion) not as worthy of respect as
the bop or progressive jazz they admired. The fact that
soul jazz is the most successful and popular form of jazz
was cited as further proof of its commonness. This elitist
attitude is now on the decline and soul jazz is beginning
to take its place in the history of jazz as a legitimate
form of the jazz. Soul jazz reissues are a hot item. It is a
fact that most great jazz performers also have a funky or
soul side and albums to prove it. Often very little is
written about the soul jazz side of these artists.

279
Well, there you have a quick tour of the funkier side of
jazz -- groove music. It is important to point out that
soul jazz, although always popular with the people, has
received short shrift from the jazz elite. The attitude is
that groove music is something, like the blues, which
should be kept in the closet -- keep back. That time has
passed.

GROOVE MASTERS

We are coming out of a time when jazz has been

measured by how outstanding the soloist is -- how high
can they fly? Critics only seem to know how to rate what
stands out. This won’t work for groove music. In
‘groove’, the idea is to lay down a groove, get in it, and
deepen it. Groove masters always take us deeper into
the groove. These artists are our windows into the
groove, and their hearts become the highway over
which the groove can run. They reinvest. And we ride the
groove.

This is why jazz critics have either passed (never got it)
over groove masters like Grant Green and Stanley
Turrentine or heard something but did not know what to
make of what they heard (and felt). If music is not
viewed as such an intellectual thing (something to see)
but more of a feeling kind of thing, then groove masters
can be appreciated. You may not see the groove
masters, but you sure can feel them. In groove, the solo
(and all else) only exists if it adds to the groove. Witness
Grant Green’s incredible single- note repetitions. Who

280
would ever think to do that?

You wouldn’t dare think of that. It is done by pure

feeling. It feels good and you keep doing it. Nothing to
think about.

Stanley Turrentine has been laying down grooves for

many a year for all to hear. I am surprised at how many
books don’t even mention him. Grant Green has
received even shorter shrift. There have been a few
voices crying in the wilderness of soul jazz criticism.

Producer Bob Porter of Atlantic Records and Bob Rusch

of Cadence Magazine have always known and told us
about the groove. Recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder
is another pre-eminent groove expert. More than half of
all great soul jazz sessions were recorded by Van Gelder.
The next time you hear some real groove music, in
particular if there is a Hammond organ on it, just check
the album for this engineer’s name.

GRANT GREEN: THE GROOVE MEISTER

All that I can say about Grant Green is that he is the

groove master. Numero uno. He is so deep in the
groove that most people have no idea what’s up with
him. Players like Stanley Turrentine, Jimmy Smith, Kenny
Burrell, and many other really great soul jazz artists are
also groove masters. But the main man is Grant Green.
He is so far in the groove that it will take decades for us
to bring him out in full. He is just starting to be
discovered.

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To get your attention and make clear that I am saying
something here, consider the singing voice of Bob
Dylan. Early on, a lot of people said the guy can’t sing.
But it’s not that simple. He is singing. The problem is
that he is singing so far in the future that we can’t yet
hear the music. Other artists can sing his tunes and we
can hear that all right. Given enough time… enough
years… that gravel-like voice will sound as sweet to our
ears as any velvet-toned singer. Dylan’s voice is all about
microtones and inflection. For now, that voice is hidden
from our ears in time so tight that there is no room (no
time) yet to hear it. Some folks can hear it now. I, for
one, can hear the music in his voice. I know many of you
can too. Someday everyone will be able to hear it
because the mind will unfold itself until even Dylan’s
voice is exposed for just what it is – a pure music. But by
then our idea of music will also have changed. Rap is
changing it even now.

Billy Holiday is another voice that is filled with

microtones that emerge through time like an ever-
blooming flower. You (or I) can’t hear the end or root of
her singing, not yet anyway. As we try to listen to
Holiday (as we try to grasp that voice), we are knocked
out by the deep information there. We try to absorb it
and before we can get a handle on her voice (if we dare
listen!) she entrances us in a delightful dream-like
groove and we are lost to criticism. Instead, we groove
on and reflect about this other dream that we have
called life. All great musicians do this to us.

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Grant Green’s playing at its best is like this too. It is so
recursive that instead of taking the obvious outs we are
used to hearing, Green instead chooses to reinvest -- to
go in farther and deepen the groove. He opens up a
groove and then opens up a groove and then opens a
groove, and so on. He never stops. He opens a groove
and then works to widen that groove
until we can see into the music, see through the music
into ourselves. He puts everything back into the groove
that he might otherwise get out of it. He knows that the
groove is the thing and that time will see him out and
his music will live long. That is what grooves are about
and why Grant Green is the groove master.

I hope that some of what I have written here will help

blues lovers push off from the island of blues out into
the sea of jazz. You can always head back to the solid
ground of blues if you can’t get into the jazz.

Blues and jazz are not mutually exclusive. Blues in jazz

has been a thrilling ride (groove) for me and I have
found a whole new music that satisfies much like the
blues satisfy. I listen to groove music all the time. If you
find some great groove tunes that I have not mentioned
here, drop me a line. I want to hear them.

BLUES IN JAZZ AND R&B

There are forms of blues in jazz other than the groove

music presented above. Here are a few notes on some
of the major styles:

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BLUES SINGERS AND SHOUTERS

There are blues singers who tend toward jazz and

almost all jazz singers sing some blues. This is not the
place to point these out since they are more-or-less
straight-ahead blues singers when they sing blues. The
one exception, of course, is Billie Holiday. Holiday is
probably the most seminal singer ever recorded. But is
her music the blues? Everything she sings is way beyond
blues and blues is supposed to be the root music.
Holiday is the equivalent of Delta blues singer Robert
Johnson in that she is seminal -- pure source. Period.

If you have not listened to Billie Holiday and gotten into

her music to the point of real distraction (being moved!),
then you have missed one of the premiere music
experiences of a lifetime. Enough said.

BLUESY JAZZ

There is also a style of blues-laden jazz that is not so

much funky as downright bluesy. Kenny Burrell is
perhaps the chief exponent of this style of jazz.

Bluesy jazz has a slow or mid tempo and is easy to listen

to -- relaxing. It makes great background or dinner
music and yet is integral and stands on its own merits as
a music. A lot of artists play bluesy jazz; some play it
often. Much bluesy jazz can establish a groove.

Kenny Burrell, “Midnight Blue”/Blue Note

The Three Sounds (Gene Harris), “Introducing the Three

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Sounds”/Blue Note
Ron Carter, “Jazz: My Romance”/Blue Note
Grant Green, “Born to be Blue”/Blue Note
Ray Bryant, “All Blues”/Pablo
Red Garland, “Soul Junction”/Prestige
Wynton Kelly, “Kelly Blue”/Riverside

BLUES/FUND SAX

HONKERS, SCREAMERS, AND BAR WALKERS

Although the emergence of blues sax can be traced all

the way back to the great Ben Webster, the honkin’,
screaming tenor sax of the bar-walking variety
originated with Illinois Jacquet and was carried to its
logical conclusion with the R&B sax of King Curtis.

The term “bar walkin’” came from the habit of

emotionally driven sax players walking on the top of a
bar among the customers playing at a frenzied pitch --
often in contests with another sax player walking from
the other end of the bar. This honkin’ blues-drenched
sax style was as much performance bravado as sheer
music. As Cannonball Adderley said about the funky big-
toned sax, “It’s the moan inside the tone.”

Since many of the main players in this style hailed from

the Southwest, players in this style are often referred to
as “Texas tenors.” Some of the main artists in this style
include Al Sears, Big Jay McNeely, Willis Jackson, Sill
Austin, Lee Allen, Rusty Bryant, Hal Singer, and Sam “The
Man” Taylor. Most of these players came out of the large

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swing bands and either formed their own groups or
found work in various R&B settings. This raunchy
honkin’ music scratches that blues itch and satisfies. This
is often groove material.

Since many of these sax players can (and often had to)
play it all -- blues, R&B, honkin’ sax, soul jazz, straight
jazz, etc., they are listed here together. I have made
some notes to guide you as to their main directions. If
you can find the 3-CD called “Giants of the Blues and
Funk Tenor Sax”/Prestige (3PCD-2302- 2), you will get a
superb 23 cut collection with many extended solos and
liner notes by Bob Porter. Worth ordering or searching
for.

SAX: BLUES, R&B, FUNK: HONKERS AND BAR WALKERS

Lee Allen (R&B) “Walkin’ with Mr. Lee”/Collectables

(R&B)
Gene Ammons (R&B, bop, soul jazz)
“Boss Tenors -- Straight Ahead from Chicago
1961”/Verve
Sil Austin (blues) “Slow Rock Rock”/Wing
Earl Bostic (R&B) “Best of Earl Bostic”/Deluxe
Rusty Bryant (R&B, soul jazz) “Rusty Bryant returns”, OJC
Arnett Cobb (blues, soul jazz) “Smooth Sailing”, OJC-323
King Curtis (R&B, soul jazz) “Soul Meeting”/Prestige
Hank Crawford (soul jazz) “Soul Survivors”/Milestone
Eddie Lockjaw Davis (blues, soul jazz) “Cookbook, Vol. 1-
3”/OJC
Jimmy Forrest (blues, bop, soul jazz) “Out of the
Forrest”/Prestige

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Frank Foster (blues) “Soul Outing”/Prestige
Johnny Griffin (bop, hard bop, blues) “Big Soul
Band”/OJC Eddie Harris (soul jazz) “Best of”/Atlantic
Coleman Hawkins (blues, hard bop)
Red Holloway (soul jazz) “Cookin’ Together”/Prestige
Joe Houston R&B Honker (Honker, blues)
Willis Jackson (R&B, funk) “Bar Wars”/Muse
Illinois Jacquet (Honker, blues, R&B) “Blues: That’s
Me!”/OJC
Big Jay McNeely R&B (Honker, blues)
Wild Bill Moore (blues) (Look for him as a sideman)
Oliver Nelson (blues, out) “Soul Battle”/OJC
David Fathead Newman (R&B, soul jazz) “Lonely
Avenue”/Atlantic
Harold Ousley (blues, soul jazz) Sweet Double
Hipness”/Muse
Houston Person (soul jazz) “Goodness”/OJC-332
Ike Quebec (blues, soul jazz) “Blue and
Sentimental”/Blue Note
Al Sears (blues) “The Swingville All-Stars”/Swingville
Hal Singer (blues) “Blue Stompin’/Prestige
Sonny Stitt (bop, soul jazz) “Soul Summit”/Prestige
Buddy Tate (blues) “Tate’s Date”/Swingville
Sam “The Man” Taylor (blues, R&B)
Eddie Cleanhead Vinson (blues) “Kidney Stew”/Black &
Blue
Ernie Watts (blues, bop, soul jazz) “Ernie Watts
Quartet”/JVC

BLUES IN FREE JAZZ

Blues in free jazz are present; the notes are there. The

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problem is that the constant beat is missing and thus
the groove never gets laid down. More important, most
free jazz is stir-it-up music rather than cool out. While
this is great music, it is not groove music. Here are some
outstanding examples of some blues in free jazz.

Archie Shepp, “Attica Blues”/Impulse

Oliver Nelson, “Screamin’ the Blues”/New Jazz
Charles Mingus, “Charles Mingus Presents Charles
Mingus”/Candid
John Coltrane, “Love Supreme”/Impulse
Sun Ra, “The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra”/ESP
Ornette Coleman, “Tomorrow is the
Question”/Contemporary

BLUES IN JAZZ-ROCK AND FUSION

The Same is true for most jazz rock as for free jazz. The
notes occur but the energy is more agitating than not
and the groove is seldom established.

Crusaders, “Crusaders 1”/Blue Thumb

David Sanborn, “Backstreet”/Warner Brothers
Mahavishnu Orchestra, “The Inner Mounting
Flame”/Columbia
Miles Davis, “Star People”/Columbia

THE GROOVE GUIDE TO BLUES IN JAZZ

Here is something that I wished I had when I first started

to get into groove and blues jazz -- a quick guide to the
best recordings. It can save you both time and money.

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These are some of the main jazz (and R&B) artists with a
strong blues content. You will want to hear them out. In
each case I have tried to point out key albums that are
worth a listen from a blues or groove perspective.

The albums are rated and reviewed, (where possible) to

give insight into why these might or might not interest
you. A short biography is also included and sometimes
additional notes on how to approach the artist from a
blues perspective. We would need a whole book to do
this right, and the All-Music Guide to Jazz (2nd edition)
is available when you are. I am sorry to say that many of
the albums listed below are not available on CD. Some
probably never will be. Although I love CDs, I have had
to get back into vinyl to hear a lot of this music. Many of
you will also -- back to the old record bins. It’s worth it if
the music is there. And it is. I hope you enjoy this short
guide to groove music.

LANDMARK JAZZ ALBUMS

Putting aside the ‘blues in jazz’ aspect, here is a list of

landmark jazz albums that every jazz lover should hear.
And this does not just represent my personal opinion.

Any serious jazz listener would agree that these are

classic albums that should be heard at least once.
Whether you like them or not does not matter. It will
show you the wide world of jazz and help you figure out
what you do like, which directions to take, etc. One thing
is certain: if you don’t like these albums, it is not because

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they are lousy performances, but because it is not your
kind of music. This list is admittedly weak in traditional,
swing, big-band jazz, and fusion.

Air, “Air Lore”/Arista

Mose Allison, “I Don’t worry About a
Thing”/Rhino/Atlantic
Louis Armstrong, “Hot Fives and Sevens Vol 1-3”/JSP
Art Ensemble of Chicago, “Jackson in Your
House”/Affinity 9
Count Basie, “The Original American Decca
Recordings”/MCA
Sidney Bechet, “The Bluebird Sessions”/Bluebird
Art Blakey, ““Jazz Messengers with Thelonious
Monk”/Atlantic
Anthony Braxton, “For Alto Saxophone”/Delmark
Clifford Brown, “Jazz Immortal”/Pacific Jazz
Dave Brubeck, “Take Five”/Columbia
Ornette Coleman, “The Shape of Jazz To Come”/Atlantic
John Coltrane, “A Love Supreme”/MCA
Chick Corea, “My Spanish Heart”/Polydor
Charlie Christian, “Solo Flight”/Columbia
Miles Davis, “Kind of Blue”/Columbia
Eric Dolphy, “Out to Lunch!”/Blue Note
Duke Ellington, “Blanton-Webster Band”/Bluebird
Bill Evans, “Sunday at the Village Vanguard”/OJC
Keith Jarrett, “The Koln Concert”/ECM
Erroll Garner, “Concert by the Sea”/Columbia
Stan Getz, “Getz/Gilberto”/Verve
Dizzy Gillespie, “In the Beginning”/Prestige
Herbie Hancock, “Maiden Voyage”/Blue Note
Billie Holiday, “The Quintessential Billie Holiday Vol. 1-

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9”/Columbia
Milt Jackson “Bag’s Groove”/Prestige
Roland Kirk, “Rahsaan”/Mercury
Shelly Manne, “At the Blackhawk”/OJ
Charles Mingus, “Mingus at Antibes”/Atlantic
Thelonious Monk, “Genius of Modern Music Vol. 1-
2”/Blue Note
Wes Montgomery, “Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes
Montgomery”/Riverside
Fats Navarro, “The Fabulous Fats Navarro, Vol 1- 2”/Blue
Note
Oliver Nelson, “Blues and the Abstract Truth”/Impulse
Herbie Nichols, “The Art of Herbie Nichols”/Blue Note
Oregon, “Out of the Woods”/Electra
Charlie Parker, “The Charlie Parker Story”/Savoy
Bud Powell, “The Amazing Bud Powell Vol. 1-2”/Blue
Note
Sonny Rollins, “Saxophone Colossus”/OJC
Sun Ra, “The Heliocentric World of Sun Ra Vol 1”/ESP
Cecil Taylor, “Unit Structures”/Blue Note
McCoy Tyner, “The Real McCoy”/Blue Note

Apr 26, 2022 9:20:18pm

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STALKED BY SANDHILL CRANES

April 27, 2022

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Here is a fun story from 2014, when I was on my way to
the tip of the top of Michigan’s upper-peninsula as part
of my interest and study of bogs.

I had been invited to join a very select group of

naturalists who were given permission to enter a rare
bog preserve at the very top of the Upper Peninsula of
Michigan in order to take a survey of wildlife there. Bogs
are very fragile environments and even walking on them
is destructive. But this conservation society allowed
special teams to enter these closed reserves once or
twice a year and I was to be the team’s herpetologist. I
had been trained in reptiles and amphibians, specializing
in amphibians, in particular salamanders (Ambistomids),
and so I knew all about them and every other Michigan
amphibian and reptile. I was geeked to go.

I could not wait to get to Michigan’s wild Upper

Peninsula and out on those endangered bogs with my
camera. The trip was to last a number of days, and I was
up before dawn of that first day and in my car heading
north. It must have been around 4:30AM when I hit the
road, which is like me.

The only hiccup was the fact that I had just had some
fairly protracted oral surgery (several days of root canal
work), and the tooth in question had developed a really
nasty abscess beneath it. I was already on my second
dose of antibiotics, this time really heavy antibiotics, the

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first round having not even touched the problem, but I
was not about to be stopped by a wayward tooth.

Although I was in some pain and my lower jaw was

swollen, I assumed that as time passed and the new
antibiotics kicked in, the swelling would just naturally go
down. Anyway, hell or high water would not have kept
me off those bogs, so on I went. I had been studying
bogs for quite some time, and these were massive.

My first stop was at a small bog at the top of the Lower

Peninsula, just before you get to the great Mackinac
Bridge over to the Upper Peninsula. I was out on the
bog in the full morning sun by 8 A.M., already hours
from my home. It was a magnificent crisp morning. Yet I
was still having trouble with that dumb tooth, a certain
amount of throbbing punctuated by needle-like shots of
pain in my jaw. I did my best to ignore it and again told
myself that it would die down.

There I was in my hip boots, far out on the surface of the

bog, surrounded by sphagnum moss and small bushes,
and carefully stepping my way along in the deep ooze.
Each step made a suction sound as I lifted a leg and
then placed it back in the thick matrix of the bog.
Moving was very slow. I was maybe halfway around the
periphery of the small lake-bog when I first saw them, a
pair of large Sandhill Cranes picking their way through
the bog on the opposite side. I was thrilled to see them,
of course; these huge birds are incredible.

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As I threaded my way along, I must have somehow
begun to encroach on the area where they perhaps had
their nest, for they became increasingly animated. Now
these are large birds. They can stand five feet high and
have wingspans of six to seven feet across. And their
piercing red eyes were on me, and they were not just
casual looks. Then slowly I realized these birds were
moving in circles around me.

Many of the bushes on the bog were several feet high,

so I could not always see the cranes, but I could hear
their frightening calls. I didn’t say ‘frightened’ calls; I said
frightening calls, which they were – eerie. And then the
cranes began running through the bushes, circling me
closer, working together, and they moved fast. Much of
the time all I could see through gaps in the bushes was a
sideways profile of one of their heads as they circled me.
I could see one bird as it ran through the bushes on my
right, and then suddenly on my left, there was another
bird circling in the opposite direction. I was constantly
off balance, and I had to watch my every step lest I step
into muck so deep that I would begin to sink down in it,
which happens. Bogs are mostly a mat that you can fall
through, so there was that. I was carrying over $12,000
worth of camera equipment, not to mention my life.
Bogs, like quicksand, can be treacherous places.

One of the birds would rise in the air and cut directly
across my path (only a few feet in front of me) only to

297
disappear into the bushes and take up running around
me again. And the cries were now getting really scary. At
some point I began to feel like I was being stalked, and
visions of the movie Jurassic Park and velociraptors
came to mind. These were very large birds, and they
didn’t like ME. It is easy for me to see how birds were
once reptile-like creatures.

Well, that is as far as it went. I finally managed to plot a

course through the bog that apparently took me on a
route away from their nesting area, while all the time I
was moving one gooey step at a time very slowly
through the muck, carrying a large tripod, geared head,
camera, and accessory bag. Every step was a balancing
act. I finally got out of there, found my way back to the
car, and drove to the nearest town.

By this time, it was beginning to be clear that my tooth

was not going to just calm down, but instead was only
getting worse. I had super strength-Ibuprofen and even
some Vicodin that the dentist had given me, so I had to
dip into those a bit. And this was just the first morning
of the first day of a five day journey. I had to decide
what I would do.

I went to visit some friends who lived in a nearby city to

where I was. I was now safe in a nice home in a town
only a few hours from my home. But I had the strange
experience of feeling that I was somehow embedded in
a scene at which I was no longer fully present. Part of me

298
was elsewhere. It was probably the Vicodin, and it was
like a dream or a movie set in which I was only an actor.
In other words, I was beside myself. It must be the
medicine.

At the same time, I was kind of leaning out of it, like you
might lean out the back door to get a breath of fresh air.
Something had stirred or moved inside of me that day
and I was damned if I could figure out what it was.
Somewhere back in there I had lost my incentive or my
direction.
Perhaps these combined events with the birds, my tooth,
etc., schooling (like fish school), now appeared as signs
that pointed that something within me had changed (or
was changing) at the core.

Yet by tomorrow I was supposed to be across the

Mackinac Bridge and way at the tip of the top of the
Upper Peninsula, hours from where I was now, and out
on those remote bogs, miles from any town (much less a
hospital), and the temperatures up there were predicted
to be very cold, even for a spring day. After all, way up
there it was still hardly spring. Hmmmm. What's the
message here?

In the end, the throbbing of my tooth and those little

sharp spasms of shooting pain told me that slogging
through a bog for a few days, miles from anywhere,
might not be the time to try and push this 67-year-old
physical envelope. As it turned out, that was the right

299
decision because the second round of antibiotics with its
very large dose also failed to do the trick. My abscess
overcame all attempts to control it and spread much
farther into the bone of my lower jaw. In the end, the
tooth had to be extracted and the jaw treated. And I
only tell this longish story because this became a real
turning point for me. I will try to explain.

Like so many times in my past, I had once again

managed to confuse the inside with the outside, the
important with the unessential. What had been going on
over the last year was that I was now using the outside
(nature photography) to look at the inside (my mind)
AND I had fallen into the mistake of confusing the two,
which was easy to do.

Since it was through photographing nature up-close

very exactly that I was realizing something about the
nature of the mind, through ‘Insight Meditation’, I began
to elevate photographing nature as the goal or object of
my passion, when it was only the means through which I
was experiencing a glimpse at my mind’s nature, which
is my real passion. I hope that makes sense.

Yet here I was, trying to upscale my nature trips when all

they were to me in the end were the lens or means
through which I was viewing the mind itself. It was the
seeing the nature of the mind that was illuminating. And
here I was, buying more equipment, planning longer and
more extensive trips, and ordering every kind of field

300
guide I did not already have, and I have a whole room
full of them. Well, this all changed, and that early
morning faceoff with the Sandhill Cranes was perhaps
the turning or pivot point. That experience was thrilling
and not really that scary, so I was not scared off by what
happened there. But something else did snap around
that time and I woke up from that particular dream. It
seems that in this life, I wake up from dream within
dream from within dream.

Here are a few snapshots I took of the cranes while I

mucked through the blog, one step at a time. It will give
you some idea of how it was with me.

After that day I began to realize I was unnecessarily

further complicating my life with all these lenses and
nature trips, when what I wanted (and needed to do)
was simplify it. I was extruding the naturalist in me at the
expense of the simple clarity of resting my mind when
out in nature, and it was the clarity of the mind that I
was in love with, albeit, as seen through the lens of
nature. It is the old baby and the bathwater thing. I had
once again confused the two, but I am getting a little
ahead of myself. Let me summarize.

Quite early on in the spring of that year I began to

notice that the very special lucidity that came when I
patiently peered through the camera lens, waiting for
the wind to die down (or whatever), was now present
without any camera at all. What before was made

301
possible only by my intense concentration and a really
tack-sharp lens had now overflowed and begun to mix
into the rest of my life. Then one day I realized that I did
not even have to bring a camera along with me out into
nature at all. What a thought!

This clarity that I had very carefully nourished the entire

preceding year through my photography had become
the rule rather than the exception. It was not about
cameras; it was not about lenses, but about clarity of
mind. That was it, and I began to realize this. I finally
understood what was troubling me way back in there
and I am so glad I did.

I could as easily have been lost in an endless Odyssey of

cameras and nature. And now I found that just walking
along a road, looking at the vegetation or whatever,
produced the same result as hours of painstakingly
peering through a camera lens.

My mind was already somewhat lucid and I could more

and more just rest in the beauty of the nature around
me just as it is, and it would just present and reveal itself
to me without the need of a camera. It became clear
that I really didn’t need a camera at all anymore, and this
at first really puzzled me.

Whoa, I thought. Now I have these great cameras and all

these fine lenses, and whatever technique I had
managed to acquire… and I don’t need them?

302
That’s right. That’s just what happened. It took time, but
I increasingly became aware that what I had loved all
this time through the photography is what was
happening within my own mind.

All that gear was just a scaffold to build a stable Insight-

meditation practice and, once built, the camera
equipment (as wonderful as it is) was just an empty
cocoon as far as I was concerned, for I had now already
gone beyond. I guess the moral of the story, for me
anyway, is that it is easy to mistake the joy of meditation
clarity with any of the objects through which that joyful
clarity first appears, again, the baby and the bathwater.
It is a question of priorities.

[Photos by me while carrying heavy equipment in hip

boot, struggling to cross a bog.]

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JUKE JOINTS AND SATURDAY NIGHTS

April 28, 2022

By Michael Erlewine

This is a short article about juke joints and their role in

African American music, in particular the foundation of
‘The Blues’. And it also sheds some insight on the
proverbial innate musicality of Americans of African
descent. What seems forgotten (conveniently once
again) is the whole specter of slavery and what that
dictated. Blues fans may find this interesting. Let me
know.

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Juke Joints

The term Juke (or Jook) Joints is probably derived from

the Creole “juk” meaning to be disorderly and rowdy.

Juke joints are said to have arisen after the

emancipation, when Jim Crow laws forbade Blacks from
entering White establishments. However, the facts show
that they existed long before that, probably as early as
there were plantations and slaves. In other words, even
after the emancipation when slaves were free to leave
the plantation, they were not allowed in any
establishment in town. Proscribed from White society
and White establishments of any kind, juke joints arose
wherever Blacks could gather, socialize, eat, drink, and
dance; many also sold grocery items, moonshine, and
some even had rooms to rent and other conveniences.

Jook joints were shacks, originally built by the plantation

owners themselves on their own property to give slaves
a place to socialize and blow off steam. Most were open
only on Saturday nights and were not much maintained.
And juke joints always had music, which meant at least
one musician and often two or three. Historically tagged
as ‘blues’ joints, the music originally played in these
places was not blues but dance music -- ragtime, slow-
drag, etc. What we know as blues today did not actually
appear until the early 1900s. In fact musicians were not
the focus early on but rather were there just to enable
the dancing. It was all about dancing. It could be one

305
happy drunk person dancing and clapping their hands
with maybe someone hitting a table along with them or
perhaps a harmonica – anything with a beat.

And juke joints could be held anywhere, in someone’s

home, an abandoned sharecropper’s house, any old
shack of a building - wherever. In slavery days (and even
after) Blacks had no transportation, so juke joints had to
be within walking distance or reachable by tractor,
bicycle, or mule. And there was no law at juke joints.

On plantations the authorities never came unless the

owner himself called them in to break something up. It
was private land. Later, during prohibition and the
sharecropping days, the sheriff was actually paid to stay
away so that the illegal whisky would get sold and
everyone in power got a piece of that. As mentioned,
the law only came when they were called in on purpose.
They never just “showed up.”

Most early juke joints were one-room shacks, seemingly

always too small for those who filled them. And they
were not open the rest of the week, just Saturday nights,
so they didn’t get but minimum upkeep and they
weren’t much at all, just some kind of roof, four walls,
and a dirt floor.

I did not grow up down south and I am not African

American, but as a musician I have played in plenty of
bars both Black and White. In fact, I have played more

306
often in Black bars than White ones. And so, what I write
here is with great respect for the African American
culture here in America that essentially gave Americans
our favorite music -- blues, jazz, R&B, and so on.

Older Blacks liked the kind of blues our band played –

Chicago-style blues. I never knew the Deep South juke
joints, but I am sure that most any small bar on a hot
summer night after a long week will hit the same pitch, if
only for an hour or two. As for the rough quality of juke
joints, I have seen knives, guns, clubs, whatever, and
actually witnessed one fight (hiding behind our
amplifiers) that it took nine police cars to break up.

A juke joint was often an open shack in the back yard

with a tin roof. It didn’t take much of a place to draw a
crowd. People were looking for somewhere to go and
any excuse for a place would do. If you have ever found
it hard to wait until Friday night when you got off work
to visit ‘the scene’ at some local bar, imagine if that one
Saturday night a week was your only chance to let it rip
and socialize AND that there were no other
opportunities for you than hard work the rest of your
entire life aside from singing in church Sundays. That
was the case for African Americans before emancipation.
Consider that.

I am reminded of the poem “Black on a Saturday Night”

by Rita Dove of which this is an excerpt:

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“… and an attitude will get you nowhere fast so might as
well keep dancing, dancing till tomorrow gives up with a
shout, ’cause there is only Saturday night, and we are in
it - Black as Black can, Black as Black does, not a concept
nor a percentage but a natural law.”

To repeat, we all can identify with a wish to socialize,

especially after a difficult work week. Just imagine if that
Saturday night once a week was your only chance to do
anything other than what you were told to do AND for
your entire life this would be the case. That Saturday
night and the following Sunday church service would
take on a whole different meaning. And history records
that Blacks that could sing or play music were more
valued on plantations than ones that could not.

African-American Music

I find it interesting to read comments about the innate

musicality of African Americans. I don’t question that
musicality. What I question is the myopic view that
manages to ignore two-hundred years of slavery when
Blacks were basically restricted to one night of social
gathering (and Sunday church service) and what that
might actually mean in their history.

What seems forgotten here (once again) is the whole

specter of slavery and what it infers, so I am asking
readers to please think about this for a moment. And I
am going to repeat some of what I presented earlier.

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You are twenty-five years old, young, bright, full of
promise, and a slave to some owner of ‘you’. While you
have your whole life before you, in the slave’s case, that
life is already mapped out in terms of the possible. You
work at what you are told from morning until night and
what is left?

Perhaps you have Sundays off and maybe something

like a Saturday night. That’s it. You don’t have college,
schooling, or even trade school. You have no hope of
seeing the world or even this country because you are
not free to travel anywhere. You are not free. You are
somebody’s slave. And depending on how far back we
go, you can’t even read and write, and your owner likes
it that way.

I spent a good part of my young adult life studying Black

music, so I know full well Blacks are great musicians.
Wouldn’t you be too if your parents and their parents
before them had nothing to look forward to but
Saturday night music and Sunday-morning services?
Instead of a myriad of possibilities and choices you had
no choice and two possibilities. The only social outlet
you had each week was perhaps getting together with
your own kind on Saturday nights and singing the
Gospel in church Sunday mornings. Music and dance
were one of the few outlets open to Black Americans
and to their forbearers. Everything else was scripted. No
wonder Blacks know music and dance! It didn’t all come

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from Africa my friends.

Song and Dance

My point is that aside from any traditional culture

carried over from Africa centuries ago, plantation life
(slavery life) left only a few opportunities for free time;
music and dance were often the only social outlets open
to slaves and then only at certain times. Life as a slave in
America gave African Americans generations of training
in music and dance in addition to whatever culture they
actually brought with them from Africa. Think about it as
I will reiterate.

You are young, hopeful, energetic, and you have zero

plans that involve freedom on your part. Your whole life
is already entirely scripted, leaving only Sunday church
service and perhaps a Saturday night at a juke joint
open to you. No wonder Black Gospel music is so
powerful. And no wonder blues music is so powerful.
These were the only outlets open to many Black
Americans for generations – Saturday nights and Sunday
mornings. The rest of the time they were slaves! And the
transition from slavery to tenant farming did not change
things much for most Blacks. In fact, as often as not the
Black tenant farmer ended up owing the plantation
owner money at the end of the year – another form of
slavery.

There was one break each week. Work stopped for most

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Blacks in the slavery (and tenant) years sometime
Saturday afternoon and that is when barbecues and
social getting-together began. By Saturday night
workers were headed for the juke joints on foot, by
tractor, and by mule. Early on the juke joints were right
on the plantation itself and Black workers would even
drive the plantation tractor right to the juke joint with
the understanding that as long it was on the plantation,
they could use the tractor.

I am not going to go into extreme detail on juke joints

and what happened there. That has been covered
elsewhere but suffice it to say that these places were
where the work-week steam was let off, and the later the
night got, the more out of control these joints could
become. It is said that after 11 PM, anything could
happen and usually did, everything from bar fights to
shootings and knife fights.

My main point is that these Saturday night juke joints

were the focus of music, dancing, and celebrating. This is
where the blues were born and grew up. This is where
dancing was permitted, and drinking took place. This
was your one night out. And (as mentioned) the law
never went to juke joints unless it was called in. That was
understood by all. So, there was the juke joints music
and dancing Saturday night and the gospel singing in
church Sunday morning. That was it.

I have pointed out that juke joints or Barrelhouses as

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they were also called originally were set up on
plantations as a place for Blacks to socialize on their one
night off, which was Saturday. Later on, after the
emancipation, when tenant farming had replaced
slavery, Blacks were not allowed at bars and saloons in
town, so juke joints sprang up just outside of town at
crossroads or wherever it was convenient. These joints
were often hardly anything at all except a place to meet,
drink, gamble, and dance. They were essentially shacks
hastily thrown together and often with not enough
room for but a few to dance - jammed.

It is true that juke joints were later moved into town,

urbanized by Whites in the south, and called “Honky
Tonks.” But the original juke joints were hardly any kind
of building at all, with no running water, and so on – just
a roof and some side walls. That’s it. But juke joints were
where everything exciting happened socially for Black
Americans way back then.

So, when we say that blues music and blues musicians

were popular with Blacks, understand that it means a lot
more than just ‘popular’. The juke joint scene was all the
freedom there was to let off steam and have a good
time. Period. That and Sunday morning church service
and gospel singing.

The main point here is not to just describe the juke joint
scene but to highlight that the skill of Black Americans in
music, blues and jazz, in dancing and having a good

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time, did not only come from Africa. It had generations
of extreme focus right here in this country to hone those
skills into a veritable lineage. And those who believe that
the emancipation changed all that had better get out
their history books because tenant farming changed
things very little at first and often made things even
worse. In slavery, African Americans had nothing to lose
because they had nothing. As mentioned, with tenant
farming they most often went into debt to the
plantation owners on top of struggling to make a living.

If your whole life was work unending until you died and
that one Saturday night a week of celebration followed
by Sunday church were your only social outlets, what
would that mean to you? How important would that
music be and the musicians that played it? That is my
question and also my point.

If Blacks are master singers, musicians, dancers, and

entertainers it is not just because they brought these
skills from Africa. African Americans have had 200 years
to refine these skills. It’s no wonder that some say that
White Americans can’t dance and Blacks can. And it is no
wonder that popular music (especially jazz and rock ‘n
roll) in America finds its roots in the blues.

And it is not only about dancing and playing music; it is

about having a good time in the midst of whatever your
situation is, about letting go and grabbing time to
celebrate in the moment – being here now. There is

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wisdom here.

And it’s all right there, embedded in the music. You can
hear it. Growing up I could hear the wisdom in the blues
music, and it pulled me to it. The music of Pat Boone
didn’t grab me that way but Muddy Waters and Howlin’
Wolf did. There was something in the music that spoke
to me beyond the sounds. These blues musicians knew
something that I knew little of and I hungered for that
kind of knowledge, and it was not just the sound of
poverty or deprivation.

Later, when I had an opportunity to interview scores of

the greatest blues musicians, I got to know these players
often on an eyeball-to-eyeball basis. What I heard in the
music was backed up by the persons they were. Blues
greats like Big Momma Thornton, Arthur Big-Boy
Crudup, and Howlin’ Wolf were incredible beings that
made others feel accepted and welcome.

They had wisdom and the life experience I did not have
and that my teachers in school did not have. They had
what I wanted to learn, and I yearned for it. I more or
less studied rural folk music, blues, and jazz, from the
late 1950s until around 1971. And it was an inspiration.

In the early 1970s, I found the Tibetan Buddhists, who

had the same joy and insight that I found in the great
blues artists. And they were also devoted to knowing the
true nature of the mind and life. While I never

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abandoned my blues teachers, I did begin to study and
practice with the Tibetans and am still doing that today.

It was never the down-and-out nature of the blues that

caught my attention. It was the wisdom of life and the
ability to seize the day and find joy in any situation, the
ability to master extreme circumstances and still have a
life. We all owe a great cultural debt to African
Americans.

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THE DARK OF THE MOON
April 29, 2022

Tomorrow is the New Moon, so traditionally the three

days before the New Moon have been called (in

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Medieval times) the ‘Devil’s Days’ and in Tibet the
‘Dharma Protector Days’. These days have been set aside
to kind of wait them out, or to finish up things that need
to be completed, things that we have left undone, while
we wait for the coming New Moon at 4:28 p.m. on
Saturday April 30, 2022.

Traditionally, we don’t start things or plan things until

after the moment of the New Moon. For many, these
can be difficult or times fraught with worry. Best to
ignore all that and just hunker down, mind our own
business, and not take anything too seriously just now.

One way to say all this is that everything is changing all

the time, like a big clock. The big gears tend to move
slowly, while a myriad of lesser gears whirl and flash all
the time. Another way of putting this is: life goes on, yet
there are stations or points in the monthly lunar cycle
which it pays to be aware of. The New Moon is one of
those. Relax and wait it out. It can march a bunch of
scenarios past us in the mind, none of which we should
bother with. Instead, wait for the New Moon.

And often just before the New Moon time is like a

waking dream and a surrealistic one at that. It’s not
foggy, but clear, yet it can seem like an empty hologram,
and ourselves kind of a hollow man or woman, or just
hollow everything. And here we are, seeing through it all
like walking in a transparent dream.

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It happens every month, and sneaks up on me so often,
until I realize that, of course, these are the three days
before the New Moon, so pay them no never mind.

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ENJOYMENT BODIES

April 30, 2022

Consider our indwelling consciousness that, after death,

driven by karma and desires, searches for a rebirth, a
body and situation to live in. The Buddhists point out
that the consciousness in all creatures, all sentient
beings, from a fly to a human, etc., is identical in nature.

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This concept took me a long while to understand, for its
implications to sink in, so take your time.

The difference between sentient beings is that only the

body-mechanics of a fly differ from those of a human. In
other words, there is a consciousness in the housefly
that is the same nature as the consciousness we have as
a human, but that consciousness is restricted by the
body and movements possible for a fly to express itself,
as compared to the flexibility and possibilities of a
human body. This is a terrific notion.

That similarity is one concept to consider, yet not the

actual subject of this article. Here I would like to talk
about alternate bodies that we use every day other than
our physical body.

That same consciousness that indwells in and uses our

body also wants to indwell not only in our physical body,
but also in Samsara itself. Samsara, this cyclic world of
ups and downs, itself is like a body, a sheath or vehicle
in its own right, one that we take refuge in and always
have.

We make our life and the body of our surroundings in

Samsara as comfortable as possible. In other words, we
make our bed and then sleep in it too, even though it
smacks of that old chestnut, “it’s like rearranging the
deckchairs on the Titanic” – futility, because whatever
comfort we can manage to arrange in Samsara is

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impermanent. The comfort will end at death, yet it’s all
we know.

Getting comfortable in impermanence is not a slam

dunk for any of us, although we are told that we have
had innumerable previous lifetimes to experience this.
As comfortable as we can get, sooner later, particularly
as we age, that comfort will wear out as our bodies do.
Then, being asked, what was the point of it all, of all this
concern for our comfort, we may be hard-pressed to
answer. How much better if we could realize the nature
of Samsara as actually Nirvana and adjust our life
accordingly? However, that’s not easy to do.

What I’m concerned about here is how we use our

Samsaric habits as almost a vehicle in itself, call it a body
of knowledge or a comfort body, but nevertheless a
body of some kind, a body in which we also live or
spend much of our life in. In fact, we have all kinds of
bodies that we have created aside from our physical
body of the flesh, bodies of knowledge, psychological
bodies, interests, hobbies, etc. that we live with, in, and
get enjoyment from. My opinion is that very few of us
realize that our attachments, fixations, desires, etc. are
for us places of refuge, where we spend an inordinate
amount of our time. These enjoyment bodies are
obviously very dear to us. We also live in them.

All of this are what I term attachment or “entertainment”

bodies and by that, I mean something more than just

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casual entertainment like reading a book or watching a
movie. We invest in the body of our hobbies and
interests that we build, in an intellectual or psychological
body, and then very much use and live in it.

Instead of continuing to cast our lot and life with

Samsara and taking refuge there, we can raise our heads
from our Samsaric feast (so to speak) and look beyond
just trying to make ourselves comfortable in our
attachments and begin to undertake the voyage of
recognizing the true nature of the mind itself.

If we consider it, we have many different bodies in which

we live and enjoy. It is true that our physical body is the
one that allows us to enjoy most of the various other
bodies, yet even our physical body gives way (and is
eventually lost) to the body of our consciousness (and
karma) that travels from rebirth to rebirth.

I have many ‘enjoyment bodies’ that I have created to

enjoy and live in. We all do, and they are our hobbies
and interests. I have many of these hobbies or
enjoyment bodies, but here let’s just look at one as an
example, my interest in photography.

I have invested years and countless hours creating a

body of knowledge of photography, not just knowledge,
but an actual body of experience in which I actually live
in and use. We can say, well, that’s not a real body, and
you would be right in a corporeal sense. Yet, in actual

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experience, I have spent (and continue to spend) a great
amount of time there. I live in and through (by means
of) photography in a very real sense. It has been more
than a casual hobby, but an actual refuge in a more
profound sense.

In fact, my life is filled with various bodies of knowledge

and experience in which I live, as well as many interests
and hobbies that I have tried to live and take refuge in
that did not work out so well. I had to abandon some
hobbies and remain a dilettante, my own personal
shipwrecks of hobbies. I have left a trail of them behind
me in time, yet have been successful with some others
and use and depend on them regularly, like every day.

Here is a photo I took yesterday, that I created from my

body of experience as a photographer. As I do this, I
don’t even think “I am a photographer” or “now I am
doing photography,” but rather I immerse myself in
photography to the exclusion of everything else and
later immerge with a photograph or two. Here is one
example I took yesterday.

I take pleasure in and to a real degree actually live in

and through photography. Photography has become a
real vehicle for me. I also have bodies of experience in
astrology, music, art, archiving, etc., and of course in
‘writing’, which I am using here.

I suggest that while these ‘enjoyment bodies’ are not

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flesh and blood, yet they allow us to accumulate
experience and any realization we can garner from that
experience. Any ‘realization’ we manage is ours and is
projected beyond death into the bardo for use in any
rebirth we have.

For me, a photograph like this may not interest others,

but for me it captures an impression of how life is for me
and I live in and through that. I can hold it up and
through it see what to me is important in the life I am
living. I do the same with music, astrology, natural
history, and whatever I use to see life through and by
way of.

These all are the crystals or eyeglasses I peer into and

through which I paint what to me is precious in life.

[Photo by me.]

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ONE TASTE

May 4, 2022

In the beginning, our interest in dharma is localized to

whatever dharma practices we have undertaken. That’s
our focus, a sort of ante-in, all that we know of dharma.
Yet, just as in the old song, ‘the leg bone is connected to
the ankle bone is connected to the…’, dharma spreads
out to eventually include everything in this samsaric
world because they all are interdependent. Actually, the
dharma does not itself spread because it has been there

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all the time. Instead, our awareness spreads, embracing
more and more within its reach. In the end, it’s all
dharma, the entire world we live in.

This is a process of normalization, much like the circular

ripples in the middle of a pond expand when a pebble is
dropped, each ring embracing the succeeding ring, until
it all is taken in and enclosed.

When essentially all of samsara is similarly embraced,

and what is called ‘relative truth’ (samsaric subject and
object) is merged and unified, something like equal or
‘One’ taste arises. Everything is consciously experienced
as interdependent.

At the point of ‘equal taste’, what we call ‘dharma’ is no

longer localized but is equally everywhere and in
everything, a vast sea of awareness. There is no ‘point’ to
get and no meditation to do. It’s all meditation, which
means we don’t consciously meditate. Everything is
taken to the path, and nothing is rejected. Whatever
arises in our consciousness is the path.

The Drukpa Kagyu have three short phrases used in

training the mind:

“Whatever happens, let it happen!

However things go, let them go!
There is no need of anything!”

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Whatever arises is taken as the path because there is, as
the Chuck Berry song put it, “No Particular Place to Go,”
and also no way to get there. When we manage ‘equal
taste’, then we are already there, ‘There’ being we are
finally in the here and the now.

One Taste.

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DHARMA: THE POLE STAR

May 5, 2022

[In the last day, the sunspot AR3004 has produced more
than 18 solar flares (15 C-class flares and 3 M-class
flares). And so, we are being inundated with solar
‘change’ in larger packets than we are used to. How you
handle this influx depends on how change affects you.

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Some will use it to forge ahead, while others will go lie
down and ride it out. Many more flares are in the works
and a CME may hit Earth on Saturday May, 7th.]

DHARMA:

From the Sanskrit root word ‘dhri,’ meaning to hold

firmly, the supporting reality or truth, essentially the
natural law or cosmic order, that which upholds or
supports.

Dharma is often described as the teachings of the

Buddha, but that IMO is just passing the buck. The
natural law of the dharma has always existed, and the
historical Buddha became aware of it and shared it with
humanity. Dharma also has been said to be that which
holds us back from falling into the various states of
suffering, as is clearly stated in the Common
Preliminaries, “The Four Thoughts That Turn the Mind
Toward the Dharma.”

Dharma is also defined as the teachings and words of

the Buddha that can be studied as well as what can be
realized consciously from those same teachings,
something that is self-supporting or persistent. So, we
get the idea that the term dharma can have several
meanings.

Yet, for me the meaning is that the dharma is what

persists best or most, as in that what is dharmic ‘lasts’.

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When everything else fades out, the dharma still
persists. I say to myself that the truth of dharma is the
future because it will last until then. When all else fails
and falls away, the dharma will still be there, so it is for
us a guide and guru.

And I believe that what may be the particular dharma for

me, part of my own direct path, may be something else
for you, although there seems to be general agreement
that the dharma is the natural unvarnished law. Mother
Nature and the Dharma are pretty much the same thing.

That being said, what is not so well understood is that

our awareness of the dharma is what needs work. What
good does it do if the dharma is sitting there in the wide
open for all to see and we somehow manage to ignore it
and not be aware of this most crucial view of life.

When all of the stars in the sky fade to black, the

dharma is still the one bright pole star shining in the
night of time.

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HELD TO OTHER’S EXPECTATIONS

May 10, 2022

[An X1.5 Class solar flare exploded today (May 10, 2022),
followed by a series of lesser explosions at almost the
same time. Scientists are trying to decide when the CME
(Coronal Mass Ejection) will reach Earth, of even if it will.]

This blog is a bit exploratory and may not suit everyone.

In general, we can usually depend on ourselves, and as

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for depending on others, perhaps not so much. It’s not
those others don’t care, rather that rivers do not flow
backward, or climb uphill. Perhaps everything circles
around and returns to the starting point, yet if true, not
yet to my knowledge. Of course, “What goes around,
comes around,” but when?

We cannot be needy. We each have to walk our own

path. Only then, will other’s join in, when they are not
required to join in. Seems like an odd truth, but true.

The problem here is that it makes it harder to reform,

even if we have the strength to do that, reform
ourselves. People expect us to be, like a rock, just what
we have always been. In that way, we are a bit like
furniture in everyone else’s life. If we attempt to change,
it seems those around us attempt to put us back into
our old orbit, the orbit they have always known as us
and feel comfortable with.

If we have been the wage earner or the one walking

point, or whatever the case may be, those around us,
especially our family, want to hold us to that, even if
(and especially if) we want to modify our role with them.
The fact that others depend on our closeness, each of us
is like a Pole Star in everyone else’s life. Others direct
and find their own direction by our remaining just as we
have always been, good, bad, or indifferent.

It can be hard for us to get out of a groove, when once

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one has been established. In other words, it’s not just up
to us, when we want to change, but also up to the
nexus, the context of people, especially family, we are
embedded in.

And so, it is at least interesting to note that the path of

least resistance may not be where we want to be headed
in our life, but rather we may be stuck with the
traditional role and direction we have already
established with those around us. Any attempt by us to
change course, can be met with resistance from all those
around us, those who expect us to be just as we have
always been, and I repeat, like the North Star in their
lives, whether we want to be or not. As mentioned, we
are part of the furniture of their lives.

As an example, I can well remember coming back home

to visit my parents, after having made some real
progress in how I handled myself (and how I was now
living my life), only to be triggered into some behavior
that I had tried to move away from for some time, and
then to be told by my mom, who might say something
like:” There you go; you have not changed at all.”

Anyway, I hope you get the idea of what I am pointing

out here, that our efforts to change and reorient
ourselves can be met by outside forces that work to
keep us in our old groove, despite any efforts to modify
our trajectory and life course. Many like us to remain just
as we have always been for them, and not to alter our

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trajectory.

And so, if we are a Lewis & Clark type, cutting a path

through the wilderness, we may be held to that whether
we like it or not. Else, folks will think that we are not
being ourselves, and assume something is wrong with
us.

In other words, after all, there is often no room in the

inn, so to speak.

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335
STAY IN YOUR OWN LANE?

May 11, 2022

By this I mean, keep to the path that your own interests

drive and it’s best not to stray too far from that. And
‘keeping on keeping on’ is not rocket science, either.
Feel out and determine what actually interests you. Of
course, if you are interested in staying in bed all day and
have no ambition, that too can be a path and you will
get somewhere, but perhaps not where you intended to
be. At least for me, hiding in bed is not so much
following your ‘interest’ but rather the avoidance of
everything.

Mother Nature is a harsh mistress as we all should know

by now, and in a way, we are led by the nose by our own
interests and it is best not to stray from those, especially
if that’s how we know our path, through what interests
us. I also feel better and more natural if I follow the
breadcrumbs of my own interests.

Sometimes, by following my interests it reminds me of

one of my trips to Tibet, in particular when I stood on
the top of one ridge high up in the clouds, a ridge
separated from another ridge by a deep ravine, but not
so far away physically, and I waved at a yak herder on
the other side and he at me. So close, but yet also so far.

336
I sometimes feel that same way even with my own
family, and it can be painful. For example, my wife and I
often get on the same phone call with one of our kids,
each on a different extension. We share news and stuff,
and this can go on for quite a long time. As for me, I
soon tire from chit-chat, yet chatting is a lot of what my
wife and the kids are enjoying. So, it is well known that I
will just say I love you, but goodbye, get off the phone,
and go back to whatever I am doing. In fact, I may walk
through the room an hour later (or whatever) and they
are still talking. What’s my point here?

Well, the point is that my own interests or lack thereof

are separative, and by following them it takes me away
from the sharing I could be having with my kids. I really
want to share, of course, but it seems that I need
something of common but emerging interest to go
there, and not so much just idle conversation. As
humorous as this may seem, it has real effects.

I miss the bond that comes from just chatting with one
another, because I am not so interested in the chatting
part. If there is a problem, a question, or concern, and so
on, I am Johnny-on-the-spot, but with chit-chat, not so
interested. I would rather get on with whatever current
project I am interested it.

However, I don’t like this image of myself as all

seriousness and ‘no fun’, yet I am pretty much that way. I
do have a sense of humor, yet I’m afraid most don’t get

337
it, but indeed, it is in there and active much of the time,
perhaps just a little subtle. So, why am I being defensive
here?

Well, I guess I am defending this path of interest I have

followed most of my life. It’s been like being on the
expressway, with few to no local exits. I usually am on
about my business, the interest that drives me, and I am
not stopping to smell the flowers so much, although my
interests are to me like flowers.

Anyway, I have been taking a look at all this of late, and I

come up wanting to be closer to my family but have no
idea just how to do that. As I wrote in yesterday’s blog, it
seems that in order to be closer, I have to continue to be
“a man on a mission,” since that’s the kind of father and
husband my family is used to. When I stop to pander to
the idle chit chat, it’s not natural for me and they know
it.

And so, if I am doing a bit of a turnaround, breaking

stride, and wondering how to get closer, I don’t know
how to do that. And it’s a bit of a sad truth, that when I
cease ‘trying’ to be close, I feel much better and I
believe, so do they. Thus, the image of me waving at the
yak herder across the valley.

I’m on my own and that’s not quite the same as being

‘lonely’, yet its close. As the oldest child of five boys, I
always have been on my own and don’t know any other

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way to be. And when I try to step out of that role, I am
pretty clumsy and can’t hide the fact that I am ‘trying’ to
be close, rather than just being close. In other words, I
am closest when I am far gone on my journey, which
includes them, yet as a father, rather than a mother.

With a wife and three daughters, my son and I are

outnumbered, which has never bothered me, because I
love women and am all about woman’s rights and so on.
However, it seems that this is not the “Age of Man’, but
rather the ‘Age of Women” we live in, and I not only get
that, but have always supported it.

At the same time, I have fathered on as best I can, which

I guess to me means I have protected, provided, and
looked out for my family. Yet, I don’t have the closeness
of a mother, because I am a father and not a mother.
Nothing can get between a mother and her child.

And so, I am just noting all this. As mentioned yesterday,

it seems I have to stay in my role of the father-provider
whether I like it or not, and can’t seem to bridge the
gap, any more than I was about to cross the valley in
Tibet between myself and the yak herder. What’s
happening here is that I am waking up to the fact of my
role in the family, as a father, although in some ways it is
kind of bitter/sweet, IMO.

I’m a father, not a mother.

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Indeed, we each are also our own worst enemy. LOL.

[Photo by me taken today.]

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USE IT OR LOSE IT
May 13, 2022

I am talking about the very large pockets of solar

change that are being hurled at Earth these last days.
The quiet Sun brings change through sunlight that
leaves the Sun, arriving Earth every nine minutes. Our life
depends on it.

However, enormous packets of change, such as the

recent CMEs (Corona Mass Ejections), bombard Earth
with more change than most of us know what to do

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with. Lately I find myself being inundated by these
CMEs, not only when they reach Earth, but from the
moment they are first hurled out from the Sun.

I’m afraid that my first impulse was to hunker down and

wait this bombardment out, but gradually, since they
seem to keep on coming, I am raising my head and
looking around, thinking that there must be something I
can do with this energy other than stick my head in the
sand.

And I’m not talking about small change here, like that
from the quiet Sun, but rather some pretty major change
that is now available and at hand.

And so, as for using this change, what follows is a good

example of what we can do with this powerful energy, if
we dare seize the day.

What I have done is go through some realization about

my own local, in this case, family situation. I love my
family, but in recent years have tried to keep up with
these youngsters by playing their game, so to speak,
which for me means trying to fit in.

I have to confess that I have had trouble fitting in since I

was a child, try as I might, and I have tried. Yet, the “go
along to get along” philosophy is foreign to my very
nature, or so it seems. I’m afraid that the sight of me
“trying” to go along is not a pretty one.

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Well, in this current climate of solar change, for lack of
anything better to do, I have found myself rising to the
occasion and grabbing the third rail, so to speak, and
then I put my pedal to the metal on top of that. I took all
that spare change that the Sun is laying on us and, in my
own way, grabbed it like a vajra, a thunderbolt.

Of course, the shock of it kind of blew me out of the

water, but as I gathered my senses, I realized that all of
my trying to get along with my own kin, was just that,
‘trying’, not only for me, but very trying for my family as
well.

I am reminded of the image (I can’t remember where I

saw the image) of a line of farmyard cats parading
across the lawn in the coming twilight. And at the end of
the line, a little way back, was one skunk walking right
with them and as happy as can be.

Well, in this analogy, I’m the skunk and thanks to the

energy of this now active sun, I realized my mistake, and
have been feeling around for ways to remedy this
situation for myself and for them. “Them,” being my
family.

And what came to mind is that from at least 1972, when

Margaret and I realized that we were going to have a
child, I have concentrated on trying to provide for a
family, and at the same time not work at something that

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I was not interested in, for me not a small task.

I can't say what the roles of men and woman are today,
but back then, the woman actually had the baby and
was in charge (or was at least more expert) in caring for
them, while the men (that would be me) interfaced with
the outside world as a provider of food, home, and
general protection. Anyway, that’s how I was raised and
what we did. It was not anything we really talked about;
we just naturally did that.

Now, fast forward to 2022. My kids are raised and have

their own pups. I’m retired and we live on a modest
retirement income. I’m no longer bringing home the
bacon or much of anything. My kids, mostly my three
daughters and their mom, are very close, which is
wonderful, while my one son Michael (who does better
than I do) are somewhat outriders to all this, at least I
am.

I no longer have a staff to tend to, projects to complete,

or anything that has to be done other than housework,
some repair and maintenance kind of stuff.

So, of course, I try to join the ladies and fit in. Good luck!
The problem is that, as usual, I have trouble fitting in. I
am a lead dog and have been all my life and there is
nothing to be “lead” about, and the kids are more up on
what is happening than I am.

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And so, as mentioned in a recent blog here, I am mostly
relegated to my traditional role of father and provider,
whether I have anything to do in that regard or not. One
could say I am at a crossroads. It seems everyone is used
to (and content) with me in my traditional role as the
father provider, even if I just stand there with my thumb
out. I’m not really going anywhere just now.

And that in-close and ‘chatty’ work apparently is not my

style, meaning I can’t quite get with the program. So,
thanks to this recent boost of spare change, this bolt of
solar energy, I’m trying to resurrect and fit back into my
classic role as lead dog and provider, even though I have
nowhere to go, and we don’t need provisions. At least I
belong there in the family’s eyes, if not my own.

It's true, I am very used to following my own interests

and have for decades. I’m like the gunslinger after the
West was won; I'm no longer needed. Perhaps all I’m
good for is the ‘Wild-West Show,’ where I can appear as
a performer. Those are my two-cents. Your suggestions
are welcome.

I feel this is an excellent example of how to act on the

solar energy at hand and use it, rather than be used by it
or just ignore it.

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I’LL TAKE MINE NEAT, PLEASE

May 15, 2022

There has to be some point to ‘walking point’, even as

we get old and retire, and I’m on it. My kids are raised
and because of covid, I don’t see my grandkids much
anymore. I’ve been a leader all my adult life, and I don’t
know how to do much else.

Perhaps these days all I can do is lead in a direction that

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no one cares much about, since I am so used to carving
my way through life, come hell or high water. I’m not
good for much else.

As of late, perhaps my form of ‘leading’ is sharing in

forums like this, sharing whatever I can, which more or
less keeps me sharp and busy enough. God knows I
don’t see anyone in person these covid-days because of
this virus, and no one comes in our house without covid
testing, and even then, it is just our kids and inner
family.

So, what’s a retired walking-pointer to do? I’m almost 81

and all I know in this pandemic is sharing posts like
these. I’m no longer building companies or carving our
future from the ether. And I’m not ready to be put out to
pasture either, at least in my own mind. So, what’s an
old guy to do?

And the whole “guy” thing and guys in general are not
so popular in these times. This is the “Age of Women” as
far as I am concerned, and I have three daughters and a
wife to prove it.

When I meet someone my age, just like it has always

been said, we agree that the younger generation does
not have the same work ethic we did and many don’t
like to work at all.

Another way to say this is that I’m not sure where I

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stand. Everything seems a bit chaotic, yet my internal
clarity tells me that this is a good thing. I just don’t know
how it will play out yet. I feel clean inside and in the
process of waking up from a kind of bending over
backward to fit into my retirement situation, which I
cannot quite seem to do.

I just am me, the way I am, and nothing more. It is no

one’s fault but my own that I try to do something I can’t
by nature do. All my life, my choice has been to walk on,
and this because for me there is no ‘room in the inn’, so
to speak. The roil of life, like surf rushing up a beach,
pushes me before it, like an innertube by a wave. As
mentioned, my first choice has always been to find a
place to be. Instead, I keep paying that forward.

One of the advantages of learning to use the more

intense solar energy of these times is to achieve what
amounts to a reset to my system, a reduction to a more
natural baseline, and a chance to build on that. At my
age, it is difficult to get any kind of reset, because too
much water has gone over the dam. Seizing solar
change and mastering it can do that, turn things around.

This makes particular sense because the solar sunspot

cycle is now on the increase, so we can expect more and
more quantities of intense solar change to be coming
our way. Of course, we can hunker down and wait it out,
which most folks do or remain oblivious to it by ignoring
these changes. I find it is worthwhile to not ignore

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change, but to at least attempt to use it directly, as the
old saying “Carpe Diem” expresses: Seize the Day.

Yes, it’s like trying to exercise a very stiff body, this initial
fumbling to get a handle on solar quanta, these packets
of solar energy, and learn to use them in our behalf. This
is something we have to learn to do. And the first step is
to verify for ourselves that this energy, these solar
changes, are real and that we can be aware of them and
not just continue to ignore them.

And then, as mentioned, we learn to use this solar

energy as best we can. Better late than never, as the old
saying goes. These large packets of solar change are
there for the taking, and to ignore them is to be
buffeted around by them. Better to become aware of
them, their effect on us, and get started with actually
putting them to use. This is what I’m learning to do.

I look forward to the day when daily solar events are

part of the news cycle and we refer to them as we do to
a weather report, and we are learning to use these
packets of change as a form of renewable energy,
renewing our own energy. Right now, all this solar
change is chaotic in its effect and not something many
folks are aware of. In time, that will change.

And it will change by each one of us ceasing to ignore

this solar flux and beginning to learn how to effectively
handle it in our daily lives. Some are doing this already,

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but it seems few.

The increased solar flux, with the immense packets of

change (CMEs), are enough to clear out all the stops in
our system, which can either put us down on a bed
(trying to hide our head for some days) or blow out our
mind, leaving us lean and clean, essentially purified to a
more significant degree. It’s kind of our choice how we
take it, either laying down or on our feet and straight-
up.

I have done it both ways, of course, and I prefer the

second, if I can get my arms around all that change and
channel it somewhere helpful to me. It’s as close to a
free lunch as we will ever get, IMO.

Incoming solar change, as propelled by a solar flare or

CME, is profound in its effect on us, both psychologically
and physically. It can cause chaos and confusion (and
does), yet it also can be directed, if we can manage it.
It’s like a firehose, strong enough to upset our apple
cart, yet also powerful enough to carry us into a new
dimension or turn over a new leaf. And it’s not like we
have any choice. Everyone on Earth experiences the Sun,
both quiet and angry, and at the same time.

I am trying to sort this out, so that I can perhaps give

folks here a more coherent account. Please bear with
me.

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[Photo by me today, as the grape leaves on our arbor
begin to unfold, here is the nymph mode of the Assassin
bug.]

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"I’M TIRED AS A RETIREE"

May 15, 2022

[Full Moon Eclipse tonight, should be visible if there are

clear skies tonight. The moment of the Full Moon is
12:14 AM Monday. Take a look, a ‘Blood Moon’.]

The above is a line from a song by my good friend,

singer/songwriter, Luke Winslow-King. And I should

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know because I’m retired, and just now I’m tired of my
idea of retirement. The other shoe has fallen. Actually,
for me, retirement has brought with it some confusion
that has taken me a few years to sort out. It came in the
form of distractions that sapped my insight.

I have not been able to give my 100% to anything,

because I have been distracted trying to figure out just
where do I fit into my life, now that I don’t have much
that I have to do. With the loss of all that I had formerly
to do in the workaday world, I found myself trying to fit
in ‘somewhere’, where (apparently) I don’t belong, and
that has hamstrung me and left me wanting, like I need
to fill some hole. My attention, instead of being fixed on
the task at hand, has been distracted by all kinds of
other things, or so it seems. And just lately, I can see
that’s what I’ve done.

I am reminded of the Tennyson poem “The Charge of

the Light Brigade” and the line:

‘Theirs, not to reason why; theirs but to do or die’

I’m not in that class, yet I am in the same predicament,

that of lacking full-throttle because I am not giving all
that I have. And this was due to me trying to arrange
what really can’t be arranged anyway. It just happens,
and it happens when we are concentrating on what is
important, whatever that may be for each of us. And
that’s what I have been missing of late, undivided

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attention.

In other words, if I lost my old one/two punch, it is

because I was not able to give it all that I’ve got. I didn’t
know how or what to address in this new world of
retirement. That makes sense. No use looking around for
someone to blame when I’m standing right here. Now,
how to turn that around?

From where I stand, it looks as simple as that I’m like a

leaky sieve, losing my way and effect by being pulled in
too many directions, instead of having any one clear
direction and focus. Stop the leaks, so to speak, which
simply means to pay attention single mindedly, i.e.,
gather my wits.

To repeat, my leaks were my trying to advance ten

things at once, in a vain attempt to ‘fit in’ to my
changing life situation upon retirement, something my
first dharma teacher clearly told me, using a circus
analogy, “Michael, if you spend all your time in the
sideshow, the main tent will be gone.” I’ve been to that
sideshow.

So, if I felt empty and that something was missing, it was

just that: I was not following my own inner direction
along the lines that I formally had done, which used to
be something like: “Damn the torpedoes, full-speed
ahead! I have done that all my life, only somehow, I lost
touch with this approach since I retired.

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And I understand how that may have happened, having
no businesses to run, and trying to repurpose myself, yet
not wanting to throw the baby out with the bathwater,
yet I did. However, thanks to this recent huge influx of
solar change and the fact that I finally got off my duff
enough to seize some of that change, I find myself back
on track or on my way to getting there.

Let’s blame it on the residue of retirement, the turning

off of what had been always on for many decades, and
letting all that work-attention wind down, without at the
same time keeping my internal compass alive and
always pointing north. That’s about it, but it was much
more of a climactic event than I was prepared for. I
thought retirement would just be an easy relax and life
would just go on, however, it was a little bit more than
that, at least for me.

I was not prepared for the disorientation and loss of

direction that followed retirement. I get it now and am
happy to have realized this. What a waste, this ‘not-
being-more-vigilant’ that mired me. It’s OK to let all the
business stuff go fallow, yet not OK to fracture my
internal-compass, train of thought, and sense of
direction, which had been cultivated my entire life.

I’ve had nothing much to say about retirement up until

now, but no more. There is a whole mystery and
adjustment to retirement, as well as to any other main

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life-juncture, one which now I begin to better
understand.

[Photo by me of a grape leaf leafing.]

356
A SPIRITUAL GROUNDHOG’S DAY

May 16, 2022

For many decades, I was too busy following my own

interests passionately than to stop and smell the roses.
When I did stop working and retired, I found that
retirement was not all roses, so to speak. And I also
found, which I should have figured out by then on my
own, that I had not developed any of the skills for
passing time, making small talk, and just treading water.
Instead, my tunnel vision for work that interested me
had shielded me from being pestered by a lot of the
trivia of life. And all that time, as mentioned, I assumed
that all was roses, if only I had the time to smell them.

Meanwhile, all those many years, my tunnel vision had

357
encapsulated me like a time capsule, an express train
that made few local stops, although I always assumed I
was missing something by my dedication to whatever I
was working on. And because so much of my work was
ultra-tedious, like documenting all recorded music, all
recorded film, and on and on, I knew I was sacrificing a
lot of ‘fun’ by working so hard and assumed that if I had
(or took the time) to have some general fun like I saw
others apparently having, I would have fun too.

Well, like the game of ‘musical chairs’, when the music

stopped, and I retired, as it turned out I didn’t have a
chair to sit on. Little did I realize that all those years of
perhaps working too much, not only got the job done,
but protected me from wasting my time, and all the fun
out there that I assumed those others were having, was
perhaps not all that it is cracked up to be, especially for
my temperament.

That express train that I was on all those years actually

acutely trained my attention and kept me in a kind of a
suspended-animation groove while life outside of that
groove passed me by relatively uneventfully. As they say,
‘who would have thunk it’, so to speak. Certainly not me.

I postponed for me a lot of the fun I assumed others

were having, in favor of trying to complete just a little
more of what I was working on, on the assumption that I
was contributing to the archiving of something I felt was
important not only to me, but to everyone if I could do

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it, that being our popular culture of music, film,
astrology, rock posters, and the like. And so it went,
much of my life.

And the life I lost, the life that was forfeited by my work,
I assumed was rich in meaning, while much of the
tedium I put up with was an offering I made for the
general good. When at last I retired and turned my
attention to all the fun I had missed, that fun was hard
for me to find or come by. It was not so much fun, and
not as meaningful as the quite tedious work I had done
all those many years.

And so, I can’t but think of Julius Caesar’s “Veni, Vidi, Vici
(I came, I saw, I conquered), and as far as retirement is
concerned, for me it was “I came, I saw, I walked away.”
And so, at this crossroads of life, where I have looked
both ways, I have seen what is, for lack of a better
phrase, “outside,” and choose to enfold myself back into
what I was doing all those years. I came up for air and
discovered that air was where I came from.

Like the groundhog, I have seen my shadow.

[Photo by me taken yesterday.]

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THE ZEN OF ZEN

May 16, 2022

I guess I can’t say enough about the benefits of

concentrating on whatever task we have set for
ourselves. It’s very Zen-like at the outset. In addition,
attentive absorption in a task is very protective, because
since we have all our feelers tucked into any non-duality
we can manage, we can’t be harmed by what would

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otherwise distract us.

It's so easy to be nickel & dimed by endless distractions,

especially if we are not attentive to whatever we are
concentrated in doing. One of the great dharma lessons
for each to learn is that it is much easier to not create
‘bad’ karma than it is to remove karma we have already
recorded. No comparison.

Our undivided attention to what we are doing at the

moment, naturally repels countless distractions that
otherwise would play havoc with our mind. Undivided
attention is a natural prophylactic that protects us from
accumulating karma that would only weigh us down and
have to be worked off.

[Photo by me of the ferns which are coming alive in the

back yard of the center. They will become overwhelming
soon.]

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362
SOLAR OVERLOAD

May 17, 2022

The sunspot 11-year cycle is on the rise. Right now,
there are eight sunspot groups on the solar disk, which
scientists tell us is the most in years. And two extremely
powerful hotspots are just coming to the sun’s eastern
limb and will come into view of Earth by midweek.

We know as a fact that Earth (and all its inhabitants)

depend on the sun’s light and heat for our very
existence. And we also know that our sun is a variable
star, meaning our energy and light from the sun does
not flow at a constant rate, but varies, going up and
down. Right now, it is going up and will for some years
yet.

And even while it goes up, it will also suddenly vary

greatly by increasing exploding flares with their CMEs
(Corona Mass Ejections) of plasma that are hurled at
Earth, and which we will all experience more or less at
the same time. I am talking about energy that is ejected
at Earth in large packets, energy that changes our status
quo in various ways. And that change is something we
have not only to endure, but it also can be useful to us
(or not), depending on our physical constitution and
willingness to work with change.

Extreme solar influx reaching Earth (and our minds and

bodies) is like putting electric power through an

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extension cord that in many cases is too thin to hold the
load. The power of this extreme solar change affects us
depending on our state of mind and the ability of our
body to absorb the load. If we can’t sustain that much
change, we either blow a fuse, so to speak, or hunker
down and ride it out.

Thus, our handling of high intensity solar flux is

challenging as well. As mentioned, we can either act as a
conduit and use solar change or blow a fuse ourselves.
However, if we can manage to handle the load, the extra
change or power can be used to forge ahead in
whatever direction we are headed or where it is most
needed.

When these incoming CMEs pile up and what is called

‘cannibalization’ takes place, one CME overtakes an
earlier one and they pile on, the best we may be able to
do is to hang on for dear life or let go of the change
entirely and just hunker down until it passes.

However, if we can’t handle the load, yet are holding the

charge, we can offload it from us in any number of ways,
most which are not so good for us or for those upon
which it is discharged toward. How many times have we
struggled to contain a charge, when it attempts to
offload on someone or something else? We can walk a
fine line, trying our best not to lose balance and still
accidently discharge it against our best interests.

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When such an overload sweeps Earth, it affects millions
of people all at once, many of whom will be unable to
contain themselves and perhaps a lesser group who can
contain themselves and put the change to work in their
behalf. In my experience, there are times when I can rise
to the occasion and other times when it just blows right
by. And there are early warning systems available, yet
the public as a whole are unaware of them and/or how
to best use them.

Most folks think of change as a product of fate, when

most often it is very much up to our ability to sustain
and use change, guide it, or suffer an overload, with all
of its possible consequences, most not welcome by us or
those who come to know us.

As they say, “Change is the only constant,” which should

tell us something. And we can add that the degree of
change very much affects us, and high-intensity change
like that of solar flares (and their CMEs) can affect us
very much. Many people don’t handle change well. In
fact, there are whole groups who are conservative, and
try to limit change to as little as possible. Of course, we
can’t limit change one way or the other, yet we can learn
to use change rather than fight against it.

First, it helps to be aware of solar change, to know when

it is taking place. And that is as simple as going
to SpaceWeather.com and see if any high-intensity solar
flux is taking place now or has recently occurred and

365
may be affecting us. That’s a beginning, to actually
monitor the solar influx and to see for ourselves whether
we dance in response to it or not.

I read somewhere that the movement of ants on a

heated surface, as the temperature is turned up and
down, is a more accurate thermometer than any
scientists can devise. I don’t know anything about
whether that is true or not, yet I’m curious.

My question here is that we know that the influx of solar

variation reaching Earth goes up and down. What each
of us can determine is how do we react psychologically
and emotionally to very high solar energy reaching
Earth. How does this change in solar energy influx affect
us? We have huge wind turbines to channel air. Perhaps
we eventually will have methods to channel the solar
wind and the change that solar influx thrusts upon us.

[Photo by me of the lilacs which are in bloom.]

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HAIR-TRIGGER EMOTIONS

May 18, 2022

What to do with all that excess energy that comes with

solar flares and their CMEs? If we can’t contain and
absorb that degree of energy, we have to shed it one
way or another, and that is fraught with all kinds of
problems for most of us. Once in a while we can surf
that change, ride the crest of the wave, and come out

367
smiling. Yet just as often, in fact more often, not being
able to hang on to all that change finds us dumping it in
whatever way is most convenient, and this may not be
so convenient for us or those nearest us.

When we are filled up to overflow with change or the

urge to change, what to do with all that extra energy?
We try to shake it off. That’s when we find that we are
filled to the brim, with perhaps a hair-trigger release,
and it seems that the least little thing sets us off. And
when we can’t absorb solar change, we dump on
whatever, wherever, or whomever is most convenient. At
these times, it takes very little to upset us, simply
because we can’t contain it.

If we investigate what causes us to erupt like this, and

wonder why we can’t contain ourselves, we find all kinds
of reasons for setting us off. Of course, I am not
discounting those, but only adding one more possible
cause and it’s up to you to see if this makes sense in
your life.

Science is just getting around to seriously studying the

effect of solar-energy packets affecting us emotionally
and psychologically. Science has spent decades
unpacking the physical effects on Earth from solar
activity and CMEs, yet they have been rather shy in
getting personal about all these effects. How does solar
change also affect us internally? That’s what I am
interested in.

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This is and has been going on for as long as time and
our sun have existed with us, so our reactions to sudden
solar change is not new. Perhaps our awareness of it is.
Astronomers initially go for the hard science, the outer
physical effect on radio transmission, electrical grids,
and so on. Yet, there is an inner, psychological, and
emotional counterpart that we struggle with and
apparently, as far as social awareness goes, are not
generally aware of.

Where do you think change comes from? Mostly, since

forever, we have assumed that ‘change’ just comes as it
does, arbitrarily or something. We have not put our
inner changes and the solar flux together as a single
process that affects us. I find that if you will study these
solar effects for a while, look at what the Sun is doing
each day, you will find that it is, among other things,
‘doing us’. We are in synch with solar activity. When the
Sun says “Froggy,” we jump.

In other words, we dance to the flow and variation of

solar activity.

[Photo of our Redbud tree in bloom, by me.]

369
THE WELL-TEMPERED BLOG

May 19, 2022

I’m workin’ on it. Of course, years ago I liked quotes

from various dharma teachings, in particular in-depth
teachings from my own dharma teacher. I posted them
right here on my blog. Why don’t I do so much of this
now?

Well, my reason is that although these quotes made

sense to me and were appreciated by others who were
somewhat advanced in practicing dharma, they seemed
to repel others who seemed embarrassed by them
because they faced them with their ignorance. Another

370
way of saying this is that some folks were put off by
what they did not understand, and because these
quotes seemed a little too ‘Greek’ for them, their eyes
glossed over, and they avoided these more formal
teachings. Perhaps they felt threatened by being faced
with something they knew so little about. I can
understand that and first learned this approach of not
confronting people with their ignorance from the
remarkable and direct astrologer John McCormick (born
August 29, 1922). McCormick told it like it is, IMO.

And so, I gradually phased out this approach, although

some do ask me where are my dharma posts these
days? Well, they are still right here, where they always
have been, yet I have shifted my style somewhat. I kind
of figured out that making the dharma posts ‘too
dharma’, too serious or technical, etc., was like blocking
a lot of folks from learning anything dharmic at all. They
seemed to feel these more technical dharma posts were
too heavy and long for them and skipped over them. As
for long, I wonder if I will ever learn to write short pieces.
LOL.

I realize that while formal dharma teachings are

important at some point in our learning, stories that
have dharmic elements in them are more generally
helpful to beginning dharma readers. A number of FB
Friends have told me that their only contact with the
dharma has been these blogs, which was kind of
sobering for me. I’m not a rinpoche and serious dharma

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students probably don’t need to hear from me, but
those who are just starting out learning dharma, those
folks I may be of use to.

I know a little bit about what to do starting out with

dharma, yet I feel I know a lot about what not to do.
Folks need that too, to understand what not to waste
their time on.

In addition, over time I came to see why I was posting

some details that pleased me by their complexity and
the fact that they were difficult to understand, and they
might interest other folks who had done a lot of dharma
practice, yet the last thing these more advanced
practitioners need is to hear from someone in the same
boat that they are in.

My response to this realization has been to tell more

stories about my own experience, tell it like it is for me,
as best I can, and hopefully that will have some dharma
content. And the further I got into this approach, the
more I saw that my previous dharma-heavy approach
was a kind of repellant to those that perhaps most
needed to be introduced to dharma.

If any of you remember (years ago now) the short

section that followed the CBS News program “60
Minutes,” “A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney,” Aside
from a few comments I didn’t agree with, I thought Andy
Rooney was a great combination of humor, wisdom, and

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friendliness. That’s what I would like my Facebook blog
to be like if I can manage it.

[Photo by me of part of the back yard at our dharma

center, where the violets meet the ferns.]

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WHEN THE MND IS AT REST

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May 20, 2022

Because Michigan was scraped flat by a glacier many

ages ago, the wind here is unimpeded, always on the go.
Those rare times when there is no wind are special for
photography.

In the same way, when the mind is not moving and

naturally is at rest, it’s like a holiday. I find I have nothing
to say. Here is a poem about poems that will have to do.

MY POEMS

Poems,
A home for my thoughts,
Dear thoughts,
The very best of me,
All that’s precious and kind,
Now sealed in words,
Like insects in amber:

Prayer flags endlessly waving,

In the gentle chalice of the mind.

[Photo by me, one of the Trilliums in our back yard.]

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RELAX, AS IT IS

May 21, 2022

[I’ll try to tear myself away from the fireworks currently

going on in the surface of the sun. It’s been so rich and
furious there that we have been more or less inundated
for some time now, so whether we can feel it or not, it’s
taking place all around us. Remember, this intense solar
influx suddenly injects pure ‘change’ into our lives, when
we are used to the steady stream of change through
sunlight from a quiet sun. It's up to each one of us to
determine whether we can feel this urge for change and
act on it or ignore it and resist change and try to
weather it out as best we can.]

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As to our mind, feelings, and emotions and their
exposure to all of this solar stuff, the politics, and the
Uranian war, etc., how can we protect ourselves from
compiling these disturbances and being disturbed by
them?

As the great Mahasiddha Tilopa pointed out ages ago,

we have (and are stuck with) the well of this present
moment.

And even with that, this present moment, Tilopa

suggests that we are not to do anything but rest in it,
being careful not to attempt to alter or change it. Take it
straight. How can we forget Tilopa’s primary words of
advice? They are more than worth considering.

Don’t Prolong the Past

Don’t Invite the Future
Don’t Alter the Present
Relax, As It Is!

Who can contemplate these thoughts and not be moved

to consider them? They are the essence of Tilopa’s
teaching, passed down from mouth to ear, and
contemplated by every Tibetan dharma practitioner.
Once grasped and taken to heart, who can forget them?

They all boil down to the fact that we cannot avoid this
fathomless well of the present moment. It all happens in

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the here and now. Every thought, word, and deed has
come up and out of the here and now.

We don’t have to make excursions to the future because

we can’t see that far ahead anyway. With the past, that’s
another matter. There we can see as far as we can see,
but keep in mind that the foundation of the past is
always deteriorating, morphing, and becoming less
stable.

Our memory very much is and soon becomes nothing

more than our projection, and an unstable one at that,
more like a shimmering mirage in a desert than anything
else.

Which leaves us with the present moment, yet with the

Tilopa’s admonition not to alter that moment in any
way. Just let it be. The sage advice is to rest in this
present moment. That’s the entirety of it all.

It might be helpful to note that even if we tried to

implement these four admonitions of Tilopa, it would
take great skill and practice to do so. Resting in the
nature of the mind is considered a very advanced
practice, as simple as it ultimately is. Try it out, relax ‘as it
is’, and see for yourself, and by doing so also make a
start at becoming familiar with the nature of the mind.

[Photo today by me.]

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‘FILLER UP PLEASE’

May 21, 2022

How much dharma can we hold? Well, if we are trying to

remember written or spoken dharma texts, the answer
would be “not so much.” However, the point of dharma,
at least as I understand it, is not to remember it, but to
be aware and realize the truth of it, the truth of our own
mind. And truth will always be right there with us
because it is the truth. No need to remember anything;
just allow our realization, once we have it, to inform us.

Trying to keep in mind something we read or heard

spoken is at best of temporary usefulness, and usually

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relatively empty at that. At best we become a
bookworm, parroting what we have read, instead of a
realized being. It seems to me that the gift of an
authentic dharma master is not to let us wander on with
our head filled with empty concepts but, as Shakyamuni
Buddha did with his mudra, the earth-touching gesture,
make sure that the lightning reaches ground for us, i.e.,
that the rubber meets the road.

That’s the difference between an airhead and some

actual realization on our part. One would think this
would be easy, for us to tell the difference between
these three: understanding a concept, a living
experience, and an actual realization of the concept. Yet
apparently, it’s not.

I have been interested in Buddhism since the late 1950s,

dabbled with actually sitting Zazen in the 1960s, and was
seriously committed to the dharma in the early 1970s.
From the 1970s until now, I have been increasingly
involved in dharma practice and study. I never thought
of myself as a ‘religious person’ and I still don’t, because
for me the dharma is not a religion, but a method of
becoming aware as to the nature of the mind and
gaining familiarization with that nature.

I was new to the dharma and the dharma was new to

this country, so there was a bit of the blind leading the
blind for quite a while. And the dharma is not a case of
our learning a set of rules, but rather one of our

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becoming aware of our own nature, which we may be
unaware of, but that nature has never been unfamiliar to
us, because it’s our very nature.

My point is that realization of the dharma (whether it is

brought to us in Tibetan, Japanese, Indian, or Chinese
format)) is not in any way foreign because, by definition,
the dharma is becoming aware of our own intrinsic
nature, what has always been there

This may be one of the most difficult concepts to realize,

that what we are looking for is not something that is out
there and which we will finally someday ‘get’. On the
contrary, the dharma is the realization of what has
always been right here within us and which we have
experienced intimately forever, but we have just not
realized all of this time until now. One of the pith
teachings is the line:

“In the midst of experience, realization can arise.”

And it means just what it says, that in the midst of this

unending flow of experience we call life, realization of
the actual nature of that experience may arise.

How long that will take, who knows? It could be this next
minute or many lifetimes from now, or so the teachings
say. I have found that despite all the wrong turns I have
taken in life, that the dharma turns out to be the only
right turn available.

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And I know this may sound trite, yet the longer I live, it
seems that everything is a dharma path, no matter which
way we may twist and turn. If we choose the path of
greater awareness at every turn, we can’t go wrong.

[Photo today by me.]

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SOMETIMES A FEELING
May 22, 2022

Surfing or riding the wave of expressing a feeling is what

drives my writing, and the written words are just the
result or byproduct of expressing that feeling. In other
words, my writing starts with a feeling, like feeling like
writing, and the writing is just a process of expressing
that feeling, which itself (the feeling) is the working off
of a deeper impression that is somehow surfacing. The
process amounts to the feeling surfacing, and the words
are just a byproduct.

Perhaps I don’t know what an ‘idea’ is, because when I

write, as mentioned, I start with a feeling rather than an
idea. And that feeling is simply wanting to express

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something. I feel like writing but have nothing in mind
to say. And I work through that feeling or work off that
feeling by using words. Or, at least, words come from
the process of expressing that feeling. Words are the
byproduct of the feeling.

Somewhere along the process of expressing the feeling,

the outpouring and sequence of words, gather around
and create a theme. And from that theme, an idea may
emerges. That’s when I could say I have an idea, yet
most of the time the idea comes after the feeling and its
expression and not before. No lightbulb for me.

This process seems like a backward way of coming up

with an idea as the textbooks describe that concept. The
books say, you have an idea and then you write about it.
While this does happen, that I first get an idea, most
often the need for expression of some kind comes first,
and then, as words assemble themselves, their gathering
turns into an idea or at least a theme.

Is this automatic writing? I don’t think so. This is just the

way I write. I might be the only one, yet that would be
the first time I have been the only one of anything. My
‘only one’ is just the tip of the iceberg. Many others
must ‘feel’ the same.

And I’m telling you all this because of the feeling I had
to express something that I felt, which then morphed
into the urge to write, which then started with one

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sentence, that led to the next, and so on. Before I knew
it, I had a theme, and eventually as blog, which is the
expression of a feeling.

[Photo by me.]

385
BEAUTY IS A WAY TO THE HEART

May 23, 2022

I had a further confirmation yesterday that what moves

me is the beauty in this world, when I can see it. Beauty
inspires me. It’s why I like photography and why I use it
to, sort of, capture the beauty that I see, again, those
times when I can see it.

I’m not always in that space where beauty registers with

me. I can be in a funk or something, where nothing
seems very beautiful. And then, I give in, and something
beautiful pops up or perhaps I elide and slide into a
head space where I can see beauty once again. The poet
Gerard Manley Hopkins called this ‘inscape’, where we

386
slip the bonds of thought and irritation (or whatever is
bothering us) and suddenly can see beauty all around
us. What a difference a moment can make.

It often happens when I go out for a walk and have a

camera with me. Those first minutes I might look
through nature for the beauty that I know is there, but
trying to see beauty is not seeing beauty, is not
beautiful.

Yet, after some time, when I relax and leave behind the
rat’s nest of whatever has been worrying me, as
mentioned earlier, I slip or slide into another space, and
suddenly all around me I can see beauty and want to
photograph it.

There is a huge difference between photographing

‘beauty’ as it reveals itself, as opposed to photographing
when I don’t see beauty or just think I should
photography this or that because it’s there. And so, that
‘inscape’ into beauty is the key to my photography, IMO.

And so, to recap, I have some Calla Lilies sitting around

my studio. They are OK, and worth a photograph or two.
And there is a larger form of Calla Lilly that only blooms
once a year in one of our guest bedrooms. These are the
yellow lilies I have been posting here lately. These large
blooms were not just OK, but rather lovely flowers, in a
world all their own.

387
Just seeing these flowers and their beauty, I had to
photography them. And I did, as you can see. And the
takeaway for me, and proven once again, is that the
more beautiful an object is, in this case a couple of Calla
Lilies, the more I’m inspired photographically. And,
related to that, how much a waste of time it is shooting
any other kind of photo than those inspired by beauty,
rather than by design.

[Photo by me.]

388
THE GRAVITY OF DHARMA

May 24, 2022

I seem to have one foot in each of two worlds, so to

speak. Like all of us, I have one foot in this samsaric
world we live in. No choice. And, to the degree I have
realized anything, I may have the other foot somewhere
in the world of dharma. I’m gradually becoming multi-
dexterous in this respect.

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The dharma has come to represent like a window in time
for me, something other and beyond the rule of time,
the same time that has held me so tight ever since I can
remember. As for an analogy, there is the expanding
universe of time and embedded in samsara is the
equivalent of a gigantic black hole into which everything
is being gradually drawn and transformed through its
wormhole. In this analogy, that hole would be the
dharma.

We might quibble and say why picture the dharma as a

black hole, something we are eventually being drawn
into rather than something we go after and ‘get’?

The reason, IMO, for gravitating toward the dharma

rather than hunting to find it is that, if we read the pith
dharma instructions, we discover that the dharma
instructions state that we have to relax and allow the
mind to remain just as it is, rather than alter the mind by
any of our effort, which effort only further obscures.

And so, by relaxing and not resisting, we naturally

gravitate toward, are drawn into, and come to rest in the
nature of the mind and samsara is transformed into
nirvana

[Photo by me.]

390
391
WELTSCHMERZ (WORLD SORROW)

May 25, 2022

Yes, I am having some world sorrow in these times. Just
too much of ‘enough of this’. And around our dharma
center, it’s time for some new Tibetan Prayer Flags, as
this last winter’s wind pretty much whipped the ones we
have to shreds. Here’s a photo of a string of prayer-flags
framing some of the ferns in the back yard of our
dharma center.

It’s pretty sober out there in these weeks as the world

and politic news compounds one problem after another.
And of course, aside from that, each of us (no doubt)
have our own problems to work out. What makes me
most sad is that young people growing up now, like my
kids (and probably some of you as well), in this world

392
situation, may have no idea and no memories of life in
America as it was like 50 or 60 years ago when I grew
up. IMO, life these days is a grotesque caricature of what
it used to be, with little to no memory by younger
people of there being any other way to live. It was not
always as it is now folks.

As for me, I can’t just hang out on the edge of life

witnessing all this and do little else. I must turn away
some, back to what I know and do, and live life, not
because I don’t care, but because I care too much. And
of course, I have no way to inject my memories into
those of you just coming up now. At best I do what I can
to share what I know of how it used to be.

One good thing is that Mother Nature has not changed

or at least not so much, and certainly the rules of nature
and of dharma remain the same. And so, while I can’t
share with you what it was like growing up back then,
any visit into nature, by path or trail, to forest, meadows,
streams, and lakes has not changed so much from when
I was young. The truth of nature is still being told.

We can go out into nature and feel what there is to be

felt today as we did in the yesteryear. We can’t share
what there was only one of, our particular time and its
memories, yet we each have our own time and can at
the very least empathize with one another.

Just as the music we grew up in and through our youth,

393
what we danced to, and heard on the car radio on a
warm summer night when we were young has a special
meaning for each of us that others who were not there
perhaps cannot feel or hear as we heard it, yet they too
(each of you) have your own time, your own music, and
your own youth and summer nights. We can share what
we all have in common, even if you cannot hear tunes
like “Earth Angel,” “Sally, Go Round the Roses,” or “A
Whiter Shade of Pale’ as we heard them. I grew up at the
start, through decades, and beyond the birth of rock &
roll, and we heard these great tunes the first time they
came on the scene. IMO, that was something.

It’s almost as if history is the extension of, the stretching

out or the attenuation of a certain subtle something (our
very being) that grows less (thinner) in each successive
generation, and the process of time has a way of making
us (each generation) forget what we find too hard (or
have no way) to remember, leaving us with the
impression (and a false impression) that no less than the
same for each generation is certain. It is not the same,
but less than it was.

I wrote this poem which I have shared here a couple of

times that points this out.

TIME TO MIND

Lost again in the swing of time,

I agree to forget,

394
What I find so hard to remember:
This moment.

Always later,
Urged awake by impermanence,
I am back again,
But farther down the road.

Time takes my mind,

In small and larger bites.

The little ones,

I reconnect and can remember,
But the larger gaps,
I can only leap across,
Guess at,
And hopefully learn:

To say more in silence,

Than in words.

[Photo by me.]

395
NOT FADE AWAY

May 26, 2022

[Update: Astrophysicists tell us that a large sunspot has

erupted producing a M1-class solar flare, which hurled a
CME (Corona Mass Ejection) into space that won’t
directly hit Earth, but has an Earth-directed component

396
that will hit our planet on May 28th or 29th. Against this
CME, we should be aware.]

Certainly, these troubled times have put us to the test

and can easily soak up a lot of our goodwill, forcing us
to trim our sails more than a little. A question I have is
how do these times affect our dharma practice and, if so,
just how?

Looking back over these last two years or so of the

pandemic, I find that more than I would like of the
edges (the fringe and frills) of my dharma practice are
absorbed by the angst of these times, leaving me with
just what? Good question and that’s what we find out at
these times, like it or not.

For one, the pool of my patience begins to dry up, and I

look around to see what part of my ‘dharma lake’
remains and what has been sacrificed or diminished one
way or another.

One place where the landslide of my confidence sticks

(hangs on) is what we could call the ‘truth’. I notice that
when everything else seems to be fading away (at least
somewhat), clarity itself remains crystal clear and
through that we can see forever. I find no loss there.

And like the old phrase “The Buck Stops Here,” as

mentioned, times like these are good for separating the
wheat from the chaff of dharma practice. Yet, what

397
remains, call it our attempts at recognition of the mind’s
nature, to the degree we have any recognition, is
inviolate. And around those fixed points, like the fixed
stars in the heavens, we gather and from that we can
continue to build from there. Here is an astronomical
sidebar that may just be helpful.

THE TROJAN ASTEROIDS

Astronomically, the Lagrangian points come to mind,

and for this example, let’s use the planet Jupiter and its
orbit. There are two points on Jupiter’s orbit, one 60-
degrees ahead of Jupiter in its orbit (leading group of
Trojan Asteroids, L4) and the other 60-degress behind
Jupiter in its orbit (trailing group of Trojan Asteroids, L5).
In other words, we ae talking about a bisected Trine
aspect of 120-degrees (see diagram). It is at these two
points, L4 and L5, that there is a balanced point that
allow asteroids and other space objects to be captured
and congregate, so to speak, caused by the ‘groove’ or
lacuna that is naturally created there, points of
equilibrium.

A point L3 completes the Grand Trine (three 120-degree

points equidistant from each other in a circle). Two of
these points are where objects in space, like the odd
asteroid’, naturally gather and group. These are like
‘pockets’, points of least resistance, where stellar objects
just naturally congregate. Obviously, scientists would
like to place satellites or space stations eventually,

398
because they would tend to stay there.

If you find this interesting, then consider this analogy,

using the dharma. There are natural grooves or
equilibrium points, ‘pockets’, where the essence or
‘truth’ of the mind and dharma naturally gather, and
these points are not easily jarred or popped out of their
mind-orbit. These dharma truths are about as true or
lasting as anything in this impermanent world system
offer.

When all things fade, these equilibrium points become

our Pole Stars or pointers, and they are the last to fade
or go. I don’t know whether these dharma points or nexi
(plural of nexus) are fixed for all practitioners or do we
each gravitate individually to the dharma truths that
work for us? Probably both, meaning we have our
individual yidams, but also all agree on pole stars like
“The Four Thoughts That Turn the Mind Toward the
Dharma,” and related principles. To return to my original
question for myself: how have these troubled times
affected my dharma?

And the answer seems to be, those dharma principles

that I somehow have realized as the sum of my dharma
experiences seem to shine in the mind’s sky, unaltered
by these current tough times. That being said, my
ambitions when it comes to dharma have perhaps been
somewhat blunted, which simply means that I’m not so
arrogant, self-sure, and adventurous as I may have been

399
a few years ago, not so cocky.

In these times, I find myself occupied with putting one

foot in front of the other, minding my own business, not
so interested in the various entertainments and
distractions as I used to be. I seem to be pulling in my
horns, so to speak, content in a more simple life of
shelter-in-place, little socialization, and turning to my
main interests, like photography, writing, fixing up our
center, and the like.

The pandemic, the lies of politicians, war of Ukraine, and

other worries like climate change, global warming, etc.
nickel and dime my energy and do their best to blunt
my vision, yet I do my best to soldier on through this. If
anything, right now dharma is more of a refuge for me
than ever. That said, some of my reified dharma
attachments, which are just attachments that I don't
need, are being pruned back to a realistic flow.

[Diagram by me.]

400
DHARMA SCAFFOLDING

May 27, 2022

When we build a house or a building, often a series of

scaffoldings are used while the building is under
construction. When the building is finished and before it
is open and livable, the scaffolding is taken down as it is
no longer needed. The same is true for dharma practice.

When we are introduced to the nature of the mind and

401
the non-dual dharma practices, a lot of what is
essentially dharma scaffolding has to be removed and is
no longer necessary. Without removal, the scaffolding
itself becomes an obscuration to any advanced practice.

Chief among what must be removed are the stains of

‘effort’, the effort it took to learn the dharma in the first
place. And these stains do not just evaporate and go
away. The effects of the effort it took to practice dharma
are no longer needed, yet they leave their mark on our
dharma progress, much like the glaciers did to the state
of Michigan when they scraped the Lower Peninsula flat.

Equally, another type of obscuration is all the

anticipation, expectation, assumptions, perhaps what we
imagined about dharma progress, and our
misperceptions and mistaken notions. All of these leave
their ring around the tub, so to speak, and need to be
accounted for and worked away.

And the removal of what has to be removed reminds me

of the old game of Pick-Up-Sticks, where stick after stick
is carefully removed from the stick pile, until nothing is
left, just as when we peel an onion, there is nothing in
the center. In this case, it is the ‘nothing’ we are looking
for, so that there is nothing by the way of residue or
damage left over from our previous dharma practices
and their effort to impede us.

[Photo by me.]

402
LET BEAUTY IN
May 29, 2022

403
Obviously, that’s a question the human race has been
trying to define since who knows when. What is it? We
know beauty when we see it and beauty probably varies
from individual to individual. “Everybody to their own
taste,” said the old lady as she kissed the cow.

Whatever we can agree beauty is for each of us, it

appears to be the ticket to going inside, to touching our
hearts. It does something to us like nothing else does.

And some of us strive for beauty in everything we do;

perhaps we all do. For me, beauty (despite how beautiful
it is) very much depends on my state of mind. If I am off
my contacts and in a funk or a grump, beauty may be
invisible to me until it isn’t once again.

Of course, beauty begets beauty or something like that,

meaning if anything can open my eyes to the beauty
around us, it is beauty. I know. That’s a circular
argument, so I challenge you to find the words, because
I know you know what I am talking about.

In my case, apparently, I have to relax enough and let go

enough of my normal tunnel vision for my eyes to open
and let beauty in. I don’t know exactly how it happens,
but it happens none the less. Something catches my eye
just enough for me to see beauty in it and, whoosh, the
doors to beauty are open and I am back again to where I
like to be, able to see the beauty in life.

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As a photographer, this transition that brings the ability
see beauty again is graphically illustrated. My eyes have
to be open enough to beauty to know I want to capture
this or that impression in a photograph.

Once I can see beauty around me again, this usually

happens for a period of time and then, somehow, my
mind gets tired, and I slip back into a more regular
mode.

I’m afraid I have not defined beauty but have only

nibbled at the edge of it. As they say, beauty is in the
eye of the beholder.

[Photo by me.]

405
THE DARK OF THE NEW MOON

May 29, 2022

We are headed down-traffic toward the New Moon on

Monday May 30, 2022 at 7:30 AM. And so we are, as
traditional texts indicate, wrapping things up, riding out
these three days before the New Moon, which used to
be called the “Devil Days’ in Medieval times in Europe
and the Dharma Protector Days in Tibet. Either way, the

406
message is the same: hold on to your hats and hunker
down a bit, meaning traditionally this is NOT the time to
start new ventures or turn over a new leaf. Wait until
after the New Moon for such things.

And the advice I have found most helpful while waiting

out these three days before the New Moon:

Don’t take anything too seriously or final during this

time, but just consider the source, and the source is this
more troubled time we are passing through or that is
passing through us – particularly these three days. Much
of what goes on is not the sign of anything other than
turbulence, at least emotionally and psychologically.

What I continually realize around this time of the month

just prior to the New Moon is, “Oh, that’s what’s wrong.
We are in the dark-of-the-Moon days.” And that’s all
that is wrong. Just hunker down, watch a movie, read a
book, or if you are industrious, finish up unfinished
business. Clean the basement.

The Moon, Earth, and Sun have a monthly cycle. That’s

why we call it a ‘month’, a rhythm that is as old as time
itself. We can either dance to that rhythm or fight
against it. The smart money works with the rhythm of
the lunar cycle and not against it. And we can learn to
get in step with the lunation cycle.

I have written at least three complete books about the

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lunation cycle that contain just about all you could need
in order to understand and learn to use the phases of
the Moon. They are free as downloads here.

“Vision of the Eclipse: The Astrology of Lunations”

http://spiritgrooves.net/pdf/e-books/vision_eclipse.pdf

“Mother Moon: Astrology of the Lights”

http://spiritgrooves.net/pdf/e-books/MotherMoon.pdf

“Astrology’s Mirror: Full-Phase Aspects”

http://spiritgrooves.net/pdf/e-
books/FullPhase%20Aspects.pdf

With a little study of the lunar cycle, you can, as the old
Kenny Rogers song “The Gambler” put it:

“You've got to know when to hold 'em,

Know when to fold 'em,
Know when to walk away,
And know when to run.”

That’s what learning about the Four Quarters of the

Moon is all about. And when you grasp that, you can
learn what I call “The Sweet Sixteen,” the sixteen aspects
(activities) that make up the monthly lunar cycle. And if
that doesn’t do it for you, try dividing the lunar cycle
into 30 parts as the Tibetans and Indians do, thirty lunar
days, and learn that. The lunar cycle has something for
everyone.

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“Knock, knock, and the door shall be opened.”

[Photo by me.]

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410
BRIDGING A DREAM

May 29, 2022

OK, here is some holiday-weekend musing on my part.
It’s finally warm enough out to feel hot and so I am
feeling some heat, turning on the fan, and letting my
mind out for a walk. Anyway, here’s my thought. Let me
know if you can make sense of it. This is hard for me to
put into words.

It has to do with my daily dharma practice, which is not

so much a ‘practice’ but actual meditation. I do it every
day, because without it I don’t feel like myself until I do.
And I do it as much as I can. It’s a particular form of
meditation that is part of the Kagyu Mahamudra
tradition called Insight Meditation (Vipassana).

In this particular form of Insight Meditation, it seems

that I have to remain active, keep it moving, and this is
done by way of a process that I articulate every day,
keeping that process up. It’s not so important what the
means is by which I do this, the particular vehicle, as that
the process itself keeps articulating. My particular
vehicle usually is either doing close-up photography or
writings such as this.

I have always liked the analogy of the shark that has to

keep moving in order to breathe, because otherwise it
has no way of getting oxygen, other than to move
forward so that oxygenated water passes over his gills.

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Something similar is happening to me as well with the
dharma and meditation, which I will attempt to recount.

As mentioned, I have my favorite means of processing

meditation in this current moment by resting in it (the
moment) of course, yet the accent here is on the process
and the processing itself, and not so much on what is
being processed (photos or writing). As long as the
process continues, I am OK. If it does not continue,
meaning if I don’t do it each day, I’m not as good.

Well, what I am describing is not a perpetual motion

machine either, because it is not quite recursive enough
to be automatic. I wish it were. And I’m not at the point
where I could just process life itself in its entirety (hook,
line, and sinker), and thus not need any oxygen (outside
input) at all. I am somewhere in between, as they say,
the devil and the deep-blue sea. “Give us this day our
daily bread” is kind of where I’m at. In other words, I
need to consciously meditate in this way each day,
rather than just live life with no particular mindfulness as
to meditation.

At this point I seem to need some oxygen, some extra

help, a crutch of some kind, something within samsara
to focus on, to digest, absorb, and from that to process
in order to realize and tag onto, enough that I can
recognize the true nature of some part of samsara. I
know, this may be hard to understand.

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In my experience, samsara (this cyclic world we live in)
and nirvana (resolution of that samsaric world), seem
not only to be connate (two sides of the same coin), but
the link or connection between the two is more like a
bridge, an artery or a vein, through which flows
whatever realization that connects the two.

And just like the shark needs to keep moving to breathe,

the process of the expansion and extension of Insight
Meditation (Vipassana) is an ongoing and everlasting
recognition of samsaric experience as nirvana, even
though each day it may be a small part of samsara
perhaps connected by a single thread. It seems that the
continual process, not the speed, is what is important.

And so, it’s not like with any bit of recognition gained,
I’m suddenly out of the box and free of samsara. Not at
all. It’s more like a balloon on a string or a kite on a
string; I’m attached to samsara by some means until the
last goodbye is gone, however that works. And, as they
say “Every goodbye ain’t gone” … yet. This may take
lifetimes.

And so, that being said, I’m looking for information

about just how our samsaric world and nirvana (freedom
from that) are connected, and the process of
incrementally realizing the actual and true nature of
samsara. It’s not like the process of transmigration
between these two realms is not already in process. It is.
I just lack knowing more about how that process works,

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so that I can become better skilled in the processing. I
am convinced that the twain (samsara and nirvana) shall
meet, as they say, and with no need of oxygen. I just
have not reached that point… yet.

The last words my teacher said to me before he passed

on were that I should keep extending and expanding my
recognition as to the true nature of the mind. I'm
working on that!

[Photo by me.]

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415
TRANSFORMING SAMSARA

May 30, 2022

I’ve checked around, mostly within my own family, and
we all seem to be somewhat distracted by all the world
events and the goings-on. I know I have been. My
question is how do we move forward and not continue
to just stand still like a deer in the headlights? I don’t
want to continue being eaten up by all this bad news.

My provisional answer for what to do as this pandemic

continues to surge in this state (Michigan) is to stop
stopping to note event after event and just get busy
doing stuff, which is what I am doing and, if not able, at
least that’s what I intend to do. It can get discouraging.

I can’t go much of anywhere, as far as travel, so that

limits me to our home and the center next door. Yet I
can get busy and fix it up, make repairs, and do
something useful. I am starting with painting some of
the wood trim. I first have to dust and clean the trim,
using some kind of degreaser. Then I can mask and
paint the trim. This could take a while because we have a
huge amount of woodwork and trim. I find it purifying to
concentrate on something useful.

And I am taking photos outdoors again, weather

permitting. And by ‘weather permitting” I don’t just
mean the warming temperatures (86-degrees today),
but mostly the lack of wind. This has been a very cold

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and windy spring, IMO, and almost the only time the
wind dies down to zero is for perhaps an hour just after
dawn. Of course, that’s when I’m out with my camera.
Why? Because much of the photo work I do involves the
intricate process of stacking a lot of photos, each photo
taken a tiny increment of distance from one another,
and then compiled to create a single photo with
everything more or less in focus. You have all seen my
work here.

This is called ‘focus stacking” and I have done it for

many years, have written books about it, and even
produced 24 videos on it for YouTube.com. Yet, 200
layers of photos, each taken separately, combined to
form a single photo is not only time consuming, but also
very delicate work, because if there is any movement,
then the stack is messed up. And the wind is never still
for very long here in Michigan.

Yet, the idea for this blog is not my photography, but

rather how do we work with constant distraction of
current events, so we are not just brought to a standstill
and feel enervated. It seems when I am busy, with my
mind on the task at hand, that this is a kind of shield
against events on the outside that keep rumbling on
from distracting me.

I don’t like the idea that I am ignoring these outside

events or hiding from them, because I am not. At the
same time, I don’t want to be taken up and belong to

417
these events either. I need to pay attention to what I am
doing, and I don’t want to have one eye on my work and
the other distracted by the news channel or by the upset
emotions much of the news these days bring.

From a dharma perspective, non-distraction is crucial, if

only to keep our mind on what we are doing. When we
are fully engaged (and absorbed) in what we are doing,
with our full attention, and resting in that, we are not
recording karma or, if any, very little.

All the anguish experienced over this pandemic, not to

mention the political waking-nightmare, and now the
Ukrainian war, there is no rest for the distracted. Better
that the sphere of our attention is focused on what we
are doing and by that fact, is not dwelling on the news
events or allowing them to feast on us.

Perhaps it’s a bit like walking a tightrope, to keep

putting one foot in front of the other and just mind our
own business. Yet, having taken several excursions with
my family members on the phone examining (and
sometimes commiserating) about our common plight, I
learn that nothing good seems to come from just
waiting or even talking about it.

Our own focused awareness as to what we are doing

seems to be the best protection I have found so far. It’s
hard to just go about life as if nothing is happening
around us, but after a while of doing nothing about it,

418
distraction by these outer events seems to be even
worse.

It's not that you or I are the Lone Ranger, here. There are
multitudes of folks being traumatized by all of these
adverse events we are commonly experiencing. Who
knows how long it will take to sort all of this out and to
reach some kind of feeling normal?

This is why I feel that some of us must tear ourselves

away from being mesmerized and distracted by these
current situations and start now to carve out a normal
life, as best we can. And it’s not as simple as just walk on
and ignore it all.

No doubt, we will know what’s happening around us,

without dwelling on it to the exclusion of action on our
part. We probably can’t do much directly, other than the
best we can. Yet, we can begin to set a line or form a
direction, not against the status quo (the pandemic, for
instance), but in the direction of sanity and good sense.
Paying it forward is what I mean.

There have to be some ‘Pole Stars’ out there, something

like a North Star to guide us, other than our fixation on
all that has gone astray and that which is not what we
expected or want. We can point out through careful
attention a more positive direction and activity that, at
the very least, will not do further harm.

419
And so, that’s my take on how to cope with current
events and our absorption and distraction by them.
Don’t be morbid, exclusively focusing on what we have
lost or are losing, but rather carve a line toward a future
that makes sense to you. Someone has to lead on. It
might as well be us.

And we can start off by guiding ourselves, breaking our

dependence on outside distractions, and focusing once
again with both eyes front on whatever we are doing
and have traditionally done. The whole world can be at
standstill, mesmerized by current events. Some of us
have to look and move forward, creating by our own
action a sense of continued direction, a way on that
points beyond these times.

[Photo by me.]

420
421
TIMELESS

May 31, 2022

“Timeless” means without time, beyond time. Where is
that? Certainly not right here and now, unless we
somehow go between the clock-ticking seconds, and
find eternity, so to speak, just in time.

And we don’t exactly escape time just by growing older.

We may run out of time, sooner or later, yet that’s not
what is meant here by ‘timeless’.

‘Timeless’ in my own experience is brought to us by

what are called the non-dual dharma practices, practices
like Vipassana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, yet those
forms of meditation are not something that we can just
slide into or that we can just enter at will.

We have first to prepare ourselves through mastering

what are called the preliminary dharma practices, which
all are primarily purification practices, meaning we have
to work off whatever obscurations we may currently
have until we achieve some degree of transparency such
that we can see beyond our own Self.

And so, what’s holding us up or holding us back is

usually our own Self with its opaque attachments which
act like white noise to cloud the inner airways so that we
can’t see beyond that self. These obscurations have first
to be removed, which means we have to work with and

422
through them until we can see clearly. Only then may we
be ready for the non-linear dharma practices mentioned
above, those of the ‘timeless’ variety. Apparently, we
can’t just step outside of time without preparation.

If we are not ready now, it’s up to us to get ready,

because any realization of timelessness will wait forever
until we actually ready ourselves. It’s called ‘turning the
wheel of the dharma’ And only we can turn the wheel
for ourselves. Even the Buddha himself could not do it
for us because dharma is by definition a do-it-yourself
project. As mentioned, we each have to turn the wheel
of the dharma ourselves.

So, what then do we mean by ‘timeless’ or ‘The

Timeless’? For one, timelessness is a product or
byproduct of nonduality, when the subject and object
elide and become one, like the phrase “The dewdrop
slips into the shining sea.”

This is why the non-dual dharmic meditations are

timeless because we immerse ourselves in them to the
exclusion of duality, duality being me here and you are
over there. Those distinctions are lost in the full
immersion of the non-dual forms of meditation like
Insight Meditation (Vipassana), Mahamudra, and
Dzogchen. And when we are all in, there is no sense of
time and no karma recorded.

‘Here’ and ‘Now’.

423
Resting in the well of the present moment is the only
place where full immersion is possible for those of us in
Samsara, not in the past or in the future, but just right
here and now. Allowing ourselves to come to rest in the
present moment is the key to timelessness in
meditation, yet it is not that easy to do, at least in my
experience.

If that seems to be worthwhile, I’m glad to work with

anyone here in moving in that direction.

[Photo by me.]

424
GETTING THE POINT OUT OF LIFE

425
June 1, 2022

It must be the summer heat and my middle-of-the night

excursions from sleep. After all, life essentially is like a
dream we are having, and that midsummer night’s
dream (summer solstice) is soon approaching.

Or, like skipping flat stones on a calm lake, I seem to

bounce off of what I’d most like to be absorbed in. Like
a Moon lander, I’m stuck with sampling the surface of
the mind, and am still learner to go deeper.

However, for me it’s not enough to just be some kind of

‘filter’, catching the odds and ends of meaning. I’d rather
mainline my interests if I could and be present and
aware all the time. Yet, everything has to start
somewhere.

In other words, panning for gold flakes is not my idea of

success, although, speaking begrudgingly, finding gold
flakes does seem to work, and I have no choice but to
be grateful for that. I’m certainly not looking for a
workaround, but am still looking for the main course, so
to speak. How’s that for being oblique. However,
inherent in all this is a problem.

And this is because there is no way of going direct at

what does not exist in any real sense. It’s more like that
the best we can do is reflect the truth, as in a mirror, and
thus see what we can by way of those reflections.

426
Effectively, what we have is a hologram, a product of
light rays and reflections, like a hall of mirrors. Yet within
that, there is a clear 3-dimensional image (our life)
because we can see it, although we are told that it’s not
really there, and certainly has no personal permanency.

But who’s counting? Certainly not us, because we have

never known anything else and have always taken all this
phantasmagoria around us for real, as our reality. So, it’s
a little late to now be trying to squeeze the ‘Charmin’, so
to speak.

And here’s the point. There is none. Instead, it’s the

whole idea of grasping to ‘get’ the ‘point of life’ that’s
the problem. This life is a process that is beginningless
and endless and never has gotten or will gets to the
point. No way. This blog is about getting the point ‘out’
of life, doing away with it.

We’ve never noticed the difference, because there is no

difference to be found, no difference at all. This
moment, right here and now, my dear friends, this is it,
as real as it gets!

As they say, you can’t lose what you never had, so where
do all the long faces come from? I wrote a poem long
ago:

SEMANTICS

427
“It's not just that being,
Is empty;
It's that there is,
An emptiness,
Of being.

“It's never been there.”

And what goes around comes around, as they say. Even

longer ago, back in the mid-1960s, like a time capsule, I
left myself the following note for the future, and that
future is now. I wrote:

“No matter what you think about me, about my person, I

know in time you will learn to recognize me as yourself,
and you will love me, as I have learned to love myself, as
I have learned to love you, like it or not. My person has
not changed. How could it, truly? For person is the
product of time, and my person — like a freight train —
rushes on at the future. It always has. Only I, stepping off
my person, am with you now.”

“I am myself. I turned off time’s endless matter at thirty. I

dropped my body or sense of gravity. It proceeds on
without me or rather: with my perpetual care and love.
But I am not only my person. I am, as well, one with the
creator of my body, of any body.”

“My faith informs me. Each day’s passage

frees and reveals my past, ‘presents’ my past, and clears

428
it open. Where before was but an endless accumulation,
layer on layer, is now removed with every passing day.
And as the layers lift, it is clear to me that there is
nothing there worth worrying. All the past lives I have
are presently living, are become clear.”

“Nothing to go back to, no place to hide, no cover.”

“I am born free, held awake by all that lives. Where

before I could not keep my eyes open, so now I cannot
shut or close them. No closure. From my subconscious
pours my past. Cloudiness clearing, it is my present. My
placenta is being born, turning out all of that which
nourished me.”

“I can clearly see all that clouds this stream of

consciousness is but a searching, is itself but a frowning,
a looking to see, a pause, a hesitation that, caught and
unfurled in the eddies of time, finding nothing, becomes
clear and, laughing, I leave it go clear and turn from a
darkening or dimming of my mind to light.

“And it came to pass, and I let it pass.”

If you want a point, the point is that grasping at life is an

endless disappointment. Why? Because life has no point,
nothing to finally ‘grasp’ or ‘get’. None whatsoever. We
already have everything we need close at hand. We just
lack awareness of that. Life is a continuing process, one
without a beginning or end. And as for the dharma, the

429
dharma, IMO, is all about relaxing and accepting this
fact. If you want an old-fashioned point, then here it is:

Relax, as it is!

430
431
432
NOT FADE AWAY

June 2, 2022
Certainly, these troubled times have put us to the test
and can easily soak up a lot of our goodwill, forcing us
to trim our sails more than a little. A question I have is
how do these turbulent times affect our dharma practice
and, if so, just how?

Looking back over these last two years or so of the

pandemic, I find that more than I would like of the
edges (the fringe and frills) of my dharma practice are
absorbed by the angst of these times, leaving me with
just what? Good question and that’s what we find out at
these times, like it or not.

For one, the pool of my patience begins to dry up, and I

look around to see what part of my ‘dharma lake’
remains and what has been sacrificed or diminished one
way or another.

One place where the landslide of my confidence sticks

(still hangs on) is what we could call the ‘truth’. I notice
that when everything else seems to be fading away (at
least somewhat), clarity itself remains crystal clear and
through that clear window we can see forever. I find no
loss there.

And like the old phrase “The Buck Stops Here,” as

mentioned, times like these are good for separating the

433
wheat from the chaff of dharma practice. Yet, what
remains, call it our attempts at recognition of the mind’s
nature, to the degree we have any recognition at all, is
inviolate. And around those stable points, like the fixed
stars in the heavens, we gather and using that stability
we can continue to build from there. As for outward
appearances:

The figurative robes and sometimes attitude when I sit

down on my cushion to practice meditation don’t
become me. I don’t like myself with any kind of dharma
attitude on my part as much as I used to. Of course,
there was a time, early on, when any kind of dharma
attitude was much better than none, which is where I
came from, having no dharma attitude.

And over time, I did my best to gather around me all the

implements, statues, brocades, and dharma decorations
as I could muster. I wanted to be ‘dharma man’, for sure.
What happened to that approach?

Well, a lot of it is still there, as far as the physical statues

and implements are concerned, yet I no longer depend
on them to boost me up. Today, it’s more like all of this
dharma paraphernalia is just scaffolding, window
dressing for practicing dharma. It would be wrong to
remove it, because in itself it is not offensive, of course.
So, there it sits, gathering dust unless I dust it. And
where have I gone?

434
Well, I’m still right here where I always am, of course, in
the here and now. If anything has changed, it is that I
see little to less difference today between official
dharma items and just whatever items I find myself
surrounded by. If anything, I have a slight
embarrassment about brandishing a dharma appearance
than I used to.

Obviously, attachment to dharma ‘stuff’ and any

reification that ensues from that is no different than any
other attachment that I have. There is nothing wrong
with the dharma item itself, just my attachment to it.
However, a lot of that worry has just sort of died down.
We move on because, sooner or later, attachment just
doesn’t work or do anything for us. In itself, a dharma
item is inert. Our grasping for attachment to that item is
the problem.

And so, removing our attachment, bit by bit, is

ultimately unavoidable, IMO. We have to go free.

[Photo taken today by me.]

435
436
THE DEFECTS OF REIFICATION

June 3, 2022
One of the defects of reification, trying to make things
more real than they in fact are (attachments or grasping
in general), is that whatever overage we accumulate will
at some point in our future, at least at death, be reduced
to the actual reality of what is. And we will not be used
to being that naked or direct. It can be blinding! I
suggest that it may be very essential that we start early,
like now, trimming down our attachments until they are
not obscurations but clear.

I can intuit from some of the reactions from yesterday’s

post that perhaps I am not being clear enough. I did not
manage to enunciate it well enough, and I would like to
rephrase and try again. And of course, you can’t help but
refer to your own experience and use your own words.
Yet, there may be situations that you have yet to
experience and therefore are unaware of.

I would be negligent if I did not at least attempt to set

the record straight and not let my intent be turned over
like one would till the soil, although I very much
understand what some were doing and why you did it.
So, I will put it this way.

Much of what I wrote yesterday was based, at least in

part, on my actual experience in having had a major
stroke and the misunderstanding about what is involved

437
in a stroke as it affects our spirituality.

And by “spirituality,” I mean our basic or intrinsic

awareness itself. For example, when having a stroke,
what we call our basic “Awareness” is not itself affected
by the stroke. As an example, consider this present
moment, the here and now. With a stroke, that present
moment is still present right here now and time
continues and is exactly as it always has been.

That ‘Awareness’ we each have remains just what it has

always been because it is beyond the physical. In other
words, a physical stroke is just that “physical.” A physical
stroke is not only not-spiritual, it does not directly affect
our spirituality. I will try to explain using a simple
analogy.

The onslaught of a stroke directly affects the physical

brain, but is NOT connected (or hard-wired) to our
native intrinsic Awareness such that if we turned up the
volume on a radio, both the brain AND our awareness
would get turned up. Only the brain would get turned
up, so to speak.

Our intrinsic awareness would remain unaffected except,

of course, perhaps quite indirectly. A stroke happens in
our brain and not in our awareness. That’s why we can
be aware of even having a stroke. That Awareness does
not itself have a stroke.

438
That turns out to be a crucial fact to understand. Yes,
there I was after the stroke hit, unable to speak or
mumbling words that had no meaning to others.
However, aside from the shock of it all, my mind inside
was still crystal clear. The awareness of the mind is
inviolable; it does not alter.

While gibberish was coming out of my voice, inside I

thought I was clearly saying something. What appeared
as a non-sequitur was not. In other words, nothing had
changed in my intrinsic awareness. This fact might be of
interest to those who have never had a stroke and
certainly it should be understandable to those who have.

Stroke victims know their mental ‘Awareness’ is still

functioning as it always has, subject to brain or bodily
impairment. That, IMO, is a key point. There is another
important effect from the stroke that also was not so
clear to me at first. In fact, this effect was a total surprise,
one I believe that, as a dharma practitioner, I was
completely unprepared for.

This effect never occurred to me, yet it dominated the

aftermath of the stroke. And this was the fact that when
the stroke shattered my Self and its composure, causing
my assemblage of personal attachments and fixations
(i.e. essentially my Self) to vacate or be voided, this
included ALL of my attachments, the good as well as the
bad. And so, a lot of bad personal habits of attachment
went right out the window in a flash, leaving me alone in

439
a kind of no man’s land, a land without a past and
attachments.

As scary (and new) as that was, there was also a certain

sense of refreshment as well that was undeniable.
However, what was totally shocking to me was that
along with the loss of my personal Self’s attachments,
also went ALL of my attachment and fixation on the
Dharma. That was not refreshing, but rather terrifying.

Aside from the physical aftermath of the stroke, with the

endless tests, scans, and blood samples, I found myself
without any of my attachment to the dharma as well.
Just imagine! That was the real shock. If you think I had
my finger on the scale of my likes, dislikes, prejudices,
and judgements, imagine what I had ginned up over 45
years of attachment to the dharma.

My attachment to the dharma was immense, beyond

measure, and it too was instantly stripped from me at
the stroke like all of my other attachments. Voila! This I
was totally unprepared for. And it was devastating.

In fact, it had been so devastating that I did not even

write about it until long after the stroke itself because I
was still plumbing the depths of what it meant and
desperately trying to put that puzzle back together,
piece by piece, as best I could.

So, there I was, stripped naked of every attachment I had

440
accumulated since I-don’t-know-when and then, at the
same time, I was thrust back into the center of my life
with no clue of how I felt or was used to feeling by habit;
I was unattached.

And yes, in a way it was refreshing to suddenly have

much of my personal excesses removed in favor of what
I can only call ‘reality’. And what remained was who I am
without so much of the “me, myself, and I” that I had
always known, that was kind of everything I had known
or was attached to.

In other words, I experienced myself as pretty much

purely naked yet authentic. “Authentic” is the only word
I can come up with that characterizes how I felt or was.
‘Authentic’ because there was no embellishment or
elaboration. Yet, there was the caveat that this
authenticity, this loss of attachment, also included my
attachment to the dharma and dharma was a mainstay
of my life.

Of course, none of this affected the dharma itself, only

my attachment to and reification of the dharma. In other
words, just as my life’s fixations and attachments,
anything that went beyond reality were removed in a
single stroke, so was whatever undue, imagined, or
ginned-up attachments to the dharma that had accrued.
All that remained was, as I explained, authentic. Yet I was
not used to that. Everything else, every embellishment
and elaboration was politely removed.

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And I experienced (at heart) as soon as I was able, for
example, to sit down on the cushion and do my daily
meditation practice, which was not possible for some
time after the original stroke. Sure, I had said prayers
and mantra all along, but something as formal as a sit-
down daily practice with texts and all that was not
possible until the winds of change from the stroke had
blown themselves out a bit.

And then, when I did manage to sit down on the cushion

in front of my little shrine, fill the offering bowls, and all
of that, I had a rude and shocking awakening. It was
devastating for me. I sat and cried.

Everything and anything that had been put together,

trumped-up, or in any way artificial about the process of
my dharma practice was also gone. You might think that
this is good, to be totally natural and unelaborate with
my daily dharma practice, yet what was removed was
much of what I had made or reified the dharma to be. I
had personally created all this over decades. It was my
little dharma realm, yet it was flawed.

And I soon found out that much of what I had put

together through all those years as a formal practice
was, in fact, just one kind of elaboration or another. And
in that first attempt to formally practice after the stroke,
I had no attachment to it at all. It fell on deaf ears. The
practice left me cold and just sitting there, a stranger to

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the whole process. What was missing was all the
padding from my own imagination that I assumed was
part of the dharma, but which (at least in my case)
turned out to be an elaboration only, something that I
liked to ‘think’ or that comforted me. There was no room
in that inn. It had fled.

Just as my Self’s personal attachments and fixations had

been stripped out, so had any and all attachments that I
had to the dharma as well. Attachment is attachment,
plain and simple. And that was another whole kind of
shock, in a way worse than the stroke itself. LOL. What a
tangled web we weave, and yet it can vanish in an
instant. Poof.

The patina of practice that I had built up from 45 years

of dharma-practice was completely gone and there I sat,
practicing dharma in what, to some real degree, seemed
like an artificial manner. I had lost the support of my
own reification and imagination, the accumulation of
decades of dharma practice.

My finger was no longer on the scale and much of the

practice seemed so unnatural, unnecessary, and, well,
meaningless. It’s like the decades of trying to practice,
including all the scaffolding I had built to make that
happen were politely removed, leaving me stark naked
of attachment, and unable to entertain myself in my
usual manner. Until then, I never conceived of dharma
practice as entertainment!

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And what remained was my mind with no elaboration
and no attachment, one way or the other, for or against.
My respect for the dharma was still there, in fact it was
so much there that I could not accept or tolerate any
artificial or exaggerated attempts on my part to support
my practice through good-will gestures and rote
recitation, on my part. I saw through it at each sentence,
each word until I just stopped.

The dharma does not need our good will; perhaps we

think it does. I am reminded of a line my first true
dharma teacher drilled into my head back in the 1960s.

“My god is no beggar! He does not need me to make

the ends meet. The ends already meet.”

In a similar way, the dharma did not need me as its

pimp, to additionally pull for or promote it. It is already
everything, just as it naturally is. As mentioned, all of the
devices or aids to get into my practice that I had
accumulated for decades were not only unnecessary, but
they were stripped from me and completely absent in
that they no longer had an effect on me. Nada. It was
like starting over in dharma, or at least at the time that
was what I feared.

Worse, some of the practices or at least the way I did

them were even somewhat repulsive to me or at least of
no use and totally redundant. And so, that is how my

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formal practice went, my dear dharma friends, which
should make for you an interesting read.

And the hardest part for me is that, essentially, I had to

start over, to go to the back of the line (and not collect
$200), so to speak, as to having a history. My slate was
wiped clear, and I could no longer recite texts, either in
Tibetan or English by just rote. I could try, but they
seemed (at least the way I was used to doing them) to
obscure more than clarify.

There was no meaning there. Instead, my dharma

practice on the spot involved, instead of simple
recitation, actually pulling the ideas from the ether of
the mind, one by one, and assembling them as if for the
first time. Humbling, yet full of meaning, because I was
creating the meaning on the spot and not drawing it
from some memory bank, habit, or drone because I had
none.

In fact, it took weeks for me to find a new approach to

my daily practice, one that still included the bare bones
of it, like filling the offering bowls, etc., but I came at it in
a deeper, more natural manner. I am still working on
that today, years later.

In summary, the point here is that along with losing my

Self’s fond attachments and fixations came my Self’s
attachments and fixations on the dharma, which
themselves no longer got special treatment and were

445
not grandfathered into my life after the stroke just
because they were “dharma.” Everything stood on its
own merit and nothing more.

Attachment is attachment, good, bad, or indifferent.

They are all part of the bathwater and not the baby. This
has got to be part of some cosmic humor pageant or
other. So, there you have what I came across in life that
was entirely unexpected and somewhat terrifying. My
dharma teacher of 36 years, when I explained my stroke
experience, just laughed and said it was good for me
and could stand me in good stead when I reached the
bardo after death..

I am still working through it and am better off for it, but

I can’t say it has been a walk in the park. And I apologize
if I go against what you might like to hear me explain
that I experienced through the stroke.

And why I do this is because some of you may,

eventually, have to do the same, either in this life or just
after death. At that time, there will be no memory bank
or patina based on your elaboration or any reification
you have tried to incorporate. You may, as I found out,
have to be able to actually put together your thoughts
and their meaning right on the spot, drawing them from
within you. To me, that’s worth understanding.

[Photo taken today by me. the Poppies are up.]

446
FIRE & BRIMSTONE

June 4, 2022

Some folks object to fire & brimstone in any kind of

instruction or teachings, especially dharma. Certainly, I
understand that as I was raised Roman Catholic, with
Sunday mass and catechism, catholic school under the
control of Dominican nuns (armed with wooden rulers),
not to mention being an altar boy and learning church
Latin. I have had my share of liturgical fire & brimstone.
Yet, there has to be a place for it and I can explain why I
feel this is so.

The laws of dharma and the laws of Mother Nature have

447
been said to be very similar, if not actually almost the
same. There even is a special kind of dharma-learning
called the ‘Lama of Appearances’, which teachings are
claimed to be just as authentic as the physical Lama we
work with, the ‘Lama of the Scriptures’ (teachings) that
we study, and also what is called the ‘Lama of Dharmata’
(the way things are), and as mentioned above ‘The Lama
of Appearances’.

‘Mother Nature’ is a good example of the Lama of

Appearance, so I should not have to say much more
than that if you look carefully at Mother Nature, she says
it all, including a motherload of Nature’s fire &
brimstone. For example, almost all living creatures hunt
and eat other creatures, while at the same time trying
not to be eaten. “impermanence” is front and center in
nature, as anyone with eyes can see.

And if dharma law is said to be so similar to natural law,

you can be certain that somewhere in the dharma
teachings, there is bound to be a liberal dose of fire &
brimstone. Need I say more?

With most spiritual teachings, the beginners are not

usually introduced to the fire & brimstone, but rather
welcomed with smiles and kindness. It’s only farther
down the road, after the hook, line, and sinker phase,
that, and this perhaps is for advanced students only, we
all get a taste of the harsh parts of the truth or reality,
dharma or otherwise. There’s no free lunch.

448
These hard lines are ultimately unavoidable because
they too are part of the truth, especially in the samsaric
world we find ourselves living in. I’m not saying that we
should go to our spiritual mentors and ask them to give
it to us straight, and that they not pull any punches,
although if you can take it, that might be a good idea.

However, most of us are not yet ready for the nitty-gritty

hard truths, yet you can be sure that they are out there,
as mentioned before. Mother Nature has the truth on
full display. Just as we harden off tender plants with
more sun, because they may be growing too ’leggy’, so
too must many of us need to harden-off a bit before
being exposed to the whole enchilada, dharma or
otherwise.

[Photo by me.]

449
450
ME AGAINST THE WORLD

June 5, 2022
Back in the early 1960s, the rumor was that this new kind
of psychedelic drug, LSD, could permanently alter your
mind, which was to all of us a scary thought. What we
did not understand back then, was not that LSD could
alter your physical brain and neural pathways, but rather
that acid could alter your attitude and psychological
approach to life. It could change how we saw things. Let
me give an example.

I first learned that this world, the world outside myself,

was very much my own projection on May 6, 1964, in
Berkeley, California, when I first dropped a cube of
Sandoz acid. Just like they said, it changed my life
forever, yet not my brain, etc. And what was most
important was that from that night onward I discovered
(and confirmed for myself) that the outside (and often
threating) world was to an enormous degree my own
psychological projection. I was watching a movie I had
created with my own projections and was being
terrorized by it. And with that insight, my mind, meaning
my mind and the outside world, as I now knew it, was
actually workable and, even better, that I could (just as I
was, warts and all) work it. That was a point of no return
for me.

Previous to that day, it never (not even ever) occurred to

me that I had a say in the matters of my own life as

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relates to the outside world. Instead, I assumed that it
was me against the world, which outside world was
totally independent from me, and that, essentially
speaking, I was a victim and at its mercy.

This, for me, was the dualism of all dualisms, me set

against the world. And then, on that most auspicious
evening, time slowed down to the point where, as
mentioned, I independently actually witnessed my own
inner projections as animating much of the outside
world. I was projecting a world that then terrorized me
with my own imagined fears. As they say, we are our
own worst enemy.

The key discovery here is the word ‘workable’. There was

a way out or onward on my own. There was a
differential, a calculus through which I could resolve and
integrate the huge difference (that I had imagined)
between me inside here and the world outside there, if
only incrementally and slowly.

To repeat, from the moment I first confirmed to my

satisfaction that the ‘me’ in here, the subject, and the
outside world out there, the object, were not only
indissolubly linked together, but were in fact already in
cahoots, one and the same, was when I began to
breathe, like a baby does the first moment they are
born. Life was a two-way street, but also a unity!

LSD, acid, was able to pierce and dissolve the dualism

452
that separated me from the outside world itself and at
that point, as the poet Sir Edwin Arnold wrote “The
dewdrop slipped into the shining sea.” The toothpaste
never went back in the tube after that.

Please, don’t get me wrong. It took decades of hard

work on my part to dissolve my initial duality, yet each
day was incrementally better than the last. And it was
only when I more formally recognized the actual nature
of the mind (many years later) that I understood that the
seed and beginning of that process took place in
Berkeley that night in May of 1964. And everything since
had been a step along the way of what in dharma is
called “Recognition,” the recognition on our part of the
true nature of the mind.

Of course, what I struggled to understand and

implement on my own from then on, was much better
accomplished through what are called the pointing out
instructions as given by an authentic dharma teacher.
Yet back then I had no teacher.

There has to be that first drop of water that ripples the

pond and breaks up the reflection, that initial insight
that breaks the seal of the duality that separates each of
us from recognizing the nature of our own mind as one
and indivisible with the world itself.

That initial insight in May of 1964 helped me to

breakthrough and understand that the mind (and my

453
situation) was workable and that I, just as I am, could
work it, something I never ever forgot from that
moment onward. Yet, it took decades of working with
my situation until I actually fully experienced what I
initially understood mentally and then even more time
to begin to realize the nature of that experience.

[Photo by me.]

454
YOU DRANK THE KOOL-AID, WHAT NEXT?

June 6, 2022
No, I’m not talking about Kool-aid, the drink, but rather
the various psychedelic drugs that many of us took in
the 1960s with little idea what effect they would have on
us. And to our surprise, unlike pot, speed, and whatever
else we tried, psychedelics like LSD, Mescalin, Psilocybin,
‘Heavenly Blue’ Morning Glory seeds, and so on were

455
another whole story, and this is because many of us
were actually changed by the psychedelic experience.
What then?

I would like to at least try to talk about those internal

changes from LSD and how we dealt with them back
then and perhaps for decades afterward. In fact, many
acid-heads are still dealing with them today. I can of
course speak from my own experience, but I also did
almost ten years of counseling other folks, many who
tripped on acid and were at a loss as to what to do with
what they saw on LSD, so I have some direct knowledge
of what a great many others went through. I was the guy
to go to about acid.

I spoke some in yesterday’s blog about the main effects

from, for instance, LSD. I don’t want to repeat that all
again, but in general I can sum those effects up by just
saying that the chief effect or takeaway from an LSD trip
back then (for most folks) was to become aware that we
live in a world, not solipsistic (as we might imagine), but
within an outer world of our own projections, and
through LSD the wall between our close inner-self and
the hard-edged outside world became transparent
enough to be essentially nonexistent. Our separateness
vanished and we were everywhere.

In other words, on acid I could clearly see (and for the

first time) that what I believe here in my own private
mind is something I have (unknowingly) projected on

456
the screen of the outside world and, like a deer in the
headlights, have become mesmerized watching my own
attachments and prejudices acted out in real time on the
virtual screen of the world around me. In other words,
our mind is not an isolate, just here in our skull, but
rather projected everywhere outside ourselves as well,
because we project what is in-here, out there, and then
take it for reality. For someone raised in the straight,
crew-cut world of the 1950s, this amounted to a
complete revelation.

Indeed, LSD was the harbinger of the 1960s alternative

culture, which took hold around 1965, but whose
inception was the introduction of acid in the early years
of the 1960s. Acid opened the eyes of an entire
generation and, IMO, affected everyone and everything
in the ensuing alternate culture called the ‘hippies’ or
whatever.

Such an LSD vision or trip brought good news and bad

news to its recipients. The good news, at least to me,
was that I finally experienced (and certified to my own
complete satisfaction) what up until then had been two
entirely separate worlds, the often cold and threatening
outside world in which I lived and my own familiar inner
senses and self. With the help of LSD, it was immediately
crystal clear that not only were the two worlds related,
but my inner personal world was also very much
reflected in the outside world, where I watched
(sometimes in horror) my most innermost fears and

457
worries acted out before my very eyes on the big-screen
of the world surrounding me.

Actually, although at first terrifying to realize, ultimately

my experience on LSD was all good news, because from
the moment I realized my inside and the outside world
were indissolubly linked, and by that I myself became an
actor in this world drama I lived in and not just its victim.
What we might call the ‘bad news’ part of all this is that,
since I now was complicit in all of this, it was up to me to
sort it out. And that would take me decades to do.
Actually, there was no bad news.

Personally, I was thrilled at last to be a part of my own

life story, both inside and out, and I was more than
game because it meant I could actually change not only
the part I played in my own life, but I could effect
change each day and reflect that change in my outside
world, and as I learned to sort it out, everything became
clearer and clearer. My life was coming into focus for the
first time.

On the downside, it was a little challenging to suddenly

feel like the Lone Ranger, all alone and so much on my
own, like standing on the precipice of a great mountain
and gazing at the vast inner sea of the mind. And, the
two unified and became one, in-here, out-there; it was
all the same. The dewdrop had slipped into the shining
sea. I just had to adjust and sort it out.

458
In fact, as a counselor, someone who specialized in
counseling those who had a bad acid trip or who were
having great difficulty making sense of their LSD trip, I
was encountering the effects of acid on folks every week
for many years.

Of course, having been raised Roman Catholic (although

a lapsed Catholic), I did my best to seek out the
brightest Catholic priests I could find, in my case these
were the Jesuits, long famous for their brilliant minds.
Yet, sad to say, they had not a clue about acid trips and
could be of no help. It was all I could do to thank them
and quietly tiptoe away without disrupting them more
than I had by talking LSD trip-language.

And I found that a great number of clients who came to

talk with me about their LSD trips were in a similar boat.
They had experienced realms of the mind that (at least
at the time when LSD was new) few folks (not to
mention society) had ever known, and because of this,
they had often painted themselves into a corner where
they felt they were either a bit crazy or a one-in-a-
million genius on their local block, yet were still not clear
about their own fate. And the problem most had, as I
saw it, was this:

LSD is not a religion or a substitute for some spiritual

training. God knows, so to speak, that I tried to make the
best sense out of my acid trip that I could, and this went
on for decades. Yet, when all was said and done, what I

459
ended up with was more like a patchwork quilt, where I
had figured out some of the panels in the quilt, but
many others were still blank. I tried to organize what I
could, yet always felt incomplete because I was. I had
brought order to some of my experience on acid, but
there were a lot of holes that were still not plugged, and
this was frustrating, and most of all: incomplete.

Heaven knows that I looked everywhere for the answers

I was missing, and Ann Arbor, where I lived, was a
perfect crossroads for spiritual ‘gurus’, all of which had
perhaps a piece of the puzzle for me, but little more. I
did Zen, yoga, meditation, Gurdjieff, Ouspensky,
Theosophy, Macrobiotics, Christianity, Buddhism, and on
and on, yet still came up with this empty sense of
‘wanting’.

What was missing was some form of actually training

the mind beyond just hearing or reading words. I had to
take control of my own mind, but could not quite get
my arms around it, so to speak, because I didn’t know
how the mind worked. To repeat, I had pieces of the
puzzle from my LSD experience, but never enough, and I
did not know how to generate what was missing. I didn’t
quite get the whole picture, yet I needed to.

Long story, short, I eventually got the mental training I

needed from the Tibetan Buddhists and Vajrayana
Buddhism, very detailed and vigorous training of both
mind and body, yet it took years of very dedicated work.

460
I’m not saying I have it all figured out, yet I no longer
feel I have a patchwork quilt, but rather one made of
whole cloth, with no missing pieces that I am not in the
process of working out.

And all those years I was sharing what I learned (as I try
to do here) as I went along. As mentioned, I ended up
counseling others less able to sort their experiences out
than I was. I was someone folks could talk to about their
drug experiences, yet there was one caveat.

Meeting someone like me, who was perhaps more

experienced in these acid changes was helpful. Yet for
some LSD ‘isolates’, I was the last person in the world
many of these acid clients wanted to encounter because
I knew exactly where they were and very little that they
showed me was unknown to me. Some of them hated
company, because many had become used to being
themselves seen as unique, with uniquely held
experiences, so a mirror image of themselves (someone
like me) was a shock and repugnant to them. I destroyed
the illusion that they had of being a lone genius. I
brought them company, which although they
desperately needed it, was also threatening their
‘uniqueness’.

However, in the long run, meeting someone like me,

ultimately was comforting to them because, whether
they liked it or not, in me they had company and were
no longer all alone. And I popped the bubble of their

461
uniqueness, and with that their loneliness also vanished.
As I mentioned, I was company whether they liked it or
not. And so, the net result is they no longer felt as
unique and thus separate, and with their bubble popped
by having my company, they seemed more willing to
pick up the pieces and get on with their lives.

“Alone or All-One” is the question posed and the answer

always will be that we are all-one with one another,
although it may take a while for some to come around
to this. We are all alone together.

462
‘REGINA’ -- THE ORCHID QUEEN

June 9, 2022

Margaret and I headed out before 7 AM this morning to

a tiny micro-climate some miles outside of town, where
once each year one of Michigan’s rarest orchids the
‘Showy Orchid’ Ladyslipper (Cypripedium regina) bloom,
the “Orchid Queen.”

463
It's a bit of a hike from where we park the car, a little
over half a mile I would guess. And this tiny micro-
climate is inset into a hill, where various small streams,
actually little more than riverlets of water wander
horizontally across a hill of ferns and low brush. And the
path to the hillside used to be a small bridge, perhaps
ten feet long, over a steep-sided culvert-like stream.

Beyond that are a series of very slippery wooden pallets

laid end to end but punctuated by large boulders or
little streams. Yet the spring rains, which were very
strong this year have washed that bridge away. Either
that or the landowner took the bridge down to keep the
odd naturalist from crossing over it.

So, there I stood looking at the space where the bridge

used to be. And all that I could see were the steep sides
of the culvert, something like 6-7 feet down (on either
side), and it was muddy and slippery. I started down it,
trying to brace my feet sideways and inch downward, all
the time carrying a large tripod and camera, but the
danger of slipping was too great, so I carefully backed
off.

Instead I walked down the path from where the bridge

used to be until I found a way to cross the small creek
with less-steep sides. I was still dealing with an incline,
but not a sure-slip. As it was, I had to inch down and
then holding of equipment, leap over the stream (about

464
3 feet) and land on the other side and also not slip. I
managed that.

Then all I had to do is, carrying my equipment, make my

way through thick 2-3 foot ferns and find my way back
to the pallet path. This turned out to be trickier than I
imagined because beneath those ferns were all kinds of
thick branches, logs, and what-not. As it was, I slipped a
couple of times but did not fall down. It took a while to
reach the pallet path, which was even more slippery.

And then I carefully found my way along that path to

where the orchids have bloomed for many years, only to
find that while all the orchid greenery was there, only
about three orchids were in the budding stage. And then
I did manage to slip and get one of my feet wet in a
stream hidden beneath the overgrowth. I was wearing
ankle-high Goretex boots, but one went deeper and I
had to not move my foot until I could brace the camera
equipment. Got wet.

So, I then did take some few photos and make my way
back along the path, and then back through the
underbrush to where I could cross the creek by leaping
with my equipment in hand.

So, there you have it, my little morning trip. Margaret

was there too but elected not to try leaping the stream,
and instead investigated other areas, equally lovely. We
were soon back home, where I cooked up some pan-

465
fired potatoes just for a treat.

[Photo by me today.]

466
DRIFTING TOO FAR FROM THE SHORE…

June 10, 2022

This little poem I wrote says a lot for me, especially now
when we are trying to pull this family gathering
together. Here’s the poem,

SOMETHING FOR NOTHING

Expect nothing,
Except nothing.
Accept something.

Well, that’s the way I feel these days. As it turns out, my

467
kids, of course, are moving with the times, doing their
best not to be exposed to Covid, but yet living a more
regular life than Margaret and I are, with kids in school,
work to go to, trusted friends, and so on.

As it turns out, some of my kids (and their families) have

had exposure or perhaps situations in which they have
to test, and test repeatedly to be free from worry about
Covid. While it is not too difficult to arrange to meet
with one family-group or another here at our home,
trying to get a bunch of families together is practically
impossible because of perhaps Covid exposure. It’s
almost a mathematical certainty that not everyone in the
family will be free and clear of covid situations.

So, because of testing and waiting for PCR tests, the

more definitive test, as we come down to our family
gathering, some of the family we can meet with, and
some not quite ready yet, not 10 days into it or
whatever, so many (most of my family) are staying next
door at our dharma center which has five (or seven)
bedrooms, and we will all meet outside during the day…
and sit around in the open air. Otherwise Margaret and I
will be sitting over here in our house while a family party
is going on next door. Bummer.

Or perhaps I can put on a mask and do brief visits at the

dharma center next door. A total pain, and it does not
speak well for future gatherings, especially if Covid
gathers steam for another surge as we approach winter,

468
which is predicted.

Anyway, what can you do? For me, it’s a strange sense of
isolation and especially in these critical years of my
getting older and the pandemic keeping pace with my
aging. It feels like I can only wave from the other house,
across a canyon in between, and wish well to my family.
This pandemic situation may go on for quite some time,
even years more for all we know.

And so, these days life is more virtual than I would like.
Here is a photo I took today of the open space between
the houses, where we can gather… when it’s not raining.
Our house is on the right, the center on the left, our
shrine room at the top left, and our stupa top right. In
between, various tables and chairs getting ready for
visitors.

[Photo by me.]

469
CAN YOU HEAR THE MUSIC?

June 12, 2022

I grew up in and through the birth of rock n’ roll, R&B,

and much of jazz. No problem. It all made sense.
However, somewhere along with the birth of rap, I lost
my way or interest. Hip-hop was gentler on my mind,
but I believe there too I made a simple mistake.

I was focused on the words of rap (and much of hip-

hop) rather than the beat itself. As a ‘word person’, rap
and hip-hop words were not all that interesting to me,
and so I didn’t listen to rap and hop-hop when I thought
to put on some music around the house. Yet all this
changed in an unexpected way and I can explain why.

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My point here is that, as for hip-hop, I got turned
around the moment I stopped focusing on the words of
hip-hop and instead just listened to the beat, and
suddenly for me there was ‘no problem’. Also I came
across a book by Dan Charnas called “Dilla Time,” which
is about one of the legendary and most brilliant hip-hop
producers, James Dewitt Yancy, better known as J Dilla,
and thus the book title “Dilla Time.”

This book is kind of a musical history of hip-hop,

meaning the reader gets walked through that history,
producer by producer, and almost song by song, so it
requires me to go on YouTube.com, look up and play
song after song (which thankfully are all there), where
for each song the various beat styles and transitions are
called out to the timed-second, just where to listen. The
book gives the name of the song and often just the
where in the tune (exact time to the second) to give a
listen

Anyway, I’m not finished with the book, but still working
through it. And what I hear is, of course, music, yet
instead of music as read from the words down, this book
focusses on music from the beat itself up. And I can hear
the beat much easier than I can by focusing on the
words, top down, so to speak.

Well, long story short, it was not long before I was also
understanding the equipment these hip-hop musicians

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(like Kanye West, etc.) were using, basically one form or
another of what is called a ‘beatbox.’

And basically, instead of trying to learn the quite difficult

music notation systems like ProTools or Cubase, it seems
to me that something like a beatbox is perfect for
someone that does not read music but has no trouble
hearing it. And this beatbox-idea spread like wildfire
among the hip-hop musicians, and many built their
careers with it and around it.

And so, before I quite knew it, I was studying beatboxes

and it was only a hop, skip, and a jump until I bought
one to try out, in my case an Akai MPC Live 2, a really
lovely thing physically as well as musically.

And I’m busy learning how to use it. And it is a steep

learning curve because it essentially is a DAW (Digital
Audio Workstation), a sequencer, drum machine, with
built-in high quality stereo monitors, velocity sensitive
RGB pads, including AC and an internal battery. You can
take it anywhere.

It works as a standalone but comes with computer

software (laptop or desktop) that connects to the MPC2
and they work together. There are stereo outs, line levels
in, TRS CV/Gate jacks, full MIDI in and out, USB 3.0, and
network connectivity. My copy also has a 128 GB SD
card and a 1TB SATA internal SSD drive.

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The ‘MPC Live 2’ It also has 16 velocity sensitive pads
that allow the user to work with any digital sound
samples, songs, MIDI files, or what-have-you, and tweak
and build a finished tune using mostly just your ears and
fingertips. I showed it to some of my family this
weekend and my young granddaughter was
overdubbing samples within a few minutes. Everyone
loved it.

Grooves for the Rest of Us

The way I see it is that the MPC Live 2 is kind of a sound

studio ‘for the rest of us,’ especially those who don’t
read music. And for those of us who were never that
interested in rap words, yet can still feel the beat of that
music, IMO, here, is a back-door into hip-hop.

[Photo of my office with the MPC LIVE 2.]

473
PULLING THE PLUG ON THE JUKEBOX OF
LIFE

June 14, 2022

[I’m still in-between the afterglow of the family

gathering and picking up my life again. Sorry to always
gravitate to the following subject, yet in this kind of
Limbo-land I am in at the moment, it left such an
indelible impression on me that I have not stopped
sampling it to see if it is still virile. It is.]

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I’ve been around the dharma for a bunch of decades.
Our center here in Big Rapids, the Heart Center KKSG is
dedicated to Amitabha Buddha, the Buddha of the
setting sun, death, and dying. I’ve read and studied a lot
of teachings and books on death and the after-death
bardos. Of course, along the way I felt I picked up a lot
of understanding about the process of death and the
bardos that follow.

Having no way to experience death, other than dying,

much less grasp what happens to each of us in the
bardos after death, I felt I had some actual knowledge of
the whole process. I couldn’t have been more wrong
about this, because when a major stroke came along, I
then had some actual life experience walking near the
edge of death, and realized that abstract my
‘understanding’ from reading and listening to dharma
teachings is no substitute for the starkness of reality in
the present moment.

In that stroke, I can remember marveling… while at the

hospital undergoing what seemed like unending scans
and tests, in those hours just after my major stroke. I saw
that aside from my personal medical condition, the mind
itself was crystal clear, as if nothing happened at all,
other than, of course, I had lost my sense of Self, my
attachments and self-worth, plus all of my reification
(and its patina) and could not find where or how to take
refuge or get back into my old samsaric haunts. They

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had all gone void. One thing that was crystal clear is that
the mind itself had no stroke nor any sign of being
disturbed whatsoever. It’s pure awareness of what is.

My problem was that in that state of stroke and all the

turmoil while at the hospital, on another level I was
feeling naked as a jaybird, as if I were lifted up and
thrust out somewhere on the high plains of time, with
endless sand in every direction as far as I could see, and
there was this one light, although I dared not look
directly at it, much like not looking directly into the Sun.
The white light was high above me, and I kept turned
away from it due to its brightness. I was naked of all
attachments. It was terrifying.

Aside from that, I had nothing else whatsoever, and, as

mentioned, was unable to find my way back to any of
my habitual haunts and cover, some place to secret
myself away from the brilliant light. However, all of my
past Self, memories, history, etc. were at that moment
very distant from where I stood. I vaguely sensed that
somewhere out there was the past, the ‘me’ that I knew,
but I had no way to reach there, no entrance door. And I
could not invoke it, try as I might, and I desperately
tried.

Yet, I knew that where I stood out on this vast plain

(although sheer pain) was real, authentic, and my shock
and panic was just because I had no cover, nothing to
protect me, like the old folk song:

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“I ran to the rock, to hide my face.
The rock cried out, ‘No hiding place’,
The rock cried out ‘I’m burning too,
And want to go to heaven the same as you.”

And now I come to what is the hard to grasp point.

Standing in that naked plain, in what I called the white-
bright Sun in the sky, which was not a sun at all. That’s
just an analogy, a placeholder. That so-called Sun was
nothing more than my nakedness itself and the inability
for me to seek refuge in my normal habitual
entertainments. I had popped out and could not get
back into samsara. There was no shadow world to hide
or shelter in. This was full exposure, and thus the pain of
that.

In other words, I was stuck with my nakedness and

inability to cover myself with attachments, busyness, and
the constant entertainments of my shadow world of
samsara I had been used to all my life. They say that
attachment is the glue that holds the Self together, After
the stroke, I was remarkably free of any direct
attachments, other than my attachment and longing for
my old attachments in general. In other words, I wanted
to plunge my consciousness into the habitual
entertainment of myself, yet that entertainment was
nowhere to be found. It had vanished.

I couldn’t find my way into escaping or forgetting this

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harsh present moment in all its nakedness. There was no
reverie, no recalling memories or, for that matter, any
dreaming about the future. If you can imagine pure
boredom, being completely bored out of your mind,
that would be vaguely similar to what I’m pointing at
here. I had no idea, zero, as to what to do with myself. I
felt like a sore thumb. It was like someone had just
pulled the plug on the jukebox of my life.

Only, it was much worse than that, beyond my

comprehension, and unheard of all my life up to that
very moment -- never before even imagined.

We think we can imagine the future and can’t help but

be influenced by all that we read or are taught. We
‘think’ we know how it will be for us when we pass on
and enter the after-death bardos, yet this is ridiculous,
because we have virtually no idea what will happen,
other than some odd abstract thoughts we may have
read somewhere or heard in a teaching. Talk about
whistling in the dark!

What I experienced through my stroke which, when I

later related it to my dharma teacher, Khenpo Karthar
Rinpoche, he just laughed and said my stroke experience
would stand me in good stead when I entered the after-
death bardos. My point here is that I found out in a flash
that all of my imagination about the bardos after death,
all my study and the concepts was nothing substantial,
nothing at all. That and a ticket would get me a ride on

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the bus.

It was clear to me that I in no way was ready for what

will eventually come to all of us at death. I had no idea!
Of course, we can just throw up our arms and do the
best we can. There is always that, which we have
probably done for innumerable lifetimes.

Or we can sober up enough from our daily

entertainments and attachments and get down to where
the rubber meets the road and attempt to ‘get real’. As I
like to joke to myself, we can go to meet our maker,
meaning we can be pro-active and do what we can
begin to engage what we can’t avoid.

479
ESCAPE VELOCITY AND SAMSARA

June 15, 2022

[There was more interest in yesterday’s blog than I

imagined, so this is a follow on. The Buddhist idea of
Samsara is this world of attachments, the desires and
grasping that each have is what keeps us incarnating,
rebirth after rebirth, according to the dharma texts.

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And such fierce attachment and their distractions is not
a passing phase but are said to be habits each of us
have had for innumerable lifetimes until this one. The
point is that by now samsara is very ingrained and
habitual for us, and even the idea of breaking free of
samsara is almost unheard of. We are creatures of
samara and, pardon me, but even our ideas of the
dharma are pretty much brought to us courtesy of
samsara. We never get beyond the fringe of actual
freedom because we are in a bound orbit, and have
never managed the escape velocity to escape those
bounds.

Given a choice in life, we tend to follow our interest,

creating in our wake, a path based on that interest. We
tend to keep to what interests us because going in the
opposite direction to interest is what does NOT interest
us, which amounts to what bores us and is boring.

There is a fine line between interest and entertainment.

Of course, entertainment is interesting to us, yet to
reverse interest, to stand dharma on its head, so to
speak, requires not only what normally interests us, but
also to be interested in the interest itself, and interested
to the point that our interest is also in what does not
interest us. That degree of recursiveness is required for
our dharma practice to become incendiary and result in
actual meditation.

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It is a classic maneuver (or turn-around) to reorient
ourselves so that we purposedly go in the direction of
what does not interest us as a way of balancing
ourselves out. It is in the direction of non-interest or
boredom that the ‘white light’ of the after-death bardos
can be found. It’s there all the time, only we are not
interested. We ignore the white light.

Yet, we don’t go toward what bores us because it runs

against what interests us. Not only do we do this, but
essentially everyone does the same thing, so that we
humans habitually as a group ignore what does not
interest us, and thus have no experience with the white-
light that is spoken about in the after-death bardos. In
fact, we religiously shun it and always have. This
behavior is a hallmark of Samsara, this world of
attachments and entertaining ourselves. We are in a
bound orbit.

And the only time we flip the scale, and then only briefly,
is when some untoward event comes whistling out of
the blue, confronting us (like the death of a loved one or
other similar stunning events) and almost magically
shatters what we call our Self, and by that shattering
voids out our normal attachments.

Such an untoward (and unwelcome) event can be

shattering, leaving us without our normal degree of
attachments, and by that very voidness, offers us a
glimpse, usually short-lived, into a world of less-to-no

482
attachments. This does happen often and, even though
such events are often deeply troubling or ‘sad’, it is at
such times that we most clearly see and have the
opportunity to deeply learn something about the nature
of our own mind. At those times of voidness, our normal
distractions are themselves distracted, leaving us with
clear insight. It does happen, but rarely.

As mentioned, most (or all) of us would not volunteer

for such a devasting event to happen in our life. In fact,
we avoid such events as best we can. Yet, they do
happen to most (if not all) of us from time to time. And
as troubling as such events are, with them comes a
clarity of great value, if we can be aware of it, one that
we can put to use.

Such untoward events can offer us a window beyond

time through which we may gaze, if only fleetingly, at a
bit of eternity. As I like to joke with myself, ‘eternity’ can
be found, yet always just in time. Like the great
Mahasiddhas write in their pith teachings, that in the
midst of our experience, ‘realization’ can arise.
Otherwise, experience itself is endless and goes on and
on. And by ‘realization’ as used here, we mean
recognition (on our part) as to the true nature of the
mind, how to work it, and most important that we (just
as we are) can work it.

We can look for these moments or glimpses beyond the

strictures of time at any sudden event. It could be as

483
simple as a loud noise or sudden surprise, whatever it
takes to sever, however momentarily, our deer-in-the-
headlights mentality, giving us some (however brief)
respite from our normal attachments to everything we
are attracted and attached to. I mentioned earlier that
an untoward event that deeply shocks us also almost
certainly offers us some relief from our constant
distractions.

And for dharma practitioners out there, those who want

to make a move toward hardening ourselves off from
just life as ‘usual to the very end’, my advice is not to run
out and have a stroke. The only value in that and I am
very clear and convinced about this, is that an
intellectual understanding of all this is not worth the
paper its printed on, or very close.

We all get wakeup calls as life progresses, so one

takeaway from an article like this, is to treasure the times
when fate strikes and brings us to our knees. Along with
the sorrow of those crucial times, comes an opportunity
to look beyond our usual attachments, and at least get a
glimpse beyond the strictures of our Self, as to what is
ahead and needs to be taken into consideration.

And if such a glimpse has value, then along with that

insight, we may also get the conviction and strength to
find ways to begin hardening off our attachment to our
attachments and better learn to stand on our own two
feet and take to what is real.

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For one, this is one reason that the great meditators
masters recommend that we find a place of solitude and
learn to be there without wanting to cut and run. We
need to train to not have to be entertained all the time.
My fear is that this is almost impossible in this day and
age and requires a fierce determination by any
individual to achieve an escape velocity that would
break free of the bound orbit that samsara guarantees.

[Photo by me.]

485
THE CHEESE STANDS ALONE

June 16, 2022

Let’s speak for a moment about the absolute clarity of

the mind in its awareness.

The clarity of the mind, meaning our internal awareness

itself (which is beyond our graspingness) stands alone,
and is independent of whatever we personally do. It is

486
that which apprehends the present moment in its
fullness. And it’s not actually ‘ours’. Is this natural
awareness part of us or is it independent of us?

For my two cents, I say it is independent, in that, while it

is available to us, it is not controllable by us. Our natural
or intrinsic awareness is that through which we are
aware of anything and everything. We can’t turn it up or
turn it down, but just accept or receive it, although we
can become increasingly sensitive to and aware of this
intrinsic and natural awareness. That’s the extent of our
power. It seems that being ‘aware of this awareness’,
itself, is a requirement for any spiritual work and
experiences.

About all that we can do is learn to rest in this natural

awareness effortlessly. It doesn’t need our effort. In fact,
any effort on our part becomes an obscuration and
eventually has to be abandoned.

All I can say for certain is that when I had my major

stroke and was going through all of the hospital tests,
and freaking out as well, the clarity of the mind’s
awareness never blinked, but was like a vast blue sky,
always there quite independently of my theatrics, sort of
like this samsaric world is overseen by this pure
awareness.

Without it, we would see nothing at all. It lights up our

life, so to speak.

487
[Photo by me.]

488
489
DHARMA AS WIDE AS THE SKY

June 17, 2022

Clarity increases with practice, experience, and allowing
the mind to just rest. And by ‘clarity’ I mean clarity like a
vast expanse of open sky. And that clarity is found in this
present moment, a heightened lucidity, and a sense of
authenticity, with no elaboration.

And don’t confuse this with just an instant frozen in

time, something momentary, but rather here we have a
contiguous extension, facilitated only by our ability to
continually remain resting in the present moment. This is
not something we ‘do’, but rather something enabled by
our continuous alignment with the nature of the mind,
thus the vast expanse of open sky. The two are one.
Non-duality.

[Photo by me.]

490
491
THE TERRIBLE CRYSTAL

June 18, 2022

Our personality is the product of a myriad choices we
make, often not just the choice ‘to do’ something, as
much as the choice NOT to do something as well. If we
have an ‘interesting’ personality, it’s the sum total of
decisions made over time, often hard choices, the value
of which only accumulate (and interest others) because
they did not make them.

Actually, personality more reminds me of the old game

of ‘Pick-Up-Sticks’, where instead of endlessly adding
on, the point is to remove sticks from the pile until none
are left but the emptiness itself. Learning dharma
correctly reminds me of that.

The dangers of ‘reification’, of constantly accumulating

attachments as we age (instead of decrementing them)
is clearly stated in this somewhat dark poem I wrote
years ago.

PHOENIX

Personality,
Bright beauty of the night,
That terrible crystal,
Burning in the darkness,
At the very edge of time.

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Watching,
In rapt fascination,
Fires,
Impossible to ignore,
Forever frozen,
On the face of age.

It is a dark light,
Indeed,
Funeral pyres,
Signifying nothing,
But impermanence.

This is a fire,
That does not warm.

[Photo by me.]

493
THE PUPPETMASTER

June 18, 2022

494
It’s a common phrase that many people act like they are
going to live forever. Death is not a popular subject and
how many people put off considering the end game
until, well, it’s the end?

If those of us who study death and what happens

afterward feel some obligation to point out what’s
involved in death, dying and the afterlife, our concern
perhaps too often casts a somber tone on what
otherwise is a ‘nice’ day. I’m sure I’m to blame for this
habit. Why?

For me, my concern is based on my own lack or concern

and, moreover, my previous belief that “I’ve got this!’
and am doing enough to be ready to work the afterlife
when my time comes. I’ll get through somehow. As
Shakespeare wrote:

“For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.”

Of course, the Buddhists texts say we each will get

through this life and then the texts go on to detail our
alternatives when we escape life’s mortal binds and
become some kind of free agent. Yet, a careful look at
the Tibetan teachings shows that the degree of freedom
we have after death with no preparation or even

495
consideration for death, is very small, even infinitesimal
in size. Rebirth by direct karma, with no room to
influence our next life is the norm.

One of the most powerful punches to the gut that

Tibetan dharma study has delivered me is their
statement that all sentient beings, meaning ALL sentient
beings, from a crawling worm up to the monarch of a
kingdom have the same identical consciousness, a
consciousness limited only by the kind and condition of
the body we inhabit.

It took me quite a long time for this thought to make an

impact with me. What these sacred texts are saying is
that a common house fly has the same consciousness as
an Albert Einstein, limited only by the functioning
physical form and body that is being inhabited. Every
sentient being is a consciousness just like we have now,
a consciousness trying to manipulate the kind of body
they have been reborn in as best they can.

And to this statement the Buddhists emphasize an

additional thought that says, while most of us are bound
to take rebirth automatically, we may take not rebirth as
a human being. In fact, the Buddhist specify six realms
into which we can be reborn, and one of them is as an
animal such as a gnat or a microbe. As mentioned, it’s
the same consciousness (not personality) we have now
but hampered by the functioning body of say a gnat,
instead of a human body. We are all puppet-masters

496
animating one kind of body or another.

To me, this was a bold and startling idea, one Buddhists

don’t sugarcoat or break to us gently. To most dharma
practitioners, this is a simple fact. And to the average
westerner, this is unheard of, and even when the idea is
floated it tends to go in one ear and right out the other.

As poet William Blake put it, “How do you know but

ev’ry Bird that cuts the airy way, is an immense world of
delight, clos’d by your senses five?”

On my trips to Tibet, it was not unusual to see Tibetans

gently brushing mosquitoes from their arms, and not
smacking them down as most here in America do.
Kindness to animals, we understand. That the mosquito
we brush off with our hand is a complete and equal
consciousness equal to our own is not so easily
understood, and it differs only by the kind of body we
take rebirth in.

When we die and enter the after-death bardo, our lack

of attachments (which fall away from us at death) makes
us so sensitive that the brilliant white light created by
our freedom from samsara (this cyclic earthly life) is so
powerful that we shun that white light and turn away
trying it trying to find a lessor, darker light as a place to
hide. And driven by our karma, we end up taking rebirth
in the first womb we come across, perhaps not even a
human birth.

497
The Buddhists say that every sentient being has been
our mother and our child innumerable times. Such
statements are either crazy or we have another thought
coming.

[Photo by me.]

498
CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM

June 19, 2022

I’m not a contrarian, yet if I see the reification-pendulum

swinging too far in one direction, I can’t help but
balance it by pushing the other way. And so, I have
mixed feelings about the growing popularity of dharma
in America. Of course, I’m thrilled that the dharma is
catching on. Yet, at the same time I don’t want it
popularized or reified so that it becomes faddish and
meaningless.

Therefore, I find myself on the outside of the dharma-

as-fashionable group, those that want to reify the
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dharma, and to quote the title of one of my favorite
shows, because of that I tend to “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

I can’t help but curb those who find the dharma as

entertainment or as something to ‘get’ or appropriate
and I tend to point this out to anyone interested. And
then there is the worse problem, those who mistake
intellection and conceptual understanding for dharma
experience, much less assume realization. That’s a real
problem, to help them down to where the rubber meets
the road without their feeling defeated.

And I realize that this paints me outside the inner circle

of popular dharma, yet I realize how and why I got here.
I don’t want to see the dharma neutered or
conventionalized, glossed over with artificial kindness,
and yet somehow ignore the depth and value for which
the dharma stands. I’d like us to keep it real.

And keeping it real, reminds me of the song “I Never

Promised You a Rose Garden,” and the lines “… Along
with the sunshine, there’s gotta’ be a little rain
sometime...”

Well, I guess I’m the rainmaker more than I would like to

be. Yet, I’m not just going to roll over and let the
dharma be reified publicly. As my first dharma teacher
would frequently say to me, we must choose between
being a diamond and a pearl. A diamond is produced
over time and under great pressure, while a pearl is a

500
piece of foreign matter that is veneered over to protect
the organism. The Dharma is a diamond, a vajra
thunderbolt, and I don’t want to see it ‘pearlized’,
neutered, and glossed over for the public’s convenience.

That’s why, in my role as a rainmaker, I do my best to

bring folks down from their conceptual ivory tower to
where they feel and experience dharma at the gut level.

[Photo by me.]

501
WE BECOME WHAT WE WANT

June 20, 2022

What’s that? Well, in my life, that would be a lot of

things these days. My first dharma teacher used to say
to me, repeatedly, “Given the opportunity, people will do
what they want.” I agree; so true. And I used to teach in
astrology of the Four Element Balance Fire, Water, Air,
and Earth. using this statement: ”We do what we have to

502
do, and we become what we want or lack.”

And in that line, I was leaning on the archaic use of the

word ‘become,” as used in the sentence “What a
becoming dress she has on.” Here the word ‘become”
means to turn toward, in this case what we want or lack.
What we don’t have fascinates us and we do our best to
emulate it, even though we have none of a particular
element.

Of course, I can play with what my teacher said and

examine the word ‘want’ in its meaning that ‘want’
means ‘lack’ or not having, thus we become what we
want or lack, trying to fill in those emptiness holes in our
Self. Something like that.

Certainly, as I age, it appears more and more ridiculous

for me to try to outlast those younger than I am who are
dead set on doing what they want, whether it’s good for
them or not. They are going to do just what they want
and it’s a colossal waste of time my wanting to direct or
guide them otherwise.

Raising four kids is lesson enough in that regard. Any life

wisdom I may have is not wisdom they have, and there
is simply no such thing as knowledge by association as a
final denominator. We each must generate our own
wisdom or make the classic wisdoms our own. And who
am I to know what others need. Mistakes are often the
best way to learn in life. For many the correct way to go

503
comes out of going the wrong way for a while.

So, I try to stay out of the storm of ‘wants’ I see going on

all around me. I’m busy enough exploring my own wants
and they are exhausting as well. I always say to myself
that I’m not a good teacher. I don’t have the patience. If
I’m good for anything in that regard, it is instructional to
watch me work and see how focused I am. I can’t say,
but that’s what I have been told.

My first dharma teacher also said (again, repeatedly)

that “Better your own job poorly, than someone else’s
well.” Which, I translate as mind your own business or
something like that. It’s all too much like that line from
my favorite gospel, that of John, “The voice of one
crying in the wilderness.”

I feel we are all trapped between the devil and the deep-
blue sea, Samsara. If I read back to my old journals from
1967 (and before), I find a couple times where perhaps
my interest in dharma all started and this quote I wrote
then:

"All I remember is haze — red shifting to orange — as I

strained under the infinite pressure of my past, like a
baby being born, and then, through the strain of this
labor (so intense that time slowed) in which somehow I
was involved, and through that slowness like the head of
a child in birth, I crowned, and for the first time came I,
me, a glimpse of my eternal self — real awareness. I saw

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myself. I found myself.
“Emerging right up through the top of my head, I was
born as through a veil and vale of tears, surrounded on
all sides by people living in eternal slowness. Tears stood
in all our eyes, for I was them — huge catlike creatures,
winking and blinking in the slowness of expanded time.
We moved together in this, the rhythm of our birth,
rising and falling like the cry of some great beast. Living
was so slow that it took forever. We were all, together,
one, born out of suffering, born out of and beyond time
itself, born through a veil of tears, itself an endless rain."

No, I can’t go back there. Have already been. Yet, I’m

optimistic because I can clearly see a progression
through time that trends upward toward opening wider,
like a flower opens. I am a reflection now of what I was
then. Nothing has changed from that essentiality.

I believe that we, each of us, through whatever struggles

we have, are progressively more open, year by year.
Indeed, it is an expanding universe. I can see, through
my journals, my own opening. Here is another and later
journal entry.

"The morning's brightness lights the day. And when that

day is gone, the quietness of evening here approaching
settles to sleep this restless world. Hard can I hear the
frantic rush, as I turn away from the edge out into
floating rest am I. It is not my conscious direction doing
this, but as a head downturned all life now turns up a

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blossom to the night. The night of time urges me open,
at last a flower too, open to life. Already the dawn.
"Still, around me, urging caution, a retinue of persons
set my spirit, like a jewel is set, in time. But where before
my worry, now my rest. The tide rolls on beyond me.
Ever changing, it rocks me now asleep. And in my sleep,
awake am I, so clear a bell is ringing.
"The smart of person's lash and crack to drive me at
time's edge. My personal ties are slipped, as floating out,
I'm gently tugged. Too long have fought to force my
thought, and not, at ease, arising like some cloud to
pass. My work undone, yet done, I rise. Drifting through
strains, I sieve, and pass myself, open out to nothing
thoughts to touch back not once more. A clear sleep is
soft, it's ever blooming sound is silence. Now to find my
way among the slips of time. And slip I will, now lost to
striving, and lounge in this room of emptiness. To lie
back in time, behind its edge, and ever look eternally.

“No way to pass this on. This is: passing on. Slamming
against the walls of time, I shove off into eternity. Spread
open a flower, so wide."

[Photo by me.]

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‘SPECIAL’ THAT’S NOT SPECIAL

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June 26, 2022
Discovering “The Dharma” is one of the best things that
ever happened to me. The ‘Dharma” is simply the truth,
the way things naturally are. In a very general way, the
Dharma and Mother Nature’s laws agree, yet the
Dharma differs from most civil law.

The danger in such a discovery (dharma) is that we tend

to put the dharma (or anything we like that much) up on
a pedestal and refer to it rather than keep that discovery
fresh. We treasure the memory of the freshness of the
original discovery, i.e., rather than continue discovering.
That freshness fails if we refer to memory rather than to
the present moment. Our memory does this for us. We
remember the freshness rather than refreshing the
moment.

There is a cure for this mistake, yet it is not that easy to

do, especially while we are stuck with all our pedestal-
revering. It is called Insight Meditation (Vipassana), and
a special kind of Vipassana at that. Making insight
recursive and continuously self-revealing is no mean
task.

This form of reification (treasuring the memory and

losing track of the actuality) is rampant, practically
endemic in this world of cyclic experience in which we
live, called in dharma terms ‘Samsara’.

We are literally stuck in the past, in our own memory of

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an event, rather than able to focus on the present
moment. This seems to be par for the course, our
preference for the past memory of an event rather than
our ability to refresh the original event itself and live in
the present.

As the poet William Butler Yeats put it, “… the grass

cannot but keep the form where the mountain hare has
lain.”

Keeping our eye on the hare and not the empty form in
the grass is a challenge we cannot avoid. It’s this or rust,
worshiping the past, IMO. It’s like trying to snatch at a
gnat, a flying bug, and opening our hand to find nothing
there.

Like almost all things, if we are not aware of this as a

problem, we can’t do anything about it. First, we have to
see the problem. Then perhaps we can change it.

I say ‘perhaps’ because, as mentioned earlier, this is very

difficult to do, staying fresh and in the present moment,
even though that is where we always are. We get
distracted. Most of us just find our hand is empty.

And the why of this is because of our ‘graspingness’, our

attachment and failure to avoid reification, again and
again. No sooner than something fresh or striking occur
to us than we fixate on it and life passes us by, while we
sit fixated on the event.

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We are left holding the bag, so to speak, and not what
was in the bag. I keep restating the premise because
unless we have that clear in our mind, we can do
nothing about it. We can’t change what we are not
aware of, what we are unable to see and accept. Only by
acceptance of the statis quo can we go about changing
it.

This is what makes dharma practice so very difficult. As

an analogy, it’s like when a baby is born, and it takes its
first breath and tries to hold it. That’s when the midwife
has to slap its butt, to start the cycle of breathing. We
can’t seem to get past our grasping at whatever good
thing happens, thus shutting down the cycle of
inspiration in one fell swoop. We cling.

It would be better to transmigrate, to shift our focus on

the present-that-just-passed to the present that is right
now present. It’s a bad habit and very difficult to change
or remove. We fall for it again and again, with each fresh
inspiration. We fall in love with it and immediately begin
reifying it, making it special. And with that, it ceases to
be special.

[Photo by me.]

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FREEDOM FROM BEING ’SPECIAL’

June 27, 2022

I’ve been so busy that I’ve had little time to contemplate

and allow insights to surface.
Nevertheless, some changes are obvious and show
themselves, while others are more like the sun coming
up, a more gradual change.

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Something I have noticed over the last couple of years is
that what I used to call ‘dharma’ has been expanding,
much like when you drop a pebble in a still pond, it
produces a series of concentric rings that expand
outward until they hit the shore, and then rebound and
start back the other way.

As to how I adapt that analogy to my current situation in

recent years is that what I consider dharma is expanding
and extending until almost anything I do has more
clarity and meaning. After all, is it all dharma?

I first noticed this in the doing of housework. We used

to have a helper who came in each week and did some
of the housework chores. However, with the advent of
Covid, that ended. These last years we no longer have
anyone but ourselves in the house since Covid. Instead,
we have to do the housework, all of it ourselves.

And although doing housework can take a lot of time, I

increasingly found that I didn’t mind doing it. In fact, my
philosophy was that if I have to do it, might as well get
into it, put my heart into it. I can’t say this was
immediately the case, yet over time I found that
engaging in the housework wholeheartedly was the best
way to enjoy it, pass the time, and of course, get it done.

And later yet, as I begin to be Mr. Fixit around the house

(and the center), this tendency spread outward to
include more and more tasks as a form of dharma

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practice.

My point here is that to my mind the difference between

practicing dharma on the cushion and doing just about
anything else began to dissolve and it became harder
for me to see where the dharma ended and housework
began. It was all dharma or dharmic.

Moreover, I began to see that much of my dharma

practice was a little forced or artificial in itself, while
housework was (as most of us know) very much
authentic and quite of the moment.

And so, it does not seem to matter so much what I do

anymore. It all has the same sense and taste. In a very
real way, this is freeing, especially not making the
dharma special (by reifying it), meaning not making
dharma any different than anything else. It’s like I have
been disrespecting everyday events all this time and at
the same time reifying dharma, making it somehow
‘special’. Now those roles are flipping or at least
equalizing one another.

The freedom from anything ‘special’ is very much a

freedom indeed. Having to make special allowances for
dharma is tiring, especially if this reifying becomes a
habit rather than the spontaneous discovery of dharma.
Every day, everything is special enough and does not
need my approval or deifying, and it all is
interdependent.

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[Photo by me.]

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A MANDALA OF WORDS

June 29, 2022

Now that this basement project is finishing up, I’d like to

get back to writing blogs, only more carefully and
detailed. It’s hard for me to explain, even to myself, how
I feel about the whole blog process. Blogging is about as
sacred as I get with ‘process’, and I articulate them using
the juxtaposition of words as best I can to flag down the
attention of my readers and take them toward whatever
my vision is showing me. I want to share it.

Do I expect a lot of response? Not if history has anything

to say about it. I try to make words speak in my writing,

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articulating by their arrangement something like a sieve
to catch what I can of the reader’s awareness and offer
at least a sense of what I am speaking of. And I know,
what I write is not for everybody.

At the same time (perhaps even primarily), the whole

writing process itself is why I write, about the stream of
experience to find for myself (and hold in mind) the
authentic dharma as I understand it. And it’s not like
there is anything to be found or to ‘get’ from the writing
itself. Instead, the voicing and articulation of words
creates a mandala of words, the process itself, which is
the point if you feel you need to have a point. In reality,
there is no point or end to get to, no beginning and no
end. That’s the point.

Like the process of breathing that keeps us alive, this

articulation of words, a mandala, can keep us more in
the present moment that we otherwise are. The meaning
of the words gesture and point us forward, lead us on,
and yet that meaning itself is finally not going anywhere
in particular, except onward, a continuing continuum.

When we realize this, that the end result is the means we

use to get there, then we are finally getting ‘somewhere’,
so to speak, which is not anywhere at all other than the
continuing process itself. It is then that we may see the
light shining within the process. If we can rest in that
process, we have arrived in this present moment.

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Here is a darkish poem I wrote back in the early 1960s,
when I was oh so serious.

LOOK AT YOURSELF

Look at yourself, first yet first,

No better, and yet not worse.
Now get yourself together in a bunch,
And call what carriage as ye may your hearse.

[Photo by me.]

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“TALK LOW, TALK SLOW, AND DON’T SAY
TOO MUCH”

June 30, 2022

That’s a quote from actor John Wayne. Something that

has been popping up in my mind of late is how to older
men and women become wise. And the way I mean
‘wise’ in this context is more the sort of wisdom that is
kind yet clear about the truth. I’m thinking of a John
Wayne type, realistic but also compassionate as needed.

As I actually get older myself, I am having some second

518
thoughts about this tough truth that some older folks
seem to acquire. I know that my first dharma teacher,
Andrew Gunn McIver was kindly and compassionate, yet
at the same time a fierce protector of the vulnerable and
the young. Yet, he would not take any baloney either.

I don’t know where wisdom came from all these years.

Mostly, I never thought about it. I guess I imagined that
it just arose like patina does on a piece of wood with
age or something. However, I am starting to see it
differently.

There is no point in shining yourself (or anyone else) on

down the road. For older folks, there is not that much
road left and no real advantage to pretending otherwise.
Simple trial and error instruct. For me, it often comes
down to sharing the truth, the way things actually are
and not just what we would like them to be or that
society tries to demand of us. To explain what I am
sharing, consider this:

Mother Nature, what is called natural law, is often

compared to the laws according to the dharma
teachings. This is not just me making this up. There is a
little-known area of dharma instruction that pertains to
this, which cites a short series as to what can be
considered the ‘Guru’ in dharma. I will list them, just as
they were taught to me.

(1) The Guru – This is our Root Guru or teacher.

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(2) The Guru of the Teachings – all the dharma
scriptures.

(3) The Guru of Dharmata – This is more advanced,

learning from the dharmata, the way things are, itself.

(4) The Guru of Appearances. This is an even lesser-

known way of learning the dharma, by studying the
appearance of Natural Law, primarily Mother Nature.

I know you know about The Guru, and The Guru of the
Scriptures. The Guru of Dharmata is lesser known, and I
had never heard of the Guru of Appearances until I was
introduced to it by a Lama.

What ‘The Guru of Appearances” essentially points to is

at Mother Nature herself. Natural law is also a perfect
teacher of the dharma. Nature buffs know this.

And whether we learn the dharma from the first three

Gurus, or pick up our knowledge of ‘how things are’
from Mother Nature herself, is not important. We can
learn from all of them.

To return to the theme of this post, as we get older,

these various kinds of dharma instruction can actually
merge, and here is an important sidebar:

Mother Nature does not blink. If you study her laws,

520
which feature ‘impermanence’, we learn that just as
there is life, there is also death. Moreover, in nature
most animals are struggling to find something to eat
and at the same time struggling not to be eaten
themselves.

As I was trained as a naturalist from a very young age, I

am quite aware of nature’s laws. And compared to
human or civil law, they don’t compare. Human law is
filled with reification, wishful thinking, ignorance of
reality, and shall I name more?

And to wrap this up, as we get older, those who have

studied natural law or dharma, kindness seems to be
tempered with reality more than when we are young. It
could be because we are nudging closer to our use-by-
date and perhaps the seriousness of that fact can affect
our view.

We can’t just kick the can down the road forever and by
that avoid a come-to-Jesus moment. The way things
actually are, no matter what civil authority wants them to
be, shines through the growing transparency that age
brings. We can’t help but see the light or at least the
outlines of it. We can’t just ignore it and pretend the
harder truths are not there.

And so, as for my original question as to the wisdom of

the aging, there is less and less reason to dull the knife
blades of death. And although Grandpa and Grandma

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hopefully are kind, along with the sunshine, also comes
a little rain sometimes.

The buck must stop somewhere, and at the end of aging

has to be one of them. Wisdom has to include reality,
the way things actually are, so I believe that a product of
age is a stop sign as to shining younger folks on. Wise
men and woman often are willing and able to do this,
thus my point.

If you go out in nature, and study nature, kindness is not

one of her virtues. Just witness all the earthworms trying
to cross a tarmac road just as the sun comes up to dry
them to a crisp. Most of them never make it and some
worms are crawling in the direction of the road itself. Or
the robin shell on the sidewalk, dead baby bird and all. I
won’t go on, yet nature is replete with impermanence.
How is that communicated?

If the Buddha Dharma is a mirror image (or close) of the

laws of Mother Nature, then the same laws we so easily
see in nature are also present in the dharma teachings,
even if they are not emphasized.

And if it all, the whole enchilada, good and bad news, is

what we have to realize, just when and how do you want
to be introduced to such laws as the nitty-gritty of
impermanence? If the dharma is effectively a mirror
image of nature’s laws, how is that reflected and taught
in the dharma. And if not, just why is that? I’m talking

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about the hard truths of impermanence and its
implications.

[Photo by me.]

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