Author Archives

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No one can make music

All music is already made. Like Einstein’s matter, music is neither created nor destroyed.

So what do musicians do? Delude themselves, at worst. Act as resonating instruments at best.

My analogy is coffee. What does it mean to “make coffee ?” I mean, the coffee beans were already made, there on the tree. Of you pick them, are you making anything? Is roasting the beans the same a making coffee? And isn’t pouring hot water over the roasted and finely grind beans is still only boiling water and grinding beans.

But musicians think that coffee beans are not the same as coffee. Coffee is the beverage humans make, and that beverage is somehow part of a higher manifestation of the thing called coffee.

For years when I studied classical music, I was conscious of trying ever successfully to extract all the information from the composers notations. The written music can be compared to a literary author’a attempt to describe some reality using words. Of course we know that the reality did not happen using words. Words may not have even been a part of it, of the sunset, of the feeling of loneliness, etc. You could say that the written words of an author, even those great words of those great authors, are weak at best at being – not just representing – some moment.

So that’s the key – certain of “the arts” have been devoted to recording and representing. And those arts have gotten wound around themselves to the extent that the “material” – the spiritual substance from which we drink, to see, to play, to perform the story of our wonder – that material is longer recognized as the actual thing, but rather an inspiration for the real thing. Wow. Look at your navel.

When I improvise music , including when I make up vocal harmonies on the fly , in my minds eye, I see the harmonies, in mind’s ear, I hear them, and then I try to guide them into my body and then back out.

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what happens in the brain, stays in the brain

INTERVIEWER: …I don’t understand it: the grey room. “breaking through to the grey room”

BURROUGHS: I see that very much like the photographic darkroom where the reality photographs are actually produced. implicit in Nova Express is a theory that what we call reality is actually a movie. It’s a film, what I call a biologic film

-cf Interview with W.S. Burroughs, The Paris Review, 1965

For fifty years, I imagine most intellectuals have written this theory off as paranoiac delusions of a hunted heroin addict – the butt of a joke that contains “the thought police”.  Further, I doubt that many scientists have read Burroughs at all, even though Burroughs was far more a scientist than a writer, in my opinion.

Meanwhile, modern cognitive theory now completely accepts and promotes this theory: that the sensory organs merely collect sensory data and present these to “the brain”, which assembles and interprets the data into what you experience as reality. In other words, we now accept that there is a less direct connection between reality and what we experience of it, in our minds, that someone like Aristotle, and thousands of years of Western thought after him, thought.

I think that nowadays, with the advent of very advanced digital filming technology, made available to the Wal-mart shopper, it is just not so hard for the average Joe to believe that there as a very high-speed processing phase, in between the moment you perceive a moment  of reality, and the next moment when the “film” is ready to be played inside your head. It doesn’t seem so drug-induced a notion, because we have experienced machines that can do something similar.

We could have understood this long ago – it has been accepted for hundreds of years that they eye functions like a camera lens (okay, vice versa): the image is “captured” by the cones and rods in the retina, upside-down, and then righted, and projected onto the “mind’s eye.” People in the street with little education know this, and accept it. 

What interests Burroughs in all this is that stage in between, where the “processing” happens.  It’s a kind of limbo, if you consider the outside sensory world the “real world”, and the world inside, painted by the mind, with the help of the sensory data. This grey room – grey matter + notion of film development + notion of “grey area” – is a vulnerable place.  Presumably, we’d like the picture we end up receiving and viewing, to be accurate.  After all, our decisions are based on “reality.” We move right or left, to certain degrees, based on where we think the attacker is, based on what – this process of transferring, rendering, and interpreting?

But haven’t you found that indeed, the picture in your mind was often very “wrong”? Haven’t you watched “The Thin Blue Line”? Haven’t you sort of woken up, several times in your life, in a significant way, to “see” that who you though you were, and what you thought you were doing, were way off the mark?  So, there had to be a miscommunication somewhere, right? 

And I don’t think our short-circuits happen, in most cases, is in the sensory-intake-to-sensory-perception link up. I think the broken, or, imprecisely-machined portion of the outside-to-inside transfer mechanism is the interpretive phase. I think this is the part we are supposed to train, but don’t. And within this phase, the words are what get in the way.  True enough, and sad, I know, for all you who are wed to the word – it is a poor excuse for a symbology of experience, and you rely on it for everything, even your perception of pretty clear signals coming in from your ears and eyes.

If you could just eliminate the words (Burroughs gives exercises for this, as does Dogen and Patanjali), and get a purer dose of uninterpreted reality, you might not be so confused by a reality that doesn’t often make sense.  I

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Doubt/Faith

What if doubt and faith really comprise the entirety of all power available to us humans. And like a mix of ethanol and rocket fuel, whether we fly or just row, is dependent solely upon the proportions?

Surely you’ve been in the situation where you are trying to attain some new cool skill, like handstand, for example. But you simply can’t do it. You see your teacher floating up into space with ease, and she says to you something like “just trust yourself “. That is, she doesn’t say something you think she should say, like, “move your hands farther back. “. No. She says some mystical new-age thing, which can not possibly be the actual secret that will enable you to do something which is physical magic This isn’t Harry Potter.

How about those really hard times in life, that will surely kill you or at least send you to the pill bottles? You think, ” I am putting all I have into this. It has to be enough. I don’t have any more. “. But then, surprise. It does require more – a lot more. And, you really don’t seem to have it. There is even a period of touch and go, maybe a long passage, where you seemingly are NOT making it.
Then  finally, when you emerge on the other side, you have been schooled. You were lucky enough to receive an opportunity in this life to see just how little you are dong with your power. You can remember thinking, if you take the time to look back,that you were certain your bones were breaking. And it was true! – at the time. You could not move your feet. Professionals told you you were not going to make it.  Friends shook their heads, and told you to get give it up, focus on something within your grasp. But, if you were able to listen only to your inner voice, and continue on “stupidly”, with blind faith, it turned out that you actually grew a stronger pair of legs, a bigger heart.

If this hasn’t happened to you, then you do not have all the information you need. You have not tapped your faith, have not seen the living rise from the dead.

But if you have, when you encounter someone else who is entering the passage you have just left, you see the whole thing, with eyes that are similar  to the eyes of God, who has the ultimate faith. And you want to tell that person the great truth. But, they can’t hear you.

So my question is this: if it is just a question of the depth, quality, and intensity of the faith you put into a thing, that gives you power over it, then how can you be sure that in those times when “faith has failed you” it was really just that YOU did not wrack your soul enough, to really really believe ?
You know ?
When the Krsna followers try to levitate the roof of a building. When the Power of Prayer people pray all night and day to save the life of a child. And the roof just sits there. And the child just dies, like all children who die. Is it because it’s all just bullshit? People just die. Roofs do not levitate.

Could you really jump off a cliff, and have angels catch you, lest you dash your foot on a rock. if you had enough faith?  I mean, imagine having a lot more faith.  Enlarge your belief, and imagine that you could believe much much harder.  Just for one moment, will yourself into believing that you just haven’t come close to the faith you would need to jump off the cliff –  a real cliff – and survive, but that such a thing is truly possible.  Let yourself feel that belief for just a moment.

But don’t jump!  Not yet.  You don’t have it, yet.  You will need to open your heart and mind yet a million miles wider, before you can begin to feel the cushion of air beneath your feet. And you will not find it through drugs – thye all try to fly, within just of few hours of taking the drug, and fail.
How can you be sure? I mean, so sure that you are willing to post your own life as collateral? But then, how can anyone say they have ever tried hard enough to levitate, if they have not levitated? And how, when that little boy lay in a coma, how can you be sure, you of so little faith, that all scientific discoveries have already been made, that all attempts at world  peace have been exhausted , and that you have heard and seen all there is?

What tragic ignorance, cloaked in arrogance.

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Loaves and fishes

The line that stands out for me in the good old loaves and fishes story, is when Jesus asks everybody to sit down.

Make the people (ἀνθρώπους here. contrasted with the ἄνδρες of the next clause) recline. Now there was much grass in the place

In case you don’t know the set up, someone Jesus really loved, and needed in some special way, had just been executed. This was the first many close friends that were going to get killed, in the course of this grand scheme. Jesus was sad. He just wanted to go as far away from every living person and grieve.

But he had rock star status, already. Even though he had found this deserted field, in the middle of nowhere, everybody – I mean, lots of people – found him. Clung to him. Needed him. Not moment’s peace, to be sad. Maybe a little self pity even. But then he did the real miracle – the one that we must also learn, the one bit of magic that will let anyone create something from nothing:

and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

You turn your attention away from yourself, away from your sorrows, and when you look up, you will see a crowd of lost people, waiting for your word. And when you see them, you will feel flush with power.

The scene is this: a totally unplanned “event” in a totally inappropriate place for this size crowd. And Jesus’ managers – the apostles – started to worry about logistical catastrophes.

At this pint in the story, I see the Woodstock music festival. An inordinate crowd of, who knows, not particularly organized people, driven by hunger – spiritual hunger – to a nowhere place, to here a nowhere man, in terms of his likelihood of earthly success. Hadn’t the flower children been seeking, so far, in vain, something to unify them, to give them the feeling of unity? No one had proposed such a thing. It wasn’t even an official movement.

Meanwhile, a couple of stoner producers, most likely motivated by greed, decided to have the first rock Fest. Again, God’s choice of leaders always falls to the least faithful. But it happened. And like the Jesus story, no one was prepared for what really happened. A city of 500,000 people rose up from a dream, and all had a heightened consciousness, all at once.

A theological question : who was Jesus at Woodstock ? Well, John Sebastien delivers the message to “sit down. ” He let the crowd know that they were no longer a crowd, but an living, loving community. And the stage producer was constantly getting on the mic and reassuring people that there was food and water coming in, from nowhere. But it did come. And doctors and medical supplies and blankets. All impossible. All unplanned.

The answer is that nowadays, everyone is Jesus. Everyone has to do the job of taking care of one another. Jesus was there to show us our own responsibilities.

But Jesus said, “You feed them.”

The food was already there. It was the disciples faith  (our faith) that was missing.  And, it was the disciples immediate reaction, that of all children, to wonder that the responsibility was upon them, not upon someone in charge.  What seems like adult common sense, in this case, is the child’s abdication, the leveling of yet another excuse, hidden behind human legitimacy, the exonerates them from any action:

“With what?” they asked. “We’d have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all these people!”

It’s an engrained reaction, in a society of people who do nothing, because the do not want to believe in anything. If you are given a great opportunity to be faithful, quickly find an exit.

And now, the magic comes from the group, not the guru. The faith comes from within. They found a way, the found enough, they fed the people, somehow, from nowhere, from nothing.

So, we should take this as a miracle?  A bit of magic? Jesus said, “aberra cadavera” over the five loaves and two fishes, and, just like the magician’s top hat, the baskets became bottomless?

No.  You missed the point. It’s supposed to be a real, useful example of how when we step out of our fear and disbelief, “miraculous” things to happen.  Of course, they aren’t that miraculous: they happen because we work together, we gather together what we have, and through collective imagination, and a willpower derived from hope, we make the impossible, possible. Actually, this happens all the time: someone says I can’t, someone who loves them says yes you can, and, behold, they do. Woodstock was an amazingly profound example of this. People died, and babies were born, all on a grassy field, in a chance meeting of 500,000 believers.

 

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Notes on Maureen Dowd’s “Who Do We Think We Are?”

The first line that tripped me up was:

in this century we have had only three brief moments when a majority of Americans said they were satisfied with the way things were going: the month W. took office, right after the 9/11 attacks and the month we invaded Iraq.

I unconsciously rewrote the line, replacing satisfied with dis satisfied. Take a moment, and work the sentence in your mind, like this

  • the majority of Americans said they were satisfied with the way things are going, in the month George W. took office
  • the majority of Americans said they were satisfied with the way things are going, right after the 9/11 attacks
  • the majority of Americans said they were satisfied with the way things are going, the month we invaded Iraq

I don’t think Maureen worked this out well enough for us: does it say that Americans were most satisfied with America, when things were the worst, since it was prefaced by  “chronic disillusionment” i.e. dystopia fits our disillusionment, therefore we are happy(?)

I think it demonstrates something more subtle – that the majority of Americans are happiest when we have black-and-white leaders, who rule by decisive, overt force (as opposed to ruling by secret-directive drone assassination), when we are pissed of, and can see the enemy clearly, and when we take off the gloves and kick the world’s ass.  The reality is Team America – not ecumenicism, world-mindedness, and peace politics.

And it belies another underlying truth: that liberal America lives inside a well-walled fantasy world, where Obama brought change for the good, where Occupy Wall Street changed Wall Street, and Egypt was liberated from oppression.  Didn’t happen – except in the digital media world.

Which connects, in my mind, to another tract she follows in the article:

Young people are more optimistic than their rueful elders, especially those in the technology world. They are the anti-Cheneys, competitive but not triumphalist. They think of themselves as global citizens, not interested in exalting America above all other countries.

This isn’t a “good thing” (we really do want it broken down in the George W. fashion: good v bad). It’s a collective hallucination, perpetrated in the device-world. Worse than Orwell could have imagined (he only had big bulky TVs to base his dystopia on.  These small, sleek brain-control devices are much closer in size to bacteria!), the world-within-the-world of device-logic, device-communication, device-policiticism, has made those would would Act for Change, not act at all; rather, key-punch, key-enter, their virtual activism. In the end, nothing gets done, really, and nothing is wrong, virtually.

I also love the Walter Percy quote:

Lucky is the man who does not secretly believe that every possibility is open to him.

While she heaps this anti-awareness entirely upon the millennials (which misses her age-group by just a finger-breadth?), it is probably the same old “me-generation” started back in the 70’s by Eric Fromm. We all believed Mr. Rogers when he told us we could be whatever we wanted to be, and the implicit cognate idea: everything you do should be about your own becoming.

Lastly, I want to jab Nathaniel Philbrick, who, speaking of our Founding Fathers/Mothers, writes:

They weren’t better than us back then; they were trying to figure things out and justify their behavior, kind of like we are now

I think Patrick may be one of those millennials, who constructs excuse-houses of cards.  My response: they were better than us; they were more thoughtful, more educated, and more ethical, by a degree which is simply unrecognizable to us, in our modern highly mis-educated unintelligence. Benjamin Franklin was an amazing person – not just really cool,but by deed, word, and legacy, an amazing person – who strove only to be better and more accountable, and, who actually did the work! We don’t have leaders like that, nor did Egypt – which is why these new age revolutions fail, but our crazily idealistic one did. Same goes for Thomas Jefferson: despite the modern critique, fostered probably just to make us not look so bad, is that we was secretly married to a Black woman, and had children by her, but did not acknowledge it publicly.  Seems to me more like he lived his beliefs, only they weren’t beliefs –  they were his feelings – in the only practical way possible in a time where his wife would probably have been killed publicly, despite any valiant efforts on the part of Tom.  My point, however, is that he was a kind of genius, and a seer, far beyond anyone we know of today, save possibly Noam, the Wise, or Ralph, the True.  But even those guys don’t seem to be able to make a real revolution happen.  No, there is something else in the recipe for Patriot that we can put a finger on.

 

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more on 3-in-1

Can we share Jesus’ nature ? The part that was Man?  And if the Holy Spirt is in us, do we not all simultaneously share in the moment of the Holy Spirit?

If there are three beings in one God, each one must have a unique nature , which the other does not share. We are humans. The Holy Spirit is within is, and we are ” within ” God.

and if God is Love, and it is our mission – the mission assigned to all humans who are awake – to love, and only to love, then we do have a part of God’s nature. a true part. we can have some small feeling of what it is like to be God like. if we love.

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Dr. Bronner

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Bronner

Emanuel H. Bronner (born About this sound Emanuel Heilbronner (help·info),[1] February 1, 1908 – March 7, 1997) was the maker of Dr. Bronner’s castile soap.[2] Bronner, whose parents were killed in the Holocaust, promoted a belief in the goodness and unity of humanity.

He started his business making products by hand in his home. The product labels are crowded with statements of Bronner’s philosophy, which he called “All-One-God-Faith” and the “Moral ABC”. Many of Bronner’s references came from Jewish and Christian sources, such as the Shema and the Beatitudes; others from poets such as Rudyard Kipling. They became famous for their idiosyncratic style, including hyphens to join long strings of words and the liberal use of exclamation marks. In 1947, while promoting his “Moral ABC” at the University of Chicago, Bronner was arrested and committed to a mental hospital in Elgin, Illinois, from which he escaped after shock treatments.[1]

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Holy kiss, unholy kiss

Jesus turned things around. He was a mover. Not a radical Jew, but a Jew who loved his faith, and because of this love, wanted to help it to evolve. Maybe , revolve. In that sense, I am a revolutionary.

When Judas hands Jesus over to the soldiers, when he exposes the true sociopathy of betrayal of the one we love, he told the soldiers , “the one I will kiss is the one.” The signal of betrayal was a kiss. In the same way that most rapists are known to their victims , we know our betrayers most intimately. Possibly, they could not betray us otherwise.
But then, in the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians, Paul writes, “greet one another with a holy kiss.” If this had been spoken, instead of written, the emphasis would be on the “holy” to remind us of the unholy kiss that started this whole thing. And to remind us that things must change.
The rest of the passage says, “mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.”
This is the new testament. The new kiss.

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Not exactly monotheism

The claim that Christianity is not monotheistic would engender the longest most useless monologue from any Christian-with-a-capital-C or Christian theologian So don’t claim that. Unless you have the patience. The Creed has always been: credo in unum Deum.

But it is a mistake to equate that with the groundbreaking monotheism of the Jews: in those early times the Jews were absolutely unique among all the polytheistic religions, because of this single god, with an unpronounceable name. The thigh is : that is true monotheism.
Jesus’ words caused a great panic among the Jews, when he said, unequivocally, that he was God. Actually that alone would not have precluded monotheism. The problem was, he went on to talk about Abba, his Father-God, exactly as the Jews did. So, this presented a conundrum – a logical impossible duality. Of course, when he then finally introduced one more wrinkle, the Holy Spirt, he stuck the logical world, including the Christian faith that ensued, with a long explanation, which still confuses people today.
Let me apologize for my first paragraph. In no way is my intent to dismiss those who, in their devotion to the understanding of the mysteries of faith, have created the explanation of “three-in-one”. I only seek to admonish them, with love, to open their minds to a grander possibility.
In fact, the actual words of Jesus went far beyond three. He told us that we are all a part of one body, his body, the body of God. So, instead of three-in-one is should be All-in-One. I take that expression from Dr. Bronner, an Essene, maker of the soap that appears in all health-conscious stores. Read the bottle some time!
So, it is actually much better than monotheism , and beyond the simplicity of polytheism. Actually – and here is more heresy – it is very thoroughly explained in the Vedanta: that there is no separation between the individual and the universe. That’s a poor explanation of one of the deepest theologies known, but the idea is key: that we are all one and that One is what we call God.

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feed the poor

It’s that time of year again – starting with Black Friday (really? we don’t see any ominous symbolism in that name?), we shop like frenzied pigs at the trough, up until Christmas. In addition to our copious shopping, we have quite a few discussions about the poor. We hear admonitions at our church, synagogue, or yoga kirtan about mindless waste and the care of our less fortunate brothers and sisters. Finally, we are prone to feelings of love and tenderness towards people, at this time of year. These feelings are deeper than at other times during the year.  Or, they may solely occur, for certain individuals, at this time of year. There have been scholarly articles, and yes, even blogs, written about the cause of these feelings, as well as the causes of the other two dynamics I mentioned. These dynamics are cross-cultural, at least for  capitalist Judeo-Christian nations: the same currents are felt in Bethlehem and Singapore. You know all this. IN fact, you know everything.

But ultimately, collectively, nothing ever changes, nothing has ever changed, as a result of either the glory or the shame. The people who volunteer at the soup kitchen do indeed get a warm feeling which suffices for them for the remainder of the year.  But, the soup eaters themselves simply return the next day and the next day, and don’t really feel that much more loved, by virtue of the presence or absence of one more affluent soups ladler like you. Jesus is attributed with saying,

The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. Matthew 26:11

That phrase has provoked me for most of my life. While there is a lot to be surmised about it, I want to stick with the point that, apparently, nothing is ever supposed to change, at least with regard to the poor, so saith the Prophet. Like Buddha Gotama, Jeshua is letting us down gently by saying that this Earthly life is going to have suffering. You can not end the suffering,  You can not solve poverty.  Apparently.

But the second part, but you will not always have me, is, I think, an admonition to work, to always work, to carry the torch, in the name of whatever you choose to associate with me, in that phrase. Jeshua, “God with us”, is the “easy button.”  When you have The Great Moral Leader right there with you, you won’t slack. What will we do now that Mandela is not keeping his eye on us?  What did we do after Gandhi Gi was out of the way? Yes, the poor and the oppressed were still there.  But, nobody took care of them anymore.  Nobody brought them up at dinner.

Actually, it doesn’t matter to me if the Jesus scripture supports what I am saying.  It is just a springboard to foment discussion among my peers.  My point is this: do it yourself.

The People say, “The Government should feed the Poor.” The Pope he say “The Church should feed the Poor.” Who is this “Government” person?  Who is this “Church” guy?

They are our scapegoats.  Our way out the back door. They are supposed to be We, the People – but that has been so untrue for so long, it sickens me a little to even repeat it. Hearing people say “We the People” has even made me a little bitter over the years. While it is impossible for anyone but you to fix your broken accountability mechanism, there is at least one little aspect of this Government co-dependency you might be able to fix pretty quickly.

You don’t know how to go the Poor.  You don’t know how to find the Poor.  You don’t know how to feed the Poor. Do you. But the Government seems to know.  “They” (I won’t use “We”) have the resources and staff and organizational ability to organize a program like, say, food stamps. But, still, the real Poor don’t get fed. The Church runs places like Camillus House.  Here is Miami, Camillus House is in the heart of the real Poor – in Overtown. “They” (the Camillus Organization) provide meals to society’s offcasts.  Bien hecho, Church.

So, you can certainly donate money to the Church and pay your taxes (or, support social works with your ballot).  But, why do you need these organizations? You really can’t find the poor?  You really don’t know how to feed the poor? Now, here is a distinction I make between the Poor and the real Poor: there are lots of people who, after living a modest, but comparatively comfortable life, get laid off their job, or get that foreclosure notice. I call this “hard luck”, but I don’t call it really poor.  These people can qualify for any number of assistance programs – and be approved.  They get help from the Church and the Government and their families and neighbors.  The real Poor, on the other hand, did NOT have a relatively comfortable life, ever. The real Poor were abused, malnourished, surrounded by drugs and death, most of their lives. The real Poor are not quaint intellectuals, fallen from Grace, like Robin Williams, in The Fisher King.  No.  There are millions of people in this world who will NEVER make it out of the quagmire of abject poverty. Millions of people who have chronic drug addictions (not like Lindsey Lohan), and are therefore banned from both Government programs and Church programs, “left out to die on the mountains of the heart” (Rilke). These people require the one thing that We cannot seem to give: a personal investment in an untidy relationship. You know, the real Poor need someone to confide in, someone to care.  And if you open that door, they will confide in you, call you, ask you for money, ask you to give them a ride to their drug dealer, show up at your home.  Yes.  That is caring for the real Poor,  But – you don’t have to do that!  Just start out by finding them, and feeding them!  Oh, where are they, though?

Christ!  They’re everywhere!  The Poorest of the Poor lie on the sidewalks of my city, to the extent that I have to step over them.  Are you blind? Do you step over them?  Do you have conversations with your friends about whether or not to give money to “beggars.” Well, I say, give them money. I say, go home, fill up a bag with good – hell, drive to Whole Foods and drop $50 on a bag of healthy food, and drive back to you-now-exactly-where, and hand the bag to someone.

Once you cut the middle-man, the Great Scapegoat – out of the picture, you can immediately start feeding the poor.  Just feed them.  Don’t blame the Government – and yes, the Government should feed the poor!  Don’t blame the Church – and yes, the Church should feed the poor! Get out of that cycle. Go feed the poor.

sneaks out of Vatican at night to feed poor