Moving..

I originally started this blog mainly for the exercise of writing my thoughts. I didn't think too many people read it but I've been surprised by the people I've met who say they enjoy it. I've decided to move the blog to posterous - I'm not really sure why, it just feels a little easier to use. So here's the link: http://mysticd.posterous.com . See you there :)

breathing the wind..

the wild wind spoke to me the other night

the same breath that we breath that gives us life

and makes the trees dance and sing their wild, reckless song

the same wind that causes my wind-chime to resonate with my soul

the same breath that breaths the music that flows from my flute

And so the wind was wondering why we hide inside

And it was wild and strong and powerful, yet sad

sad that we feel we don't fit

sad that we feel everything is moving so fast

and that everything is so out of control

And it told me we need to breath more

and remember that the air we breath is part of us

just like the sounds we hear, the light we see, the food we taste and smell

the cold and the heat that we feel

a combination of Earth, Water, Fire

and Wind

And then I realized I was talking to myself

but so was the wind..

Friday afternoon mindstream..

Sometimes I just let my thoughts flow, without trying too hard to contain them - just go with it and see what happens. Like this:

My youngest daughter can't entirely read yet. So she has this oral she needs to do at school, but obviously can't just use crib notes. The solution: I drew some little pictures - icons - for her to remember the various sections of her talk. Bushbabies live in trees - so I drew a tree with a house on it. Bushbabies are bluish grey but the South African version is slightly yellow - I drew my version of a bushbaby eating custard. Isabelle loves custard - so despite the picture looking more like a stick man, with a tail, holding a square over a circle (instant custard being poured into a bowl) she remembered it. And for the bluish grey - I drew a cloud. Within a few minutes we had memorized the whole thing and she got it right first time.

This got me thinking about language - and hieroglyphics and other symbol based systems of writing. We tend to see writing as a contained unit. I give you a book and that's pretty much it - you read it and you're expected to get it all from the words used. Or like reading what I'm writing here. I sort-of expect you to understand what I'm getting at without having too much context.

But perhaps it all started differently. What if writing wasn't so much to contain a message, but the symbols were used to remind the 'reader' of a story they already had heard. That the symbols and the culture went together - like maps to a 'file' that contained that knowledge.

But I guess that's what words do as well, or names of people, animals, things. Each word, each phrase triggering a memory.

So I did some research to find out the origin of language - and got everything from theories about the tower of Babel and language supposedly being proof of a higher power, to whole lot of other stuff that you only find on the www. But the one thing that triggered a thought, as words tend to do, was the recursive nature of language, which led me to think about the word 'word'. We have a word for 'word', a word used to describe itself, which reminded me of an old friend who used to say 'Words don't have meaning, meaning has words'.

But there's another lesson in here - that the mind is full of words that take up so much space and time, full of meanings and memories and perhaps all this stuff is there because if it wasn't, then maybe there wouldn't be any meaning at all. And perhaps this is the truth of truths - that, as a very wise man once said, what we need isn't meaning, but an experience of being truly alive. And if, every now and again, we don't allow all these words to get in the way, that might just happen. So now is a good time to stop this flow of words and go and enjoy the weekend....

What if?

All throughout life we are taught that there is something we need to attain. Something out there that will make us happy. Something that, when we achieve it or reach a certain goal, we will be complete, whole, enlightened, whatever.

And so we spend our lives trying to find this thing or this place, or we come to the conclusion that we're not good enough for this and so we give up, spending the rest of our lives making excuses as to why it wasn't meant for us, but believing we're some kind of failure.

But - what if that's all wrong, that this 'system' is all messed up. And that the whole time everything we needed, everything that matters, was all already there, all the time, we just forgot..

That this 'reality' existed right here, right under our noses, we just became so involved in everything else, that we somehow forgot - forgot how to truly see, forgot who we really are. 

Secrets

Most of what's going on in the universe is a secret. That sounds so far away, and yet most of what is going on in my body right now, in my mind is also in secret, not only to you, but to me. My heart continues beating, pumping blood through my body, and a community of millions of cells quietly go about their business of keeping 'me' going.

We live with the illusion that we know what's going on around us, that 'they' know who I am, what we're doing. We go into meetings thinking that we all know what we're talking about, that we understand each other, and yet most of what is in our minds remains a secret.

And when we do connect with each other, how that information is transferred, how it creates the reality in my brain is also a secret, a mystery.

I was sitting at an airport recently. No-one knew me. Very few people even spoke my language. To some I was a tourist who's bag needed wrapping, to some I was this stranger buying stuff with money that I didn't understand and they spoke slower in Spanish, so that perhaps by some miracle I would understand. and when I left the memory of me would vanish into the stream of people the same way the drops of water in a river is constantly disappearing before our eyes, without us noticing, because all we see is this continuous stream of water.

And then to the customs official I was a drug smuggler. I looked the part having just spent days in the mountains, unshaven, tanned, grubby clothes, traveling alone with a backpack. At least that is how it seems, but what was really on his mind was a secret, as was what was on mine. It was my secret that I was a seeker, a traveller, a magician, a father, a husband, a musician, a thinker - all of the ways I see myself, but to him I was a suspect. And when, to his surprise, he found nothing I wonder what I became and whether I will ever be remembered by him and the cute translator who interrogated me. That too is a secret.

And this is the question - does anything really exist, because everything in the Universe is dependent on everything else. Do I really exist except for the image of me that is in the mind of those who love me, and the memories I have of who I am, where I've been and these thoughts that have a life of their own.

So perhaps the key is to hold it all lightly, to realize that nothing really exists apart from everything else. That reality is what we create every moment, this moment, the only moment there ever is. The echoes of the secret past and the anticipation of a secret future all constantly being created and forgotten, right now.

an ode to the rhythm of life

Everything has rhythm. The moon hs rhythm, the sun, the planets circling the sun all following their own cycle. The Universe is pulsing with endless and multidemensional polyrythms. 

And we too, a profound expression of all of this, also have our own rhythms. Our heart beat, sleeping and waking, the movement of walking, our daily routines - all are rhythm.

And yet somehow human beings have become so accustomed to the tick, tick, tick of time. The clock telling us when it's time to wake up, when it's time to eat, go to work, have lunch. It's time to pay our bills, pay our taxes, time to vote. We pay for time, get paid for time, have to put in leave in order to make use of the time that is granted to us by a higher power. There's time for tv, time for bed, time to retire. How much time do we have left until we die..

And yet underneath it all is the gentle, constant, rhythm. Our hearts beating, and our chest rising and falling with each breath, like the tides of the ocean dancing to the rhythm of the moon. 

Perhaps our survival, our response to this 'global crisis' is not so much about bail-outs, reducing carbon emissions, working harder, and all of the so-called solutions we come up with to fix a problem that we really don't fully understand.

Perhaps it's more about learning to listen again, learning to surf, learning to dance, learning to drum like our ancestors did - moving, breathing and making love to the rhythm of life.

The shapes that shape us

Why do we do what we do?
Why do we think what we think?
Is there some deeper meaning to it all,
or are these simply patterns repeating themselves
and we do and think these things because that is what we do and think?

Why do we ask why?
How does this work, this feedback loop that allows awareness to be aware of awareness?

And if my body is constantly changing,
and the me I see is not the same me that I saw the day before
What is the pattern that keeps it all together..
Like the form of a whirlpool or the shape of a tree or a river.

Is it some mysterious morphic resonance?
or is it the future, pulling the present into shape
and does this pattern continue once this body has gone?

Perhaps we already know the answers
But haven't yet invented the words..

Kung Fu

Kungfu.

Hard work over time to accomplish skill.

A painter can have Kungfu.
Or the butcher who cuts meat every day with such skill...his knife never touches bone.

Learn the form, but seek the formless.
Hear the soundless.
Learn it all, then forget it all.
Learn The Way, then find your own way.

The musician can have Kungfu.
Or the poet who paints pictures with words and makes emperors weep.
This, too, is Kungfu.

But do not name it, my friend, for it is like water.
Nothing is softer than water...yet it can overcome rock.
It does not fight.
It flows around the opponent.

Formless, nameles...the true master dwells within.
Only you can free him.

(from "The Forbidden Kingdom")

Waking up to the dream

constantly looking out at the world
feeling alone in myself
and yet there are many voices
the conversations with the past and the future
sometimes i feel like the king of the world
and then sometimes that i don't exist
perhaps both are true
and that this dream is all a dream
and so slowly there is this awakening
not so much from the dream,
but to the realisation that we are the dreamer

In search of nothing

Nothing..
No thing
Impossible to conceptualize
Because this very act is creation
Giving thingness to that which is not this or that.
Nothing..
No thing
That which contains the possibility of all things
Out of which all of this or that is born
Emptiness, Darkness
Pure raw potential out of which universes explode.
And this is not there or here or within or beyond..
Timelessness, Spacelessness, Thinglessness,
No thing nessss

The dance between form and emptiness

The essence of rhythm is movement. If you stop and say 'this is it' you've lost it. There is no way that rhythm can be contained, no specific point in time in which it exists. It's a constant movement and it always exists in relation to what has gone before and where it is going.

Rhythm is like a river. It continuously flows. You can look at it and say "That is a river", but no part of the river can be said to be the river, and at no time is the river ever the same, other than in concept. It’s ‘is-ness’ exists in the mind alone.

This experience of life that seems to be a constant 'thing' is the same. It is a rhythm of energy, experience, information flowing and creating the form which is perceived as 'me' or 'you', but it is no different from a river, or a cloud, or a piece of music or the form of a whirlwind that exists, but at the same time has no inherent existence in and of itself.

It's all a dance..

Step by step

I went walking with my family in the mountains today. On one of the uphills my daughter was getting a little tired. I tried to teach her one of the things I do when I'm walking uphill and start to feel tired. I make my steps shorter and get into a rhythm. That way I forget about the tiredness and my walking becomes a lot easier.
What she immediately tried to do was copy my steps, but her legs are a lot shorter. The thing is, I can teach her how to find a rhythm, I can teach her that this will make it easier, but she is the one who needed to find a rhythm that worked for her. My rhythm just wouldn't do.

Duality

What makes the rhythm. Is it the sound, or is it the spaces in between?

Mystery

Tao called Tao is not Tao (Tao Te Ching - Lao-Tzu)

Life is the flowing and living energy which cannot be frozen into concepts and formulas. Life cannot be understood, only lived. (beatnik)

Being, by it's very nature, can't be known, so words can only give us the direction in which to look. (pg 3: One - Essential writings of non-duality - Jerry Katz)

The reality of a human being is a mystery. There is no answer that can answer it, because it is not a question in the first place. It is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved. (pg 96: Tantra - the way of acceptance - Osho)

We are all manifestations of a mystic power: the power of life, which has shaped all life, and which has shaped us all in our mother's womb. And this kind of wisdom lives in us, and it represents the force of this power, this energy, pouring into the field of time and space. But it's a transcendant energy. It's an energy that comes from a realm beyond our powers of knowledge. And that energy becomes bound in each one of us - in this body - to a certain commitment.
Now, the mind that thinks, the eyes that see, they can become so involved in concepts and local, temporal tasks that we become bound up and don't let this energy flow through. The energy is blocked, and we are thrown off balance ....... So the psychological problem, the way to keep from becoming blocked, is to make yourself - and here is the phrase - transparent to the transcendant. It's as easy as that. (Pathways to Bliss - Joseph Campbell)

Focused Intent - The Art of Magic

There has been a drumming competition on lately called 'speed demon'. It seems to have the assumption that a very good drummer will be able to play very fast. But here's the question: is the mark of a good drummer how many strokes of the stick you can fit into a single beat, or is it how much of yourself you can put into a single stroke?

The Spaces in Between - the art of listening

One of the things that amazes me is that, as humans, we are actually able to communicate at all. If I think of some of the meetings I have sat in, or discussions I've been part of, we aren't very good at listening.

This is one of the things that being a musician teaches you. To play with other musicians you need to listen, and the way to do that is to create space in the music. The temptation is to fill up the space with stuff, but it's the space that makes the rhythm. Without the spaces, you just have noise.

Now life is like that. If you think about it, there's a lot more space than there is stuff. The universe is full of spaces in between, and yet we think it's the stuff that's so important. Our lives are full of stuff, full of noise. There's the voice of what we think we should be doing, the voice of what we haven't done, the voice of the guy on the news telling us how it is, and then there's the evangelists for consumerism showing us the way to salvation in filling our lives with more and more stuff. We have this wierd fear of open space, unless of course we paid a whole lot for the open space and it belongs to us - added to all the other stuff we own.

And yet deep within us the rhythm is there. Our own hearts beat to the heartbeat of the Universe, just waiting for us to take the time to listen. Waiting for us to look beyond the illusion of all the stuff and find who we are. And so the sun rises and sets, and the moon follows her path in the sky, dancing with the sea. And the winds blow around us trying to get our attention. Telling us gently to awaken from this bad dream, inviting us to dance once again to the music of which we are made..

Paradiddles and Freedom - the art of learning

When I used to teach drumming, I would find that while my students were really eager to learn to fly around the drum kit, they were a whole lot less enthusiastic about practicing paradiddles (RLRRLRLL - and so on). And yet it is by practicing these basic rudiments in different combinations that really frees you at a later stage to not have to think too much about what you're doing. Your body is in automatic and you can relax, and focus on making music instead of having to try and calculate where your hands are going to end up.

So - there are a number of practices that one can do, little things to put in place, that slowly teach you how to move from being consciously incompetent, to consciously competent to unconsciously competent - where you just move in automatic. And this is the place where, in a talk, I could come up with some really cheesy illustrations, like a house is built one brick at a time etc., but I'm sure you get the idea.

The thing I've found, though, is that you get to a point in life where you know this stuff. There are a number of things you've mastered and you're quite comfortable in how things are done. The same happens in drumming, you practice your rudiments, you do what you're supposed to and you get to a point where you can do what you need to do when you need to do it. But then slowly you discover than part of the fun of it was the challenge in learning. You're stuck in a rut. Life becomes habitual and so does your image of who you are.

The temptation at this point is to try and ignore that voice inside you that says you're not all you could be, that this isn't all there is. So you fill it with stuff, and entertainment, and noise...

Or you reinvent yourself - you try something new and you feel the thrill and humility of being a beginner again. And you're alive again! Hmm - but the problem with this is that if you keep at it you'll once again be at the place where you've mastered this new thing and so the cycle starts once again..

Perhaps there is the belief that there is this place called 'happiness', or 'stability', or 'success' and that if you work long enough at it, get and do the right things, you'll get there. But when you get there you realise that it's all empty.

So what's the point of doing it then?

One of the things that have been 'drummed' into us from an early age is that learning is about the destination. We study so that we pass our exams. We pass our exams so we can get a job. We do this and that, so that we can be a success.

But, the real key to it all is realising that the journey isn't about the destination, and drumming isn't about becoming a good drummer. The reason we learn, is because we can, and the reason we drum, is to connect with the rhythm that is already in us and has always been part of us. The reason we practice and try new things and push forward isn't just to get somewhere, but to discover who we already are. The journey and the destination are one and the same thing.

So perhaps the real art of learning is not so much about getting somewhere, or becoming something, but more like unwrapping a gift. Discovering what you've really had the potential to do, and to be all along...

Drumming and the meaning of life..

I've been asked to run a drumming workshop at the end of the month and I was thinking about what I should do. I figured I could show off with a solo or something and then let everyone ask questions, or perhaps I could do something different. So I sat down and mindmapped the whole thing and came up with a plan..

As you may have noticed in this blog, I refer a lot to rhythm and how it is so much part of who we are, so the workshop is going to follow that theme. I decided to take 3 things that I've learnt from being a drummer - and how that relates to life, the meaning of the universe, and all that.

I will be doing a little bit of talking, and then I'm going to have drums available for everyone and we're all going to do some drumming - it's a workshop, not a talkshop. But, with regard to the talking bit, I thought I'd have a practice run here. So - in the next few days I'm going to be writing on the following:

1. Paradiddles and Freedom - the art of learning
2. The Spaces in Between - the art of listening
3. Focused Intent - the art of magic

To be continued...

The pieces of the puzzle

I have just watched Anastasia with my daughters for the third time...

The story goes something like this:
A princess loses her family and, in the process, loses the memory of the first years of her life. Her restlessness ends up taking her on a journey with two people who are really in it for the money, but end up being angels (metaphorically speaking). Slowly, through a series of clues, she starts remembering things about herself, without actually noticing. At the end of the story all the pieces come together and she remembers who she really is. At this moment - when she was finally reunited with her grandmother - I, in a strange way, felt that I identified with her. There was something in me that resonated with the discovery of something long forgotten - a coming home to who we really are.

I have a suspician that there is this place, this longing, in everyone, as if the Universe has left us clues, breadcrumbs along the way, to show us the way home. We see this in fairy tales, in the songs we sing our children, in the myths of old and in our dreams.

So where is home and how do we get there? The answer lies concealed in each one of us. Sometimes it takes a journey to remote places in the world, or a life time of searching. Sometimes it catches us unaware when we see the mystery in the depths of a new-born baby's eyes, or when the wind calls our name at the top of a mountain and we somehow know that there's something that we know that we know, but just can't seem to figure out what it is...

swimming in nothingness

diving into the unknown
trusting life and the experience of being alive
learning that death isn't the end, but a process of becoming
leaving behind the past and the future
moving to the music,
the rhythm of the Now
the heartbeat of the Universe
a dance of grace

the Universe expressing itself in the form of a human
realization of the illusion of seperation
embracing mystery
letting go, delighting in being and non-being
duality dissolving into nothingness and everything
wisdom, compassion and loving kindness
Bliss