protean muse
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Geek Rap
Here are two videos worth watching; I just couldn't resist posting them. The first is a new youtube video commissioned by NASA that tossed me into contemplating space and our place in it (that has to be my favorite state of mind!). Astro-rap, baby! Math rock- eat your heart out.
"Art shouldn't just be a rear-view mirror, it should have a headlight out there- pointing to where we need to go." -Barack Obama on hip-hop
"Art shouldn't just be a rear-view mirror, it should have a headlight out there- pointing to where we need to go." -Barack Obama on hip-hop
Labels: astrobiology, astronomy, music, youtube
Thursday, September 25, 2008
We Are Under the Snow-Blankets
We were children
with that one big eye of
wonder, gazing at the tiny
sparks of light in snowflakes,
as they fell everywhere.
A simple trip around town
shown with magic and awe.
A challenging day
could be revived by our
mere mutual frictions;
that gentle, deep sinking
into golden rock and red,
sun-filled sediments, as
the ashes share their charred
joy with crisp Colorado night.
There is no other heart, but
ours, there. It is still living
in that window of the
past. I still dream it in the
now, and bear the magic of
it as I smile among the
confused, the lost, and the
dismembered. As I put it all together,
there is no other place to return.
with that one big eye of
wonder, gazing at the tiny
sparks of light in snowflakes,
as they fell everywhere.
A simple trip around town
shown with magic and awe.
A challenging day
could be revived by our
mere mutual frictions;
that gentle, deep sinking
into golden rock and red,
sun-filled sediments, as
the ashes share their charred
joy with crisp Colorado night.
There is no other heart, but
ours, there. It is still living
in that window of the
past. I still dream it in the
now, and bear the magic of
it as I smile among the
confused, the lost, and the
dismembered. As I put it all together,
there is no other place to return.
Labels: poems, the present
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Sport & the Surf of Zen
I just finished reading an interview with 8-time world champion surfer Kelly Slater on Sufline. Only two months since my first surf outing, I make it a point to spend more time in the water than I do reading or even talking about it, but even so I'm finding valuable insights from masters within the surf world:
[excerpt from sufline.com interview]
In 2001, before rejoining the tour, you said, "I guess I want to really enjoy being on the world tour this time... It was tough to enjoy myself when I was trying so hard to win." Have you enjoyed yourself more this time around?
In the time I took off the tour I learned a lot of things, and probably the biggest one was just being present in the moment. I spent a lot of time worrying about the future, thinking about things in the past, just personal things for me to get through, my own life challenges. When I started to really be present in the moment, then my life became all about the journey I was on and where I was at, as opposed to trying to obtain something. That allowed me to enjoy so much more of my time on tour, the people I was around, my life.
[end excerpt]
I love Slater's outlook here. He is now in the middle of a ridiculous ride of winning after winning this year -after dominating surf competitions since the 1990's- and he describes it as feeling easy right now; relaxed. Does his attitude and bearing on being present tie into this? I'd venture to say it does.
The slogan for the personal training school I attended was: "The only competition- is you." I always loved that phrase. This is the only way I can truly relate to surfing. I learn what I can from my friends and other surfers, always, but any attitude of a divided competitiveness leads me out of relationship and into dualistic isolation. For me, it's just as Slater says in this interview. His attitude of immediate awareness is what surfing is about for me. If you're not there, you're missing out on worlds of detail, feeling, and information that literally live and swirl everywhere around you: from the marine life you're swimming with, to the intelligence transmitted by other surfers, to the play of light on the glassy surface as you're propelled forward and riding a mysterious, glorious force. Acting creatively with what is there, right then, is what is most immediate- and most intimate. This is exactly why judges seem to like Slater over other surfers: no matter what wave he is on -and it could be far less than "ideal"- it's what he does with what is given; how he pulls it off regardless of the conditions, that sets him above other surfers.
I remember scouting towards Malibu on my way out of Santa Monica a few weeks ago, assessing a surf spot with my road-trip buddy. The waves looked sloppy and short. After a good 10 minutes, we confirmed how we weren't sold on getting wet. Just then, we see this guy tearing it up like a short-boarder on this tiny little slop of beach-break: floaters, turns- all kinds of fun. "Look what he's riding," Noah said. I looked. My jaw dropped. This guy was standing on a boogie board! It struck me then: sometimes it's about the wave, but it's really not about the wave. It's not even about the board, in the grand scheme. Just when you think it's terrible out there, and have an attitude against it, you see someone do something amazing with what is there. It's about you, and how you relate. That's life.
Our common definition of "sport' usually involves a casual past-time that includes competitiveness, rules, flash, and can even have a mocking connotation (such as "making sport" of something). Like other activities that we slap this word onto, surfing can be engaged as sport, but only at a surface level. Even some of the most competitive surfers seem to hold something deeper in their perspective, possessing a rare level of self-knowledge and stability of physical presence. How they may or may not transfer this knowledge or the feelings of connection they encounter on the water into the rest of their lives is up to them. But -in my experience- any activity that offers a path into the self and actually through the self is a kind of "way" or path rather than simply a past-time or game.
Surfing for me -like anything else in life- offers opportunities for presence everywhere: a gateway into awe & ignition of determination to blaze my own path. Body and mind can become synchronized with the rhythm of the ocean. One is literally catching and riding the kinetic energy of the water, and joining with its meta-electrical charge. In a relative sense, you can't witness the physical act of surfing unless you are a creature with a body that is there, moving with the sea. This reminds me of what it is like to fall in love: out of all the living beings we can be present with in our lives, there is someone in particular we find, and love the way their presence lives in their being with us. This touches us, and changes us, just as the the ocean does.
While a sport can be defined and judged, a way is unqualifiable. Surfing, in my beginner's impression, personifies this difference.
[excerpt from sufline.com interview]
In 2001, before rejoining the tour, you said, "I guess I want to really enjoy being on the world tour this time... It was tough to enjoy myself when I was trying so hard to win." Have you enjoyed yourself more this time around?
In the time I took off the tour I learned a lot of things, and probably the biggest one was just being present in the moment. I spent a lot of time worrying about the future, thinking about things in the past, just personal things for me to get through, my own life challenges. When I started to really be present in the moment, then my life became all about the journey I was on and where I was at, as opposed to trying to obtain something. That allowed me to enjoy so much more of my time on tour, the people I was around, my life.
[end excerpt]
I love Slater's outlook here. He is now in the middle of a ridiculous ride of winning after winning this year -after dominating surf competitions since the 1990's- and he describes it as feeling easy right now; relaxed. Does his attitude and bearing on being present tie into this? I'd venture to say it does.
The slogan for the personal training school I attended was: "The only competition- is you." I always loved that phrase. This is the only way I can truly relate to surfing. I learn what I can from my friends and other surfers, always, but any attitude of a divided competitiveness leads me out of relationship and into dualistic isolation. For me, it's just as Slater says in this interview. His attitude of immediate awareness is what surfing is about for me. If you're not there, you're missing out on worlds of detail, feeling, and information that literally live and swirl everywhere around you: from the marine life you're swimming with, to the intelligence transmitted by other surfers, to the play of light on the glassy surface as you're propelled forward and riding a mysterious, glorious force. Acting creatively with what is there, right then, is what is most immediate- and most intimate. This is exactly why judges seem to like Slater over other surfers: no matter what wave he is on -and it could be far less than "ideal"- it's what he does with what is given; how he pulls it off regardless of the conditions, that sets him above other surfers.
I remember scouting towards Malibu on my way out of Santa Monica a few weeks ago, assessing a surf spot with my road-trip buddy. The waves looked sloppy and short. After a good 10 minutes, we confirmed how we weren't sold on getting wet. Just then, we see this guy tearing it up like a short-boarder on this tiny little slop of beach-break: floaters, turns- all kinds of fun. "Look what he's riding," Noah said. I looked. My jaw dropped. This guy was standing on a boogie board! It struck me then: sometimes it's about the wave, but it's really not about the wave. It's not even about the board, in the grand scheme. Just when you think it's terrible out there, and have an attitude against it, you see someone do something amazing with what is there. It's about you, and how you relate. That's life.
Our common definition of "sport' usually involves a casual past-time that includes competitiveness, rules, flash, and can even have a mocking connotation (such as "making sport" of something). Like other activities that we slap this word onto, surfing can be engaged as sport, but only at a surface level. Even some of the most competitive surfers seem to hold something deeper in their perspective, possessing a rare level of self-knowledge and stability of physical presence. How they may or may not transfer this knowledge or the feelings of connection they encounter on the water into the rest of their lives is up to them. But -in my experience- any activity that offers a path into the self and actually through the self is a kind of "way" or path rather than simply a past-time or game.
Surfing for me -like anything else in life- offers opportunities for presence everywhere: a gateway into awe & ignition of determination to blaze my own path. Body and mind can become synchronized with the rhythm of the ocean. One is literally catching and riding the kinetic energy of the water, and joining with its meta-electrical charge. In a relative sense, you can't witness the physical act of surfing unless you are a creature with a body that is there, moving with the sea. This reminds me of what it is like to fall in love: out of all the living beings we can be present with in our lives, there is someone in particular we find, and love the way their presence lives in their being with us. This touches us, and changes us, just as the the ocean does.
While a sport can be defined and judged, a way is unqualifiable. Surfing, in my beginner's impression, personifies this difference.
Labels: fun, Kelly Slater, sport, surfing, surfline, the present, zen
