local transient

 Mary

Desert tune

We were talking / About the space between us all /
And the people who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion

sphere of interpretation

Life as we know it
takes place in a sphere.
A sphere of our own making.
Seldom do we catch a glimpse
of the world outside this sphere.
Interpretation happens too quickly.
So I call it a sphere of interpretation.
 

Part One:  I have a theory. We frequently mis-perceive the intentions of others ..and when we do, we generally err on the side of malfeasance. But we are multi-dimensional beings. There are so many reasons why we act the way we do. Most of the time they're hidden from view. Settling on one reason too quickly can be a source of misunderstanding and conflict. I believe choosing the more malicious of possibilities is learned. After I presented my theory at a workshop on defensiveness ..I was told by a group of educators that the theme of so much literature children read involves something like “the wicked prince secretly conspired to kill his sibling rivals for the throne.” The message kids come away with is .. beware! Safe as it may sound ..there is a downside. Misperception can be cause for alarm and defensiveness. Compound misperception is a source of stress. We live in a sphere of chronic anxiety. Our leaders know this. It can also be a source of deception. But that’s another story. Neuroscience informs us that vision is selective and verbal communication probabilistic. Memory plays a significant role in binding visual and verbal cues into a ‘percept’ of ‘why and what-for’. Past history fills-in what’s hidden from view. They tell us about two-thirds of what we see and hear at any given moment is not what’s in front of us, but rather what memory supplies.. It compensates for the shortcomings of our senses and gives our perception the appearance of seamlessness. But memory is a faulty and imperfect guide to perception. And because it makes everything appear so seamless, we’re not always aware of our own contribution to everyday encounters. Continued here ~> [ Part Two ]

 

sphere of interpretation

Part Two: To remedy this and remind myself that I’m living in a sphere ..I subscribe to the empty rowboat theory of Buddhism. It’s comes in a parable that goes something like this: 

“Imagine we are out on a lake and it’s a bit foggy ..not too foggy, but just a bit foggy. We are rowing along in our little boat having a good time. And then, all of a sudden, coming out of the fog, there’s this other rowboat and it’s heading right at us. And ..crash! For an instant we’re alarmed ..then we get really angry – what is that fool doing ? I just painted my boat! And here he comes – crash! – right into it. And then suddenly we notice that the rowboat is empty. What happens to our anger? It collapses. I’ll just have to paint my boat again, that’s all. But if that rowboat that hit ours had another person in it, how would we react?” 

Now they say the same holds true for everyday encounters with people and events. It’s like being bumped by an empty rowboat. But I don’t experience life that way. I experience it as though there are people in that other rowboat who are out to get me. I’m seeing things through a sphere of interpretation. Since I rarely catch a glimpse of events as they occur .. I populate them with people and beliefs from my own experience. Now I’m not saying I take a Pollyanna approach to all such encounters. However, reminding myself of the empty rowboat theory is part of a practice that I find useful in tuning down some of the buzz that goes on inside the sphere where I live.

West Coast E Street

 

She’s still surfing Lower Trestles ~ Orange sunshine always burned in her veins ~ Now I hear she's got a house in Fairview ~ And a style she’s trying to maintain ~ Well, if she wants to see me ~ You can tell her that I'm easily found ~ There’s a spot beneath the bridge ~ Under the  tracks on the edge of town

Enter

"Look inwards and advance directly along the road that leads to the mind."

Arctic transformation

I think the oil boom in Wainwright Alaska will definitely make converts out of the Inupiat Eskimos who live there. They subsist largely off the bounty of the ocean. In one generation, a population of fish-eaters will become sugar-and-burger-eaters. Their health will deteriorate and they’ll lose their teeth. They have co-existed with the ice and tundra for thousands of years .. providing them with a precarious but steady supply of salmon, caribou and wild berries. Drilling operations will drive fish farther out to sea and excavating operations will plough-up the tundra driving caribou elsewhere and burying whatever edible plants and berries exist. The tundra never comes back. Shell Oil Co. hosted a kick-off event serving hamburgers and beans and boasting economic progress. Next they’ll be building roads, hotels, strip malls, bars, brothels and Burger Kings. I think the flood of strangers will turn out to be more toxic than the release of hydrocarbons.

Departure

    Be it sight, sound, smell, or touch 
    Something inside retains so much
    The sight of a touch or the scent of a sound
    Or the strength of an oak with roots deep in the ground
    The wonder of flowers to be covered and then burst up
    Through tarmac to the sun again
    Or to fly to the sun without burning a wing
    To lie in a meadow and hear the grass sing
    To have all these things in our memory stored
    And we use them to help us ..

    Moody Blues

Change

Life is Change 
Thoughts pass 
Feelings flash 
Following a pulse
A world unfolds

Digital distraction

Photon driven
to distraction
Mind racing
Heart pounding
Thoughts scatter
diffuse and diverse

Neurolinguistic programming

Hackers are sending messages over the Internet that bypass the usual centers for linguistic processing. They travel along the optic or auditory nerve and go directly into the deep structures of the brain ..those areas responsible for carrying-out parsing operations native to all languages. These messages arrive in their native state ..just out of the reach of the predicates of logic. Like a Trojan horse ..they deliver instructions that basically shred conditioned passageways in the brain, which causes the recipient to start raving incoherently. Like a virus .. anyone hearing the ravings of this lunatic will also be infected ..experience a similar mental disruption and start raving and spreading the virus to others. This isn’t new. 12th century practitioners of the Kabbalah realized the hypnotic power of messages that were composed of symbols taken from sacred texts. I have the Book of the Names on my shelf. It frightens me to take it down because when I do ..I lose hours, even days out of my life and I never know where I’ll end up. Click below and see.

Ludwigshafen am Bodensee

Ludwigshafen am Bodensee

Rehab

Physical therapy - Jill:  I need to score ‘22’ points on a scale of 1 – 30 in order to be  officially ‘discharged’ from the walker. That means I have to be able to walk a straight line while maneuvering around obstacles, changing my pace ..then do it again backwards. Today I scored ‘13’. For me this would be a killer even under the best conditions

 

My physical therapist, Jill, holds a doctorate degree specializing in the neuro-vestibular system. This means she deals with the part of the brain that gives me a sense of my orientation in space. It’s one of three components of balance. She informs me my vestibular system is shot

 

I remember a female instructor at Santa Cruz who wore a camcorder on her head while walking around school one day. Afterward, she showed us the film. It looked nothing like what we ordinarily see. It was a bumpy and jarring ride. 

 

“That’s because we have a vestibular-ocular reflex (VOR) that keeps our eyes steady while our head bounces around. ” Jill explains “..without it, the world looks like it did on the film ..it’s called ‘osillopic’ or bouncy vision.” I’d say that pretty much captures the essence of my walking expeditions.

Day ten

Wednesday August 15 ~ Speech Therapy:  My speech therapist has got me playing games-for-the-brain on the computer. ..detecting birds that momentarily appear in the forest while keeping my eyes on the trail. Learning to use my peripheral vision while staying focused on what’s ahead. Although this may not seem like it involves verbal skills ..Holly is dealing with my attention and tracking abilities, which are involved with conversation. These exercises also contribute to my physical therapy. Noah (PT) encourages me to trust my peripheral vision more. He prescribes ‘smooth pursuit’ exercises and recommends I avoid making ‘fast tracking’ movements that diminish my eyesight and throw me off-balance.

Day nine

Monday August 13 ~ speech therapy:My speech therapist isn’t just dealing with my speech. That’d be too narrow-focused. She’s also dealing with the mental skills that underlie speech. Skills I need to translate concepts into spoken words as well as words back into concepts. We get past the slurry speech issue and begin working on verbal memory, which I know didn’t work all that well to begin with. We take turns conjuring-up words for items in the food department (lexical retrieval) ..and repeat the growing list of items back to each other as we go (verbal short term memory). We play a game like charades to see how fast we can explain words before the other gets it (semantic processing). It’s fun working with Holly.

Erika

 

"Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, teaming with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself."      - Joseph Cambell

Kālī

 

 

By Serena Kali Devi

 

As I exhaled my bong load I melted to nothing warped into another dimension. I had no thought or life. I was no longer human. My life no longer existed, I had forgotten everything I've ever know. Gone... Once I was quickly and completely out of body, transported into hyperspace, Hindu goddess, Kali, the 'Dark Mother', took me on a magical vivid journey of colors, textures and mystical places. Everything was very colorful, and vibrant. She seductively gestured me to follow her, I followed with pleasure. She was mostly woman as she guided me, but as scenary changed so did her shape. From tigress to serpent she had me hypnotized showing me a world more beautiful than words can describe. Colors were exploding, dripping and splashing I could feel them and taste them. There was a distinct sound, a buzz, a vibration. I interpenetrated this vibration as the words "look", "see" and "follow" comforting me and rapidly repeating. There was a melting feeling, a melting feeling that took over my body made me feel wet, soaked. Not that my solid body matter was wet (because I was 'out of body'), but that I was water, a liquid matter. I flowed, following her though the universe, though her temple and I also flowed through her as blood in her veins. Vision after vision I fell deeper and deeper into her trance. But, once I hit my absolute peak, when I felt as if I reached the point of no return, a thought finally arose in my head. I slightly remembered physical self and without words questioned "wtf is going on?". Once I asked myself that i kinda remembered that this journey started because I took a drug. Then I remembered that I'm in a room of people being completely silent, patiently waiting for their turn, carefully watching me go through this experience. Once I recognized, realized and remembered my existence, the vivid images began to fade and an upside down triangle appeared. I tunneled though the portal of triangles back into reality. Finally I was somewhat able to see the real world around me. I looked up at my friends and all I could say was "wow" and also asked if i had pee'd myself (cuz of the wet feeling LOL). Slowly coming out of my trip, I laid back down to enjoy the rest of what she had to show me. The ceiling was now visible, but I could still see thousands of Kali's in patterns kaleidoscoping in my vision. The kaleidoscopic of her was rhythmically circling/ moving side to side as if it were a dance and wave goodbye. The intricate patterns began to blur and the colors blended as energy in the air. I finally stood up to let someone else take my place on the air bed for their trip. My body high was fading but I could still see and feel the pink, purple, blue and green energy pumping though the room and the friends accompanying me. This lasted for several more minutes after i had awaken. My friends told me that I laid there in my trip for about 12 minutes. They also said my eyes were wide open the whole time. I sat there trying to answer their questions of what I saw or remembered, but at that moment my brain was still barely processing the experience. Even today, I'm still mentally downloading what happened. There is so much more that I saw which I cant find the words explain and still don't even understand. But each minute that has passed since my trip, I've been able to better understand what was being shown to me. The most interesting part about my trip is that, before this experience I had no knowledge of Kali. Ive been doing my research on her and the more I'm learning about her, the more in love with her I fall and the more pure and true my experience with her becomes. I now feel a nurturing protection of her watching over me. I've gained a sense of enlightenment and a more free spirit. In my real world, life has been hard, but I suddenly feel at peace with the world. My experience with her has so much meaning in my life, I decided have her symbol, the Kali Yantra, tattooed on my back.

Galactic Psymadhi by ॐ Kali Devi ॐ

Day eight

Friday August 10, 2012   Speech therapy  I have a Speech Therapist who leaves me speechless. She’s drop-dead gorgeous. So I'm like ..how’s this gonna work ..? Brilliantly it turns out. Seems my slack larynx isn’t hitting all the ‘fricatives’ it needs. In my rush to say something pertinent, I’m speaking gibberish. She offers me a simple remedy. Slow down and breathe. Sequence words before sending them out for production. Allow my vocal cords to concentrate on delivery and not word selection. I guess I used to rely on the sound coming out of my mouth to make that determination. Worked OK till the delay at fricatives made me trip over my words. In order to avoid that ..I’m doing an end-run around the troublesome sound, which causes me to slur my words. She cleared that up nicely. Even though I walk like a drunken sailor .. I no longer talk like one

New sound

Day seven

Thursday August 9, 2012   Andrea, my Occupational Therapist, wakes me at 7:00 am every morning to take stock of my ‘preparation skills’. This morning I surprise her ..I’m already awake and, with my headphones blasting ..I’m rocking out to the Jerry Garcia Band on YouTube. A clever way to practice my PT training from the day before (with that interactive bastard metronome) ..following the beat with my head, hands and feet. Another attempt at neuro-muscular recruitment. Andrea (aka as Dr Dreaus) is a Renaissance woman. A former Olympic-class swimmer ..she’s in her early 20’s and into the Dead. She understands my references to subversive culture and Indie music. She renews my interest in music by Phish. So, the next morning at 7:00 am ..I’m rocking out to a Phish concert on YouTube.

Day Six

Wednesday August 8, 2012 ~ The Interactive Metronome:   I used to be confident that I could tap my feet or clap my hands to the beat ..until a computer that measures accuracy to the nearest millisecond said otherwise. Visual feedback tells me that if I wait until I hear the beat ..I’m already too late. When I try and anticipate the beat I’m way too early. If I wait until it feels right I’m much more accurate. The trick is relying on my hands and feet to follow the rhythm without me interfering. I need to tap-in to my native abilities at responding  to external cues. Kind of like the way I used to surf or ski. Rhythm is a necessary part of walking upright ..and waking upright is a peculiarly human characteristic. How pathetic. I think I’m discovering what it’s like to be human again.

Day five

Tuesday August 7, 2012 This morning I’m clapping my hands to a video by the band Metric on YouTube. I shake my head in stunned surprise. I couldn’t do this yesterday. So I start snapping fingers on both hands  and take delight in knowing that just 3 days earlier I couldn’t do that either. I remember seeing a pretty little nurse shuffling by and snapping her fingers as she went and wishing I could do that too. Believe me, I tried. Now I can’t wait to show-off my new-found ‘skill’. Everyone nods and acts excited ..like I’ve struck gold or something. As though they've never seen anyone do anything like that before (geeesh).

Day four

Monday August 6, 2012   I watched a video by VS Ramachandran (below). He talks about a simple procedure designed to alleviate phantom limb pain that is being used in hospitals throughout the world. At the time the video was produced (2006) ..the procedure was just entering clinical trials to test it’s effectiveness for alleviating paralysis. It’s based on the premise that a component of paralysis is learned. It suggests that by seeing what the weak limb should do ..watching how the good limb does it, the brain gets additional information it needs to re-wire itself accordingly.

   It consists of a mirror box where you put both hands inside ..except what you see is the good hand where the weak hand ordinarily appears. Patients see this and it looks as though the weak hand is moving with ease. Repeated sessions in the mirror box can boost the outcome of physical therapy. I’m reminded of the multi-sensory training we give kids in speech and reading therapy. Informs the brain how to re-wire itself by not only hearing ..but also by seeing and feeling the vibrations required to produce the subtle sounds of language. It has proven most successful in treating dyslexia.

   I suddenly realize how much of my rehab is actually going to be about information. Targeting my brain with information .. telling it what needs to be done. Banging my heels. Exaggerating my moves. Training my nervous system ..not just my muscles. Using dramatic gestures to get my body to recruit different neuro-muscular pathways and get the job done.

   I ask Noah if the method ever passed clinical trials. Affirmative, he answers. They use it mainly for severe cases where the patient experienced motionless before therapy. They learned they can’t move. The mirror box works by helping the patient unlearn the perception that they can’t move and triggers the brain to find a way. For me, seeing this video unlocks the power of information that I harness the rest of my days at rehab and beyond. I'm still mirroring my good side to inspire my weak side