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ufi meditation practices have a dangerous element to them, I've found. Today I had to drive into the city for a dentist appointment and got stuck in major rush hour traffic on the way home. It's been warm here lately, the kind of warm everyone seems to love except me, because I'm sentimental for the East Coast seasons sometimes and it just feels wrong to be sweating so close to Halloween. I was running out of gas so I turned the air conditioning off and rolled down the window, just sitting there baking on the pavement amongst the grocery trucks with their ridiculous slogans and the Ford Focuses and peoples' lame bumperstickers.

Traffic is really a human equalizer. Admit it: technology and progress only take you so far as the next problem they have yet to solve (I am kind of in love with the Amish at the moment.). Lives are difficult and mundane all over the world, in all times and places. And as I was pondering this and breathing it something melted in me, that I'm special and not special at the same time, that my life could have a purpose and still be no more than one small Civic hatchback in gridlock on 101 North, and there was really no difference between those two things.

I was inching my way up a big hill and the big hot blue sky filled my view, and all of a sudden I was just completely ready to die. I was sitting there worried about my little concerns and at the same time could have just stopped the car and turned it off and walked away. Obviously I didn't, but in that moment there was no distinction between detachment and attachment, and it could have fallen either way.

Now that I'm back in my cool forest house I'm feeling more like usual, but it's still a disconcerting thing to know about oneself. Like it's completely real but completely wrong to have one side of yourself that could just chuck it all at any moment. I'm taking it seriously.

Posted by Satya at 5:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

ast week I discovered I'm a pretty good shot. Our friend came down for the weekend for a wedding, and his stay with us coincided with his birthday. So as a gift I took him down to the shooting range for a basic pistol lesson, something we've been talking about casually for a little while. I had never held a gun before.

After some basic instruction we stepped into the range. I had to wear ear and eye protection, and the room was dark and carpeted, with a booth on each lane. All these factors gave it a feeling of surreal sensory deprivation, and suddenly it felt like I was all alone - just me, my breath, and a deadly weapon.

It turns out that one technique for learning accurate shooting is to apply pressure to the trigger slowly, so that when the hammer falls, it's a surprise. In this way you don't anticipate the recoil, so your aim is true. This worked much better for me than the alternative, because with my nervousness and arms shaking from the effort of holding a heavy (deadly) object so steady at my furthest reach, I don't think I could have steadied myself for a recoil if I tried.

The other thing that surprised me is how quickly one gets used to the idea of deadly force. Hand-to-hand combat is so much more emotional and personal. But after a while, using a gun becomes a task like any other, like chopping vegetables or something. It was easy to forget what the paper target represented, and in a real life situation, my preoccupation with firing each bullet through the hole the previous one made would be entirely unnecessary. Indeed, much more damage has been made with a thoughtless trigger pull in a general direction.

All in all, I like guns. In the past my gentle self would shudder at the very thought, but the questions of violence and self-defense have become more intriguing to me over the years, and my old sweeping assumptions have been stirred up for re-examination. When I think about the battles of the Prophets, I wonder if there ever is a time when one person must kill another, and the answer isn't so black and white. And it also doesn't hurt to know I'm pretty handy with a .357 revolver.

Posted by Satya at 9:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

hen Muhammad (SAAS) left Mecca for Medina, the heat was on him around town. His enemies had decided to kill him before he could spread Islam any further. On the night the hijra began, he gave Ali (RAAS) his cloak and told him to sleep underneath it in his bed so his enemies would think he was there. (Despite the inherent danger in slumbering in a wanted man's place, the faithful Ali apparently had no trouble catching some z's.) Meanwhile Muhammad fled with Abu Bakr to a cave outside of town.

His enemies figured out what was going on soon enough and were hot on the trail. But a spider had spun an intricate web across the entrance, so they passed on by, thinking no one could have been inside for years. For this and other reasons, we are a spider-friendly household.

It's a good thing, too, because the number and variety of spiders around here is astonishing. On the deck outside our bedroom, a huge web stretches from the railing to the roof, with a giant fat spider making himself at home. We don't plan on disturbing him.

The other night I was bitten as I slept three times on my head and neck. One of the bites swelled into a painful lump behind my ear. I'm hoping it will help innoculate me for the future, because with houses and nature, I think there should be some compromise.

Posted by Satya at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

o far small-town living suits me. Yesterday after spending the day working in my new office, I took Virgil exploring down our street. It had just rained and the redwoods smelled incredible. There's a little foot bridge that leads into town, about a ten-minute walk. It spits you out on a tiny little street, and when you turn around you can't even see where you came from, like a secret passage. From there I walked a couple blocks to the farmer's market and bought a Belgian waffle from a food truck, happily getting powdered sugar all over my black clothes.

Rhythm is something I try to attune to, because I've found it to be very important. Murshid writes about it a lot too, drawing analogies between music and life. A steady rhythm is all I need to be productive, to be happy, to do a little at a time even when the task seems completely overwhelming (i.e. moving). I still haven't gotten it down completely here, but the pace is slower and gentler than my former city life. M. seems impatient to complete all the house projects as soon as possible, but I'm starting to enjoy the process as it comes, one piece at a time. Yes, it's a mess, but it won't be that way forever.

And in the meantime, there are neighbors to greet and walks to take and vegetables to buy. The children of Fairfax are running a homemade media campaign to promote slow driving, their magic marker posters hung all over town. Normally I'd be more cynical about this type of thing, but in this case I'd say it's good advice.

Posted by Satya at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)