(*(* jay joslin's bird on the moon *)*)

Blogging from Asheville, NC circa Feb. 2003, when we were dorks. jayjoslin.com mmmcs.us friendistan.org invokeyourself.org Even in absurdity, sacrament. Even in hardship, holiness. Even in doubt, faith. Even in chaos, realization. Even in paradox, blessedness. jay's books:	contact / about / site network / services / published work / photography / current & legacy blog archives / search / subscribe / podcast & live radio <<<< Streaming radio is live when this button is visible Wed 10 Apr 13 The Sound of the Big Bang Just close your eyes, breathe, and listen. This is the birth pang which begat every iteration of you. filed under: the cosmos blogged: 01.54 Wed, 10 Apr '13 Fri 05 Apr 13 Comrades in Dreams I had a dream that I was deep among some homeless and poverty stricken folks, along with a group of immigrants who had been camping out and growing their own food. They were rugged, weathered, and thoroughly good people. An elder woman of Latin descent among them said "All this talk about the poor and homeless being humans and people too. Until we are given a true voice and placed in positions among the decision makers who say those things, these are just words. We are the people. This is life." I awoke with chills. filed under: the state of things blogged: 11.17 Fri, 05 Apr '13 Fri 22 Mar 13 The Higgs Boson: The Shaman Particle Much has been said of the "God" particle. Now that we know it exists, here come the implications. Among those is a concept that- at least symbolically- shamen and mystics have for a long time espoused; the cyclic Universe. Things grow, expand, meet their purpose, degenerate, and from that breakdown forms the new creation. Call it a dance of cosmic spores, but one that persists for billions of years, trillions of lifetimes. Perhaps, if this cycle is one day verified, it will further illustrate the fractal way in which we experience this turning ecologically and deeply embedded in our psyches. Mine this excellent article for the gem: BBC: Cosmos may be inherently unstable. Meanwhile, and possibly apropos: Dung beetles guided by Milky Way. "Scientists have shown how the insects will use the Milky Way to orientate themselves as they roll their balls of muck along the ground." Then again, don't we all? filed under: the cosmos blogged: 10.27 Fri, 22 Mar '13 Sun 17 Mar 13 The limbs of oak trees One foot in the dark Ankle just astride twilight Knee is bent when sun is set Thigh planted when golden is the sky. Remember that movement is language Each song, each utterance of yours a blazing work of calligraphy, Even when the soul is hard- rock damn hard- it's made of vapors ungraspable as a river- Such are the spins of the atom, the road broad and unwavering before you- doing anything can make you dizzy. This plexus is solar, mid-afternoon, what fondness. Chest heaves toward high noon, the heart a star, Shoulders holding up the big blue to which Arms reach to grab the cusp of morning. You've said, countless times, that it's all so significant, that there's no feather that isn't really a wing, You're Falling into oceans just by fascinating over raindrops, this has been your creed- stop here? You sought symphonies in woe-begotten alleys- finding each fold of the map rapt by a music Without a master- your awkward toes are good enough tapping along to this geography. Elbows locked on bright aires, precede the day Hands as clockwork affixed to the rising Throat open to the chill of first breath Lips fixed on pronouncing dreams. Finally, comes the crescendo and there's fear and ecstasy in each instrument, None outruns time, nor the notes, keys dictating the eventual orchestration bearing our name And we will be among the greatest of all works, Silence, when at last the notes of our lives are distantly played Truer music ne'er has been, the fates might matter less, when we dissipate galactic leaving the scurry of history to pulsing blood. Eyes upward honed on those early hours Where the brain, steeped yet in midnight, fishes for Souls having been wrought in allegory, seeking something beyond the dream, In that potentiating cusp where all that's yet to be meets the minutes of all that's been graced to have been. filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 02.56 Sun, 17 Mar '13 Sun 17 Feb 13 The Wisdom of Alan Watts... ...can be uncomfortable, but is absolutely necessary: "You are omnipotence in disguise, you are no helpless, defenseless, poor little thing. Even the baby with syphilis is the dreaming godhead. Now, this makes people brought up in the West extremely uneasy." filed under: the soul blogged: 22.21 Sun, 17 Feb '13 Fri 15 Feb 13 Bolt from the blue I'm still just in awe and wonder over the images and stories coming out of the Ural region about the meteorite strike. Imagine, under a generation ago, chances of having any images of this would be slim. Now that all of us can be the media it's an exciting- if sobering- era of being a world in instantaneous interconnection which is still a vulnerable marble pirouetting through a vast and impossible to predict Universe. filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 16.00 Fri, 15 Feb '13 Sat 09 Feb 13 Covered in sky For about twenty minutes Everyone around me is covered in sky Yes you breathe in air but you are cloaked in a radiant realm Your eyes are reflecting clouds high in the atmosphere Made of ice- the largest of feathers now A shroud you move through- Never deny that you�ve Ever seen an angel. filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 20.31 Sat, 09 Feb '13 Sat 02 Feb 13 A decade online Poking my head out- yes, it's safe. Phew. Well, after a week of domain drama, we're back online, and just in time to celebrate 10 years of birdonthemoon.com, my longtime home in Binary Land which has been through many iterations. My posts are quite intermittent these days, and I'll go ahead and blame the microblogging vacuum of social media- but the blog of old and long form pedantry is not dead. This was one of the original Asheville blogs, and at one point held it's own in the Blogerati. I'm proud of that, and while I bemoan periods of inactivity it's just part of the evolution of online presence, and where we find ourselves. Now, we hang our square pixel hats under the massive roofs of single domains, all clamoring to be heard- or not. If Facebook and Twitter were giant mega-malls, I'd be the crazy old man who feeds the goldfish in the fountain, mumbling whateverisms. Whoever likes it, likes it- and so it is. Back in the day, the blog was the front porch, and you came for the stories, or to flip through the family album, or to gawk at the neighbors. The "front porch" still has and needs a place in this ever changing city. There's lots coming up, and lots of things I've forgotten to post- because, well, caught up in it all. So I'll dust some things off. I no longer feel that I have to be edgy and in the moment to have interesting content. Besides, every story is a history, right? Except for those which haven't happened yet, that's what dreams are for. Yours, jaybird filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 22.20 Sat, 02 Feb '13 Fri 25 Jan 13 Whoa hey, ART Below is a simple slideshow of my photography installation "Evidence of Dreamtime; Sojourns Through Far Flung Soul-Scapes," which has been on display all month in downtown Asheville. It's still going to be an online show until it lands its next wall space. Should you be so inclined, everything you see can be ordered from card size to 20x30, and anything can be customized up to 24x36. See this price guide and place an order here if ya like. filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 23.13 Fri, 25 Jan '13 Sat 15 Dec 12 No explanation needed I mourn for the children, and I mourn too for a world that much more blighted in the ignorance of suffering, instead of committed to its transformation. I mourn for the parents, and I mourn too for a nation that incites hostility toward the ever threatening Other in order to build unity, instead of inciting insight. I mourn for the community, and I mourn too for building another memorial to tragedy, instead of creating a real work of collective triumph. The purpose of mourning is to get through it- we drop the black veil eventually, but we never forget why we wore it, and remember the names in everything we do. In mourning this, I must ask, what will we do to serve these names in our work to come? The answer will determine if we will be soon mourning again. filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 10.26 Sat, 15 Dec '12 Sat 01 Dec 12 A New Free Radio Friendistan Podcast Episode! Go to Free Radio Friendistan directly comrade! Or just stay here. It doesn't matter much. #37, "Report From The Home Front" (94:44) Subtitle: Read into the comeback episode. Go ahead. Interpret the living heaven out of it. Summary: A lot has been happening in our restive Republic, and this transmission seeks to reassure the masses that we are a hardy people. Who else rides around stoically on unicorns? (intro) 01. It's a Family Affair - Sly & the Family Stone 02. Salut Les Amoreux - Joe Dassin 03. Move Any Mountain - The Shamen 04. Everyday I Write The Book - Elvis Costello 05. Glory Bound - Wailin' Jennys 06. Follow The Sun - Xavier Rudd 07. I Don't Wanna Pray - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes 08. Titanium (Piano & Cello Duet Cover) - Pavane 09. Guardian - Alanis Morrissette 10. Let There Be Light - Mickey Hart Band 11. Egbert the Easter Egg - Lysbeth Joslin, mother of DJ Moonbird 12. Shattered Into One - DJ Moonbird 13. Let My Baby Ride - Dr. L (Soundtrack from "Holy Motors") 14. Unknown - Unknown (Hey, I tried) 15. Klangkarussell - Sonnentanz 16. Quality Time - Starfucker 17. Rudimental - Feel The Love 18. Le1f - Wut 19. Never Le Nkemise 2 - Die Antwoord 20. Indigeonous Power - Javier Estrada & A Tribe Called Red 21. Imidiwan Ma Tenam (feat. Nels Cline) - Tinariwen 22. Job 2 Do - Doo doo doo (This goes out to Sarah in Thailand!) (outro) 23. Who Were We - Kylie Minogue (Soundtrack from "Holy Motors") Home: http://friendistan.org/P Episode Archive: http://bit.ly/j69idY iTunes: http://bit.ly/mQmg7E ALL MUSIC IS THE PROPERTY OF THE ORIGINATING ARTIST AND IS PRESENTED HERE FOR PROMOTIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. PLEASE PURCHASE THEIR MUSIC FROM A RETAILER TO SUPPORT EXCELLENCE IN MUSIC. Direct link to mp3 or subscribe in iTunes, just search "Friendistan" in the iTunes store. filed under: the arts blogged: 16.31 Sat, 01 Dec '12 Fri 30 Nov 12 The Reality of Oppression The eerie world of Bradley Manning: "I remember thinking: I'm going to die. I'm stuck here and I'm going to die in animal cage." filed under: the state of things blogged: 23.48 Fri, 30 Nov '12 Sun 25 Nov 12 Shattered Into One Along the stony beaches of the slow and broad Delaware River, with little effort, you will find fragments; smoothed glass of every color, bone long parted from its vessel, tide-worn bits of porcelain- glaze and intricate patterns still intact. These broken things find a way to your pocket as curious keepsakes along the margins of the marsh and waves that lap the coast with a rhythm that is the world's oldest beat. Nothing remains whole for long in the currents of such a river, any river. Rivers are the true keepers of time, and assuredly prove that every iota of Creation submits to the passage- the journey- that the onward-ness of being here exacts in kind for our presence. Along these banks, time is dense and far more tangible; you can hold it between your fingers, which themselves one day will be such driftwood, nameless matter. To contemplate the origins of a shard of porcelain and the design in which it figured is less daunting then to consider yourself shattering slowly, with so many sunsets left to behold, so many beaches left to walk down in the glow of twilight. As each second lapses, we break a little- how many minutes have passed this year when we were captive witnesses of collapse? In a lifetime, are the hours calculable that we gave to our own undoing? Looking out from the river to the towns across, all is regenerated from what once was, the clouds, my visible breath choking back some old song; shards, bones, last exhales- all histories and futures. Among the reeds and the flotsam tossed up from the Nor'easter, here is your solid ground- should nothing have ever been tested, broken and scattered, you would not know the experience of your feet on any firmament; life is a result of a beautiful struggle to unite our disparate parts, even as the currents come for them and reabsorb our syllables into the foam to which all recedes- and thus will emerge in some other improbable union. As the sun and moon negotiate their positions and the chill wind enforces the season, the darkness has turned all underfoot from unique pieces of story to shapeless components of the path. Your pocket jingles with your keepsakes; beach glass, porcelain, smoothed stones, knowing that like these you too will in time be dispersed in the deep. Yet if you were the porcelain shard, you would know that you are a fragment yet whole unto yourself, on your way to rejoining an even larger whole; for now in the pocket of a stranger, along for the ride. Aren't we all? filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 20.23 Sun, 25 Nov '12 Wed 21 Nov 12 The Purple Beetle's Dharma Talk A comical story of how a purple beetle on its back in a northern Thai stupa taught me about everything being in its right place at the right time, the utter largesse of the Universe's invisible clockworks and the joy in discovering that we are more than just witnesses to this dance. filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 12.39 Wed, 21 Nov '12 Fri 09 Nov 12 Silk The dark; we begin by being pulled through, end by being pushed toward. All between this goes a'shimmering whether you like it or not. A single strand of silk begins in the dim inner workings of a mere caterpillar that lives its transient life loving white mulberries. A single thread, so fine, so slight, so implausible to hold between clumsy fingers a cord of spun molecular stars, is this as delicate as a life? How easily tangled this is, begotten from a being itself in transit, the caterpillar cannot resist the burgeoning of the moth within, succumbing to a transformation that one day will no longer busy itself in thread, nor even white mulberries. Silk demands patience should it also be reworked from its natural state. It is with great care that we clasp this single thread, lest we never know its beauty entwined. In the interweaving and spindling that single thread is maintained yet in braided a communion of thread-upon-thread, here becomes a brilliant strength. Tell me now how the silk is as delicate as life. Or as resilient. Or as carefully wrought. {Somewhere, in distant golden sunlight, the weaver contemplates well-worn prayer beads, themselves in orbit with thread.} We were bound to a cord before birth, and as it was cut we were given light; another cord. The beginning is a confusion, then it is with greater urgency that we join the fabric of being. At times threadbare, we are beholden to the night yet still woven true; the pattern is just darker here... The color of a day does not diminish the shine of our singular strand; yet without that strand, the day's hue is that much diminished. The weaver takes into consideration our fleeting wisps, completes our circuits on the loom, these are the hands of guidance that will ensure our passage, to be all a'glimmering in the light. To impossible fingers which have escaped time we entrust the sum of our being, furthered into alignments of fiber and bone and homelands that will outshine constellations; tracing the contours of engraved names, we are a momentary sensation of recognition that all these letters have been our cloaks before, and will be our shrouds again. The weaver, roadside and not minding the dust kicked up by the legion of passing scooters, carries on, her Betel nut stained teeth only make her smile greater in the distance. She sings a song of ancestors as horns blare and plastic odes imported from glittery shores seek to compete, yet none can out-sing the gentle raspy consonants woven in the weaver's golden tongue. Her eyes have seen kings deposed and tyrants elevated, only to find that, in the end, there is always silk to be sorted, spun, dyed in the color of today, and given to you- it's all in the rhythm she keeps, all in the skin's wrinkles that will soon be smoothed back into still waters fertile for lotus blossoms. Days end in darkness, and lights parade through the valleys of ancients and Manhattan alike; we draw threads closer to us, that we may be warmed against the shadows, yet may we harken to the weaver's song; though we begin in the dark, and end by being pushed through it, all becomes eternal when we are wove deep with countless other souls who all spun out of the darkness from the belly of a caterpillar, no less, and together, come to see the light of day- to take our place at once in the tapestry from which the first stitch was even sewn, guided by the intuition of the stars themselves... all a'shimmering. filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 00.33 Fri, 09 Nov '12
"Aut Viam Inveniam, Aut Faciam." - Seneca

Blogging from Asheville, NC circa Feb. 2003, when we were dorks.

jayjoslin.com
mmmcs.us
friendistan.org
invokeyourself.org

Even in absurdity, sacrament.
Even in hardship, holiness.
Even in doubt,
faith.
Even in chaos,
realization.
Even in paradox,
blessedness.

jay's books:

contact / about / site network / services / published work / photography / current & legacy blog archives / search / subscribe / podcast & live radio
<<<< Streaming radio is live when this button is visible

Wed 10 Apr 13

The Sound of the Big Bang

Just close your eyes, breathe, and listen. This is the birth pang which begat every iteration of you.

filed under: the cosmos blogged: 01.54 Wed, 10 Apr '13

Fri 05 Apr 13

Comrades in Dreams

I had a dream that I was deep among some homeless and poverty stricken folks, along with a group of immigrants who had been camping out and growing their own food. They were rugged, weathered, and thoroughly good people. An elder woman of Latin descent among them said "All this talk about the poor and homeless being humans and people too. Until we are given a true voice and placed in positions among the decision makers who say those things, these are just words. We are the people. This is life."

I awoke with chills.

filed under: the state of things blogged: 11.17 Fri, 05 Apr '13

Fri 22 Mar 13

The Higgs Boson: The Shaman Particle

Much has been said of the "God" particle. Now that we know it exists, here come the implications. Among those is a concept that- at least symbolically- shamen and mystics have for a long time espoused; the cyclic Universe. Things grow, expand, meet their purpose, degenerate, and from that breakdown forms the new creation. Call it a dance of cosmic spores, but one that persists for billions of years, trillions of lifetimes. Perhaps, if this cycle is one day verified, it will further illustrate the fractal way in which we experience this turning ecologically and deeply embedded in our psyches.

Mine this excellent article for the gem: BBC: Cosmos may be inherently unstable.

Meanwhile, and possibly apropos: Dung beetles guided by Milky Way. "Scientists have shown how the insects will use the Milky Way to orientate themselves as they roll their balls of muck along the ground."

Then again, don't we all?

filed under: the cosmos blogged: 10.27 Fri, 22 Mar '13

Sun 17 Mar 13

The limbs of oak trees

One foot in the dark
Ankle just astride twilight
Knee is bent when sun is set
Thigh planted when golden is the sky.

Remember that movement is language
Each song, each utterance of yours a blazing work of calligraphy,
Even when the soul is hard- rock damn hard- it's made of vapors ungraspable as a river-
Such are the spins of the atom, the road broad and unwavering before you- doing anything can make you dizzy.

This plexus is solar, mid-afternoon, what fondness.
Chest heaves toward high noon, the heart a star,
Shoulders holding up the big blue to which
Arms reach to grab the cusp of morning.

You've said, countless times, that it's all so significant, that there's no feather that isn't really a wing,
You're Falling into oceans just by fascinating over raindrops, this has been your creed- stop here?
You sought symphonies in woe-begotten alleys- finding each fold of the map rapt by a music
Without a master- your awkward toes are good enough tapping along to this geography.

Elbows locked on bright aires, precede the day
Hands as clockwork affixed to the rising
Throat open to the chill of first breath
Lips fixed on pronouncing dreams.

Finally, comes the crescendo and there's fear and ecstasy in each instrument,
None outruns time, nor the notes, keys dictating the eventual orchestration bearing our name
And we will be among the greatest of all works, Silence, when at last the notes of our lives are distantly played
Truer music ne'er has been, the fates might matter less, when we dissipate galactic leaving the scurry of history to pulsing blood.

Eyes upward honed on those early hours
Where the brain, steeped yet in midnight, fishes for
Souls having been wrought in allegory, seeking something beyond the dream,
In that potentiating cusp where all that's yet to be meets the minutes of all that's been graced to have been.

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 02.56 Sun, 17 Mar '13

Sun 17 Feb 13

The Wisdom of Alan Watts...

...can be uncomfortable, but is absolutely necessary:

"You are omnipotence in disguise, you are no helpless, defenseless, poor little thing. Even the baby with syphilis is the dreaming godhead. Now, this makes people brought up in the West extremely uneasy."

filed under: the soul blogged: 22.21 Sun, 17 Feb '13

Fri 15 Feb 13

Bolt from the blue

I'm still just in awe and wonder over the images and stories coming out of the Ural region about the meteorite strike. Imagine, under a generation ago, chances of having any images of this would be slim. Now that all of us can *be the media* it's an exciting- if sobering- era of being a world in instantaneous interconnection which is still a vulnerable marble pirouetting through a vast and impossible to predict Universe.

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 16.00 Fri, 15 Feb '13

Sat 09 Feb 13

Covered in sky

For about twenty minutes
Everyone around me is covered in sky
Yes you breathe in air but you are cloaked in a radiant realm
Your eyes are reflecting clouds high in the atmosphere
Made of ice- the largest of feathers now
A shroud you move through-
Never deny that you�ve
Ever seen an angel.

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 20.31 Sat, 09 Feb '13

Sat 02 Feb 13

A decade online

Poking my head out- yes, it's safe. Phew.

Well, after a week of domain drama, we're back online, and just in time to celebrate 10 years of birdonthemoon.com, my longtime home in Binary Land which has been through many iterations. My posts are quite intermittent these days, and I'll go ahead and blame the microblogging vacuum of social media- but the blog of old and long form pedantry is not dead.

This was one of the original Asheville blogs, and at one point held it's own in the Blogerati. I'm proud of that, and while I bemoan periods of inactivity it's just part of the evolution of online presence, and where we find ourselves. Now, we hang our square pixel hats under the massive roofs of single domains, all clamoring to be heard- or not. If Facebook and Twitter were giant mega-malls, I'd be the crazy old man who feeds the goldfish in the fountain, mumbling whateverisms. Whoever likes it, likes it- and so it is. Back in the day, the blog was the front porch, and you came for the stories, or to flip through the family album, or to gawk at the neighbors. The "front porch" still has and needs a place in this ever changing city.

There's lots coming up, and lots of things I've forgotten to post- because, well, caught up in it all. So I'll dust some things off. I no longer feel that I have to be edgy and in the moment to have interesting content.

Besides, every story is a history, right? Except for those which haven't happened yet, that's what dreams are for.

Yours,
jaybird

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 22.20 Sat, 02 Feb '13

Fri 25 Jan 13

Whoa hey, ART

Below is a simple slideshow of my photography installation "Evidence of Dreamtime; Sojourns Through Far Flung Soul-Scapes," which has been on display all month in downtown Asheville. It's still going to be an online show until it lands its next wall space. Should you be so inclined, everything you see can be ordered from card size to 20x30, and anything can be customized up to 24x36. See this price guide and place an order here if ya like.

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 23.13 Fri, 25 Jan '13

Sat 15 Dec 12

No explanation needed

*I mourn for the children, and I mourn too for a world that much more blighted in the ignorance of suffering, instead of committed to its transformation.
*I mourn for the parents, and I mourn too for a nation that incites hostility toward the ever threatening Other in order to build unity, instead of inciting insight.
*I mourn for the community, and I mourn too for building another memorial to tragedy, instead of creating a real work of collective triumph.
*The purpose of mourning is to get through it- we drop the black veil eventually, but we never forget why we wore it, and remember the names in everything we do. In mourning this, I must ask, what will we do to serve these names in our work to come? The answer will determine if we will be soon mourning again.

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 10.26 Sat, 15 Dec '12

Sat 01 Dec 12

A New Free Radio Friendistan Podcast Episode!

Go to Free Radio Friendistan directly comrade! Or just stay here. It doesn't matter much.

#37, "Report From The Home Front" (94:44)

Subtitle: Read into the comeback episode. Go ahead. Interpret the living heaven out of it.
Summary: A lot has been happening in our restive Republic, and this transmission seeks to reassure the masses that we are a hardy people. Who else rides around stoically on unicorns?

(intro)
01. It's a Family Affair - Sly & the Family Stone
02. Salut Les Amoreux - Joe Dassin
03. Move Any Mountain - The Shamen
04. Everyday I Write The Book - Elvis Costello
05. Glory Bound - Wailin' Jennys
06. Follow The Sun - Xavier Rudd
07. I Don't Wanna Pray - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes
08. Titanium (Piano & Cello Duet Cover) - Pavane
09. Guardian - Alanis Morrissette
10. Let There Be Light - Mickey Hart Band
11. Egbert the Easter Egg - Lysbeth Joslin, mother of DJ Moonbird
12. Shattered Into One - DJ Moonbird
13. Let My Baby Ride - Dr. L (Soundtrack from "Holy Motors")
14. Unknown - Unknown (Hey, I tried)
15. Klangkarussell - Sonnentanz
16. Quality Time - Starfucker
17. Rudimental - Feel The Love
18. Le1f - Wut
19. Never Le Nkemise 2 - Die Antwoord
20. Indigeonous Power - Javier Estrada & A Tribe Called Red
21. Imidiwan Ma Tenam (feat. Nels Cline) - Tinariwen
22. Job 2 Do - Doo doo doo (This goes out to Sarah in Thailand!)
(outro)
23. Who Were We - Kylie Minogue (Soundtrack from "Holy Motors")

Home: http://friendistan.org/P
Episode Archive: http://bit.ly/j69idY
iTunes: http://bit.ly/mQmg7E

ALL MUSIC IS THE PROPERTY OF THE ORIGINATING ARTIST AND IS PRESENTED HERE FOR PROMOTIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. PLEASE PURCHASE THEIR MUSIC FROM A RETAILER TO SUPPORT EXCELLENCE IN MUSIC.

Direct link to mp3 or subscribe in iTunes, just search "Friendistan" in the iTunes store.

filed under: the arts blogged: 16.31 Sat, 01 Dec '12

Fri 30 Nov 12

The Reality of Oppression

The eerie world of Bradley Manning: "I remember thinking: I'm going to die. I'm stuck here and I'm going to die in animal cage."

filed under: the state of things blogged: 23.48 Fri, 30 Nov '12

Sun 25 Nov 12

Shattered Into One

Along the stony beaches of the slow and broad Delaware River, with little effort, you will find fragments; smoothed glass of every color, bone long parted from its vessel, tide-worn bits of porcelain- glaze and intricate patterns still intact.

These broken things find a way to your pocket as curious keepsakes along the margins of the marsh and waves that lap the coast with a rhythm that is the world's oldest beat.

Nothing remains whole for long in the currents of such a river, any river.

Rivers are the true keepers of time, and assuredly prove that every iota of Creation submits to the passage- the journey- that the onward-ness of being here exacts in kind for our presence.

Along these banks, time is dense and far more tangible; you can hold it between your fingers, which themselves one day will be such driftwood, nameless matter.

To contemplate the origins of a shard of porcelain and the design in which it figured is less daunting then to consider yourself shattering slowly, with so many sunsets left to behold, so many beaches left to walk down in the glow of twilight.

As each second lapses, we break a little- how many minutes have passed this year when we were captive witnesses of collapse? In a lifetime, are the hours calculable that we gave to our own undoing?

Looking out from the river to the towns across, all is regenerated from what once was, the clouds, my visible breath choking back some old song; shards, bones, last exhales- all histories and futures.

Among the reeds and the flotsam tossed up from the Nor'easter, here is your solid ground- should nothing have ever been tested, broken and scattered, you would not know the experience of your feet on any firmament; life is a result of a beautiful struggle to unite our disparate parts, even as the currents come for them and reabsorb our syllables into the foam to which all recedes- and thus will emerge in some other improbable union.

As the sun and moon negotiate their positions and the chill wind enforces the season, the darkness has turned all underfoot from unique pieces of story to shapeless components of the path.

Your pocket jingles with your keepsakes; beach glass, porcelain, smoothed stones, knowing that like these you too will in time be dispersed in the deep.

Yet if you were the porcelain shard, you would know that you are a fragment yet whole unto yourself, on your way to rejoining an even larger whole; for now in the pocket of a stranger, along for the ride.

Aren't we all?

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 20.23 Sun, 25 Nov '12

Wed 21 Nov 12

The Purple Beetle's Dharma Talk

A comical story of how a purple beetle on its back in a northern Thai stupa taught me about everything being in its right place at the right time, the utter largesse of the Universe's invisible clockworks and the joy in discovering that we are more than just witnesses to this dance.

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 12.39 Wed, 21 Nov '12

Fri 09 Nov 12

Silk

The dark; we begin by being pulled through, end by being pushed toward.
All between this goes a'shimmering whether you like it or not.
A single strand of silk begins in the dim inner workings of a
mere caterpillar that lives its transient life loving white mulberries.
A single thread, so fine, so slight, so implausible to hold between clumsy fingers
a cord of spun molecular stars, is this as delicate as a life?
How easily tangled this is, begotten from a being itself in transit,
the caterpillar cannot resist the burgeoning of the moth within, succumbing to a transformation
that one day will no longer busy itself in thread, nor even white mulberries.
Silk demands patience should it also be reworked from its natural state.
It is with great care that we clasp this single thread, lest we never know its beauty entwined.
In the interweaving and spindling that single thread is maintained
yet in braided a communion of thread-upon-thread, here becomes a brilliant strength.
Tell me now how the silk is as delicate as life. Or as resilient. Or as carefully wrought.
{Somewhere, in distant golden sunlight, the weaver contemplates well-worn prayer beads, themselves in orbit with thread.}
We were bound to a cord before birth, and as it was cut we were given light; another cord.
The beginning is a confusion, then it is with greater urgency that we join the fabric of being.
At times threadbare, we are beholden to the night yet still woven true; the pattern is just darker here...
The color of a day does not diminish the shine of our singular strand;
yet without that strand, the day's hue is that much diminished.
The weaver takes into consideration our fleeting wisps, completes our circuits on the loom,
these are the hands of guidance that will ensure our passage, to be all a'glimmering in the light.
To impossible fingers which have escaped time we entrust the sum of our being,
furthered into alignments of fiber and bone and homelands that will outshine constellations;
tracing the contours of engraved names,
we are a momentary sensation of recognition that all these letters have been our cloaks before,
and will be our shrouds again.
The weaver, roadside and not minding the dust kicked up by the legion of passing scooters,
carries on, her Betel nut stained teeth only make her smile greater in the distance.
She sings a song of ancestors as horns blare
and plastic odes imported from glittery shores seek to compete,
yet none can out-sing the gentle raspy consonants woven in the weaver's golden tongue.
Her eyes have seen kings deposed and tyrants elevated, only to find that, in the end,
there is always silk to be sorted, spun, dyed in the color of today, and given to you-
it's all in the rhythm she keeps, all in the skin's wrinkles that will soon be smoothed back into still waters
fertile for lotus blossoms.
Days end in darkness, and lights parade through the valleys of ancients and Manhattan alike;
we draw threads closer to us, that we may be warmed against the shadows, yet may we harken to
the weaver's song; though we begin in the dark, and end by being pushed through it,
all becomes eternal when we are wove deep with countless other souls who all spun out of the darkness
from the belly of a caterpillar, no less, and together, come to see the light of day-
to take our place at once in the tapestry from which the first stitch was even sewn,
guided by the intuition of the stars themselves... all a'shimmering.

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 00.33 Fri, 09 Nov '12

"Aut Viam Inveniam, Aut Faciam." - Seneca