Helping a Friend
I started this account so that I could post a comment to a friend's blog, but if this holds the same attraction for me that MySpace seems to for other teenagers, I may end up continuing what I have started.
I am a high school senior, currently attending a Jesuit high school in the Bay Area, California. As my blog title indicates, my passion right now is pursuing enlightenment. I eagerly look forward to each opportunity for the wealth of knowledge that it portends, especially interactions with my friend "Optimystic Bloghead." If you visit his blog, you'll begin to get a sense of why.
Life is exciting to me, and I am worried about missing a moment. Ever since I discovered Emerson and Thoreau I have had a profound respect and love for nature, and an observation of the interconnectedness of the universe. The depth and intricacy of life and its processes is awe-inspiring to me, and I am anxious to learn as much I can about it as I can, in any way that I can.
Life has only just begun, but it's already a lot of fun.
That's all for now.
I am a high school senior, currently attending a Jesuit high school in the Bay Area, California. As my blog title indicates, my passion right now is pursuing enlightenment. I eagerly look forward to each opportunity for the wealth of knowledge that it portends, especially interactions with my friend "Optimystic Bloghead." If you visit his blog, you'll begin to get a sense of why.
Life is exciting to me, and I am worried about missing a moment. Ever since I discovered Emerson and Thoreau I have had a profound respect and love for nature, and an observation of the interconnectedness of the universe. The depth and intricacy of life and its processes is awe-inspiring to me, and I am anxious to learn as much I can about it as I can, in any way that I can.
Life has only just begun, but it's already a lot of fun.
That's all for now.
posted by Merlin | 2:01 PM
6 Comments:
Merlin, here is the story of how I met your dad:
I first met Reggie one clear morning at Vajrapani by a blazing fire. It was like a volcano erupting through a big hollow stump of a first growth redwood standing in a clearing, in front of an empty house.
He came from the creek carrying a ridiculously small container with water. He was shirtless and his dark green navy pants hung low on the hips. He had an expression of guilt that I have not seen on his face since. It was clear that he was the one that had set the fire, and I inquired about it. He told me how last night he had build a small fire inside the burnt out stump and how he had put it out with water and gone to sleep in the house.
I felt he was sincere and I told him not to feel bad about it. Soon other people from Vajrapani arrived. A water-run was organized and eventually the fire was put out.
I did not see more of him that day, but next morning I went early to the creek, wondering whether he was still around. I passed the house; nobody was there. But at the creek I found him. It was like a dream-vision: a young naked faun bathing, lighted by the sun that shone into the deep shady coolness of the valley. There he was, alert and amused by the meeting.
The dream lasted all day and when the full moon rose we took mescaline and went up on top of the mountain. Painfully intense - beyond happiness and suffering - I felt my “madness flashing all over he place”. When he decided to leave next morning it was perfect. I had to get a breath. But when he said he might come back, it was perfect too!
Suddenly one day he was there, outside the kitchen, when I went out to investigate a noise. The boy of my dreams with bare, brown legs and shoulders and a glittering flash of eyes and smile.
We passed three days together. The last evening his girlfriend Patty came with her little sister, and I liked them. We all had food and tea and sat and talked in the kitchen, and my mind was in peaceful balance. This was in August of 78. I did not believe that there would be a continuation of this adventure, did not even long for one. I let it sink into the forgotten.
When a letter arrived months later with an invitation to a party I did not want to go, but it wetted my appetite to the point that I decided to visit when I was passing Santa Barbara on my way to Topanga for Christmas.
Before I left I had a vivid dream: I am in the ocean with someone at my side. An extraordinary wave begins to rise further out and I feel: this one is too big, better gain firm ground. I turn - but also there a huge wave is rising. As I realize that I must negotiate a wave I feel elated and ready.
When I came to Reggie's house I freaked out; I was too emotional, and after one day, I left.
In Topanga I had another dream: I am at a party and is shown a photo of “Ellen”. There are many persons, all women, on the photo and I don’t see Ellen until in the lower left corner, behind a lace curtain, I discover her. The photo becomes reality and I am looking in the window with the curtain. Ellen is there, naked. She looks like Mary Erwin, Reggie’s friend and sometimes lover, whom I had just met. She is in the act of slipping her pants on; she sees me and is apparently not pleased. Behind her I see couples having sex. I look in another window and see two men passionately caressing each other and I look at a friend, who is sitting next to me, and we both smile indulgent, but I feel that this is not a quite genuine expression of my feelings, since I am strongly affected by the sight, both attracted and repelled.
Next in the dream, I walk away from the party, barefoot and feeling liberated, like I once felt when I walked back from an acid trip in the king’s garden in Marrakesh. Next to the street where I walk is a park with flowerbeds, benches and ponds. It is a Nordic summer night; the sky is rosy over the row of houses on the far side of the park. I cross the street with cobblestones and pass in front of an approaching car, model nineteen forties. I want to cross through the park, but as I turn the corner of the massive gates I come upon a scene: Under a retaining wall, half into a niche, sits a young blond singer with a guitar. Around him, on benches and on the ground, many people sit. He is singing the last notes of a song with utter sweetness and softness, and I think: now I must stay here the rest of the night and listen. Then he turns towards me and smiles warmly, and it is Thorkild, whose rejection of me was my most bitter experience.
The following night I had third dream: I jump off a streetcar (named “Desire”) and start walking with my companion along a busy street. Suddenly I realize that I have forgotten my two bags in the streetcar. I stop and ask my companion: “What shall I do?” He says: “Catch the tram at Rådhuspladsen (Town Hall Square in Copenhagen),” and he jumps on his bicycle. I run after him but cannot keep up. Then, suddenly, I have my foot in a plate of the old English china from my home and it is sliding along like a skateboard. People on the street laugh and try to grip me, but I slide in and out and arrive at Kongens Nytorv in Copenhagen just as the streetcar pulls in from Bredgade. I know it is the streetcar because it is wrapped up in brown paper!
The first dream was like a premonition. When finally the wave raised and I turned to escape, the two other dreams occurred and forced me to go back to Santa Barbara and come to terms with my emotions. The foot in the plate comes from the French expression ‘Mettre le pied au plat’ meaning ‘Putting your foot in it’. The dreams gave me the courage of desperation; I knew I had to act. I went back and stayed two weeks.
During the two weeks I stayed I painted a mandala for Reggie, a big painting in the form of a flower with six petals with his personal signs and symbols and I decided to come and live in his house when I had tied up lose ends at Vajrapani.
Wow, not quite as fluid as I'd imagined, but powerful nonetheless. That's a fascinating story, Age.
Sometimes I wonder what 'hints' from the universe I might be missing by not interpreting them correctly (like dreams, for example.)
I hope my life will turn out to be as eventful as yours.
I have tried to reach Seyka's myspace but I can't. What is the exact URL?
How could you miss your life? Not entirely a rhetorical question.
For one who has the desire to experience life and the boldness to pursue that experience, life will gladly unfold.
read ekhart tolles book The New earth and you will see that there is nodanger of missing anyting of your life because your life is happening right NOW
Thanks for your post. As you can see, it's been quite a while since I've been on
You have a good point. I haven't read The New Earth, but I have read The Power of Now. I think I am beginning to understand what you're saying.
I have found that throughout my life, I've been engaged in the practice (and mindset) of forcefulness. Though I never really intended it as such, I would basically bludgeon my way through life. The more and more I look at peaceful and happy people, however, the more I see that they are merely present and open. Presence and peace, however, is a difficult practice to get into - especially when you've grown up like I have.
Thank you very much for your comment!
-M
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