A Dream when I was Little...

Slightly Above the Cold Dark Ocean
i watched It Lap Against a Sandy Island
i felt its cold sinking In
i couldn't see the Moon
The Big Moon overhead & Behind me
But it provided the only Light i had
To See things with
On the Shore Stood a Tall Rectangular Block of Ice
Frozen
In it, i could see a human form
Wearing Something reddish & warm
The Ice began to melt away
It was my TEACHER
But wearing mostly black now
-with little yellow hidden flowers-
Still Quite cold and stiff -Eyes Closed
But She's Here!! I Found her
And I Missed her Sooo much

But once more and again
the Waves

The Cold Waves
Kept Rising
& Crashing up...

Once again
She would be Frozen
A Block of Ice...
Noooo!  i would cry
My Heart Sinking
My hands Reaching Out
A child's hands that had lost their Grip
The Cold waves Kept Coming Back
Kept Rising & Crashing, re-Freezing
No control, my Empty hands
i was Lost
My heart Raging, Defeated
Hurt & Empty
A Mothers face i couldn't See
Only the Reflection in the Water
The Absence-
That was freezing my TEACHER, my -Eyes Closed...

On constant self-improvement. Could just be the interpretation of the approach we're dealing with here. To me constant self-improvement is something I’ve tried in the past and always seemed to simply compound things, maybe have little steps “forward”. I kept trekking even when I just felt worse. If I keep doing the same thing over and over again, or many different things, I’m bound to get the results that "they" or my need for improvement keeps talking about. Maybe its just my misinterpretation of  approach, but I see a lot of people, some of them authors, who’s approach is to try to create self (improvement) which I think is inherently flawed, trying to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And a subtle aggression to the Self thats standing right here.

Maybe this is just semantics, but the only key that’s worked for my actual happiness is constant self-pealing. Layers coming undone, Unexisting: Unburdening themselves of existence and releasing the knowledge and abundance they veiled. I’ll explain.

Constant self-pealing and people in my life who help me do it is what’s responsible for that happy relaxed look on my face in my default pic (Chemical peal?). Meeting the experience that I give myself by refraining to use habituated coping mechanisms is the most powerful thing I can do for myself. The present experience that I don’t interact with in a natural way always seems like a problem and stems from my current subconsciously driven thoughts tied to my past that’s trying to interpret the present and predict the future. There’s running to and away, attempts to fight, trade, reconstruct, fix or throw away, but neurosis is a knot that is not. So how do I untie that? What am I actually doing if I try? Or done if I think I’ve done it? When I do stop and meet my experience I usually find the answer in the "problem". I keep relearning that lesson… a bit more fully each time. A layer pealed reveals what’s been there the whole time. Reveals the fear and the knowledge hidden in it, the self that I have had tied up and inhibited. I begin to suspect that everything I need may already be in me. No improvements, nothing added needed. Faith begins to dawn in me. Open faith. If I try to change a layer I'm not respecting whats inside it.  I’m not meeting it and am not going to see the wisdom or myself hidden in it or meet the other layers to work with. I'll never know fully what’s here… the present.

I usually find I have identified myself with the layers. It can feel like myself is pealing away. It can feel like a threat to my own existence. But that is an illusion of mine. Its only my ego that is pealing away. Ego in the since of that creation of ours that tries to create stability and comfort for a solid unmoving self in a world that is naturally unstable, always changing, in flux, moving. I find that when am struggling less with a layer, it becomes more transparent.  I start to identify less with it, but I know it more. Then I find more generosity that is just inherent and spontaneous, not conscious and created because its the right thing, because I should improve things. Not that I've been disingenuous before, but somehow it was not as real or direct. I find more peace that’s fundamental and not dependant on outside circumstances. Not because practicing being peaceful would be an improvement. I get a little braver because I'm starting to learn that I can feel fear and vulnerability & continue with the process even when I feel like parts of me are being challenged, dying off . Not because the old layers are bad and they are to be improved, or thrown away, traded for something better… which is really just adding on another seemingly more appealing layer to hide the one under it. I don't think the layers are rubbish. I think they have everything we need. I'm starting to learn that I don’t have to feel aggression towards my faults or “add” good things to myself or add to the good things that I can see I already have. I don’t even think they are really grown into something better. Good things in me just need uncovering, discovered, discovered more fully. That’s what I usually mean whenever I mention growth. The opposite of original sin aye? Neurosis is a knot that is not. But I am stubborn. I can find myself relying on old ways of coping or trying to fix even when I can see the folly in that. I can see enough to see, but I just want it to work damn it! Fuck Fixing it, I just want to escape damn it! Some of that is so habituated that it is truly on autopilot. Autopilot. For a while I just have to watch the movie till I can feel the reasons for its creation start to surface. Then I get to practice not running this way or that way or trying to fix the problem... finally experiencing my experience, knowledge starts to seep through. Or else I get caught up in struggle again, giving in or fighting to create change till I start to forget what I was starting to see. That’s when I think blind faith can be beneficial… (the zealots co-opted it: ) if its based on the memory that lingers of what was knowledge: Blind faith to keep following the path I’ve been following till the Open faith comes back. So I don’t always look as relaxed and happy as I do in my default pic, but it’s a hell of a lot more common. Actually it’s such a completely different & refreshing look about my face. I can look so new to me... and others. Not all get to it see it as much. Some won't let go of their old version of me and I wind up playing in to that out of habit. But maybe that can be a good thing... that old teacher, that old face keeps coming back for me to see… not to change. That happens as a by-product of meeting it.

"Are you 'blogged' down?  Groggy and bowel movements slowing down?  Sitting at your desk, on your butt that won't produce a turd, at your computer sipping coffee to get the "system" and the language center of your brain going? Then try B4M!  Fuck those "other 'Blah' sites". It's the easy way to get those gastro-intestinal and mental juices flowing! All of America is doing it! Well at least 700 Eastcoasters and 3 Seattleites are... Join them, flush your "Blah" away today!"

I read Fleurs blogs and realize that she's a writer and tell her so. I remembered the story ideas I've had that I've never written. Already friends for about 5 years I imagined Chy and myself in the future as authors. Her with her style & genre. Me having (discovered) my style and writing fantasy with a spiritual bent, sharing and bouncing ideas off each other... sharing of our lives and stories. I know that even if we wind up at opposite corners of the earth and never write a damn thing we will always have our friendship and gratitude for it. 

I was also reminded of when I had the same musings and imaginings, but not quite the same feelings about a mutual ex-friend and former Seattleite who recently moved back to St. Louis. Mo. I realized I Tried imagining. Kept trying. Some self-deception on my part. We were friends and shared the story ideas that were going to be famous. Greenlake has heard many of them. But even before his betrayal, Long before, I couldn't really see that future. Rather, I could imagine a future, but I had trouble really seeing him in it, though not fully conscious of that. Something was lacking. Distant. When I thought back to the whole of the friend  ship ...  I felt "finally he's gone". Not that he was seen as a rotten friend the whole time. That feeling surprised me. And Chy when I told her. I realized that whole time Something just felt missing. Missing in him. Some kind of black hole. Some kind of potential... as long as all his separate parts of his life didn't come together to interact with me as a part of that mix. But that’s what happened. He didn’t know how to interact with all the parts of himself and the people who where the parts of his life. All of his hidden parts, hidden parts of his life, hidden people, ways of not interacting… were so structured, placed, veiled. There were always long pauses between his sentences and mental stutters that would interrupt his speech… a messenger ferrying between all the segregated parts of his mind which weren’t allowed to know each other completely. What was allowed… What was not allowed… What was allowed to him... What was allowed to us… when It all came together his previously unspoken, misconnected thoughts were silent to him still. But he didn’t realize in the last conversation we ever had, walking around the lake, that the messenger was speaking out-loud. Not speaking like a “crazy person” per se, but revealing contradicting thoughts and lies of a massive disassociative-disorder, a Supermassive Blackhole  who had been there the whole time. His whole person… Our whole history was re-written in one lap around the lake. He could see the big picture in a hazy disconjointed way, but denied all the parts. Denied responsibility. Denied all of our feelings. He didn't understand how his missteps hurt people. He didn't understand or like people’s "strong emotions" as he put it. We had walked that lake so many times. So many miles. So many thoughts. So many conversations. He knew ,in great detail, of the first time I ever fell in Love… how I loved and lost and how that past changed my life forever. He saw the second time I loved happen in real time and how all of my fears from the first ruled my heart and mind. He knew (of) my nurtured hurt, fear of loss, fear of the loss of even the friendship. He watched me struggle to realize that I wasn’t going to lose the friendship and offered logical advice. He saw that friendship grow. I think he saw that. 

And he brought my third but most significant Love into my life. Her name is Migeum So. She was the engineering student of his father who teaches in St. Louis Mo. He was the 1^st person she knew in Seattle and for several months the only person. She sought solace and help from him with trying to get over someone she just left in St. Louis who wanted to marry her. It bothered him how quickly she became attached. He admitted on the lake how he saw her clinging and how her neediness she was going through at the time scared him. Not that she was the mental one. I remind you that strong emotions in general bother him. He didn’t even find her attractive. Strangely, sometime after he knew, without me saying anything, that I was developing strong feelings for her he began to see something in her. Strange how he can selectively be so intuitive and perceptive. He “began to suspect” that maybe there was some possibility between the two. He thought it a good way get over his secret love/obsession with his best friend, whom we’ve met a only a few times over several years, who is married to his best friend since grade school. He used Migeum. He hurt her badly. Some of his actions Shocked me. I wept for her. I never cried for someone like that before. Her pain is mine. Hurting her is hurting me. She tried to back away from him, to let him go, several times, before… before he moved back home and she still had her life.  We talked much. Shared our thoughts and feelings about our mutual loss and hurt, and shared, to an extent, here-and-there, about our thoughts and feelings for eachother. But now she is so scared, so protective… distant herself. Morning two losses…Who can blame her? But its hard to see her hurt and withdraw. And I fear I may lose again.

Migeum, How are your feeling? How are you doing really? Its so hard to
know how your are doing because you seem to be keeping such a
distance. Its hard to go through not knowing how you are doing. I
pray. I hope for your well being. I want to know that things are going
well for you inside. I know that when we actually talk to each other
with our voices that you do much better. I can hear the health and the
smile returning in your voice. I know its good for you. I know it
helps keep your heart healthy and feeling. I know it brings your
clarity. I know you shouldn't keep your distance from it or at least
work to come back to that communication when your ready. I don't know
what the right thing to do or the right thing to say in this
particular letter... I just know that I care. I know things have to be
tough for you. That goes without saying really. With the (dental) surgeries

(she fell) all in the middle of exams and projects and all that in the middle of
letting go of someone who couldn't love you back the same. Its a time
when someone wants to do the adverse thing and shield their heart. I
want you to do more than just emotionally coast along. I want you to
do more than just escape by keeping your mind busy. I want you to do
more than move on by just moving on to the next thing. I want you to
blossom. I want you to feel your feelings and keep them healthy.
Remember how you said one of the things you got out of what happened
was how you want your feelings? That you want to feel your feelings,
that you see that is right and good to do so? I want that for you
also. That's your clarity. Your instinct as a human being. Maybe its a
mistake for me to write all this. Maybe I should just let time pass
and your distance will dissolve and you'll heal. Maybe I'm being
selfish, because when I talk to you everything is much easier for me
too and by not talking to you I just don't know anything and that's so
hard for me.

I know that you were hurt and hurt bad. I feel and sense that your
having fallen for guys that are distant is because you see yourself
and your own protectionism in them and you want to save that part.
Your empathy for them is also empathy for yourself. But to rescue that
part in you you need only work to open yourself. Seriously: Ask God to
help you to receive. That's so Powerful. You need only work with your
own fears and realize they exist only because you have a beautiful
heart that wants to trust and wants to feel. It is right to trust and
feel even if there are those who don't or can't return it truly. Show
that empathy for yourself directly. You are your own best friend and
will not betray yourself. You are with you no matter what. You can
trust you even through the fear. You can walk yourself through it. God
is with you and you can believe in you. I do.  I pray for you. God
knows I pray, at times, without words. You know when you get to that
place where there is that communication that words cannot contain and
it's time to abandon them. The words just drop away. There is just
connection and communication.

I trust your Sunday was fruitful. Ask God to help you to receive...
John

Losing again this time would be something quite different from what I’ve experienced in the past.  Ask Chy, and she will say that “he is more John that I have ever known him to be”.  There are entire parts of what I thought was me, that I thought was solid, real and defining that are simply pealing, dissolving away, no longer existing. There are more semi-transparent layers to peal away. I wonder how many of them there are. The way my experience comes to me is undergoing a radical transformation that I can hardly put into words. Even the way the physical world can come to me is different. It’s the most Scary and Wonderful experience I’ve ever had in my Life. Sometimes the love is overwhelming and unimaginable to my “rational” “pragmatic” side that wishes to remain. Other times its Complete Understanding. Other times I struggle to hold on to the parts of me that are dying a little each day so that I may be reborn a little each day. And there are a lot of times I struggle so much that I forget everything and the only thing that works is to just stop and let go and breathe. It seems Doing Nothing… relying on none of my old ways of handling my experience… brings it all back. That’s another Scary Wonderful part. Whatever this change is Its inevitable. None of my old tricks work and when I give up on them I don’t recognize myself and I don’t just love Migeum. I am Love for Migeum.  My spirituality is inextricably tied to her. All of this because I know she exists in this world. Her simple existence …it’s a miracle to me. She brought my life back to me. I see God because of her. She’s shown me that its possible for me to see God in a grain of sand and in myself.  I see the God in her. 

I never realized how much I have to give to another person.

From the very beginning when my fears first resurfaced with this new person, this stronger experience, and I wanted to run or curl into a ball… something including, but beyond just me, said “wait, this one is different”. Faith is all I have right now. Faith and Fear. Faith is something I’ve never had.

Ok this is a real blog and not a cut and paste.

I suck. Today sucks. SOMETHING SUCKS. I dream some weird dream, wake up at NOON for 5 days in a row because I'm doing temp assignments and I'm currently "inbetween assignments". Seriously, Temping sucks. I get 3 or 4 months of work and then 1 or 2 with no work. That may work for some people, but not me. Or my bills.

My Days are Blurring together. I'm starting to watch SOAP OPERAS.  I'm starting to Care that so and so is going to find out they are the real mother of so and so even though so and so thought... and don't even get me started on Oprah! Oh God... Dr. Phil. Monster.com is returning crap results. Theres no Jobs in Seattle. Dr. PhOprah Ain't helpin'.

So what else can I do with my time? I invented a filtration system for my one gallon guppy bowl because nothing like it exists in the petstore. but that exitement is over. its working great. nothing to do except watch... it Filter. And seriously, I've scientifically oberved it... filtering. With keen interest... Flow patterns... strength... are my ghost shrimp getting sucked into it... well, watching the animals is nice.

A friend who I never hear from is taking her desk back so now I'm going to build one and stain some interesting patterens in the wood with coffee grounds... if that works.  If you hear about that trick being used Know that I Invented it. "hey we should walk around the lake, we never do that anymore, lets act like friends again... and by the way what I really want is that desk I've been storing in your room for a year now... I'm just trying to be polite about taking it back even though it is mine and such and act is totally unnecessary and I should've been a friend before I needed the desk back". Well I'm bitching about nothing like Seinfeld only not funny. I'm going to watch my avacado plant grow, build a desk or take a shower or something...

Hey... that was my 1st real blog!  Something else to keep me busy...

Ok, this is not a real Blog. Its the Science of Choclolate and its a cut and paste job...

Chy aka Fluer:

Chocolate is good for you!

A recent study published in the British Medical Journal, The Lancet, concluded that chocolate contains a significant amount of dietary antioxidants.  Specifically, researchers are interested in the protective value of phenols (or phenolics), the naturally occurring chemicals responsible for keeping the fat in chocolate from becoming rancid.  Phenols from other food sources, such as tea and red wine, have also been studied for their phenol content and are now being compared to those found in chocolate.  While all of these foods contain antioxidant catechins, and the specific phenol epicatechin is common to each, they occur in varying degree and composition.  For instance, chocolate contains four times the catechin content of tea.  Researchers have also found that a 1.5 ounce piece of milk chocolate has a phenolic content and antioxidant affect nearly equivalent to a 5 ounce glass of red wine. 

Why are phenols good for you?  While researchers do not claim to have proven anything yet, there is mounting evidence that supports several theories that phenols may reduce the risk of heart disease.  While studying what has come to be known as the “French Paradox,” scientists discovered a correlation between wine consumption and a surprisingly low incidence of heart disease in a sampling of the French population in spite of having high serum cholesterol levels.  The apparent mechanism of phenols is to inhibit the oxidation of cholesterol in the blood, specifically low density lipoprotein (LDL), dubbed as the “bad” cholesterol.  Oxidation of LDL is a leading cause of atherosclerosis (arterial plaque buildup), a major contributing factor in heart disease.  However, while dietary phenols may prevent lipid peroxidation, they do not reduce serum cholesterol levels.  This explains why the French residents involved in the French Paradox observation had high cholesterol levels but a relatively low rate of heart disease mortality.  Other studies suggest that dietary phenols, including those found in chocolate, inhibit platelet aggregation and may promote “vasorelaxation.” 

Aside from the role indicated in the prevention of heart disease, chocolate phenols may also affect immune function in humans.  A recent study published in Cellular Immunology examined the effect of cocoa phenols on normal human blood lymphocytes in vitro.  The researchers surmised that cocoa phenols regulate immune response by inhibiting mitogen-induced proliferation of T-cells, Ig production and IL-2 mRNA expression. 

Other studies propose that chocolate-derived phenols exhibit anti-ulcer properties.  In one recent study, the administration of cocoa phenols reduced gastric lesions and thiobarbituric acid secretion of the gastric lining in ethanol-induced ulcers in rats. 

While chocolate may never be touted as a health food, it clearly does have some health-giving benefits to offer. Scientists now recognize that chocolate is an important source of dietary antioxidant phenols in addition to red wine and tea.  In fact, just as an occasional glass of red wine is deemed healthy, indulging your sweet tooth with chocolate now and then may actually be good for you. 

---Johnson/greyy