Smell the leaves, look at the sky!

In my head are T.S.Eliot's words made into the song 'Memory' from "Cats":

"Burnt out ends of smoky days, the stale cold smell of morning. Street lamps die, another night is over ..."

And I think of Shakespeare:

"Out, out brief candle. Life is but a walking shadow that struts and frets it's hour upon the stage and then is heard no more."

As Jimmy Page said in "It Might Get Loud": "weaving the light and the shade."

Only the heart that knows true suffering can feel the mighty joy... or something like that. Julian of Norwicki? I can't remember. I am grateful for the misery, the depression, the anger, the suicidal impulses, the murderous and rageful impulses.... If they lead to such as this. Joy, wonder, surprise, laughter, tears of deep grief and of joy, of stretched emotions, the phantom scent of roses, redemption in my heart for my own personal Phantom of the Opera, conjured up into being from my impromptu 'Dance of the Chod' so many years ago. The Chaos Dance? Bhuja Tandava? Is that what Saul called it? The counterpart to Ananda Tandava in Tantra? In the loving of my demons they are transformed... And if see my hairy, fat, bloated Turkish and Kurdish demon on the street, I will love him. I will love and squeeze all the hate out of him, the war and nastiness out of him. And me. I'll yodel, cackle and chuckle and chortle until he succumbs to a bone-crushing hug and all his tears hardened like Hagga's diamonds from "The Thirteen Clocks" melt into water - emotions - feeling.

In my dreams last night, I was in a jazz bar, a sort of restaurant at the end of the universe, a la whatever his name is, and I was mouthing the words to a song: learning it. Some asshole told me to sing, and I said, "I'm listening! I'm listening! I'm listening to the words you asshole!" Then I flipped him off, and the bartender stared at me. The middle finger represents the throat chakra and how you use it: to heal or to harm. Go figure.

Then someone else, looking like an extremely sleazy version of the composite of two T'ai Chi instructors I used to have came up and thrust his hips towards me. I closed my eyes and said I wasn't interested. He moved closer and kept talking. I felt indignant and I told him to fuck off. Then I woke up and my heart sunk. Where I'd been was a testing ground, and I did not do what I had planned I did not snort, chuckle and guffaw. I did not laugh these creeps out of my awareness. I reverted to old behaviour. Just like my spine. No wonder they call it practice/ sadhana. Like my mother's father said as his first words in English: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again."

It's not the goal, it's the journey. As I sit again for Bound Lotus, for the first time I find myself looking forward to it for the actual 'presence' of being in it, not just the release from the pain of the pose and the pain of neck and back that comes afterwards. Child's Pose and Garland Pose don't bring the feeling of going into the pain and the lair of the internal demons and just loving them and hugging them in all their messiness and misery. At the bottom of the deep well of pain, the Haruki Murakami-like well of pain, my demons rest their foreheads on the ground with me. Thank you, thank you, thank you, I love you, I love you, I love you, peace, peace, peace my fellow travelers, my little demons, little angels. I love you. I love you all. Right now. Today. Who knows about tomorrow... I'll have to try again.