I realized that there was a huge contrast between my last trip to Hawaii and this one. If I had lived down here in Kona, I think I may have actually been happier with living on the island for the year I was here. I know it wouldn’t have ultimately made a difference in my decision to switch schools, but perhaps I would have been less miserable.
The trip before this one I decided that I would stay in Waimea because I would be close to the school and therefore be able to not only obtain lots of pulses, but have a lot of social interaction with my former classmates. I knew I’d benefit from being in a community. I knew the sacrifice would be a 45-minute commute to the Kona Clinic for observation each morning at 6am – and that this would get very tiring very quickly.
What I found was that my former classmates were not really interested in spending much time with me because they were so busy with their own life and school troubles to the point where they had no energy left after the day to hang out. The interactions I had with them were short and while I wanted to exchange ideas and share with them my experiences in school – the space to share was simply not there. When your mouth is full, how can you take another bite?
I realize now that this is a completely climactic condition based on the school’s location. I’ve always known that Feng Shui was a very powerful art that studies energies of places and determines the causes of behaviors, but I’ve never been so present to its full implications until I began studying Five Element theory. Had I known what I know now, I would have been able to predict more about what lay ahead for the year I lived there. The climatic condition completely determines the outcome for the school and had the school been located in Kona, the world would have been quite different.
Waimea lies on the spine of the Big Island. A town situated at the interaction of two roads; one coming from the North of the Kohala spine, and a main road that cuts the island from East to West. As the town on the spine, it's the highest elevated town on the Big Island at about 2,600 ft above sea level. To the north lies the Kohala Mountain (elevation of 4,500 ft), and the huge looming Mauna Kea to the south (13,500 ft). To the east lies the rain forest, to the west lies the dry barren desert land and lava flows. Waimea is the dividing line between the Wet and Dry side of the island. The road that bisects the town from the north acts as the general dividing line but the climate doesn’t change into dry for another mile or so westward. The cold wet trade winds blow their air over the rainforest from the North East and are met by the hot desert winds from the Western slopes. In the middle the temperature variation holds the clouds at bay causing the rain clouds to churn up and back upon themselves as they loose their payload over time causing a climate wetter than Seattle for 6 months out of the year. Despite the rain clouds being kept at bay by this temperature differential above, the town below is blown about by horizontal rain throughout the day. On the days where it doesn’t rain, the winds move like they're running from the law. Temperature at night can drop to as low as freezing in the winter, and as high as 90 in the Summer.
The clouds move through the sky at an alarmingly fast rate, and seem to soar almost within arm right above the citizen’s heads. The town’s energy affects its residents in a peculiar way. Everybody is a little rushed, overwhelmed and all about business. Unlike the warmth and high heat of Kona which warms the smiles of the residents – the people of Waimea rarely smile in a way that indicates “come, rest a while, relax, lets talk story”. Mostly conversations here are about where people are going, what their various projects are, and the goings on between the Eastern and Western sides of the island. This small town also holds the island’s intelligentsia with the home of the corporate offices of two large radio telescope installations atop Mauna Kea, a very expensive prep school, and a Theatre that sees some pretty stellar guests. This is also one of the more affluent parts of the island with multi-million dollar homes scattered along the northern slopes with grand views of Mauna Kea and the coastland to the West. This is the land of Wood, Metal, and Water. Lacking the warm of Kona residents, the residents of Waimea are far more concerned with mutual respect, cooperation, and getting things done.
My classmates’ classroom is oriented to the East with the whiteboard set on the eastern wall. The students look towards the east during the entire day. I felt through the entire year of my attendance like I was standing in front of a blow dryer of information flying at me from the whiteboard. The class always experienced much anger, resentment, frustration, and much resignation with the curriculum. The school piled on 16 different subjects with 14 different text books in the first trimester if that’s any indication of overload. Asked to grow faster than Bamboo this wood energy completely attacked everybody’s Stomachs and Spleens causing major indigestion of information and disgruntled stomachs. Most people subsisted and still subsist on large quantities of sugar.
This energy can be extrapolated to the whole building and the teachers as well as my stay. The house I stayed at on that trip was on the dry side, but my small private cottage was attacked by 50 mph gusts of wind for the first 2 weeks of my stay, and they subsided to 35 mph thereafter. I’d be pelted with sideways rain, and forced to retreat to the beach es on days where I could get some sanity. The energy scattered my homework efforts and I got very little done.
I felt rejected by the whole island experience, lack of connection, lack of warmth and a deep yearning for a speedy return to Colorado to be with people I missed so badly.
This trip I stayed in warm, relaxed Kona. On the slopes of Hualalai the temperature never dipped below 70, there was only a slight breeze throughout my stay and the daytime temperature never rose above 75. I hung out with my friend Nirlepa almost 3-4 times a week which gave me great company. I also had a roommate in the house I was staying who also provided me with company. I stayed only 3 streets down from the clinic so my commute was non-existent and I had almost no desire to drive 45 minutes to Waimea to visit my friends. I went twice. Both times to get pulses and I left soon after as the energy there had not changed much since the last time I was there.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
7/4/2010 – The Diamonds of Hualalai
I am alone with Blondie the dog atop Hualalai. I’m completely enveloped by the clouds. Surrounded by mists all of nature stands in reverence as the mists remain motionless atop the landscape. The wet, moist seeping earth is being filled with water. Only an unseen bleating mountain goat off in the mist makes a noise. All stands still. Patiently receiving. A lonely bird cries in the distance. The panting of Blondie can be heard. The whole place stands in revered silence.
How does metal condense water? I suppose it is through its recognition of preciousness and essence. That despite a volcano’s eruption and fire melting metal and unearthing a whole bunch of it out of the heart and core of the earth’s deep treasure storehouses… it flows until it sets hard. The water that collects upon it is pure mineralized preciousness. It begins a new life cycle for new wood to grow somewhere down the mountain.
This cloudiness, this fogginess evokes a fear and uncomfortable claustrophobia. Its reminiscent of what foggy people, cloudy people must feel. There’s an element of fear involved when you’re being foggy with something – revealing nothing of your true mind. When you’re foggy it’s hard to get through to clear truth.
I don’t know whether this is water or metal kind of cloudiness – searching for the preciousness – searching for the path – but it certainly is cold and white, and you can’t see anything.
Things condense from cloud into drops of dew - from non-clarity into clarity. Murkiness always turns into clarity through stillness. It’s easy to get lost amidst the clouds and to pick the wrong direction and stray off the path home. This reminds me of people who like this fog are unclear in their communication and their presence of being. You don’t know where you stand with them, and therefore you don’t know how to move around in their presence to reach clarity.
The dewdrops of life sparkle on the leaves like precious living diamonds. The dewdrops fall on the earth and the earth literally absorbs the water. Absorbs the nourishment. That's what the earth does. It creates a space for processing, and it absorbs. Absorbing and integrating wisdom. Integrating resource. The earth learns by absorbing trees, burnt spoils and purified derivatives of fire, and preciousness of metal. It becomes what it absorbs.
Earth itself seems to be nothing and is of no value – its value is in it being a container and integrator of all. It is from this place that it can truly nourish, hold, contain, condense. Earth is nothing without movement happening on it and to it. In order to integrate, it must be porous, and not hard as clay. It must be moved by the roots (Wood’s motivating energy) to further deepen and churn the knowledge into itself. In other words, you don’t fully know something until you enflesh it and put it into action. Earth therefore must be about movement and distribution of what it integrates. It cannot serve a purpose unless people stand upon it, feel supported by it, or need it to hold their roots, and resources.
The Earth element will define itself by, or identify with the experiences, accomplishments, and knowledge that it has integrated into itself over time. I have one such friend that for the longest time did not know how to define herself. She did not know who she was for herself because she had constructed her life around being something for others. She would then take on the roles and duties required, and integrate them into her personality so well that it literally was what she was. She was well regarded for who she could become - because once she became it, she would naturally abundantly give of this new becoming. As a self-professed chameleon, she was able to change shape and mold her Earth element to become anyone she wished to be for each person who needed her to be a certain way. This malleability, like clay pottery was an asset to her being able to surround herself by many friends. She could mold herself into a jug for some, a bowl or a plate for others. However, the lack of solidity and self-definition to her Earth made her feel incomplete, a stranger to herself, her needs, her own form. When looking within to find what she needed, what form there was, she found she didn't know. Over the years of integrating many different experiences and making them her own, she discovered a direction for herself – a purpose to which to devote her life – the study of the human condition, and the needs of self and others through the field of counseling psychology. A perpetual student of experience, no doubt her path will take her forward into a PhD program and beyond. At this moment, content only with knowing rather than doing, her Earth is still saturating until this nourishment will go out into the world to feed the hungry.
How does metal condense water? I suppose it is through its recognition of preciousness and essence. That despite a volcano’s eruption and fire melting metal and unearthing a whole bunch of it out of the heart and core of the earth’s deep treasure storehouses… it flows until it sets hard. The water that collects upon it is pure mineralized preciousness. It begins a new life cycle for new wood to grow somewhere down the mountain.
This cloudiness, this fogginess evokes a fear and uncomfortable claustrophobia. Its reminiscent of what foggy people, cloudy people must feel. There’s an element of fear involved when you’re being foggy with something – revealing nothing of your true mind. When you’re foggy it’s hard to get through to clear truth.
I don’t know whether this is water or metal kind of cloudiness – searching for the preciousness – searching for the path – but it certainly is cold and white, and you can’t see anything.
Things condense from cloud into drops of dew - from non-clarity into clarity. Murkiness always turns into clarity through stillness. It’s easy to get lost amidst the clouds and to pick the wrong direction and stray off the path home. This reminds me of people who like this fog are unclear in their communication and their presence of being. You don’t know where you stand with them, and therefore you don’t know how to move around in their presence to reach clarity.
The dewdrops of life sparkle on the leaves like precious living diamonds. The dewdrops fall on the earth and the earth literally absorbs the water. Absorbs the nourishment. That's what the earth does. It creates a space for processing, and it absorbs. Absorbing and integrating wisdom. Integrating resource. The earth learns by absorbing trees, burnt spoils and purified derivatives of fire, and preciousness of metal. It becomes what it absorbs.
Earth itself seems to be nothing and is of no value – its value is in it being a container and integrator of all. It is from this place that it can truly nourish, hold, contain, condense. Earth is nothing without movement happening on it and to it. In order to integrate, it must be porous, and not hard as clay. It must be moved by the roots (Wood’s motivating energy) to further deepen and churn the knowledge into itself. In other words, you don’t fully know something until you enflesh it and put it into action. Earth therefore must be about movement and distribution of what it integrates. It cannot serve a purpose unless people stand upon it, feel supported by it, or need it to hold their roots, and resources.
The Earth element will define itself by, or identify with the experiences, accomplishments, and knowledge that it has integrated into itself over time. I have one such friend that for the longest time did not know how to define herself. She did not know who she was for herself because she had constructed her life around being something for others. She would then take on the roles and duties required, and integrate them into her personality so well that it literally was what she was. She was well regarded for who she could become - because once she became it, she would naturally abundantly give of this new becoming. As a self-professed chameleon, she was able to change shape and mold her Earth element to become anyone she wished to be for each person who needed her to be a certain way. This malleability, like clay pottery was an asset to her being able to surround herself by many friends. She could mold herself into a jug for some, a bowl or a plate for others. However, the lack of solidity and self-definition to her Earth made her feel incomplete, a stranger to herself, her needs, her own form. When looking within to find what she needed, what form there was, she found she didn't know. Over the years of integrating many different experiences and making them her own, she discovered a direction for herself – a purpose to which to devote her life – the study of the human condition, and the needs of self and others through the field of counseling psychology. A perpetual student of experience, no doubt her path will take her forward into a PhD program and beyond. At this moment, content only with knowing rather than doing, her Earth is still saturating until this nourishment will go out into the world to feed the hungry.
7/1/2010 – Nature Within, Nature Without
Nirlepa and I took another hike together on the slopes of Hualalai. We took Blondie with us and walked through this semi-arid mountain forest. The time was 5pm and the yellow gold of the evening sun washed over the landscape, giving it a warm glow. The ground was gray lava, but covered in places with this bright green grass, and in others by an olive green Spanish moss. Crooked, gnarly, dry and stiff gray-barked trees covered the landscape as well walked along the service road. The forest was filled with bushes and trees that could survive only in this harsh climate. We are above the cloud line and while this forest is nearly constantly surrounded by mists, today the skies offer a rare clarity of azure blue. The temperature is crisp, and the smell is of dried and rotten wood. Soft tuffs of lambs ear grow here and there, and a few vines of passion fruit wind their way along the fence post and hill top trees.
A slight breeze made the gray branches creak with displeasure as it rustled and hummed through the sparse green leaves. The predominantly succulent foliage and dark olive green and sage green tones dominated this landscape. The bark of all the trees was gray like sun-bleached timber. At a height of 6000 ft above sea level, this land offered views of the entire coast line, even as far as the neighboring peaks of Maui across the ocean.
As we walked along this undulating hilly landscape I became present to how this whole environment mirrors a personality I knew from our clinic. Her name is J, a 50~ year-old woman who’s temples are awash in white and ash – the color of the bark of the trees. She’s extremely thin, has life long lung conditions, grief and depression. Very sensitive to all treatments her voice is a like a slightly slurred crackling of timber against a wash of weeping gusts of wind, providing a wide inflective range. Her whole body presents like the rigid and stiff trunks of these trees. She holds herself with rigidity and austerity. Her spine is twisted in a zig zag pattern of probable chiropractic accidents which have given her spine a gnarled and knotty look as that of the trees. Working as a food critic, and writer, her opinion is held in high regard by many. She enunciates with precision, and articulates her views with diction that separates and gives each word their own clarity. Her languaging reveals the same unclutteredness of this landscape and its few, but well put together and coordinated species.
The Small Intestine themes of communicative precision and purity intersperse with airs of respect, structure, and refinement color the overall weep and mausoleum-like quality to her presence.
J’s view of life rests as that on top of the mountain and she looks down at those below with an elevated perspective of what is a righteous, appropriate and refined way of living – a way which she knows is not for everybody – but a way in which she knows is a right perspective for her.
Her liveliness is that of this place in the sun – her colors of thoughts are complex and move through shades of perspective and clarity as the sun moves across the sky revealing shades of blue, orange, gray, silver and green. This place has a sacredness and exists in praise of the mountain itself. Worshipful, penitent, tall, upright – a temple awash in silver, gold, gray and green.
Aloft in the heavens, this place is devoid of much water yet filled with precious minerals. It focuses on conservation, reservation, and structured thought, organization and growth. Similarly, J’s incisive thought process cut through the bull and materialistic thought in order to reach the definitive gems of meaning.
J could have been birthed as naturally from this place as if the womb of the land had opened itself up and given birth to her, mothered, and schooled her in the ways of appropriate living.
I feel honored to be standing on its sloping hills.
A slight breeze made the gray branches creak with displeasure as it rustled and hummed through the sparse green leaves. The predominantly succulent foliage and dark olive green and sage green tones dominated this landscape. The bark of all the trees was gray like sun-bleached timber. At a height of 6000 ft above sea level, this land offered views of the entire coast line, even as far as the neighboring peaks of Maui across the ocean.
As we walked along this undulating hilly landscape I became present to how this whole environment mirrors a personality I knew from our clinic. Her name is J, a 50~ year-old woman who’s temples are awash in white and ash – the color of the bark of the trees. She’s extremely thin, has life long lung conditions, grief and depression. Very sensitive to all treatments her voice is a like a slightly slurred crackling of timber against a wash of weeping gusts of wind, providing a wide inflective range. Her whole body presents like the rigid and stiff trunks of these trees. She holds herself with rigidity and austerity. Her spine is twisted in a zig zag pattern of probable chiropractic accidents which have given her spine a gnarled and knotty look as that of the trees. Working as a food critic, and writer, her opinion is held in high regard by many. She enunciates with precision, and articulates her views with diction that separates and gives each word their own clarity. Her languaging reveals the same unclutteredness of this landscape and its few, but well put together and coordinated species.
The Small Intestine themes of communicative precision and purity intersperse with airs of respect, structure, and refinement color the overall weep and mausoleum-like quality to her presence.
J’s view of life rests as that on top of the mountain and she looks down at those below with an elevated perspective of what is a righteous, appropriate and refined way of living – a way which she knows is not for everybody – but a way in which she knows is a right perspective for her.
Her liveliness is that of this place in the sun – her colors of thoughts are complex and move through shades of perspective and clarity as the sun moves across the sky revealing shades of blue, orange, gray, silver and green. This place has a sacredness and exists in praise of the mountain itself. Worshipful, penitent, tall, upright – a temple awash in silver, gold, gray and green.
Aloft in the heavens, this place is devoid of much water yet filled with precious minerals. It focuses on conservation, reservation, and structured thought, organization and growth. Similarly, J’s incisive thought process cut through the bull and materialistic thought in order to reach the definitive gems of meaning.
J could have been birthed as naturally from this place as if the womb of the land had opened itself up and given birth to her, mothered, and schooled her in the ways of appropriate living.
I feel honored to be standing on its sloping hills.
6/27/2010 – Makalawena Beach
My friend Nirlepa, her dog Blondie and I decided to go to the legendary Makalawena beach just north of Kona. This beach cannot be driven to without a lifted truck, but one can walk over the rocky black and gray lava road from the main highway which takes about 45 minutes. It was 9am and the heat had began to bake the land. You could feel more heat radiating up from the ground beneath you than from the sky above. I had put on sunscreen (which I thought I had put on allover my body) and we began our hike down.
The terrain was treacherous, filled with discarded branches of thorny keawe (keh-ah-veh) tree/shrubs that provided the only evidence of life along this barren landscape. Here the plant life fights for every drop of water to the degree that it must put up barbed wire on itself to prevent anyone else from stealing the resources it has accumulated. When we starve, we accumulate and guard what we have. The competition for resources becomes such that we begin to fear our neighbors causing us to put up these defenses. We do this by becoming austere, standoffish, spiky, antagonistic – don’t get near me! We can see this in people who feel vulnerable enough to where then create this kind of imposing demeanor.
As we walked we saw the landscape change very little until we got nearer the coast. We saw clear azure pools of water as well as swampy bogs some 200 years from the water’s edge. The sweet water from the underground streams accumulates in these ponds and creates opportunity for the keawe to grow tall as well as a few other varieties of plants such as palm trees, shrubs and bananas to occupy the area – a veritable oasis – a place to replenish, a place to rest, a place to regroup. Grasses, mosses, and all sorts of bog creatures set up families in this little oasis as the rugged landscape is transformed into a lush little micro-climate. People who have near-infinite resources, skills, abilities and contacts like this can become an oasis for others. There are few people like this in the world who don’t hoard, guard, and fear their resources being depleted but who dispense them willingly. For most where the resource is money, they will guard it with barbed wise. Others who’s resource is spiritual tend to share it with complete availability.
I can name one woman whom I recently met in Kona who’s an oasis for others. Her name is Gwen and she is a minister to a local church and spiritual community. The blue/black hue shines around her temples, and her cool, voice reminiscent of a deep and droning Amazonian chant. She wears a gold ring embellished with a large blue and green stone, and she wears a white blue and green mumu. Her laugher is like the peel of crystal bells in an ice cave, and her demeanor is cooling, calming, and refreshing. She is a psychologist by profession and a minister who lives within a spiritual community dedicated to meditation and living out the precepts of their master. Wisdom is her resource. Words flow from her like a fresh spring of cool water, and she waters the parched spirits, minds, and hearts of those who are blessed to be in contact with her deep and clear pool of wisdom.
Walking down past the rocky lava beaches we finally reached the first cove of the 4-cove Makalawena beach. These four beach coves are the most treasured and remote of the beaches on the whole island. Their unspoilt and untouched nature gives their diversity a true magic. Each cove has different set of qualities – each with a different set of people who converge upon it.
The first cove is a shallow 100 yard tide pool on the shores of a white crescent of sand, wrapped by trees which bring the white sand some shade. 40 yards into the water, the tide pool is sheltered from the waves by a natural lava wall. Only at high tide do the waves manage to brim over the lava wall to refresh the pool with new waters. As the waves brim over the edge they perturb the mirrored surface with small ripples that radiate throughout the pool. Otherwise the pool stands clear, motionless, and crystalline. Two families are camped on the southern shore of this tide pool. Their children safely play in the foot and a half of water and observe baby fish that swim in this aquatic nursery. The parents set up tents and hammocks between the trees that border the water and nap the day away.
There’s a single house built 40 years inland from this crescent. This is no man’s land, and one family claiming Hawaiian lands ownership of this spot has built a make shift house off the grid, and relax on their porch surrounded by their two cats and a dozen or so chickens.
The second cove is a small 50 yard crescent cove with mostly lava entry and some yellow sand. The waves crash against its borders giving it a foreboding water entry and a narrow view which detracts people from frequenting it.
The third cove is a 500 yards long and with 100 yards of pure white sand. The cove has beautiful sandy entry in pristine and unspoilt azure blue waters. This is the main beach where the people who have braved the lava have come to spend their day (about 25 people in all). The sand is blinding white, and the water blinding blue. The waves roil and clash on the southern shore while the entry to the north allows people to gently wade. Near the tree line people set up barbecues and umbrellas and share family time together while the kids and adults play in the waters. This beach is so welcoming, open, clear, exposed and refreshing.
The fourth cove is of equal size and depth to the third, but its waters are teaming with rocks that protrude out of the ocean like a half-buried and scattered Stonehenge. The entry is treacherous and only the occasional person may stroll this beach, but no one stays to sunbathe or play in the water. The feel of this beach is eerie, foreboding, lonely, and scary. Its peaceful beauty and tranquility gives it a feel as though the beach is meditating upon itself and notes the passage of time without human or animal interruption. I feel like this beach is representative of my mind – full of sharp rocks half-submerged which represent issues half buried in the unknown, half revealed in the sun – and the sea of thoughts roiling and churning around them. I feel enchanted by this beach – the mix of known and unknown danger.
We played with the dog, throwing sticks into the waves and watching her retrieve them. Blondie was so excited with the play that she wouldn’t stop playing all day. We were afraid of her being exhausted and unable to return up the path to the car when we were done.
As I walked I became present to the drone and hum of constantly crushing waves. Hot, baking, clear air and salty mists thrown up into the air. The earth representing safety – the sea the danger and the unknown. I saw how the Earth contains and embraces the ocean – gives it a shape to express itself within. The sea of potential would overwhelm and swallow all of life if not restrained by the Earth’s integrity – the innate knowing of earth that life can only be maintained if resources are given in fairness to each without overwhelming the whole.
Tired from swimming and being in a full sun, we walked back to the first beach – the tide pool and sat under the shade of a tree. The pool was now more still, more murky – some new water had come in over the lava wall and started stirring up and cooling off the warm still waters. Now no longer in stillness, you couldn’t see to the bottom of the pool – now it was obscured by ripples.
I see now how all of nature requires stillness in order to see clearly. If the mind is a sea of possibility, we need stillness to see the depths of our thoughts, our innate knowing - our wisdom. The mind is like a roiling ocean, and even if one trains it to be a reflecting pool, even the ripples can obscure our ability to see ourselves and our minds clearly. As a culture we spend so little time just sitting and observing life that we never obtain its profound wisdom. Many cultures have a practice of meditation – a practice that we in the west have idealized and made into various forms of fetishes that plaster today’s advertising, popular culture, popular Buddhism, and popular Zen. In the west, these have become hobbies. Everywhere else in the world the exist in one form or another as integral parts of life. In Italy you can find the old men and women of their small village walk out of their houses with a small stool, their walking cane, and sit on the side of the town square – watching the world flow by.
When this pool sits still and calm, its shallow depths are revealed to all who come to survey it. Hence it is known to be completely safe and devoid of sea urchins or other things that small children could step on. Kids and their parents enjoy this pool together as all can play and cool off before returning to the shade. Perhaps we roil our brains with thoughts and always keep ourselves in motion in order to not reveal how shallow we really are, or perhaps to prevent ourselves from feeling the fear of how deep and dark our thoughts can really go.
While my friend surveys the underwater world through her goggles, I survey the above water world. She looks at what’s hidden just beneath, and I try to look for what’s hidden in plain sight. We each see different things from our vantage points and we can never know the other’s experience of stillness.
In my stillness I realize that I’m tired of being at the beach, getting fried by the sun, and that my mood is turning quite ornery. Cooked, over-heated, and sun-burnt (due to my lack of attention). Whereas my friend Nirlepa is warmed, made more compassionate, and fluid by the sun – the fire controlling her metal. Me, I’m overheated by it. Normally regardless of whether I have sunscreen or not, I get done with the beach very quickly.
My enjoyment and contemplation changed into feelings of agitation and bitterness. Too much fun and frivolity - everyone enjoying themselves, drinking, taking pictures of eachother, laughing, frolicking in the water, and I can’t stand looking at them anymore! I need shade, cold, ice and water. Right now I know that I would reject heat in the form of a smile, a joke or embrace and any conversation – I can’t be bothered with engaging anymore – its too uncomfortable, too hot, and clammy. Too much pleasure can leave you burnt.
Nirlepa and I left the beach soon after. I bathed my already bright red skin in her SPF85, and I wore an extra shirt around my head like a scarf to protect my head, neck and shoulders and we proceeded to hike back to the car. Soon after clearing the beaches and the rocky coves to the north we started on the path up the lava road to the car. The high noon sun had baked the hot lava rock into a frenzy of radiant heat. You could see the waves of radiation rising off the road creating perversions and illusions of reality. It’s interesting how when things become too hot, we lose our clarity and ability to distinguish what’s real from what’s fiction. These illusions of fantasy can get us excited by their sparkling beauty but can give us false pictures of reality. When our relationships get too hot and steamy, we can become caught in the illusion of the mind – the illusion of the mate – as they disappear and a fantasy of why they are for us replaces who they really are.
We had neglected to realize that the baked lava road would be too hot for poor Blondie to walk on, and very soon we saw her hopping on it like she was walking on hot coals. Quickly she’s lay down to lick her feet every few paces. Within 20 yards she lay under a tree and refused to move. Our thoughts racing like water to come up with a solution tried to contemplate how we were going to get this exhausted dog up the mile long lava road and back to the car. We tried to hobble her along a bit at a time. After 20 minutes of trying that and getting no more than 100 yard progress we decided that we’d try to carry this 60 lb dog. That didn’t last for more than 20 yards when we both realized that we were both too exhausted and now also being cooked by the hot lava. Nirlepa handed me her car keys and told me to try and drive her Subaru down this road as far as I could and then we could try again, or try to carry Blondie in a tarp she had in the back of the car. I agreed and headed off. Pushing myself harder and faster to hike the mile back to the road while feeling the uncomfortableness of the sunburn beginning to set in under my makeshift parka, I made it back to her car. I drove it carefully back down the way having to constantly get out of the car and make visual calculations for which way would be the safest for the car without getting it stuck. Finally I reached a spot where it was obvious I couldn’t take the car further. Luckily it was not that far from where I had left Nirlepa and Blondie.
We talked Blondie back to the car, making her get up when she’d lay down and finally got her inside. Nirlepa then drove back up the road and a ¼ mile from the end we got all four wheels stuck and unable to push or pull the car. Frazzled, we both tried to determine who we could call to get the car towed and how much water we had left in the car for ourselves and Blondie. Luckily a truck was coming up behind us and stopped to help. After inspecting the situation he said that there’s nothing we can do unless we had a jack. Exhausted and no longer able to come up with clever solutions ourselves, we were so glad to see someone who had the mental resources left to help us. We jacked the car up and built a road of rocks underneath one of the tires and after lowering the car, we successfully were able to drive out. Relieved, we thanked the man for his help and were finally on the highway home.
I spent the next 3 days unable to sleep properly while constantly dousing my skin with aloe. Alas, another lesson learned the hard way, until I forget it again next year.
The terrain was treacherous, filled with discarded branches of thorny keawe (keh-ah-veh) tree/shrubs that provided the only evidence of life along this barren landscape. Here the plant life fights for every drop of water to the degree that it must put up barbed wire on itself to prevent anyone else from stealing the resources it has accumulated. When we starve, we accumulate and guard what we have. The competition for resources becomes such that we begin to fear our neighbors causing us to put up these defenses. We do this by becoming austere, standoffish, spiky, antagonistic – don’t get near me! We can see this in people who feel vulnerable enough to where then create this kind of imposing demeanor.
As we walked we saw the landscape change very little until we got nearer the coast. We saw clear azure pools of water as well as swampy bogs some 200 years from the water’s edge. The sweet water from the underground streams accumulates in these ponds and creates opportunity for the keawe to grow tall as well as a few other varieties of plants such as palm trees, shrubs and bananas to occupy the area – a veritable oasis – a place to replenish, a place to rest, a place to regroup. Grasses, mosses, and all sorts of bog creatures set up families in this little oasis as the rugged landscape is transformed into a lush little micro-climate. People who have near-infinite resources, skills, abilities and contacts like this can become an oasis for others. There are few people like this in the world who don’t hoard, guard, and fear their resources being depleted but who dispense them willingly. For most where the resource is money, they will guard it with barbed wise. Others who’s resource is spiritual tend to share it with complete availability.
I can name one woman whom I recently met in Kona who’s an oasis for others. Her name is Gwen and she is a minister to a local church and spiritual community. The blue/black hue shines around her temples, and her cool, voice reminiscent of a deep and droning Amazonian chant. She wears a gold ring embellished with a large blue and green stone, and she wears a white blue and green mumu. Her laugher is like the peel of crystal bells in an ice cave, and her demeanor is cooling, calming, and refreshing. She is a psychologist by profession and a minister who lives within a spiritual community dedicated to meditation and living out the precepts of their master. Wisdom is her resource. Words flow from her like a fresh spring of cool water, and she waters the parched spirits, minds, and hearts of those who are blessed to be in contact with her deep and clear pool of wisdom.
Walking down past the rocky lava beaches we finally reached the first cove of the 4-cove Makalawena beach. These four beach coves are the most treasured and remote of the beaches on the whole island. Their unspoilt and untouched nature gives their diversity a true magic. Each cove has different set of qualities – each with a different set of people who converge upon it.
The first cove is a shallow 100 yard tide pool on the shores of a white crescent of sand, wrapped by trees which bring the white sand some shade. 40 yards into the water, the tide pool is sheltered from the waves by a natural lava wall. Only at high tide do the waves manage to brim over the lava wall to refresh the pool with new waters. As the waves brim over the edge they perturb the mirrored surface with small ripples that radiate throughout the pool. Otherwise the pool stands clear, motionless, and crystalline. Two families are camped on the southern shore of this tide pool. Their children safely play in the foot and a half of water and observe baby fish that swim in this aquatic nursery. The parents set up tents and hammocks between the trees that border the water and nap the day away.
There’s a single house built 40 years inland from this crescent. This is no man’s land, and one family claiming Hawaiian lands ownership of this spot has built a make shift house off the grid, and relax on their porch surrounded by their two cats and a dozen or so chickens.
The second cove is a small 50 yard crescent cove with mostly lava entry and some yellow sand. The waves crash against its borders giving it a foreboding water entry and a narrow view which detracts people from frequenting it.
The third cove is a 500 yards long and with 100 yards of pure white sand. The cove has beautiful sandy entry in pristine and unspoilt azure blue waters. This is the main beach where the people who have braved the lava have come to spend their day (about 25 people in all). The sand is blinding white, and the water blinding blue. The waves roil and clash on the southern shore while the entry to the north allows people to gently wade. Near the tree line people set up barbecues and umbrellas and share family time together while the kids and adults play in the waters. This beach is so welcoming, open, clear, exposed and refreshing.
The fourth cove is of equal size and depth to the third, but its waters are teaming with rocks that protrude out of the ocean like a half-buried and scattered Stonehenge. The entry is treacherous and only the occasional person may stroll this beach, but no one stays to sunbathe or play in the water. The feel of this beach is eerie, foreboding, lonely, and scary. Its peaceful beauty and tranquility gives it a feel as though the beach is meditating upon itself and notes the passage of time without human or animal interruption. I feel like this beach is representative of my mind – full of sharp rocks half-submerged which represent issues half buried in the unknown, half revealed in the sun – and the sea of thoughts roiling and churning around them. I feel enchanted by this beach – the mix of known and unknown danger.
We played with the dog, throwing sticks into the waves and watching her retrieve them. Blondie was so excited with the play that she wouldn’t stop playing all day. We were afraid of her being exhausted and unable to return up the path to the car when we were done.
As I walked I became present to the drone and hum of constantly crushing waves. Hot, baking, clear air and salty mists thrown up into the air. The earth representing safety – the sea the danger and the unknown. I saw how the Earth contains and embraces the ocean – gives it a shape to express itself within. The sea of potential would overwhelm and swallow all of life if not restrained by the Earth’s integrity – the innate knowing of earth that life can only be maintained if resources are given in fairness to each without overwhelming the whole.
Tired from swimming and being in a full sun, we walked back to the first beach – the tide pool and sat under the shade of a tree. The pool was now more still, more murky – some new water had come in over the lava wall and started stirring up and cooling off the warm still waters. Now no longer in stillness, you couldn’t see to the bottom of the pool – now it was obscured by ripples.
I see now how all of nature requires stillness in order to see clearly. If the mind is a sea of possibility, we need stillness to see the depths of our thoughts, our innate knowing - our wisdom. The mind is like a roiling ocean, and even if one trains it to be a reflecting pool, even the ripples can obscure our ability to see ourselves and our minds clearly. As a culture we spend so little time just sitting and observing life that we never obtain its profound wisdom. Many cultures have a practice of meditation – a practice that we in the west have idealized and made into various forms of fetishes that plaster today’s advertising, popular culture, popular Buddhism, and popular Zen. In the west, these have become hobbies. Everywhere else in the world the exist in one form or another as integral parts of life. In Italy you can find the old men and women of their small village walk out of their houses with a small stool, their walking cane, and sit on the side of the town square – watching the world flow by.
When this pool sits still and calm, its shallow depths are revealed to all who come to survey it. Hence it is known to be completely safe and devoid of sea urchins or other things that small children could step on. Kids and their parents enjoy this pool together as all can play and cool off before returning to the shade. Perhaps we roil our brains with thoughts and always keep ourselves in motion in order to not reveal how shallow we really are, or perhaps to prevent ourselves from feeling the fear of how deep and dark our thoughts can really go.
While my friend surveys the underwater world through her goggles, I survey the above water world. She looks at what’s hidden just beneath, and I try to look for what’s hidden in plain sight. We each see different things from our vantage points and we can never know the other’s experience of stillness.
In my stillness I realize that I’m tired of being at the beach, getting fried by the sun, and that my mood is turning quite ornery. Cooked, over-heated, and sun-burnt (due to my lack of attention). Whereas my friend Nirlepa is warmed, made more compassionate, and fluid by the sun – the fire controlling her metal. Me, I’m overheated by it. Normally regardless of whether I have sunscreen or not, I get done with the beach very quickly.
My enjoyment and contemplation changed into feelings of agitation and bitterness. Too much fun and frivolity - everyone enjoying themselves, drinking, taking pictures of eachother, laughing, frolicking in the water, and I can’t stand looking at them anymore! I need shade, cold, ice and water. Right now I know that I would reject heat in the form of a smile, a joke or embrace and any conversation – I can’t be bothered with engaging anymore – its too uncomfortable, too hot, and clammy. Too much pleasure can leave you burnt.
Nirlepa and I left the beach soon after. I bathed my already bright red skin in her SPF85, and I wore an extra shirt around my head like a scarf to protect my head, neck and shoulders and we proceeded to hike back to the car. Soon after clearing the beaches and the rocky coves to the north we started on the path up the lava road to the car. The high noon sun had baked the hot lava rock into a frenzy of radiant heat. You could see the waves of radiation rising off the road creating perversions and illusions of reality. It’s interesting how when things become too hot, we lose our clarity and ability to distinguish what’s real from what’s fiction. These illusions of fantasy can get us excited by their sparkling beauty but can give us false pictures of reality. When our relationships get too hot and steamy, we can become caught in the illusion of the mind – the illusion of the mate – as they disappear and a fantasy of why they are for us replaces who they really are.
We had neglected to realize that the baked lava road would be too hot for poor Blondie to walk on, and very soon we saw her hopping on it like she was walking on hot coals. Quickly she’s lay down to lick her feet every few paces. Within 20 yards she lay under a tree and refused to move. Our thoughts racing like water to come up with a solution tried to contemplate how we were going to get this exhausted dog up the mile long lava road and back to the car. We tried to hobble her along a bit at a time. After 20 minutes of trying that and getting no more than 100 yard progress we decided that we’d try to carry this 60 lb dog. That didn’t last for more than 20 yards when we both realized that we were both too exhausted and now also being cooked by the hot lava. Nirlepa handed me her car keys and told me to try and drive her Subaru down this road as far as I could and then we could try again, or try to carry Blondie in a tarp she had in the back of the car. I agreed and headed off. Pushing myself harder and faster to hike the mile back to the road while feeling the uncomfortableness of the sunburn beginning to set in under my makeshift parka, I made it back to her car. I drove it carefully back down the way having to constantly get out of the car and make visual calculations for which way would be the safest for the car without getting it stuck. Finally I reached a spot where it was obvious I couldn’t take the car further. Luckily it was not that far from where I had left Nirlepa and Blondie.
We talked Blondie back to the car, making her get up when she’d lay down and finally got her inside. Nirlepa then drove back up the road and a ¼ mile from the end we got all four wheels stuck and unable to push or pull the car. Frazzled, we both tried to determine who we could call to get the car towed and how much water we had left in the car for ourselves and Blondie. Luckily a truck was coming up behind us and stopped to help. After inspecting the situation he said that there’s nothing we can do unless we had a jack. Exhausted and no longer able to come up with clever solutions ourselves, we were so glad to see someone who had the mental resources left to help us. We jacked the car up and built a road of rocks underneath one of the tires and after lowering the car, we successfully were able to drive out. Relieved, we thanked the man for his help and were finally on the highway home.
I spent the next 3 days unable to sleep properly while constantly dousing my skin with aloe. Alas, another lesson learned the hard way, until I forget it again next year.
6/18/2010 – Walking through the Wondrous Wonderland
All the deliciousness of wonderland lake and the blue flowers and butterflies zooming around has me totally enchanted. Its full summer here. All the grains are hanging in preparation for maturity before they start ripening. The dandelions are completing their growth spurt, finishing their seed, and are ready to be carried away. Flowers everywhere – splendidness, opulence, and yumminess. Oh how dull the world would be without all of this wonder.
Its 4:30pm, the sun is on the hotter side of warm, the air slightly muggy, filled with sparkles of light floral scents. Grasshoppers are buzzing and birds are singing gorgeous songs. The sounds are cheery, playful and fully awake.
All is community, community protection, community wellbeing, work and play. The smells are light and grassy. Sweet flowers are scented with in the highest notes - floating in the breeze, expanding in the warmth of olfactory crispiness. Grasshoppers move from my path as I walk, and the bees circulate everywhere - in full communication with their neighbors as well as the plants. All of nature is about communication right now. Prairie dogs are popping up their head out of the holes in the ground, hanging out, basking in the sun and chitchatting with their neighbors.
The father of Japanese Acupuncture, Sensei Sawada Ken said “Disease is not a special condition, it is merely a condition of blood circulation out of balance. The purpose of treatment is to improve circulation of blood which nourishes the body” recorded by Shiroto Bunshi, Essence of Acupuncture & Moxibustion, 1978, p20.
This makes me think of circulation as communication. When life is flowing and all is circulating, it is in full communication with the whole. No part of nature is out of touch with another, isolated and left to stagnate. What part of ourselves have we dissociated from? What have we disowned and are not in conversation with? Here in the Garden of Eden called Wonderland Lake, nature is in full communication and no one is disenfranchised.
Now the fields and meadows are dry again, ablaze with various greens and golds, reds, purples, and violets, but not that long ago the thunderstorms ravaged through this place. It was as if there was a quick alternation from yang to yin, and yin to yang again. Thunder is an expression of Fire within the Water element raining brimstone upon the land with its foreboding fiery lightning and hail.
Thunder and Lightning is like water that has to assert itself with a grand expression – rather than more muted expression of light rain and drizzle, or the ever-present water of winter that is calm and still. Yet there is nothing quite like the thunderstorms of summer. Not too long ago the waters had dried up and as the plants start to thirst and petition the skies, the gods sent the water element to control the fire in its exuberant display.
What that reflects about human beings is that we must always temper our expression of opulence, lest we burn out. We must have water to balance the fire and to calm it down in the language the fire element will understand - a dramatic display of “You do not have the resources to continue doing what you’re doing! – BAM! Thunder clap! Let me knock you down a little bit, let me cool you off. Let me reset some of your over exuberance lest you kill all of your adoring fans”.
The flowers here are very sexual. One particular flower here expended its midsection, thrusting it up and up! Wanting to copulate with the sun and the bees itself. And as its petals fold down, exposing its center at maximum, it presents itself - unabashedly rompful!
Smell of grasses, smell of wheat, wheat mixed with strawberries – kind of sharp, light, warm – cereal-bar like envelop my nose.
The gorgeous bird I saw earlier is still singing his song, and sitting on the same fence post as he sat on for the past half an hour. He’s looking around and singing in praise of the day, preening and weaving his odes to how glorious it is to be alive today. Its what all life is ultimately about.
Some people say that all this racket of noises, squawks, squeals, tweets, and composition of animals and the glorious blooms and expositions of flowers exist only purpose of attracting a mate for continued reproduction. But isn’t it the very fact that if we do the very thing that is authentic to us and are brimming over with joy for life that we are the most attractive in the first place? We don’t do it in order to get a mate, we do it because it is our authentic self-expression that says this is how I’m celebration being alive and then others may remark – wow, look at that... that's a person who’s being true to themselves – I’m attracted to that – to the lack of pretence, the lack of timidity, the presence of self-value, self-esteem, the presence of love, lack of trying to be somebody else, but truly being uniquely themselves. How more beautiful can they be?
Herein lies the secret of the Fire element and of plants expressing their bloom. If we were lonely we’d be putting on a show for everybody else to make them like us, to woo them, to convince them, manipulate them into loving us, liking us. And so we’d be exhausted from all this effort, but the plants and animals do this effortlessly because it’s just their authentic way of being. So, when you do it for no reason than to please yourself, to do it for your own good, rather then needing to do it for the good of another, then that self-expression becomes what’s attractive and what brings people to you de facto. Therefore, to they own self be true.
I read somewhere that the meaning of the word ‘true’ in the sentence “to thine own self be true” is to be loyal to oneself. What does it mean to be loyal to yourself? Perhaps its to not let yourself down, but be authentically who you would want to be.
Nature is loyal to itself and all of its constituents. The plants express their own nature, and not the nature of another. The animals express who they are and do not try to become anyone else to please others.
Its 4:30pm, the sun is on the hotter side of warm, the air slightly muggy, filled with sparkles of light floral scents. Grasshoppers are buzzing and birds are singing gorgeous songs. The sounds are cheery, playful and fully awake.
All is community, community protection, community wellbeing, work and play. The smells are light and grassy. Sweet flowers are scented with in the highest notes - floating in the breeze, expanding in the warmth of olfactory crispiness. Grasshoppers move from my path as I walk, and the bees circulate everywhere - in full communication with their neighbors as well as the plants. All of nature is about communication right now. Prairie dogs are popping up their head out of the holes in the ground, hanging out, basking in the sun and chitchatting with their neighbors.
The father of Japanese Acupuncture, Sensei Sawada Ken said “Disease is not a special condition, it is merely a condition of blood circulation out of balance. The purpose of treatment is to improve circulation of blood which nourishes the body” recorded by Shiroto Bunshi, Essence of Acupuncture & Moxibustion, 1978, p20.
This makes me think of circulation as communication. When life is flowing and all is circulating, it is in full communication with the whole. No part of nature is out of touch with another, isolated and left to stagnate. What part of ourselves have we dissociated from? What have we disowned and are not in conversation with? Here in the Garden of Eden called Wonderland Lake, nature is in full communication and no one is disenfranchised.
Now the fields and meadows are dry again, ablaze with various greens and golds, reds, purples, and violets, but not that long ago the thunderstorms ravaged through this place. It was as if there was a quick alternation from yang to yin, and yin to yang again. Thunder is an expression of Fire within the Water element raining brimstone upon the land with its foreboding fiery lightning and hail.
Thunder and Lightning is like water that has to assert itself with a grand expression – rather than more muted expression of light rain and drizzle, or the ever-present water of winter that is calm and still. Yet there is nothing quite like the thunderstorms of summer. Not too long ago the waters had dried up and as the plants start to thirst and petition the skies, the gods sent the water element to control the fire in its exuberant display.
What that reflects about human beings is that we must always temper our expression of opulence, lest we burn out. We must have water to balance the fire and to calm it down in the language the fire element will understand - a dramatic display of “You do not have the resources to continue doing what you’re doing! – BAM! Thunder clap! Let me knock you down a little bit, let me cool you off. Let me reset some of your over exuberance lest you kill all of your adoring fans”.
The flowers here are very sexual. One particular flower here expended its midsection, thrusting it up and up! Wanting to copulate with the sun and the bees itself. And as its petals fold down, exposing its center at maximum, it presents itself - unabashedly rompful!
Smell of grasses, smell of wheat, wheat mixed with strawberries – kind of sharp, light, warm – cereal-bar like envelop my nose.
The gorgeous bird I saw earlier is still singing his song, and sitting on the same fence post as he sat on for the past half an hour. He’s looking around and singing in praise of the day, preening and weaving his odes to how glorious it is to be alive today. Its what all life is ultimately about.
Some people say that all this racket of noises, squawks, squeals, tweets, and composition of animals and the glorious blooms and expositions of flowers exist only purpose of attracting a mate for continued reproduction. But isn’t it the very fact that if we do the very thing that is authentic to us and are brimming over with joy for life that we are the most attractive in the first place? We don’t do it in order to get a mate, we do it because it is our authentic self-expression that says this is how I’m celebration being alive and then others may remark – wow, look at that... that's a person who’s being true to themselves – I’m attracted to that – to the lack of pretence, the lack of timidity, the presence of self-value, self-esteem, the presence of love, lack of trying to be somebody else, but truly being uniquely themselves. How more beautiful can they be?
Herein lies the secret of the Fire element and of plants expressing their bloom. If we were lonely we’d be putting on a show for everybody else to make them like us, to woo them, to convince them, manipulate them into loving us, liking us. And so we’d be exhausted from all this effort, but the plants and animals do this effortlessly because it’s just their authentic way of being. So, when you do it for no reason than to please yourself, to do it for your own good, rather then needing to do it for the good of another, then that self-expression becomes what’s attractive and what brings people to you de facto. Therefore, to they own self be true.
I read somewhere that the meaning of the word ‘true’ in the sentence “to thine own self be true” is to be loyal to oneself. What does it mean to be loyal to yourself? Perhaps its to not let yourself down, but be authentically who you would want to be.
Nature is loyal to itself and all of its constituents. The plants express their own nature, and not the nature of another. The animals express who they are and do not try to become anyone else to please others.
5/22/2010 – Fluttering Mobile Possibilities
It's a late spring morning in Boulder. Its 8:00am, the temperature is pleasantly warm and dry. I’m driving into town. The wind is blowing. Millions of tufts of fluffy cottonwood seeds are being carried on the warm breezes. Instead of a rain of resources, it's a rain of change and possibility. A snow made of pure seeds scatted by the wind. They float at the whimsy of the wind, in a frenzied direction – being swept this way and that. The wind, as if indecisive in evaluating the final destination for its precious gift, is juggling the tufts in playful cartwheels.
The relationship between the wind – the change generator – and the planner and decider is a marriage of mutual interdependence. It’s as if the wind has a directionality and the seeds have the purpose – we need to pollinate the world with ideas, we need the ideas to do things. For ideas to sprout, they must land in fertile soil – into the hearts, minds, and circumstances of people who will help them to flourish. Its for this purpose that the ideas have many copies, and the wind takes them everywhere – for the wind knows that not destinations will be fertile. In the same way, when we wish to spread ideas we have the opportunity to recognize and not be frustrated by the fact that not everyone is ready for our ideas, and their hearts and minds may not be fertile enough for them at a given time.
As I write about this I’m sitting at a café and encountered a strange synchronicity. A game of soccer is playing on TV to the café’s background music which happens to be a strangely fast Eastern European gypsy jig played on accordion. The music evokes the same chaotic playfulness as today’s wind and coupled with the flashing images of the soccer ball being tossed around from player to player – each trying to claim it for themselves in order to propel it in a particular direction - the audio-visual spectacle is entirely comical. The ball is the seed (the plan to win the game of putting it in a destination) and the players are the wind (the motive force behind getting it there), each team arguing amongst themselves, outwitting each other, calculating and stealing the seed in pursuit of their team’s direction. In the larger sense – does it matter which goal the ball goes into? It only matters that it does!
Without a destination, there would be no point of the ball. Without the ball, there would be no point in movement for it own sake either. The player, and the ball. The wind and the seed. The Gallbladder (wind) and the Liver (seed) – each depend on the other. Without one, there is no purpose for the other - the game of “Its better over there than it is over here”.
The pedestrians amidst this chaotic meandering of fluttering mobile possibilities are frustrated and shield their faces while marching in their own previously declared directions - trying to dodge, duck and maneuver through the chaos of fluffy obstacles without becoming caught in the wind’s melee. The people in their cars are enchanted by the vision as if in a spell cast upon them by the Liver Spirit – a dream like trance of fleeting far away images of possibility. Their driving is careful, partly focused, mesmerized and trapped in visions of far away places projected onto the fluff balls passing before their window shields.
We need the plan to have a reason to live - to have a motive behind anything we do. What is action without motive? Is it not chaos? What is motive without action if not despair?
Without that plan, what purpose is there to any activity, to any change we make in the vast universe through our decisions and actions? Without the ball to toss around towards a goal, we would despair of any action we would take. Likewise, if we had a plan but found ourselves without the motivation – the hope would either change into resignation or despair. The very motivate energy of yin and yang would stop interchanging.
The players would stop in the field and look around at each other, and then all would look at the ball in the center of the court – unable to determine how change in the ball’s situation could be accomplished. The gipsy jig would be silenced.
If people have plenty of movement in their sails, but no plan to move by, or to move for – they would exhaust themselves and never generate results. The pedestrians would be caught in pirouettes of wind and would all dance aimlessly into the streets. What a delightful sight that would be – to join the creative dance – each landing in whole new destination after the wind’s subsidence to find themselves with a whole perspective – their own small plans and games given over to the gods.
Alternative those who invent idea and plan one after another without the movement in their sails to pollinate and generate the ideas into the world would end up with a pile of ideas, while manifesting none of them. Both would result in purposelessness and lack of fulfillment.
As all change and movement grinds to a halt, stagnation is the inevitable result. Without this movement in life, it would mean death of life itself.
But where does motivation come from? Where does wind come from? We say that winds come from a direction – a place where they were – and are on their way to a destination – a place they are going. But why do they move at all? What creates the movement? Why move?
Do they run away from something, or go towards something? Do we make decisions and choices as motivated by fear, or as motivated by inspiration? Motivated by something other than pain, or motivated by something more compelling than everything we’ve been able to accomplish so far?
As an aside, it dawns on me that the while the mother element makes the next element possible (resources make planning a compelling vision possible), it's the inspiration of the grandmother element Metal element that gives Wood the imperative to live by. In the same way it seems that the grandparent element informs each grandchild element rules to live by. Metal gives Wood the imperative to manifest ideas which are inspired. Wood gives Earth the imperative to nourish through taking integritous action (empower self-sufficiency in others, and align your desires with action). Fire gives Metal the imperative to create righteousness in the world with compassion. The Earth element gives Water the imperative to expend resources and talents with the wellbeing of all in mind. The Water element gives Fire the imperative to love with wisdom. This topic alone could be one for much further study.
In terms of motivation – fear, or inspiration - what’s the difference? Isn’t the motivation always “Its better over there than it is over here” regardless of whether we’re motivated by the past or the future? So perhaps motivation is in and of itself unemotional, detached, and a servant of the plan.
What motivates us? Desire, or fear? To quote from a website (http://ezinearticles.com/?What-Motivates-You---Desire-or-Fear?&id=33086):
“Fear motivation aims to protect us and focuses on avoiding penalties for failure. It leads to feelings of inhibition (I can't) or compulsion ("I have to."). Desire motivation seeks rewards for success. It leads to volition (e.g., "I can.") and propulsion (e.g., "I want to.")”
Fear is being pulled back into the Water element, so that Wood never fully manifests, whereas Desire is being pushed and compelled forward into Wood which eventually dissolves into and creates Fire – the element of desire, and of the shen itself.
The difference then is hope, and desire to manifest that hope as comes from the idea, the plan, the Liver Spirit, the soccer ball.
Conversely, why do we find ourselves so often in states where we have no motivation at all? We may have lots of plans, but simply cannot initiate any action. The fluff hangs on the branches or all around at the base of the tree – waiting for the wind to sweep it to its destiny – yet the wind never comes.
A soccer ball wants to be kicked by its nature. You give one person a ball, and they will be raptured by it, unable to stop themselves from kicking, throwing, or bouncing it. Give it to another person and they will find it completely uncompelling.
Perhaps its because those who are unmotivated have a lack of desire (no generation of fire), or lack of inspiration (no motivation by Metal).
As for the gods – they must find the plans of the tuffs of dogwood so compelling that they cannot help but call the winds of manifestation to guide them to their destiny.
The relationship between the wind – the change generator – and the planner and decider is a marriage of mutual interdependence. It’s as if the wind has a directionality and the seeds have the purpose – we need to pollinate the world with ideas, we need the ideas to do things. For ideas to sprout, they must land in fertile soil – into the hearts, minds, and circumstances of people who will help them to flourish. Its for this purpose that the ideas have many copies, and the wind takes them everywhere – for the wind knows that not destinations will be fertile. In the same way, when we wish to spread ideas we have the opportunity to recognize and not be frustrated by the fact that not everyone is ready for our ideas, and their hearts and minds may not be fertile enough for them at a given time.
As I write about this I’m sitting at a café and encountered a strange synchronicity. A game of soccer is playing on TV to the café’s background music which happens to be a strangely fast Eastern European gypsy jig played on accordion. The music evokes the same chaotic playfulness as today’s wind and coupled with the flashing images of the soccer ball being tossed around from player to player – each trying to claim it for themselves in order to propel it in a particular direction - the audio-visual spectacle is entirely comical. The ball is the seed (the plan to win the game of putting it in a destination) and the players are the wind (the motive force behind getting it there), each team arguing amongst themselves, outwitting each other, calculating and stealing the seed in pursuit of their team’s direction. In the larger sense – does it matter which goal the ball goes into? It only matters that it does!
Without a destination, there would be no point of the ball. Without the ball, there would be no point in movement for it own sake either. The player, and the ball. The wind and the seed. The Gallbladder (wind) and the Liver (seed) – each depend on the other. Without one, there is no purpose for the other - the game of “Its better over there than it is over here”.
The pedestrians amidst this chaotic meandering of fluttering mobile possibilities are frustrated and shield their faces while marching in their own previously declared directions - trying to dodge, duck and maneuver through the chaos of fluffy obstacles without becoming caught in the wind’s melee. The people in their cars are enchanted by the vision as if in a spell cast upon them by the Liver Spirit – a dream like trance of fleeting far away images of possibility. Their driving is careful, partly focused, mesmerized and trapped in visions of far away places projected onto the fluff balls passing before their window shields.
We need the plan to have a reason to live - to have a motive behind anything we do. What is action without motive? Is it not chaos? What is motive without action if not despair?
Without that plan, what purpose is there to any activity, to any change we make in the vast universe through our decisions and actions? Without the ball to toss around towards a goal, we would despair of any action we would take. Likewise, if we had a plan but found ourselves without the motivation – the hope would either change into resignation or despair. The very motivate energy of yin and yang would stop interchanging.
The players would stop in the field and look around at each other, and then all would look at the ball in the center of the court – unable to determine how change in the ball’s situation could be accomplished. The gipsy jig would be silenced.
If people have plenty of movement in their sails, but no plan to move by, or to move for – they would exhaust themselves and never generate results. The pedestrians would be caught in pirouettes of wind and would all dance aimlessly into the streets. What a delightful sight that would be – to join the creative dance – each landing in whole new destination after the wind’s subsidence to find themselves with a whole perspective – their own small plans and games given over to the gods.
Alternative those who invent idea and plan one after another without the movement in their sails to pollinate and generate the ideas into the world would end up with a pile of ideas, while manifesting none of them. Both would result in purposelessness and lack of fulfillment.
As all change and movement grinds to a halt, stagnation is the inevitable result. Without this movement in life, it would mean death of life itself.
But where does motivation come from? Where does wind come from? We say that winds come from a direction – a place where they were – and are on their way to a destination – a place they are going. But why do they move at all? What creates the movement? Why move?
Do they run away from something, or go towards something? Do we make decisions and choices as motivated by fear, or as motivated by inspiration? Motivated by something other than pain, or motivated by something more compelling than everything we’ve been able to accomplish so far?
As an aside, it dawns on me that the while the mother element makes the next element possible (resources make planning a compelling vision possible), it's the inspiration of the grandmother element Metal element that gives Wood the imperative to live by. In the same way it seems that the grandparent element informs each grandchild element rules to live by. Metal gives Wood the imperative to manifest ideas which are inspired. Wood gives Earth the imperative to nourish through taking integritous action (empower self-sufficiency in others, and align your desires with action). Fire gives Metal the imperative to create righteousness in the world with compassion. The Earth element gives Water the imperative to expend resources and talents with the wellbeing of all in mind. The Water element gives Fire the imperative to love with wisdom. This topic alone could be one for much further study.
In terms of motivation – fear, or inspiration - what’s the difference? Isn’t the motivation always “Its better over there than it is over here” regardless of whether we’re motivated by the past or the future? So perhaps motivation is in and of itself unemotional, detached, and a servant of the plan.
What motivates us? Desire, or fear? To quote from a website (http://ezinearticles.com/?What-Motivates-You---Desire-or-Fear?&id=33086):
“Fear motivation aims to protect us and focuses on avoiding penalties for failure. It leads to feelings of inhibition (I can't) or compulsion ("I have to."). Desire motivation seeks rewards for success. It leads to volition (e.g., "I can.") and propulsion (e.g., "I want to.")”
Fear is being pulled back into the Water element, so that Wood never fully manifests, whereas Desire is being pushed and compelled forward into Wood which eventually dissolves into and creates Fire – the element of desire, and of the shen itself.
The difference then is hope, and desire to manifest that hope as comes from the idea, the plan, the Liver Spirit, the soccer ball.
Conversely, why do we find ourselves so often in states where we have no motivation at all? We may have lots of plans, but simply cannot initiate any action. The fluff hangs on the branches or all around at the base of the tree – waiting for the wind to sweep it to its destiny – yet the wind never comes.
A soccer ball wants to be kicked by its nature. You give one person a ball, and they will be raptured by it, unable to stop themselves from kicking, throwing, or bouncing it. Give it to another person and they will find it completely uncompelling.
Perhaps its because those who are unmotivated have a lack of desire (no generation of fire), or lack of inspiration (no motivation by Metal).
As for the gods – they must find the plans of the tuffs of dogwood so compelling that they cannot help but call the winds of manifestation to guide them to their destiny.
5/14/2010 – The River
I stood on a bridge over Boulder Creek and observed the flow of the river. It was 2pm in the afternoon and the air was still crisp at this time of year – the color of vanilla meringue cake but without the warmth. The snows still lingered in the shadows, while the paths and plants glistened with the leftovers from morning dew and the melted snow. The snow melt had accelerated and engorged the river’s flow, and it rushed down towards Boulder with the vigor of the coming spring which has unlocked its waters from slumber.
As I stood on the bridge observing the flow, it felt less natural for me to be looking into the waters below and seeing them coming at me than to look over the side of its downward flow.
How more natural it is for things to pour out of us than to pour in. Money, energy, ideas, emotions, words. How much harder it seems to be filled with things and to hold onto them. Perhaps we are not made to hold onto anything, but like the river simply flow and give ourselves away until we are spent. This seems to particularly appropriate to spring and the generation of new ideas and expenditure of stored resources to accomplish new goals.
The runners, who through the winter months were contained to more indoor, or more hardcore pursuits, were now out on the paths running in their new sports gear and wearing faces of determination. Exchanging a brief nod, short smile, or “hi” of acknowledgment as they passed me, their gaze returned to their destination. Now’s not the time to linger. Now’s the time to get going!
Perhaps one way of assessing the health of a person’s water element is by looking into what a person pours their life into and whether this leaves them exhausted or fulfilled. Are they reserved and held back fearing for not having enough, or do they live on a wing and a prayer, throwing all caution to the wind. Is their wood element aligned with the water’s possibilities and are plans and decisions being made in accordance with the water’s wisdom?
I pour my money into food, housing, books, schooling, and travel and I pour my energy into hiking, creative pursuits, and friendships. I’m not good at pouring energy into myself in any more of a direct way, or in holding onto resources as much as I think would be wise. All I do is I suppose is an investment in something – only I’m not sure whether all the payoffs will come, or stand the test of time.
Perhaps that is all we can do, to pour our Jing and Qi when the time is right with the wild abandon, but being aware to use this flow wisely as the season for wild abandon will soon require moderation by the coming of the element of Summer, the element of Fire.
As I stood on the bridge observing the flow, it felt less natural for me to be looking into the waters below and seeing them coming at me than to look over the side of its downward flow.
How more natural it is for things to pour out of us than to pour in. Money, energy, ideas, emotions, words. How much harder it seems to be filled with things and to hold onto them. Perhaps we are not made to hold onto anything, but like the river simply flow and give ourselves away until we are spent. This seems to particularly appropriate to spring and the generation of new ideas and expenditure of stored resources to accomplish new goals.
The runners, who through the winter months were contained to more indoor, or more hardcore pursuits, were now out on the paths running in their new sports gear and wearing faces of determination. Exchanging a brief nod, short smile, or “hi” of acknowledgment as they passed me, their gaze returned to their destination. Now’s not the time to linger. Now’s the time to get going!
Perhaps one way of assessing the health of a person’s water element is by looking into what a person pours their life into and whether this leaves them exhausted or fulfilled. Are they reserved and held back fearing for not having enough, or do they live on a wing and a prayer, throwing all caution to the wind. Is their wood element aligned with the water’s possibilities and are plans and decisions being made in accordance with the water’s wisdom?
I pour my money into food, housing, books, schooling, and travel and I pour my energy into hiking, creative pursuits, and friendships. I’m not good at pouring energy into myself in any more of a direct way, or in holding onto resources as much as I think would be wise. All I do is I suppose is an investment in something – only I’m not sure whether all the payoffs will come, or stand the test of time.
Perhaps that is all we can do, to pour our Jing and Qi when the time is right with the wild abandon, but being aware to use this flow wisely as the season for wild abandon will soon require moderation by the coming of the element of Summer, the element of Fire.
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