Saint Patrick

They close off State Street (main street) for farmers market and St. Patrick’s Day. By 2 pm the clubs are packed ..by 4 pm people are pouring into the street. I’m just passing through. There are a lot of people from out of town .. they out-number residents ..which can be interesting. I duck into Territory Ahead and buy some clothes for summer. Since it’s unseasonable warm today; I keep on one of the new shirts I bought. When I go outside ..it looks like aliens have landed. People are running around dressed in green .. totally green. I say ‘Hi’ to a group of elves ..and they point out that they’re not elves but leprechauns. One of them suggests knocking my lights out. I see a bunch of bikers, sitting outside O’Malley’s, glaring at me. A rough bunch of bikers ..and I realize, to my horror, that I’m no longer wearing green ..I changed into blue at the store. Memories of St. Patrick’s Days past leap to mind. I’ve had my hair cut ..shirt torn ..and buckets of Gatorade and green paint poured over me. They start to get up ..and I start to run. I rush passed strawberry ..artichoke ..and alfalfa sprout vendors. I dodge a moving cartload of tomatoes ..duck into a movie theater .. passed the ticket-taker ..and into ‘The Last House on the Left’. I crash and fall down the isle ..through the exit ..and into an alleyway full of consignment shops. I drop my bags behind the counter at Cominichi’s ..grab a denim vest ..and duck into a changing room. Before I leave I make sure I’m wearing something green ..and hope for the best.

Saint Teresa

Alpine sea

Laura and Jenny on the Bodensee
Lindau, Germany

Room with a view

Lindau, Germany

Hosanna

I’m watching Mickey shoot hoops with his cousin Hosanna. He shoots well for a nine year old. Mickey is benefiting from a long line of basketball players in his family. Last week he was shooting hoops with other cousin, Leslie ..who is Hosanna’s older sister. Leslie used to play varsity hoops at Santa Barbara High and now plays for the University. Hosanna is a high school freshman and was playing JV until she ran into a coach that didn’t like her older sister for some reason. Once the coach learned who she was ..Hosanna stopped seeing much play time ..which is required for advancing to varsity. If it happens again next year she plans to join a ‘traveling team’ outside of school. It saddens me when I hear coaches making decisions based on personal bias rather than merit. Even though it looks like it’s teaching Hosanna to be resourceful and explore other options ..I can tell it’s left a bitter taste in her mouth. I’m hoping she’ll have sufficient success with other coaches to overcome the setback she experienced at the hands of this one.

Thunder road

Slum guy

I walk to State Street where I meet Richelle and we go see the movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. For me it’s a little disturbing ..reminding me of how cruel people can be to one another. Afterwards, we sit and talk about ‘karma’ ..which I believe is closer to the law of cause and effect than it is to the notion of destiny or fate. No argument there. The next morning I send my sister an IM simply saying that I saw the movie. When I don’t get a reply before I have to leave ..I add: “don’t take it as an endorsement or anything.” She responds immediately asking: “why not ?” ..and says she’s planning to go see it this weekend with my niece. I know she doesn’t like to watch disturbing movies ..so, I tell her to brace herself. She asks me what I mean and I tell her it’s not like what you see on PBS ..it’s a different ‘slice of life’. She’s disappointed ..which makes me feel bad, so ..I tell her to go; it’s definitely worth seeing . She tells me she intends to ..and reminds me that I’ve lied to her about these things in the past. I know she pays close attention to the entertainment news, so, like a jerk, I add: “Ignore the critics who say it’s not a balanced portrait of India ..it may not be balanced ..but it sure is realistic” ..to which she replies: “Well, duh .. how else would they have time for all the romantic stuff” ..and I’m like: “That’s right” ..knowing full well that I’ve just chucked whatever credibility I had left out the window.

zen notes

I’m doing deep breathing exercises and noticing how the air meets resistance when I breathe in. So, I keep going until I feel the air flowing more freely. Now, I hear the swoosh of traffic coming through a small opening in the window ~ splashing water from a recent rain. I hear ringing in my ears ~ tinnitus from years of rock concerts. It doesn’t bother me; I still listen to music at high volume. When I pay attention, I notice how it masks the other sounds in the room. Then I think about how it interferes with voices on television ~ or conversations in a crowded room. I watch this train of thought flow until it vanishes. Next, I hear the sound of my internal editor going around in a crazy loop ..revising words on a paper I’m writing. When I pay closer attention, it gets self-conscious, picks up a notebook computer ..and goes into another room. I’m sitting here wondering what else is going to happen ..not anticipating anything specific.

Homing device

It smells good out here ..like incense. Kind of organic ..like rain-soaked earth. Although there’s an offshore flow, we are sheltered ..so the air is still and I feel warm on the beach. The ocean has a pungent aroma of it’s own ..like a living organism ..like the thousands or other living organisms it hosts. The sun illuminates ..the water evaporates ..and I take a deep breath. Makes me feel connected to everything out here. The sense of smell is the oldest and least understood ..but it has the most connections to other areas of the brain. On days like this it gives me a sense of belonging ..I hear my mother calling me ..the warmth of bread baking in the oven ..my grandmother’s gentle voice ..the one my dad inherited (thank goodness, my grandfather was a baritone) ..I feel enveloped by the elements ..like a cocoon ..like my mother’s womb ..I can see the sight of a smell ..and feel the warmth of it’s partnership with comforting memories of early childhood ..feels like home.

Observation deck

I’m sitting on the deck listening to a song by Small Faces (wicked messenger) ..I hear the distinctive sound of a Harley roaring by on the street below ..otherwise everything is quiet ..the music drowns out the swoosh of regular traffic ..and the voices in my head aren’t so loud ..the music drowns them out too. I take a sip of coffee and it scorches my tongue .. I spit it out in a spray ..followed by a couple mouthfuls of cold water ..and I laugh at myself ..which tells me I must be feeling better ..things aren’t bothering me ..I’m not shouting the usual string of obscenities. I can hear my plants talking; they’re parched and gasping for water ..I feel neglectful and tell them they’re first on my list. Makes me feel better knowing they’re taken care of. I enjoy the sound of a slide guitar. I’m reading ‘The Fountainhead’ by Ayn Rand ..I remember getting only halfway through her other book ‘Atlas Shrugged’ when I was in college ..but, the characters started speaking in sermons that went on for like five or six pages ..and the storytelling broke down ..it didn’t sound like real dialogue anymore. Fountainhead isn’t so bad ..it’s tells a good story ..except the characters don’t seem real ..it’s not the way people behave. I think it says more about the way the author wishes they’d behave ..a mixture of half-truths and schoolgirl fantasies ..where people never contradict themselves ..and follow ideals that never change. It was written in the 1940’s. I suppose life was simpler back then.

Stamp act

The first federal law in the U.S. prohibiting cannabis as an intoxicant was the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. It was enacted primarily out of economic fears and immigration worries. During the depression, migrant workers from Mexico were no longer needed or welcome in the south and southwest states. People there were afraid that Mexican immigrants were undercutting American workers for jobs so they were trying to get them to return to Mexico. Since many of these immigrants smoked marijuana, it was thought that banning marijuana would help. So, in 1937 Congress passed The Marijuana Tax Stamp Act. The Act itself did not actually criminalize possession or use of marijuana, but required anyone doing so to pay roughly one dollar to receive the stamp. In the 1930’s, this would have been prohibitively expensive to migrant farm workers, however, it didn’t matter ..the government was only issuing them to doctors and dentists. This created a catch-22 for recreational users ..the penalty for not having the stamp was a fine of up to $2000 and five years’ imprisonment. This put recreational users at great risk, and for the Mexican immigrant, it meant certain deportation. In 1969, the case of Leary v. United States ruled that the Act was unconstitutional because it violated Fifth Amendment rights. Unless you were a doctor or dentist, applying for the tax stamp was an act of self-incrimination. In response, Congress repealed the 1937 marijuana stamp act and replaced it with the Title II of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. This made it a felony to cultivate, possess or use marijuana for any reason ..including research. Although California law has lightened up and reduced some penalties to a misdemeanor, law enforcement agencies vigorously pursue cultivation in order to take advantage of property forfeiture and seizure laws.

Buddha road

Buddha’s observations on the nature of the mind come closer to modern-day neuroscience than any other philosophy I’ve read ..and his investigations did not end there ~ they had just begun. He saw how mental activity was mostly noise. A mixture of chatter ..imaginary offenses ..anticipatory dread ..feelings of betrayal and other fabrications. For six years he practiced watching this stream of debris flow by and vanish ..until he realized that there was nothing substantial or permanent about any of it ..and that believing so only created suffering. He continued down this road ..going past the conceptual ..through the neuro-sensory ..and beyond the phenomenal layers of consciousness. The further he went ..the freer he felt ..until he punched a hole through the ceiling and found an ever-expanding universe where all living beings are interconnected ..and he saw, first-hand, how the true nature of existence lay beyond the momentary vicissitudes of thought and feeling. He felt relief .. the fear of separation vanished. He chose to return and help others find the way out. We still hear the echo of his teachings resonating today. I do anyway.

Buddha mind

The properties of the mind that neuroscientists are deciphering today, were prefigured by Buddha over 2,500 years ago. He arrived at them through the practice of meditation. What he experienced was astonishing ..what he taught was revolutionary. The mind, he discovered, is not a reliable record of events ..it’s more like a second-hand storyteller. He saw impressions arriving, already interpreted by the act of observing ..then disappearing so quickly, all he had left was a feeling that something happened. He realized that he never got to see events as they actually occur ..and this was his great insight. The futher he looked ..the more he realized that nature was composed largely of energy ..and all he ever experienced were the fragments that his senses were tuned to receive ..followed by the re-creation his mind was pre-disposed to perform ..before everything got cleared away and a new cycle of impression-formation began. This doesn’t sound much different than the neuroscientist I hear describing the simple act of perception as a process of ‘active construction’ ..or claiming that concept-integration happens so quickly ..we rarely catch an ‘unaltered glimpse’ of reality.

The vedas

India and Indian scholars are bypassing the US in the field of biotechnology. They don’t have a history of division between the religious establishment and the scientific community. Indian religious culture has always been in harmony with scientific inquiry. Ancient Hindu texts (like the Vedas) prefigure modern-day cosmology by almost 3,000 years. Christianity, on the other hand, abhors developments in many fields of science ..especially biotech. The influence of evangelical Christians in this country has set medical science back decades. In the meantime, Indian researchers have developed non-toxic ways of battling cancer (using monoclonal antibodies) ..and safer methods for treating hemophilia (factor IX proteins). I wonder what else can be accomplished in a religious culture more in-tune with enlightenment and compassion ..than with ignorance and fear.

Drug war

While growing up in the sixties ..I regularly bought, sold and used drugs. Mostly marijuana and psychedelics. The experience taught me that drug laws don’t work ..and interdiction is a war that cannot be won. Newspaper reports confirm it daily. The US spends a half-billion dollars a year on anti-drug efforts in Mexico ..while trafficking operations have progressed all the way to the Canadian border. For one thing, laws don’t make a difference to the regular user; they take it or leave it for reasons of their own. Local drug dealers don’t worry much either ..if they’re discreet; they stay mostly below the radar. Trafficking, however, is another story. Trafficking is a high-risk venture, which, in turn, makes it a high-yield enterprise. It is so lucrative that contrabandistas can afford to outfit private militias ..and, using weapons purchased from the US, outgun local law-enforcement agencies. It’s gotten so brutal; twice as many civilians were killed in the crossfire last year than all American service men who have died in Iraq so far. I grieve. I have a friend who lives in Austin Texas and regularly crosses the border at Nuevo Laredo to visit family in Mexico. Nuevo Laredo is considered one of the most dangerous border towns ..second only to Juarez in number of civilian casualties. Now, if anything should happen to her ..I am going to be far more outraged at US lawmakers than Mexican drug cartels. I don’t believe the cartels would exist if their trade weren’t so lucrative. It’s not US demand that’s keeping them in business ..it’s the US war on drugs that’s doing it.

Khat tea

California just enacted a law making Khat tea a criminal offense. Thanks Joel (R-San Diego). I guess one person’s tea is another person’s poison. Kind of like mistaking a rope for a snake. Khat tea does have mild psychoactive properties ..it boosts alertness and feelings of well-being. That’s frightening. But then, so little is understood about the psyche that it’s probably best to keep it under the authority of the state rather than the sovereignty of the individual. Anyone who gets a heightened ‘sense of self’ deserves to be cut down at the knees anyhow.

neuro notes

I think my brain works like a paleontologist ..piecing together the world from tiny fragments of information that have been frozen, chipped away ..then passed through sensory pathways the size of nano-tubes. Not only am I dealing with an extremely small, and highly selective sample ..it doesn’t last that long, only about 125 milliseconds I am told. Then it’s time to refresh the system and let a new bit-stream through. When I consider the tremendous amount of information that’s out there ..I’m convinced that my senses must have relatively narrow bandwidth. The fact that I can recognize anything at all is due to the high-speed integration power of a fairly recent invention called the cerebral cortex. It’s a device that allows me to see the whole elephant ..while rubbing only part of it’s belly. Problem is ..I don’t always construct the docile animal that's there ..sometimes I build a ferocious wildebeast instead.

psych notes

Sometimes I ask myself ..is this what I want to write ..or what I think other people want me to write. Sometimes I feel rebellious and answer myself, shouting: “It’s my blog ..I’ll do what I want.” Either way, I’m struggling with something going on inside my head .. telling me what is and what isn’t appropriate to write about. I flash back to my schoolboy days ..listening to some instructor ask me if I have anything pertinent to say. Since I don’t see an instructor here at the moment ..and no one in particular comes to mind ..I must have created an internal instructor telling me what it thinks everyone else wants to hear. I tell myself that I’ve got to move on ..and not be bound by childhood experience ..I’m an adult for Christ sake. Nobody cares what I write anymore. But it persists ..especially when I’m telling myself to ignore it and move on. So, I see only one way out ..co-habitation. Learn to live with the beast of conditioned-existence. Make friends with it ..serve it tea ..or wine. Maybe then it’ll lower it’s guard and I’ll be able to see what exists on the other side more often.

zen notes

I sometimes refer to the ‘mediation session’ as an ‘observation period’. I think observation is a good English word for meditation. In western psychology they have what is know as the method of ‘naturalistic observation’. It helps researchers see what develops, in a natural setting, with as little interference as possible. I think this is a very good way to understand meditation. Interference, in the form of judgment and interpretation, happens so fast ..we rarely get a glimpse of things as they are. So, I find it helpful to meditate, look inside, and observe my own mental and emotional activity, without judgment or interference, for a few moments each day.

(There, I hope that doesn't sound too much like a Stuart Smalley affirmation)

Coastal screed

The vision of an 'urban corridor stretching from Los Angeles to San Diego' will eventually destroy the coastal zone in Southern California and pollute the ocean so badly; nobody will be able to swim there anymore. Most of this coastline resides in Orange County ..and from what I've seen .. Orange County leaders are not good stewards of the land. When shortsighted urban planners ran out of room ..they wanted to extend a six-lane freeway over one of the few remaining coastal habitats in California ..the San Mateo creek near San Clemente. OC leaders immediately got in a fight with the coastal community; a vicious breed of environmentalists and surfers. It was a battle OC couldn't win. After fighting for 20 years ..20 fucking years .. they lost Thursday when the US Department of Commerce agreed with the coastal community and refused to approve it. First, I am amazed that the Federal government, under the Bush Administration, would go along with anything in the interest of California ..especially anything having to do with the environment. I applaud them. Second, I'm frightened by the bullheaded, right-wing conservative leaders in Orange County who fought so hard for the right to foul their environment. I was particularly concerned when I heard Tustin councilman Jerry Amante say that he doesn't feel it's in his interest to protect the coastline. The San Mateo creek is a natural watershed that, like other wetlands, cleanses runoff before entering the ocean. It flows into the ocean just above San Onofre ..one of the few places left where you can still camp on the beach. It flows directly into a legendary surf spot called Trestles ..a break that is actually formed from sediments deposited by the creek. Now, I'm not talking about protecting the birds or other wildlife ..I'm talking about protecting the people who live there ..but I guess that's not in the interest of Orange County.

North wind

An arctic wind blows through my door .. leaves and other debris scatter across the floor. Big wave season has begun. Although I don’t actually surf them ..they’re definitely major league ..I feel the anticipation. I sit on the beach and watch 25-foot swells pound the shore ..starting from Aleutian storms ..they move swiftly down the coast ..falling like dominoes on beaches from Mavericks to Todos Santos. I feel the energy crackling on my skin ..and the rhythm beating in my veins. I must have been a sea creature in a past life. I have a friend who's a big wave surfer. He tells me that he hears his rational brain screaming: “No Fucking Way” ..while feeling a rush, coming from some other part of his brain ..reminding him what an awesome experience it is to blow those apprehensions away. I think he’s a junkie ..caught in a cycle where icy adrenaline turns into fluid exhilaration.

Net interest

I admit I don’t follow pop culture ..I have no idea who P Diddy is. But I am fascinated by things that happen over the Internet .. and that’s usually how I find out what’s happening in pop culture. The Internet has the power to survive a devastating attack ..and keep sending messages; no celebrity can compete with that. Samantha Ronson tried to stop a story from appearing on the net ..only to see it amped, replicated ..and get more distorted with each re-telling. A car accident, that happened over a year ago, involving Lindsay Lohan ..turned into a tale of betrayal and intrigue with bloggers accusing Ronson of making money by setting up Lohan for the paparazzi. Ronson fought back by hiring a high-power attorney from the East Coast, who apparently had no idea what kind of power he was dealing with on the West Coast. They filed a defamation suit. The result wasn’t exactly what they expected ..a small-time blog got a big-time audience ..spawning even more salacious stories about Lohan and Ronson. Now she’s suing him for incompetence ..and he is counter-suing for unpaid fees ..saying he cannot work with “celebrity trash.” Next time I think he should try finding out what he’s up against .. because there’s no way to retract statements once they’re on the net ..information persists. However, I don’t think he should underestimate himself ..his lame attempts at litigation made him quite a successful provider of “celebrity trash.”

nowhere zone

A bell rings ~ I remind myself to sit straight ..take some deep breaths ..and be mindful. But my mind wanders ..flashing on images of people I’d like to see ..and asking them what they think about my latest harebrain idea. I gently bring myself back to the present ..and pay my respects to the pull of the ego. Now I hear children playing .. I feel a smile rise ..and remember something somebody once told me ..it’s better to live by a noisy schoolyard than a cemetery. Now I hear the swoosh of cars on Anapamu Street ..and I pay my respects to the sounds that pass by my little span of attention. I’m returning to the present moment without a clue where I was the moment before ~ now I’m answering a question that someone asked me yesterday ~ and I’m asking myself what that’s all about ~ now I hear myself shushing me ~ now I’m telling myself to quit shushing me.

Coastal zone

We used to call them swamps. Oil companies dumped sludge into them. Real estate developers excavated them ..and built pricey coastal communities like Marina Del Rey. Just north of there, surfers in Santa Monica began getting sick ..with symptoms ranging from skin rashes to heart attacks. I used to get ear infections. Investigators discovered high levels of toxins in the water ..both natural and man-made ..and began closing beaches for like months at a time. We don’t call them swamps any longer. They’re ‘estuaries’ ..and they serve a purpose .. filtering runoff before it goes into the ocean ..removing contaminants .. keeping the shoreline hospitable ..and the ocean sustainable (ask a fisherman). The Bolsa Chica wetlands is the only one remaining in Southern California that hasn’t been developed to the point where it’s lost all of that. A 40-year old feud between developers and environmentalists has kept it that way. Fanatical environmentalists. I’ll bet you there’s not one person surfing the river jetty who hasn’t gotten sick.

Wave action

The atmosphere looks blurry .. and the sky is a pale shade of blue. But the water has shape .. and slams me back to shore. The sky is fuchsia ..stars are shining ..and colorful dancers twirl by ..while others just float. I shake my head and they turn into a flock of birds. I lie there and let the white water wash over me ..remembering something that I heard one time ..telling me not to mistake the waves for water ..waves are the expression of a force passing through water .. appearing as a ferocious beast to anyone that hasn’t got sense enough to either plug-in or bail-out ..before it reaches shore. I drag my sorry-ass back to the sand ..and bow my head in hommage to the deities of the deep blue sea.