A bomb went off. And I survived.

I feel as if a bomb went off next to me. Actually I'm sitting at home now writing and feeling relived but that's how I felt these last few hours of this Thanksgiving holiday.
I've been sober for 24 days today.
My parents have been divorced since I was 12 and every year since then my brothers and I have spent about four to five hours at each of their homes on Thanksgiving. It's never been easy for me to deal with this, I don't know why. For the most part I've usually felt like shit on  this day.
I've been preparing myself for the last week or so by practicing acceptance, being in the now, and praying. I also new that I wanted to be of service while I was at lunch at my father's home and dinner at my mom's.

       WORK IN PROGRESS

Im a turkey when it comes to relationships

In honor of Thanksgiving, the beginning of the end for the American Indians, but also a day on which I will begin to practice gratitude, I offer you, my faithful readers, this excerpt from a talk given by Werner Erhard on the Experience of Love in 1973, Love. Why? I'm not sure. I'm not really even sure if this guy has any idea what he's talking about but the first time I read this I felt and itch on my left elbow, and that might mean something. Also, familial relationships, actually human relationships, for me, can be a challenge to create and foster. I'm beginning to think that acceptance is the solution to this issue. I hope you enjoy this excerpt.

Love 

The Exile

On a corner in Little Havana off SW 8th Street live two heavy and scared oak trees whose limbs stretch out over and across the street. Under the old oaks shade sits a restaurant with a counter window at which business men, mothers to be, or one of the old men sitting close by might greet someone with a handshake or a kiss, and order a Cuban coffee.

Inside the restaurant, tiled in blue, walls covered with black and white photographs of young baseball players and graduating classes, passed the counter behind which a barrel-chested man shouts, laughs, and cuts slices off a cured pork leg, five small square tables, made of dark brown laminated wood, have been brought together making one long one.

The table, unlike the restaurant, is uncomfortably crowed with extending family. I sit at the far end, the head of the table. On my left, my mother, light blond hiding her roots. My right, my father’s blue business shirt and his heavy breath of fried steak and black beans. Next to him, his wife, black hairspray, is rhythmically tapping the tips of her finger nails on the table.

My father smiles at my mother, Gloria, then reaches into his pocket and pulls out his old lucky coin engraved with the face of Jose Marti, his poet/warrior hero. “What is that” she asks, “deja me ver”, and he reaches across to hand her the coin. Gloria stretches her arm to take the coin; her hand crosses the divide between my parents, I can smell my father’s shirt, their hands stop, suspended, on the coin.

They might touch.

The point of touching.

Outside, an old man’s sand paper skin irritates a baby’s chubby hand.

A waitress lightly runs her fingers across the barrel-chested man’s shoulder blades.

Another slice of pork slowly slides off the knife. A neon sign floats in the window.   

My hands lie flat on the table, disturbed by the illegal trade,

Holding on.


written February 2004

Alan Watts & Chögyam Trungpa - Right Here And Now

Tao Te Ching: 1

About 10 years ago a teacher with whom I met often suggested that I skim the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu. At the time I was going through a "what does it all mean" stage. That has never really changed for me. At times I've tried to avoid finding meaning and purpose in my life but I always return to this personal search. Currently that search includes again reading and thinking about the Tao Te Ching. I'm fascinated by Lao Tzu's ideas. So I'm going to included my interpretations of the 81 poems in the book here in this blog
Tao Te Ching can be translated as The Book Of The Way. In it Lao Tzu presents his ideas about the way things are and how or where a god or universal creative intelligence may exist.
I will be posting the poems from Stephen Mitchell's translation of the Tao Te Ching then giving my interpretation. I'm writing with the premise that a god, a universal creative intelligence, or a way that makes life work for us does exist. So here goes.


Poem 1

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The Name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnameable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the
manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.


The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The God or the Way which can be spoken of or understood is not the actual God or Way that exists. God is a mystery. There is no absolute truth about God or the Way life works. Once we believe we understand either of these we are veering off the road of understanding.


The Name that can be named
is not the eternal Name. 

The unnameable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.
The physicality of things is an illusion. Nothing is really solid. So the name things are given is the name of something in an illusionary state of solidity. All things are masses of electrons spinning around each other so fast that we perceive the thing as solid. Things are not solid, they are not what they seem. Is there some sort of intelligence that controls the actions of these electrons? If there is that may be The Tao.


Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the
manifestations.
A person addicted to something experiences longing and the consequences of their actions. Free from addiction a person can experience life accurately. Someone that is brokenhearted can not objectively experience the person they desire. If I do not desire a person I can know who they really are.


Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.