All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come. – Victor Hugo

I used to have this best friend, and I would write to her every single day. Sometimes multiple times. There was not one nuance of thought or feeling that was kept from her. The agony and the ecstasy. The brutal truth and humiliating realities. The infinite love and the piercing, gruelling pain. I was able to express it all. For me it was so spiritual – that line that gets crossed whence duality exists and you hit oneness. That’s what that was for me. I didn’t know where I ended and the other person began. Where were the boundaries? Where were the limits? There really were none. I had NO SECRETS. My heart was polished. It was clear and open. It was as if I was transparent. But time passed and that’s when I got blindsided and took for granted that what once was, was in fact no longer. But something fantastic has come from this. A seed of a magical idea. I have a story idea and I know that I can tell it because it’s a story to be told in epistolary form. And who better to write like that than me. I’ve been doing the epistolary form daily for the last SEVEN years, thanks to this friend whose captive eye and willing ear helped empty me of myself.

Disclaimer: I hate getting so excited about ideas and then the follow through falls apart and then I get disappointed. I’ve actually learned this about myself: I’m a good starter and a good opener (provided inspiration hits) but I need a good team around me or someone else to deliver the closing. This is why I liked my old workplace. It was a great team. I opened, someone did the middle part, and someone else closed. It was perfect. The beginnings of stories are fun to write. The freshness and the novelty stir you. For example, I have this new idea and it excites me so. As long as I finish it in 2 weeks I should be fine. Any longer and I’ll want to drown and hang myself.

ORRRRRRRRR I could be like Borges. He just wrote tiny treaties on epic long stories he wanted to write, and that was his style. Gorgeous style. I’d rather read a 10 page summary of a 1000 page a book of mystical/ adventure maps that  transport you to different dimensions and hidden lands, than the actual 1000 pages. He didn’t have the patience to write and I certainly do not have the patience to read it when the 10 page version is available. So perhaps I could borrow a bit of his style. Instead of writing these long grand pieces, I could just write the beginnings of them. A prologue, if you will. Although sadly, a story is not a story without an ending. Yet if each attempt at writing is a novel experience or a rebirth, even the ending is a beginning.

Perhaps.

Or I could just write about writing about stories. That’s what I’ve done with this blogpost…And it could work, because to be completely honest, one of my favorite books is a book about writing. Not academic dry stuff, but a real insight to the forces that drive a person to write and the way he or she writes. I would want to know why Salvador Dali painted the way he painted, just as I would want to know how and why Henry James wrote in his way too. What I’d really like to know is how Tolstoy wrote how he wrote. Wow.  That’s some tapestry weaving enchantment that pulls you in. Hypnosis, magic, magnetism: whatever you want to call it: that’s what the literary artist does. And to read and write about that process is fascinating to me.

Example of such books:

The Master by Colm Toibin (a book about Henry James and his writing)

The Reader by Bernard Schlink (though that’s more a book about reading)

The Shadow in the Wind (a book about a book)

On Writing by Steven King (a book about the writing process)

They’re all fantastic, though if you had to pick one (about writing) then it would be “On Writing.” What a book.

ok bed time. good night x

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 All this dull stuff, like being completely independent, having self-responsibility, not being around family, getting no financial help from others, and not even emotional help (well, except from my mother and my locally-based friends): this is all really brand new to me. Actually it’s wrong for me to say completely independent – I am dependent on a bunch of things, namely the air I breathe… and ESPECIALLY love, but this is a type of dependence where self-reliance is key. And yes I have days when I want to pull out my hair (today was one of them) but apart from that I think month-2 of being a grownup is going fairly well. I’ve made some incredibly stupid mistakes though. Though thankfully when I hear other people’s stories, I remember to be easier on myself and that I’m actually in good company with all my other fellow students-of-life. But sometimes I do think “my god, my friends and i… we’re all so stupid… how do we let half of this stuff happen to ourselves.”

I’ve learned some important stuff: That I have to set boundaries with people otherwise I’ll get run ragged. That life is about balance. That time is valuable and we must use and allot it so that it works its best for us. That it’s important to follow your dreams, no matter what. Yes be practical, but remember the bigger picture, and that life is to be lived in the way and for the way you want it to be lived. And when you do that, some crazy amazing stuff happens to help you along and conversely some awful obstacle will come along to challenge you and reevaluate. Anyhow, the point of this blog is not to wax philosophical… and indeed, later on I WILL write about something worthwhile and tenable.

whooosh-pow-bam

Today I was at EREWHON—my favorite grocery store in the whole wide world (which also houses my favorite Bar in the world.. albeit a bar that sells only teas,  healthy puddings and super-food icecreams), and I started talking to some1 who I met last week at another location. And after talking for a while she says, “what star sign are you” so I tell her.. then she tells me what she is. And I was like “ooh,” but then she goes “but I’m actually mostly this other sign”.. and she tells me what it is.. and I say “ooh me too,” and she goes, “what’s your moon sign? And rising sign?” And I tell her and she’s like “mine too.” And then we discuss the merits. I freaking love los angeles. If I had that kind of conversation in London, every1 would think I was a nutter. Ah but I suppose It depends on location. If I was in Cecil Court at an esoteric bookshop, then that would probably be the norm. These kind of encounters are the norm at Erewhon.

Erewhon spelled backwards = nowhere (kind of). Erewhon: My metaphysical tea bar. It’s literally a place out of the twilight zone. You think you’re in a grocery store, you take a few steps towards the tonic/ tea bar, but if you stay there for more than 5 minutes… whoooosh, you’re in a different world. Sucked into the vortex. It is a Taoist world of Traditional Chinese Medicine.  A world filled with tonic herbs and medicines and highs that take you to different places and dimensions, where you discuss the whys, wherefores and HOWS of existence and reality. And as you are in this vortex, you notice the crazy synchronicities that happen all around you. You are transported to God knows where. And that is the truth – it cannot be described, only God knows where. It is something incredibly unique. Some people don’t believe it but that’s only because they’ve not given it the chance. But then again, maybe it is not the place they are supposed to be in this particular time. At this bar you find the most varied mix of peoples: i’ve talked at length with shamans, yogis, psychics, mystics, movie stars, actors, artists, art-dealers, musicians, students, professors, models, dreamers, lost souls, healers, and just so many others. The kind of knowledge that can be extracted from this place is like a precious gem. And with the conversations that are had there, and the extremely heightened level of consciousness, and even the amount of healing that goes on – it’s just.. astounding. 

I have tried the tonic herbs. I know firsthand what they do. And I give them to people all the time. In my old office where every1 is lovely and amazing and so wonderfully light in spirit: I would give them reishi. Reishi is the ultimate tonic herb for lifting and brightening up the spirit, and it’s good to give it people to already have that sort of “shen” in their lives – it just augments and maintains it. One person told me that it “brings you into the now.” In my new office where every1 is quite stressed, quite busy, juggling many tasks, they need a more grounding energy, they need to reduce the energy that’s wasted to stress and negativity. So I gave them bupleurum and dragonbone. They were actually receptive. And it’s working! The crazies are calming down. The herbs are helping every one. Bupleurum and Dragonbone is a FANTASTIC formula. It is the ultimate for calming and alleviating a high stress life. The Japanese call it the “Lawyers formula” because it’s good for people who have high stress and do continually challenging mental work. 1 woman at my work stopped taking it because after some time she was able to bring that grounding energy to herself, without the help of the herb.

I just love the Taoists and their herbs. It all works – this internal and external alchemy. It’s like I can go into a room, sense the energy, and know what kind of thing the people need. This 1 guy – I just knew what he needed, and now he’s far more chilled out. It’s very strange all this natural medicine stuff. It works. Who wouldda thunk. But still there is so much more to learn. And there are some undercover Taoist masters behind that bar, which is why I still go there after all this time: I must keep learning from them.

I read the Egyptian Book of Life in 2010 and there was one thing said by Thoth which stuck with me:

“The wickedness of the soul is ignorance and the virtue of the soul is knowledge”

About Thoth:

Thoth was thought to have invented writing, medicine, magic, and the Egyptians’ civil and religious practices. He was even credited with the invention of music. He was scribe of the underworld and was given the epithets “He who Balances”, “God of the Equilibrium” and “Master of the Balance”. Thoth maintained the library of the gods with the help of his wife, Seshat (the goddess of writing). He was the scribe of the gods, and was often described as the “Lord of the Divine Body”, “Scribe of the Company of the Gods”, the “voice of Ra” or the “counsellor of Ra” who (along with Ma’at) stood on the sun barge next to Ra on his nightly voyage across the sky. It was also thought that Ra gave Thoth an area of the underworld to rule in the “Land of the Caves.”

In addition to writing The Egyptian Book of the Dead (which is sometimes called The Egyptian Book of Life) he wrote The Book of Breathings, which teaches humans how to be Gods.

There is another thing I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, which is mentioned in the Egyptian Book of Dead). And that is the subject of SUFFERING.

“Earthly life is all about suffering. For example, minerals suffer from separation from original cause (the original state of eternal happiness, where all creations existed with the Creator). Plants suffer the minerals’ life. Animals suffer plants’ life. Humans suffer animals’ life and the superhuman suffers humanity. Earthly life is all about suffering. The individual who did well regrets the fact that he did not do better and the one who did not do good at all, regrets the fact that he did not do well.”

So I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately (probably because of my new vegetarianism), and it does make you think. It kind of makes you not want to eat food, because eating is just… in the words of Sartre or the other 1 De Beauvoir…, “appropriation by destruction.” And who wants to appropriate by destruction? People who are so advanced in consciousness, the true yogis… they barely eat food. They subsist on the bare minimum – living mostly off air and whatever good nutrient packed  food (in small doses) that they need to get by. And they live and enjoy life for a pretty long time.

Anyhow I wandered. But lately, for me, perhaps Thoth has been the ultimate inspiration.

I will post the story later but it comes down to this: khidr sunk ships, he killed a man, he then built a wall of protection for thieves and villains. In each instance, Moses questioned him. And Khidr kept reminding him of his promise NOT to question. But he couldn’t help himself. He could not fathom why. So finally Khidr told Moses that he could be with him no longer as he did not understand the greater wisdom at play.

And this is something akin to what he said:

“”What we do is what the universe tells us to do. First I caused this boat to sink because there is a tyrant who is seizing every boat from the poor people on this side of the city. In order for these people not to lose their boat, I made it sink. That tyrant is going to die tomorrow, and tomorrow they can retrieve their boat and use it safely. I killed the child because the universe did not want that child to cause his parents, who believe in you, to leave and run away from your path. The universe will give them better children than him. I built the wall which belonged to a man who was in life very generous to the poor. When he passed away, he left a treasure buried under the wall for his two orphans. Were that wall to come down, people would see the treasure and take it. I restored it in order for the two children to receive their treasure later. You did not understand the universe’s wisdom.”

Some questions:

What is the soul?

The soul is the contact unit of the inflow and outlet of infinity. Some say the soul is in the heart, some say the soul is in the solar plexus, some say it is in the brain. But do you know where the soul is? It is the circumvent force around the body, which mystics call the arc of life. Aura is the outer projection and arc is the inner projection. The arc is the point of contact between the astral body and the gross body .

What is intuition?

Intuition is a relationship. Intuition is a recording of a vibratory unit in relation to your existence, that’s all.

And as I answer these questions from the perspective of kundalini yoga, a relevant question is also: What is Kundalini?

So what is kundalini? The energy of the glandular system combines with the nervous system to become more sensitive so that the totality of the brain perceives signals and interprets them, so that the effect of the sequence of the cause becomes very clear to the man. In other words, man becomes totally, wholesomely aware. That is why we call it the yoga of awareness. And as the rivers end up in the same ocean, all yoga ends up by raising the kundalini in man. What is the kundalini? The creative potential in man. And kundalini yoga is a method to become nothing, so taht everything can flow through you. That’s all it is.

- The Power of the Spoken Word, Yogi Bhajan

For example the top 5 superfoods are: chocolate, cinnamon, garlic, olive oil, and honey. For example, the lady who lived until 121 years old would eat 1 kilo of chocolate per week. And another foodstuff that is known and famous for longevity, is shockingly, tobacco. The native americans used it for health and longevity reasons. But society’s ruined that by the use of so many chemicals and the overuse of it. That was definitely something i did not know. So yeah, tobacco (historically) is good for you.

I also did not know that with the use of the right herbs and foods you could completely eliminate hormone fluctuations: and therefore eliminate negative effects from PMS, perimenopause and menopause. Seriously: zero pain and zero irritation.

A sad thing about this weekend was that Whitney Houston died . Heartbreaking. Here was a woman who was so talented, so beautiful and had so much soul… But she didn’t see it. I guess she didn’t recognize or align with that depth of her soul and that higher self.. because really, she did have it all. This stuff especially makes me sad because people don’t need to go through that. Support is needed. Especially from women, i feel. A lot of the emotional support that women need comes from women. Yes we love men but they provide support in different ways. For example, with sisters and mothers and daughters and friends: through these bonds we’re reminded of the deep intuition we have in ourselves and the trust that we must keep in ourselves and the world at large. I genuinely feel this is something that women share with one another because we all can experience it, and when we have support, we are able to remind each other of it.

Lysander

How now, my love! why is your cheek so pale?

How chance the roses there do fade so fast?

Hermia

Belike for want of rain, which I could well

Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.

Lysander

Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,

Could ever hear by tale or history,

The course of true love never did run smooth;

But, either it was different in blood,—

Hermia

O cross! too high to be enthrall’d to low.

Lysander

Or else misgraffed in respect of years,—

Hermia

O spite! too old to be engaged to young.

Lysander

Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,—

Hermia

O hell! to choose love by another’s eyes.

Lysander

Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,

War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,

Making it momentany as a sound,

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;

Brief as the lightning in the collied night,

That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,

And ere a man hath power to say ‘Behold!’

The jaws of darkness do devour it up:

So quick bright things come to confusion.

Hermia

If then true lovers have been ever cross’d,

It stands as an edict in destiny*:

Then let us teach our trial patience,

Because it is a customary cross,

As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,

Wishes and tears, poor fancy’s followers.

“It is a universal law that one follows the other; but what we want is one, and what we don’t want is the other. As rain is followed by sunshine, tragedy is followed by blessings, and blessings are followed by tragedy. It is a cycle. If you don’t want blessings, don’t want tragedies. If you want tragedies, want blessings also, because each must follow the other.”

“If we do not have the kind of mind developed to tackle a situation, we will be bounced by blessing and tragedy, tragedy and blessing, not knowing what is what. So, mentally, if we prepare ourselves that each follows the other and live in an attitude of gratitude all the time, neither tragedies will be tragedies for us, nor blessings will be blessings for us. And in the end, all will be fair and final. That is known as the constant state of consciousness, where man can live so levitated that nothing matters to him. Remember, when you are too happy, your heart can fail; when you are too sad, your heart can fail.”

and…

“Patience pays. Let no temptation shake you, no vibration move you, and no action force you out of yourself and righteousness. An unshakable human being is the highest living phenomenon of God.”

-Yogi Bhajan

                      Two Friends by Rumi

A certain person came to the Friend’s door
and knocked.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s me.”
The Friend answered, “Go away. There’s no place
for raw meat at this table.”

The individual went wandering for a year.
Nothing but the fire of separation
can change hypocrisy and ego. The person returned
completely cooked,
walked up and down in front of the Friend’s house,
gently knocked.
“Who is it?”
“You.”
“Please come in, my self,
there’s no place in this house for two.
The doubled end of the thread is not what goes through
the eye of the needle.
It’s a single-pointed, fined-down, thread end,
not a big ego-beast with baggage.”

But how can a camel be thinned to a thread?
With the sheers of practices, with doing things.

And with help from the one who brings impossibilities to pass,
who quiets willfullness,
who gives sight to one blind from birth.

Every day that one does something.
Take that as your text.
Every day God sends forth three powerful energies:
One, from the sperm of the father into the mother,
So growth may begin.
Two, a birth from the womb of the ground,
so male and female may spring into existence.
Three, there’s a surge up from the surface
into what’s beyond dying, that the the real beauty
of creating can be recognized.

There’s no way to every say this.

Let’s return to the two friends whose thread became single,
Who spell with their two letters
The original word,
BE.

B and E tighten around subjects and objects
that one knot may hold them. Two scissor blades
make one cut.
And watch two men washing clothes.
One makes dry clothes wet. The other makes
wet clothes dry. They seem to be thwarting each other,
but their work is a perfect harmony.

Every holy person seems to have a different doctrine
and practice, but there’s really only one work.

Someone listening to a millstone falls asleep.
No matter. The stone keeps turning.

Water from the mountain
far above the mill keeps following down.
The sleepers will get their bread.

Underground it moves, without sound, and without repetition.
Show us where that source of speech is that has no alphabet. That spaciousness.

Where we are now is a narrow fantasy that comes from there,
and the actual, outside world is even narrower.
Narrowness is pain, and the cause of narrowness is manyness.

Creation was spoken with one sound, BE.
The two letters, B and E,
to record it, came after.
The meaning of the sound
And its resonance
Are one.

There’s no way to ever say this,
In so many words! And no place to stop saying it.

…Meanwhile, a lion and a wolf were fighting…