this photo knocks my socks off

, originally uploaded by LunaSol.

by a long-time flickr friend, martha, aka lunasol.

recent poems

family portrait, originally uploaded by Orrin.

o ivaloo
what am i gonna do
you have cheeks i want to kiss
and fingers! hair! i cannot miss

o little ivaloo
what's the world to do
'cept to love and cheer your birth
and smile that you're here on earth

our dear sweet ivaloo
i wonder what you'll do
dreams you'll have and feats you'll take
adventures love and all -- partake

oh baby ivaloo
know that we all love you

---

For my friend Stephan who will be busking tonight outside of Comic-Con

i wish i were in san diego.
your singing and playing will be en fuego.
i hope when you sing you sound like a dago.
tomorrow for breakfast you can have a bagel.

And with that, I keep my day job!

mais oui

"At the side of the everlasting why, is a yes, and a yes, and a yes"

— E. M. Forster

i constantly get confused about hope — good or bad?

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.

— Anne Lamott

Buddhism says that hope is just the flip side of fear; let it go let it go let it go. But so many other things say to believe -- seize! -- go forward -- persevere.

What if I choose to believe the wrong one?

communicating with other life forms

twenty-eight of 52, originally uploaded by Orrin.

ha ha ha. this makes me laugh. orrin is good with the skype and the what not. so is steve. me? not so much.

In which I ask Rob Breszny to Marry Me

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): O ye of little faith: Do ye not understand that the events of mid-July through mid-August of 2009 are but the fruition of seeds ye planted in September, October, and November of last year? Do not thank or blame the gods, but only thyself, for the destiny that is upon ye. Now please prepare to assume thy new goodies and perks, O favored one, as well as thy new temptations and headaches, with full knowledge that ye are receiving the exact rewards and responsibilities ye earned many months ago.

I've already seen the fruition just this afternoon. I don't know if I should laugh, cry, run, jump on a plane or sit down on my meditation cushion.

Oh who am I fooling? Meditation cushion. It's all about being awake. Right here. And grateful. Right now.

tripping on the sidwalk of the dharma

out west, originally uploaded by emdot.

Life on the practical level does not contain any subtle philosophy or subtle mystical experience. It just is. If we are able to see that isness, so to speak, then there is a sense of realization. We experience sudden enlightenment. Without a sense of hopelessness, there is no way to give birth to sudden enlightenment. Only giving up our projects brings about the ultimate, definite, positive state of being, which is the realization that we are already enlightened beings here and now.

— Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche (Crazy Wisdom, pg 95 via "Ocean of Dharma" mailing list)

This is where I stumble with Buddhism: how do you know when to make a change? When to act? When to change course? According to Buddhism there is none of that; there is only right now.

But I'm not sure that that philosophy always serves you. What if you need to veer a little? What if you need to turn hard? What if staying in the same place, which is fine enough, adds up to a pretty big wrong-direction in the long haul?

If I were so lucky as to be able to ask a good teacher questions, that is what I would ask. But hopefully more eloquently.