KNOTWORK
(Girvin) Himalayan mountain protective talisman THE TALISMANIC STRING Coming into the office in Seattle, on one wall there is a string of talismans; they're arranged -- as a threading, running from the front of the office, the opening door, to the entry point, the first nexus. (Girvin) These amulets are reaches to protection -- collected, over decades: Arabic, Sanskrit, Hebrew; and they call from people of Egypt, India, Israel, Turkey and Afghanistan, among other places, other people. They...
PEOPLE THAT INSPIRE ME: The 5 steps of mentorship
GOING BACK, I realize those that inspire me, those that have taught me all -- brought me into their fold. In where I am, I make real what I learned from them. Being here, now -- I am what I am. Listening to the filtration of time, the strata of learning -- I go back. One mentor: Jack Lenor Larsen at his apartment, 55 Park, NYC There are influencers in life — people that connect with you, and connect you with others, that are profound change agents in your experience. I can recount a number of...
FIRE HOSE
WHAT FIRE COMES IN A HOSE? Watching fire, I see a channel, it's a breathing entity -- while there is wind, the fire inhales and there is a kind of beautiful translation. I can't take my eyes off of the smolder, the coals, the roaring Anything that has a color, becomes a new color -- which could be the translation to black. But transformation is variable -- to one, there is black, to another -- sulphured yellow; another, a raven black purple -- a crystalline blue, or an orange powdering....
SPIRIT PLACE
A PLACE OF MEDITATION; AND A MEDITATION ON PLACE: ST. IGNATIUS | SEATTLE UNIVERSITY An urban ark: a place of transport, safety and preservation of tradition and recollection. I'VE TRAVELED the world, exploring spiritual sites (and sights) from the Jokhang temple complex, Lhasa, Barkhor -- the center of the world in Tibetan worship. To the ancient compound of Borobudur -- the vast Buddhist stone-cut mandala in Yogyakarta, Java; and climbed upwards -- the Tiger's Nest of Bhutan, to Angkor Wat,...
THE ASK
The big question always comes as the off hand remark, that if you're listening to the sentence, the clause, the note -- it appears, right there. The big ask is the simplest. It is the foundation of question -- the why, the where, the who. What? And that will lead to: because. But that is be cause. Any answer is commitment, doing something. Be. Cause. Do. Some. Act. Thing. These are foundation words. I think that I've written dozens of words, sentences about that questioning. And sometimes, the...
VIBRATIONS
I'VE GOT A VIBRATION, ABOUT THIS PLACE. ENERGY RIPPLES. WHILE I'M STANDING in this crowd, in this place, I do have a vibe about context and the weaving of people in this intersection. It's the space between, and the nature of the people (and each other) that are interplay, in the dynamics of environ -- I don't sense attention. They're just trying to get there. People are just passing over the place. I don't see them looking. They're just walking through, and over, the sense of environment and...
58 turns | the Sun
EVEN IN THE HEART AND THE HEAT OF THE DAY A RESPITE, FORESHADOWED In the kind and glimmering light of so many that have reached with greetings this day. Working for most of the day, till the long past sunset, I'm grateful to all, for your kind sharing. It means a lot, to be graced by so many beneficent beings, in the blessings of another year of wonderment, wandering, loving and rejoicing in the spirit of being alive. To tell another. Blessed am I, for knowing you. Tim | NYC @ 49th Street,...
THE KNOWING POINT
WHAT IS THE POINT OF KNOWING? As I'm walking, I come to the known point. And like the Zen adage -- "right now, in everything that informs me, I know only what I know -- I know nothing more." What that intones is that the grasp of human experience is bound only by the knowledge of what is contained in the instant. In this stand, this stance -- this standing moment -- the in-forming of the instant -- is based only on what is held in that momentum of presence. Standing here, I am at the knowing...
ENTRANCEMENT
THE ENTRANCE TO TRANCE BEING IN BALI, I'd heard about ceremonies of trance -- the dream state of otherworldly reckoning. Being in Bali is a trance -- and surely, it is an entrance to another world. Would that be entrancement? BEING IN A DARK TUNNEL, I was trying to find the way out. Finding the doorway, it said "ENTRANCE" but it was the way out; and I pondered that allegory -- the way in, the way out. AND BEING QUESTIONING, and the trance of entrancement -- entry? Could that be right -- these...
APPROACHING THE CITADEL
IT'S TRUE. As I'm making my way, I am making my way. It's being made, not formed in the abstraction of luck, the luckless and the fated gate of timely portals. Instead -- the path that you take is the path that you make, in the founding find of yourself. When I contemplate movement -- and the emotionality of that stride -- there is fear in approaching the edge of the castle of unknowing. What lies ahead, and what lies beyond that? It is your path that has brought you here -- and in all...