Wish?

Many people have pointed out that my birthday this year comes up as "11-11-11"

A truly mystical, magical and powerful number, in certain circles.

Uhm, ok.

This triggered a series of thoughts that led to the question:

OK, if The Universe came to me and said "your birthday is 11-11-11 this year. We will grant you a one time, never to be repeated wish. Anything you can imagine and describe that does not break current laws of physics and consciousness, you can have. Anything. Period."

what would you wish for?

Talk is cheap...

Talk is cheap...Show me the code

- Linus Torvalds

"Dirty Dirties"

When I used to participate in EST-like self help workshops one of the things we did was to help keep each other "clear" - work through negative thoughts and emotions and mental hindrances.

Given the amount of crap in most people's heads and the length of time it took to process people to 'clean them' it became burdensome to have to spend a lot of time (20- 40 mins) clearing someone before they were allowed back into the training room.

I bring this up because one of my friends, a roshi in her own right, started the idea of 'super fast cleaning'

The idea was to quickly get to the bottom line where some one was stuck. their dirty dirties - their beliefs and judgment and mind talk and such that kept them stuck.

Experience showed that once those dirties were reached, aired and released people cleared up and could get back to doing whatever they were doing.

So, "Dirty Dirties" because the word for quick clearing. Bottom-lining it.

Recently, reading Chuck's post about The Coward in us all, made me think about dirty dirties.

What are yours? What are those little, niggly secrets that you keep hidden because you simply *cannot* tell anyone....

Those are what are keeping you stuck.

This recently happened to me. I had my own and didn't share and the other person kept theirs.

We were left with walls between us...not seeing what is really there.

Once we admitted the dirties, we we clear and could resume.

Annoyingly, per Chuck's post, I still gave in to my inner Coward.

All the things we feared would happen, didn't.

Funny how that works.

What is it I want?

Alot of people are asking me that these days.

Above is the best picture I can find of it.

If you want something badly enough - hold a picture of it in your mind, unrelentingly.

FEDYRHD

My car recently died. It was 21 years old and 8 of them with me. Pretty amazing actually.

Before I left it for the last time, i sat inside quietly and let in all the years and times we had together. Really said "goodbye' and "thank you." Such a great car. We'd been through alot together. Literally and figuratively.

I ended up replacing it with a VW Rabbit...White.

I've always loved the song White Rabbit (listen here) and always wanted a white rabbit car. I wanted a bumper sticker that said "who the hell is Grace Slick" or something of that sort. I thought it would be priceless.

So, when the opportunity came, I jumped and it looks like I made a good choice. The car itself is great and exactly what I wanted and needed. So, it all worked out well. Ironically, I would have never considered this model w/o the White Rabbit hook.

I am considering a custom license plate. The blog post title is what I would put on it. And no, no one will "get it."

Interestingly, getting the car now seems to mark a transition point in some way.

And, thank you Gracie, I wish you well.

Could You?

Recently re-watched The Abyss - a fun film from Cameron before the Titanic days...

In one scene the main characters (married but separated) are trapped 1,500 feet underwater and have to swim to safety...but there is only one suit with oxygen.

The man is the stronger swimmer so the wife tells him to put on the suit...and she will have to drown, but the water is so cold she won't die - just freeze - and he can revive her when they get back to the main station (or, that is the plan).

The scene ends with him watching her drown right in front of his eyes.

Watch here

It all works out of course, and turns around later in the film when he has to do a deep dive and uses a new technique to breathe: hyper-oxygenated fluid that he breathes directly into his lungs. Effectively "drowning' but still able to breathe.

Watch it here

I should add - that he doesn't think he's going to survive the deep dive and is seeing his wife and friends for the last time...but is willing to make the dive anyway.

wow...the metaphors simply abound....

Being an ex-scuba diver, when I saw this film for the first time (and even today) the scene where he has to breath in the liquid inside his helmet makes my skin crawl.

Visions of Johanna

Probably my favorite dylan song. One of my top 10 of all time. And has probably the best lyric in any song I can think of:
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes

(listen here)

***********************************************************

Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet ?
We sit here stranded, though we're all doin our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handfull of rain, tempting you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there's nothing really nothing to turn of
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind.

In the empty lot where the ladies play blindman's bluff with the key chain
And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the D-train
We can hear the night watcman click his flashlight
Ask himself if it's him or them that's really insane
Louise she's all right she's just near
She's delicate and seems like the mirror
But she just makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna's not here
The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place.

Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously
And when bringing her name up
He speaks of a farewell kiss to me
He's sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall while I'm in the hall
Oh, how can I explain ?
It's so hard to get on
And these visions of Johanna they kept me up past the dawn.

Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
See the primitive wallflower freeze
When the jelly-faced women all sneeze
Hear the one with the mustache say, "Jeeze
I can't find my knees"
Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule
But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel.

The peddler now speaks to the countess who's pretending to care for him
Saying, "Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him"
But like Louise always says
"Ya can't look at much, can ya man "

As she, herself prepares for him
And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed
The fiddler, he now steps to the road
He writes ev'rything's been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain.