My currently low-paying yet overall incredibly privileged lifestyle notwithstanding, here’s an excerpt of an article from Gary Olson quoting US income figures.

Statistics such as these, when juxtaposed with, say, extreme global poverty and the relentless public spending on the war machine, does make one type of person wonder where this expanding universe might be going, who’s in charge, and is this even vaguely sustainable, in all forms of that hopeful word?

The top 1 percent of Americans are now receiving the largest share of national income since the pre-Great Depression year 1928. The top 10 percent get 48.5 percent of total income, an obscene rate of inequality.

According to Princeton University professor Peter Singer, the top 0.01 of taxpayers or 14,000 Americans earn an average of $12,775,000 with total earnings of $184 billion. The rest of the 0.1 percent, or 129,600 individuals, now have an average income of just over $2 million. And the top 0.5 or 575,900 have an average income of $623,000.

Prof. Singer calculates that if the folks in the top 10 percent donated between 10-30 percent of their income, it would raise $404 billion, an amount that would eliminate half of global poverty. And they wouldn’t be left to scrimp on their sumptuous lifestyles.

What should we make of these iniquitous numbers? I can’t quarrel with Adam Smith, the oft misquoted and misunderstood moral philosopher and economist, who wrote in his monumental book The Wealth of Nations:

Whenever there is great property, there is great inequality. For one very rich man, there must be at least five hundred of the poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many…

There’s an Adam Smith doozy you don’t hear too often.

Press here to read the rest, with revealing quotes even from the likes of legendary investor Warren Buffet, among others.

One general question just occurred to me: Does this income disparity feel obscene because it’s not me making the money, because literally hundreds of millions (maybe billions) of people are literally cents-a-day away from surviving so much better–or is it just downright obscene no matter how you position it?

Hmm.

What would I do if I made 12 million a year, or a million a year? What do I do now? I can hold on pretty tightly to ten bucks, you cheap bastard.

Human nature…? Fear? Fear of what?

Speaking of which, Gary writes another to-the-point short essay called, appropriately, Scapegoating Human Nature. Press here.

God I have a good life,

Pete xo

Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character.
—Horace Greely

I rarely write about sports, thinking they’re overblown distractions from things that are truly important, like poetry and dark chocolate, and reading Tintin with one of my favourite people, my nephew Kieran (who just scored the winning run in extra innings for his baseball team and made his soccer rep team as goaltender).

But sometimes sports imitates life, and life sometimes imitates reality, and reality sometimes bites (as cool people say) and…well…then it’s time to blog about sports.

One of my other favourite people—my other nephew Jacob—missed a soccer penalty kick last weekend in a shootout, with the game on the line.

Not unlike the days of my youth (spiteful, my mom would call me, deservedly) when I’d lose and throw my skates down the stairs, accidentally landing on my sister, Jakey took the botched penalty kick pretty hard.

The irony is, he’s a wonderful li’l fella and a terrific li’l athlete, winning, for instance, a few days earlier, the 1500 metres in 5:21, nipping one of his best friends, Noah (great li’l athlete), at the tape—and he’s only in the sixth grade, for the love of the Great One.

And this weekend at the zones (seven schools) he won the 400 in 1:12, the 800 in 2:42 and the 4×100 relay with his teammates and, for all of that, the aggregate award for top athlete.

And on the links, he just shot a 44 over nine holes.

And a month or so ago his AAA Pee Wee hockey team won the Interior Championships and competed in the BCs, at the same age I was—I mean the unnamed character was—in my novel Understanding Ken.

And for the record, in the soccer game that Jakey miss-kicked the penalty shot, he still got game MVP.

But sometimes the agony of de feet is just too great.

In despair—and forgetting all of the cliches like “there’s always next week”, “next season”, “it takes eleven guys to win”, “right place at the right time”, “we didn’t get the bounces” etc—the li’l fella pulled his shirt over his head and lay on the field, sobbing for a considerable period of time, and refused to accept the MVP because, quote, “I don’t deserve it! Give it to the goalie!�?

Is this not life, our abandonment from God, the aging process, endless taxes? Take your pick.

THE GOOD NEWS

I could try the Bhagavad Gita to help him out but I think, like me, he’s a little too young to get it. Nevertheless, Chapter 2.47-48:

As a [little] human being, your strength lies in purposeful action, but the results of your actions are beyond your control.

Do not consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your [sporting] activities but at the same time, do not retreat into a state of [pulling your shirt over your head].

Perform your [sports] in a balanced state of mind, O [Jakey], without attachment to either [goals and victories] or [missed kicks]. Such equanimity of mind during [sports] is called [sporty] yoga.

Kieran, who is a terrific reader, devouring books, definitely nips Jakey at the tape when it comes to being sage-like, (clearly a yogi in a past life, Catholic in this one), taking the whims of life as they come—and they will come.

So if Ancient Hindu [soccer] scripture can’t help, there’s always the old Saxon saying, “Misery Loves Company.”

And beyond Jakey being a great kid, a quality sports statistician, a decent (albeit cliched) WWII historian, and the fact that I love him to pieces, his miss actually finds him firmly lodged in a crowd of sport greatness.

You see, Jakey (and Kieran), even the pros slip up/trip up big time, for example the great defender David “Bend It Like Beckham” Beckham in the World Cup against Greece, when the ball uncharacteristically sailed off his foot like it was slathered in grease.

His reward? Kajillions of dollars to play in the United States, where more people turn out to watch bowling than soccer.

THE EVIDENCE

And with that, ladies and gentlemen—and all of us humans so prone to the every-second whim and unpredictability of this material world (may you all experience deeper equanimity, grace, and remembering)—I give you David Beckham’s soccer imitation of, say, Sir Elton John. Press here.

And watch poor ol’ (I mean poor young) Steve Smith, in 1986, score on his own goal—as a rookie no less. The announcer doesn’t even get his name right, calling him “Greg” Smith.

This goal was the winning tally for Albertan archrival Calgary in Game 7, leading to the defeat of the heavily favoured, Wayne Gretzky-led Edmonton Oilers. Press here.

Quote from the commentator: “Greg Smith cannot find a hole big enough to climb in—I think I said Greg Smith, I meant Steve Smith.”

Smith, it’s worth adding, went on to win three Stanley Cups with the Oilers, made the All-Star team, and played seventeen years in the bigs.

And get this, that day was also his birthday.

For you, Kieran, some of the most goofed-up, unfortunate pro soccer/football goaltending non-saves you’ll ever see, with an appropriate silent track. Press here.

For some big and sometimes shocking pro soccer/football misses that couldn’t even be repeated if they tried to miss, press here

And finally, the worst empty net attempt, perhaps in ice hockey history—although please note the impossibly unfortunate bounce of the puck—and then watch what happens… Press here.

The colour commentator yelling on the replay: “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen. Patrik Stefan, you should be embarrassed [like he isn't?!]! That doesn’t belong in the National Hockey League!” is former big leaguer Ray Ferraro.

I played hockey with Ray when I was growing up (and he was great then, too), and some have rumoured Ray may just be the inspiration for “the Best Player” character in Understanding Ken.

And is it? I’ll never tell—unless somebody asks.

But either way, as I sit here clicking away into the night with two fingers on a keyboard, that same Ray Ferraro continues to gather fame, fortune and fanfare for his colourful analysis of the Stanley Cup playoffs—on radio (have I had one song on regular radio rotation?), on TV (have I been on TV in the last, well, say, two years? Huh!), or in the press (okay, I get press, but how much of it is good press?). Well, okay, some of it.

But you name it, we’re all, in our own way, nipped at the tape every time.

Or as Lao Tsu once said:

Because we have a body, we have misfortune.

But am I bitter? No! Why? Because, my friends, my life is outrageously blessed, I can read the Bhagavad Gita and I know “there’s always next year” (and heck, I’m just doin’ my job, in the right place at the right time)!

The point is, my little buddies, there really is always next weekend—as you always show, with your purposeful action, your grand hearts and your evolving senses of humour.

Oh, and I love ya,

Uncle Pete xox

PS Because you asked (I was hoping you would), from the mid-90s, my one attempt at radio airplay: press here (written in about 1986 or 7), just before I was vegetarian, hence the sausage reference—sorry Porky).

What happened, my friends? Doesn’t it have hit written all over it? Or at least hat, or hut?

Nowhere. Nowhere. But I am loved. I’m serious! Love more.

And for a final overtime laugh, the big bum/Spokane road trip in Understanding Ken. Press here.

I believe in the immortality of the soul because I have within me immortal longings.
–Helen Keller

Feeling almost confusingly blissful tonight, coasting on a beautiful two days with my beloved, I have a few questions for all my sisters and brothers–from scientists to Buddhists to atheists to fundamentalists of all sorts to mystics, and everybody in between and beyond.

Answer none of them, or some, or one, or half, or, you know…

QUESTIONS

1) Why are we as humans so compulsively drawn to and attracted to beauty–people, paintings, oceans, music, chocolates etc–when so much of it appears to be without evolutionary significance?

1a) And forgetting the sorrow and madness for a moment, why did all of this stunning beauty arise?

2) How is it that we are animated beings, dancing, leaping, moving, yet seemingly not plugged into anything?

3) Why did individuality arise and does it have meaning?

4) Are our desires ultimately the problem or the solution, and is there even a problem or a solution?

5) All theories aside, and in all honesty, why exactly is the Abrahamic God–in Judaism, Christianity and Islam–so relentlessly male, Father?

5a) Does that God have a penis and facial hair, and if not, what is it exactly that makes Him male?

5b) Further to this, why does Jesus’ Father’s mansion have many rooms, what happens in them, and are they wall-papered?

6) If religions and their practitioners are truly about peace, why don’t these practitioners firmly, forever and joyfully renounce particularly violent, genocidal, bigoted or murderous sections of scripture?

7) Why do atheists, in attacking religion, think Mao and Stalin’s atheism is irrelevant?

Why do scientists who attack religion, not find a problem or a discord with the fact that all our most vile technology has been invented/created by scientists, and mostly in secular societies?

9) What is that miraculous feeling of awe at the beauty of all things, and why does it effect our breathing?

10) If we are all God, as some spiritual viewpoints claim, what is the powerful force that makes us forget this, and why is it more powerful than us/God?

11) If we are all one, why are we so extraordinarily diverse?

11a) If we are all so inherently and truly connected, why are we so profoundly individual?

11b) Further to this, if we are all one, and individuality is illusion, why did this illusion of individuality arise, and why do individuals (who by this definition are themselves an illusion) keep telling us it’s an illusion?

11c) Finally, if we are all one, would some of you oners consider sharing your paycheck avec moi, to keep in the spirit?

11d) Because a pig or a cow or a chicken trapped in a factory farm appears to be less loved than a pet, does it actually suffer less than a loved pet?

12a) Why do so many pet-lovers, with giant hearts, not equate their miraculous pet’s joy to the tortured pig, cow or chicken (or dog and cat in some cultures), hopelessly brutalised, on the path to their death?

12b) Does the same reasoning for us humans go for other humans who are suffering simply because others can exercise horrible power over their being?

13) If everything human is a result of an ongoing evolution – even our our thoughts, ideas, discoveries and beliefs – do these thoughts, ideas, discoveries and beliefs truly have any more significance than the instinctive, evolutionary driven actions of any other creature?

14) If we’re simply temporary, why is what we do actually relevant?

14a) If we’re eternal, why is what we do relevant?

14b) If we’re neither, do you want to rent a movie later?

15) If we have free will, did we choose our sex, our birth, our nature? If not, what exactly is free will, and why are you wearing that outrageous outfit?

16) Can you really love people and beings you’ve never met, even the crabby ones? If not, why do I feel like I want to?

17) And why do I feel you really are beautiful, when we’ve never met, and all I am doing is typing on a keyboard?

Love more, and maybe even believe in joy as the essence of your truest nature,

Pete xox

Could the most subtle of all colonizers be corn, which has found its way into our lives to such an extent that we are no longer conscious, we’re cornscious?

Will all jokes one day be forced to be corny, with the main joke being on us?

Are we now, despite our best intentions, putting all our hopes into corntext instead of context?

And finally, behind the Trilateral Commission, the Illuminati, George Bush and the neo-cons, Muslim Extremism, 9/11 and reptile morphing is there not the New World Order, but a World Wide Cornfederacy?

If none of that is true, corn is truthfully becoming a greater aspect of our biological make up and making us, through corn syrup, and dozens of other nutritionally hopeless foods, cornsiderably fatter.

And now corn’s even a frontline force on the search for sustainable fuels–which by what I’m reading, is asinine, and propelled by big dollars and subsidies.

We may also be going from human being to soy being–and I’m a vegetarian, so imagine…

What on earth am I talking about, you may rightly ask?

Well, I’m not sure, but here are two interesting articles on just how cornered we’re becoming.

And for all you vigilant Free Traders, it’s important to know, like with so much mega-business, this subversion is utterly subsidized.

I ask you, in all sincerity, how long can this corntinue?

This first, an interview with Michael Pollan in the Christian Science Monitor, is called When Corn Is King.

An excerpt.

When you see that a plant has taken over – like grasses and lawns, and like corn – it has somehow manipulated us. We’re doing its evolutionary job, spreading it around, because it’s made itself attractive to us.

Corn is like this second great American lawn – I mean miles and miles of it, all through the Midwest, and even where I live in Connecticut.

This plant is so successful.

And the productivity of corn is astonishing. The reason is that it responds very well to fertilizer. We’ve gotten the yield per acre from 20 bushels a hundred years ago to 160 now.

We’re producing way too much corn. So, we make corn sweeteners. High-fructose corn sweeteners are everywhere. They’ve completely replaced sugar in sodas and soft drinks. They make sweet things cheaper.

We also give it to animals. Corn explains everything about the cattle industry. It explains why we have to give [cattle] antibiotics, because corn doesn’t agree with their digestive system.

It explains why we have this E.coli 0157 problem, because the corn acidifies their digestive system in such a way that these bacteria can survive.

And we subsidize this overproduction. We structure the subsidies to make corn very, very cheap, which encourages farmers to plant more and more to make the same amount of money.

The argument is that it helps us compete internationally. The great beneficiaries are the processors that are using corn domestically.

We’re subsidizing obesity. We’re subsidizing the food-safety problems associated with feedlot beef. It’s an absolutely irrational system. The people who worry about public health don’t have any control over agricultural subsidies.

The USDA is not thinking about public health. The USDA is thinking about getting rid of corn. And, helping [businesses] to be able to make their products more cheaply – whether it’s beef or high-fructose corn syrup. Agribusiness gives an immense amount of funding to Congress.

For the full article, press here.

The second article is quite new, and from Foreign Affairs. It is longer, and talks about bio-fuels, but in combination with the article above is really worth reading, although it could take up cornsiderable time.

An excerpt:

The enormous volume of corn required by the ethanol industry is sending shock waves through the food system. (The United States accounts for some 40 percent of the world’s total corn production and over half of all corn exports.)

In March 2007, corn futures rose to over $4.38 a bushel, the highest level in ten years. Wheat and rice prices have also surged to decade highs, because even as those grains are increasingly being used as substitutes for corn, farmers are planting more acres with corn and fewer acres with other crops.

This might sound like nirvana to corn producers, but it is hardly that for consumers, especially in poor developing countries, who will be hit with a double shock if both food prices and oil prices stay high. The World Bank has estimated that in 2001, 2.7 billion people in the world were living on the equivalent of less than $2 a day; to them, even marginal increases in the cost of staple grains could be devastating.

Filling the 25-gallon tank of an SUV with pure ethanol requires over 450 pounds of corn — which contains enough calories to feed one person for a year. By putting pressure on global supplies of edible crops, the surge in ethanol production will translate into higher prices for both processed and staple foods around the world.

Biofuels have tied oil and food prices together in ways that could profoundly upset the relationships between food producers, consumers, and nations in the years ahead, with potentially devastating implications for both global poverty and food security.

For the full article, press here.

Well, all I can say is love more, as much as you can, in this highly cornplex world.

Pete xo

PS My favourite hockey player as a kid was Yvan Cournoyer (pronounced Corn-why-ay). Coincidence? You tell me.

Yet another computer of mine no longer boots. It bites, though. So I can’t blog so much right now. Funny how one feels the addiction.

And then at the same time, I’ve had this question of: “What is the point of adding to the twenty kajillion, kazillion (to the kazillionth power) words, thoughts, and stuff that is already out there?”

This is either a deep philosophical question, or I’m just not exercising enough.

But I’m sure we all get that feeling.

Something about service comes to mind. Also…

As a human being, your strength lies in purposeful action…

Ah, purposeful. With intent. With love. With as much awareness, consciousness, mindfulness, service, as I can remember.

…but the results of your actions are beyond your control…

Ah, yes. Hm. Love more. Anyone else ever feel the sudden burst of pointlessness, and then have to regroup? Oh, yeah. Everybody.

Purposeful action. Just by being here there is purpose. One mustn’t forget that. Good luck and love.

Love more, yourself, too,

Pete

Seth Godinâ„¢, the brilliant marketing guru (and who, unknown to most, consults with meâ„¢ bi-daily on issues of well-being and maximizing market-place controlâ„¢) wrote this li’l blog without consulting me first. I am sustainably angry about this—holotropicâ„¢ breathing notwithstanding.

An excerpt from Seth’s blog More or Less:

Many people are arguing for a fundamental change in the way humans interact with the world. This isn’t a post about whether or not we need smaller cars, local produce, smaller footprints and less consumption. It’s a post about how deeply entrenched the desire for more is.

More has been around for thousands of years. Kings ate more than peasants. Winning armies had more weapons than losing ones. Elizabeth Taylor had more husbands than you [Pete's compassionate note: but was she happy over-consuming?].

Car dealers are temples of more. The local Ford dealership lists four different models… by decreasing horsepower. Car magazines feature Bugattis, not Priuses on the cover. Restaurants usually serve more food (and more calories) than a normal person could and should eat.

Is this some sort of character flaw? A defective meme in the system of mankind? Or is it an evil plot dreamed up by marketers?

There’s no doubt that marketers amplify this desire, but I’m certain it’s been around a lot longer than Jell-O.

Seth’s full post here.

He’s got a point, sans doute. Because Godin is so good at what he doesâ„¢, all I could do was “stare at the blog”â„¢, wondering if his assumption is de facto trueâ„¢, and if not, could it be proved wrong empiricallyâ„¢, when the word empiricallyâ„¢ is arguably one of the problems and natures of the “condition”â„¢?

I would say (very roughly, weakly, and without any useful empirical evidence, and aware of the deep flaws in this gross generalizationâ„¢) that between the Greeksâ„¢ and the Romansâ„¢, the mysticsâ„¢ (from Rumi to Einstein) and the non-mysticsâ„¢ (from Dawkins to Ratzinger—I’m doomed now if I ever want to interview Dawkins!—and I love the guy, seriously), between cyclical Eastern and end-of-the-world Western worldviews, and between mostly wiped-out indigenous cultures and the colonizing countries/religions, what Godin says can at least be questioned—realising, of course, human natureâ„¢ trumps everything.

But given the idea that shareholder profit (and market share) really is, power-wise, more important than worker rights worldwide (slave wage workersâ„¢), given the mile high stack of presentsâ„¢ under the tree at Christmasâ„¢, compared to 40,000 people a day starving and so on, Godin’s pointâ„¢ is, without a doubt, relevant.

My point is this: I bow to the information and awareness Academy Award Winnerâ„¢ Al Gore has brought to the general consciousnessâ„¢ of, say, North Americans, but judging by his lighting bill, meat consumption (cattle rancher), the lookâ„¢ of his healthâ„¢ (godâ„¢ love him, it could be something else), and other things, I, without any fair knowledge, don’t believe for a moment he actually deeplyâ„¢ feels these issues in his bones—or for animals and other beingsâ„¢.

But I do believe there are Many People From Certain Culturesâ„¢ who really do feel sustainability in the bones, their spirit, their very being. They feel sisterhood and brotherhood, beyond ideology, and understand the deeper motives of consumption, which include_____________. Indeed, I could be wrongâ„¢ (which is why I have trade marked my own very personal brand of wrongnessâ„¢.

All thoughts on this—jokes, tears and love and so on, much appreciated,

Love more, sustainably,

Pete xoxo

PS Don’t forget to breathe holotropically today, and listen to Wide Open (we may just be more than consumptive, in all senses of the term), Shark Attack and Little Dreamer, and listen ad nauseum to the consuming story of Arby’s Roast Beef Sandwich Bums, all currently not for sale, thus leaving me unsustainable.

PPS Imagine what I could do if Seth really was my friend. But he’s not. But he is my brother.

On the weekend I did what is known as a Holotropic breathing (group) session with a lovely teacher by the name of James Fairbanks. One aspect of the technique is to allow the person doing it to actually feel, tangibly, what is described as chi or prana—the life force, if you will (or won’t).

Prana, according to the Vedic or Indian philosophy, is not the same as soul or atma. Prana is the life force right here in the physical. Soul is thought to be “transcendental” (sat-eternal, chit,-consciousness, ananda-ecstatic bliss), or beyond or outside the material world.

The idea of prana, chi or life force is not a part of the Western or allopathic model per se, although some have compared it to the Holy Spirit, as in the Greek “Agion pneuma�—although this seems, in my limited knowledge, inaccurate.

Still, you can’t tell me Jesus was in the desert for forty days simply to sun tan. He was doing some sort of serious yoga (union with God) to be with His Father. My bet is that included going deep into his breath, and finding the perfect meditation, with the life force utterly flowing—a direct line to that beautiful room in Dad’s mansion.

The Japanese call prana or chi, ki.

The English—whom I love—have for obvious reasons (anal retentive), no word for it. The closest they could come to it was “Stiff Upper Lip,â€? which is way, way, way off the mark, however well intentioned. And in all honestly, have you seen or even experienced the English in bed? They’re as bad as their teeth.

Granted, I was born in England—but only this lifetime!

In short, virtually all Eastern/Indigenous cultures that I know of believe in some version of chi or prana, and believe in altered states or inducing altered states of consciousness for spiritual reasons and/or evolution.

And for that matter, so do I—if only for the absolutely joy of its consideration.

For some reason this reminds me of what Krishna Das says to the crowd before he leads what are known as Kirtans, or group chants: “No problems will be solved here tonight.�

STANISLAV GROF RENAMES AN ANCIENT RITUAL

Using the breath to create altered states has probably been around, along with plant-to-human relationships that offer similar experiences, for as long as spiritual considerations—maybe tens of millennia—but the founder of what’s today called Holotropic Breathwork is the wonderful and far-reaching therapist Stanislav Grof.

Here’s an interesting page called, fittingly, Holotropic Breathwork, which discusses the process, and compares it to Primal Therapy and other things.

An early researcher in the use of the psychedelic, LSD, Czech/American psychiatrist Stanislav Grof developed holotropic breathwork after the use of LSD was declared illegal in the 1960s.

This non-drug psychotherapy combines controlled breathing techniques with loud feelingful music to trigger the release of repressed early childhood, infantile, pre and peri-natal material, along with transpersonal and spiritual experiences.

It’s true. I coughed up three soothers and woke up in a huge diaper that chafed.

Jokes aside, so why do holotropic breathing—or something like it? Well, how about to experience something quite remarkable within oneself?

It is not a replacement for a daily spiritual practice, but it’s indicative of an aspect of the inner journey and gives an experience of what the ancients call our life-force, for whatever that’s worth to a given individual.

And if people ask, “Hey, why would I want to breathe for forty minutes and experience something I’ve never experienced before, realise I’m a mystic, let go, feel, emote, laugh, cry, allow certain feelings to rise up, and to consider (even experience) a taste of one of the techniques of altered states from the most ancient cultures on this incredible planet…?â€?

Just say back: “Maybe you’re right—especially with the Stanley Cup and the NBA Playoffs still on every day after nine months.”

For the record, though, a little disclaimer: Holotropic Breathing, although it truly was and is gentle, in my opinion, and just a thing to try, is by certain accounts not necessarily recommended for those wonderful sisters and brothers who are diagnosed or feel a little bit mentally shaky.

GOOD AND BAD BREATH

Breathing is fascinating. With every thought, our breathing probably changes its pace, its degree of flow. This is in some ways essential to survival, alertness.

But it may also be significant to consider that we may, as James Fairbanks mentioned, have a distinct depressive breath, an anxious breath, a joyful breath etc., and it is the breath that controls these moods as much as the other way around.

It is worthwhile to try and be aware and even play with one’s own breath as situations of increasing and decreasing stress, arousal, frustration occur and pass during any given day.

Which comes first?

The Japanese (I think it’s Japanese) have a saying: Ti (mind) leads Ki (life force). Could it be that breath leads mind? Or at least, with awareness, leads it back to balance?

Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh has an exercise called the Joy of Meditation as Nourishment, that is remarkably simple. It goes like this:

Breathing in, I calm my body. Breathing out, I smile.

Romper Room therapy, yes, but all I can say—to see the power of the breath, and how it’s tied to an emotion—is don’t knock it until you’ve smiled and tried it.

It will change your mood.

All it takes is a desire to change the mood. Ah, but deep down those moods are necessary, justified, and who we think we are: I have the right to be miserable, garl darnit—and, for the record, it’s your fault.

NERVOUS NELLIE

I had done holotropic breathing a few times before in my twenties, with a therapist, working to touch on some anxiety-inducing stuff I was carrying around, and confusing with my self. It was useful and intriguing, suggestive, and on at least one occasion offered a profound realization that was not quite a rebirth, but I suddenly saw myself clearly, as if watching myself, when I was maybe six or seven.

Now, loosely, my incredibly boring yet underlying “story� was (and sometimes is) this: that through, for example, the divorce of my folks, growing up etc., I believed—even with all my love and effort—that I was unable to fix anything, no matter how hard I tried etc. I couldn’t bring my parents closer, make things smoother, make them feel good, make me feel good, couldn’t make the right decisions, the right choices, and in fact, whenever I tried, everything blew up and got worse, etc., etc.

With the “rebirthing�, so-called, I saw myself at six or seven, in a flash—I even recalled the purple white V collar terry-cloth shirt I used to wear.

And what I saw was from an adult’s perspective (mine), and not a kid who couldn’t do anything right, but a kid who was courageous and vigilant and relentlessly good-intentioned (a scrappy l’il fella) and trying quite heroically, as we almost all did. This was revelatory and enjoyable.

What a good, spirited kid I saw, bad fashion notwithstanding.

In fact, it was only after this and a few years of therapy that I could actually write Understanding Ken, and comment with mature literary clarity on the inconceivably massive buttocks found in America, which have since spread (no pun intended), like any other effective colonization, en masse (no pun intended) to the rest of the world.

But from the revelation, I was able to impose upon my childhood belief what we sometimes come to know as adults: that there is nothing we can do to change certain things, and that’s the way of the world.

Or, to quote the Bhagavad Gita (2-47):

As a human being, your strength is in purposeful action, but the results of your actions are beyond your control.

GRATITUDE

Having had a daily spiritual practice for a few years now—chanting, meditation, dreaming, reading of sacred and neo-sacred texts—I have become more subtle in a not so subtle body, to be aware of my breath (mint, anyone?), and different areas in the body that are sometimes called chakras (crown, third eye, throat, heart, spleen, just below the navel, perineum area and so on), and others that are called samskaras (or knots).

And also, it just feels good to learn to find pleasure, joy, wider gratitude and love from within, as opposed to without (literally).

I can’t begin to express what a difference a regular practice makes, and how it is so much this practice that gives rise to whatever little evolutions, revelations, surrenders I, by grace, ever come to comprehend.

Even a single, momentary expansive thought on what might be is too wondrous to put in words. All our thoughts and theories, it seems, are by definition limited, ultimately, by the vast mystery of it all. But diligence and great teaching has been a profound and incalculable gift/joy in my temporary journey here as Pete.

In fact, to have a teacher in these areas of asking what is Self, who am I, where are we from, where are we going and why can’t I ever remember where I put my keys? is also remarkable, and reminds me to try not to judge to much or conclusively a spiritual or non-spiritual path in which I have not dove deeply.

Jeffrey Armstrong in particular has taught me so much about a mystic, meditative, devotional path within the Vedic tradition, which finds great kinship in aspects of Buddhism and most Eastern traditions, of course.

This path is also profoundly at home with contemplative Christianity, Jewish mysticism or the Kabbalah, Sufism, virtually all indigenous/pagan/Goddess paths, and even with the great awe-struck scientists (one aspect of Samkhya) who experience the cosmos with rigor and unquenchable wonder, aware of the limitations of the five senses as tools for seeing it All—Einstein being an obvious example, but there are so many.

And teachers are everywhere, appearing as both people of great wisdom and people of great pain-in-the-assness, and ourselves, of course, in times of distress, simplicity and flashes of insight.

But where was I? Oh yeah, breathing rapidly.

HOLOTROPIC BREATHING

The Holotropic procedure is to breathe more rapidly (but notably not hyperventilating) to produce so-called altered states of consciousness. Here’s a youtube version of it.

And so, feeling that Fairbanks really new his stuff, lying down (with a group of about eight, heads to the center of the room, lots of space), with beautiful, suggestive music, and after breathing deeply for an extended period of time, into both the tummy and the chest and relaxing on the out breath (don’t try this at home), one’s inner relationship heightens (we’re so external), until eventually something happens, and the next thing I really remember is the intense, overwhelmingly flow of energy through the body as the breathing continues.

And from here one can continue to push the breath or relax into it or whatever, but the subtly of the experience was great, and has always been so enjoyable for me.

The effects are, I am sure, different for everyone, but most people have a heightened experience of some sort; joy, fear, tears, laughter, ecstasy or combinations of the above.

I felt the prana intensely—if that’s what it is—running everywhere, profoundly, strongest in the hands, heart, and forehead, so much so that one literally can’t or doesn’t move. It was, for me, decidedly blissful.

In the moment, instead of the usual embarrassment, discomfort, retraction to big emotions, other people’s tears and sounds make absolute sense. We long to be ourselves, and perhaps even closer my Lord to Thee.

I felt—I was reminded in the force of that flow—of great love, big love, for everyone there, my beloved, my teachers, and all my sisters and brothers, everywhere.

The only sadness I felt, which did induce tears and laughter at the same time, as I lay down—pulsating with “Luke, May The Force Be With You” or maybe even Luke 1:41 or 1:67—was the sadness of the (mostly self-imposed) limitations that stop me from expressing love, deep love, to everybody—and why not express it, feel it, for everybody, in this obviously temporary experience of me here today? I say everybody, because I felt it there for everybody.

Why be miserly with love? Why do I not greet guests as children greet those they like and love? With wild joy? As dogs do (bum-sniffing not included)? Granted, both of these examples are generally limited towards the people they trust, but the exuberance is unbridled. And as adults, we know how little there is to fear from nearly everybody.

There’s a saying I read somewhere, by whom I don’t know:

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions,
the road to heaven is paved with Ch’i.

That’s the best summary I can give you, of something whose revelation (like with meditation) passes so quickly yet beautifully, only slightly integrated into the person of the ongoing me, and thus gently reminding me of the temporary nature of all this extraordinary nature.

Either way, even now, with the awareness of the flow dissipated (but still available, with grace and willingness), may you breathe deeply in remembering the wondrous miraculous, force of inconceivability you are. I wish you the most beautiful of journeys, freedom, creativity, and unlimited love, which, according to the theory of prana, is unlimited, if only we had the courage and the opportunity and the grace to remember that is so.

I know I’m crazy, but if you can, love way more,

Pete

Thanks to the Leo Award Nominations, Uganda Rising is showing tonight, Sunday, May 20th at Pacific Cinematheque Theatre (1131 Howe Street) in downtown Vancouver, at 9:30 PM.

Love to you,

Pete

I feel a little vulnerable (plus you’re so cute) posting a poem of gratitude and wonder at the power of the senses (for they go where they will), of beauty, of love, and the deep and playful, aching, endless, romantic longings, attractions and fulfillments we beings experience and live for and with.

But what the heck, huh? As Einstein chuckled to himself: “The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible.�

And, for whatever reason, I attempt—quite feebly yet persistently—to imagine this unfolding world in terms of fragments of the Divine (and thus try to see the Divine in all these fragments), that this universe is animated by consciousness, that we are souls having human experiences, not humans having soulful experiences.

“Mr Dawkins? Hello? Richard…? He hung up!”

I wrote these lines the other day, while singing:

I can barely see the soul in anyone, let alone, every thing
But I can dance and I can sing

To think I could write that, and still be a muscle bound, macho man.

Okay, I’m not particularly macho, but I am muscle bound. Well, okay, not muscle bound, but I’ve got some muscles somewhere. I think that’s what they are, anyway. I pulled one once. And how else could I write if I didn’t have little, tiny muscles, pushing me, pushing me…?

Divine is always a curious word, too, and yet…

When the miracle of this animated universe is witnessed in another, in a beloved, a lover, what else should unfold but gratitude (although other things do), both for the Muse and for the muse?

One can ask, profoundly: why did all this suffering arise? One can also ask, overwhelmingly: Why did all this beauty arise? Why did we arise as individuals?

And what if beauty and desire—this desire for beauty—are closer than anything to the actual Source of our being-ness?

In gratitude…

you are a feast of Divine fragments
for my senses
my eyes cream
for your milky way
Moist dark chocolate
pudding me in the mood
of fat chants
I dream of singing you with gusto

You are a feast for
my skin
knee dipping
waist high in the fundue
of passion fruit-full
Tangy, I pineapple
for your finger kisses

You are a feast for
my ears
hearing your sigh for a song
of heart felt
wet and loose-lipped
Lettuce meditate
on the miracle of your dish

You are a feast for
my taste
budding tongue-fu, chai tea
Kitchen dance of mystery
Vegetarian dim fun
Half-bake my dream world
of laughter as your servant

You are a feast for
my nose
me like you dew drop
slow enough to waffle
in syrupy gratitude
I lick you off the palette
of my begging bowl

You are a feast of Divine dreams
Sacred recipes
A fragrance of laughing spices
let me quench your mind
seduce your palette
wait at your table
You are a feast of love
my love
and I am full with gratitude

A few links on my site, one to a few poems, an interview on the creative process and a discussion on spirituality—all of which, it seems to me, are wonderfully limited and utterly related.

Write more, love more…

Pete

An interview with Noam Chomsky that helps, in my opinion, put the Iraq “debate,” the Wolfowitz “debate” and odious debt all into a wider context. An expansion of thought is such a wondrous thing, and at least gives us, sweet reader, some forgotten, creative places where we might decide to stand in these “debates” that become so perversely “intellectual”—and yet actually involve the lives, hearts and hopes of people never in the debate.

What a relief if one’s views don’t actually have to land somewhere between, say, CBS News and Fox News, or the miniscule differences (in the grand scheme) between the Democrats and the Republicans.

I can’t help it—I always sort of feel for the underdog, both at home and abroad. These are my sisters and brothers, after all, and no different than I, except by circumstance and opportunity (and I have been so amazingly fortunate). Press here to read the Chomsky interview.

An excerpt:

I was listening to the National Public Radio tribute to David Halberstam the other day, and they had on Neil Sheehan, David Greenway, and others. They were talking correctly about these young reporters in Vietnam who with great courage stood up against power and told truth to power. Which is correct, but what truth did they tell to power?

The truth they told to power was: “you’re not winning the war.”

I listened through the hour and there were never any questions like: should you be fighting the war or should you be invading another country? The answer to that is not the kind of truth you tell to power.

In fact, it’s rather similar to what critical journalists in the Soviet Union were saying in the 1980s. They were saying, “Yeah we’re not winning the war in Afghanistan.�

From my point of view, that’s not telling truth to power. Truth to power would be: why are you invading Afghanistan, what right do you have to commit crimes against peace and against humanity?

But that question never came up.

And the same is true in the discussion of Iraq. The question of whether it’s legitimate to have a victory doesn’t even arise. In fact, the current debate about Iraq reminds me very much of the dove/hawk debate over Vietnam.

Interestingly, and perhaps unsurprisingly, I ask the same thing about this, maybe call it, “inherent doctrine of morality”, with regard to Power and Foreign Policy, in the Ayaan Hirsi Ali essay. Press here to read that essay.

All said, I know I have to be so careful not to get too caught up and rattled in trying to win these unwinnable debates. Otherwise, I miss the beauty of being, of each other, and in my righteousness forget just how compelled and limited we are—I am—to act from my nature, believing it to be great awareness or profound free will.

I find this interesting, from the Bhagavad Gita (3:5):

All beings are compelled to act according to the innate material qualities they have acquired as a result of deeds performed in previous lives. Therefore, from moment to moment, no one can avoid acting in some way.

I can’t say definitively from past lives, of course, but definitely from passed on genetic natures and acquired cultural beliefs that we profundly confuse with free thought and choice. In other words, just try thinking differently, or being something other than what and who you are, and we begin to understand how profound our limitations really are.

Reducing suffering is a vital, wonderful thing, of course—a literal rule for increasing one’s human(e)ness. So, perhaps equally, is increasing joy and gratitude with every thought. But to think the material world can be cured from its entropic pull?

Eased, yes, in every glance, every action of love. But cured?

We’ve expanded from an atom-sized egg, for the love of God.

In a class tonight on the Philosophy of Yoga (or more specifically bhakti), Vedic scholar and teacher Jeffrey Armstrong said something interesting, which reminded me of one of the reasons I can’t stand the following of and believing in political labels.

I think we see, feel, think and act from the mere tip of the iceberg we actually are, with that thick past, history—our body—telling a mammoth story one can barely decipher, or even be aware of.

Paraphrasing:

To learn to know who you really are, it’s so important to learn to be assertive outside of the political process. Otherwise our personhood, or who we really are, gets defined (and limited) by politics.

I think, in a sense, he’s saying one has to be careful not to be immediately degraded simply by diving into the imposed limits of the debate, that “shows itself” as if it is the entire realm of possibilities.

Here’s to wider, more compassionate views, beyond the immediate game, beyond our momentary fear, beyond the onslaught of propaganda, moving towards greater love, and greater discernment, where the well-being of all beings leads our thoughts.

Just a thought that always arises from the study of yoga: What if we’re eternal, and I’m a soul having a Pete experience, not a Pete having a soulful experience? What if we’re actually here to learn who we really are and how to stand with respect to this incredible joureny, in this material world so full of astounding beauty and unfathomable suffering? What if…?

Granted, I’m a little buzzed on chai right now—a buzz I sometimes admittedly confuse for the Divine—but I still feel the call to ask; and to say that even if we’re not souls having body experiences, and the whole thing is purely run by genetics, still try to love more, if you feel the inclination at all.

I’m thinking that—and joy—really are our truest nature, no matter what we’re relentlessly told by the news, our debates, and by the world in general,

Pete xo

Press here to hear Wide Open, with lots of love.