Heart poet

At the library
I learned a little
About meter

This morning
I put my ear
On her chest

buh-BUM
buh-BUM
buh-BUM

The heart
Is a poet

Beating on
In eternal
Iambic

August 15, 2021 at 10:27AM

Feel something

At first, it was only
To remove a bit of soap
From my eye

That I held its lid open
Under the direct spray
Of shower water

But even after blinking
And feeling the sting
Had been banished

I opened my lid again
And looked back up
Into the waterfall

Just to feel something
Even uncomfortable
Is better than nothing

August 05, 2021 at 06:23PM

Sick

While sick
Things seem
Different

My healthy mind
Is not awake
To impose
Its assumptions

My energy
Is focused
On surviving

In a moment
I forget my sickness
And see

A puddle
From the broken fridge
On the kitchen floor

Like
I was seeing a puddle
For the first time

I stood there
For as long
As my shaky legs
Would hold me

July 28, 2021 at 09:25AM

Bony fingers

My fingers feel
Bonier than usual
While washing my hands

Like lifeless cylinders
Unfeeling as they rub
Against each other

Windchimes
That collide
But make no sound

The calluses
Have calluses

The feeling skin
Wears away

Skeletons hands
Can grab, lift,
And carry as much
As skinless hands

So why not
Peel away
The excess layer
Like wrapping
On a package

July 12, 2021 at 03:50PM

Pushups

More
I can always
Do more

Even
When my mind
Says to stop

I can still go
Until
The muscles tear

If not
For my body
Maintaining itself

For what?
For oatmeal
And cribbage

In a wheelchair
Without the strength
To tear myself

Apart
Even if
I wanted to

So why not tear
Starting with my pectorals
While I still can

July 02, 2021 at 02:34PM

Body parts

A lady in the seat behind me
On the plane
Talks
To the person next to her
About her body
And how
Her brain has not been doing so great
And one of her toes is swollen
As if
Her body parts
Were members of her family
Appendages apart
From herself

Originally written: Tuesday, May 25, 2021, 10:41 AM

A still moment

In the middle of my exercises, in plank pose, I notice there are no noises and no movements around me. In an uncanny moment, it feels as if time has stopped. It occurs to me that if I could check my watch face, then I could see if it were really true. But the face of my watch on my wrist just so happens to be pointed away from my field of vision. I cannot move my wrist or my eyes, because doing so would ruin the still moment. It is a conundrum. I cannot confirm for sure that time has stopped.

Originally written on: August 27, 2020

Excerpts from A Trip in Montana

I am a little off balance now as I walk. And so it begins.

Large ants crawl on the Mexican blanket. I am interested in their movements.

The shadows have caught my attention as they dissipate with the movements of the clouds between the sun and the ground.

It is starting to open up. Ideas in my head seem to be connected.

My friends are talking on the deck above. I am on the patio below. Their words are disruptive. They are talking about college.

I have a desire to put on my shoes and go into the woods.

I am going into the woods, to discover species anew and to give them new names.

It is hard to write
With the light so bright
On white paper

As I put my pen to paper, I almost forget the words, but still they come to me somehow, flowing from objective reality itself, then through my senses, and seamlessly into Word.

I feel the sun hot on my shoulders through my shirt.

An ant crawls up the leg of my shorts.

I have found a convenient stump to sit on and write.

There is an ant on my left pointer finger, probing me with his antennae.

I need to get out of the sun. My neck is already burnt.

I am tripping, assuredly. I have wandered a bit farther into the woods, where there is some shade. I stepped across a crumbling trunk, like a balance beam, to get here.

I can hear my friends laughing behind me.

I begin to feel fear for the future; fear because this good feeling will come to an end.

I remember the Bene Gesserit mantra: “Fear is the mind killer.”

The fear comes from my ego. When I remember that I am part of all this, the fear goes away.

There are certain words that reassure me. They are often phrases or quotations. Some degree of spirituality, it seems, is just to memorize words, and then, when the right time comes:

(1) Recognize the appropriate situation.

(2) Recite the words in your mind.

(3) Let action flow forth from your body with the realized meaning of those words.

Again, I start to think of the future, and ill feelings immediately follow. Stay present! Stay mindful! This is the heart of my practice.

I fear so much for the future. I fear so much for my ego.

I am concerned for the physical health of my body.

I am concerned from the performance of my financial investments.

Even as a bug lands on my hand, I check to make sure it is not a bee that can sting me. So what if it is?

I am a part of all this. If the bee stings me, it is a part of all this.

It is like the book that I cannot recall the name of. Ishmael, there it is.

He talks of how man was in sync with nature before. This is how it should be. This is the answer.

All of man’s developments have placed him in a position above nature. Many of man’s modern problems would be solved if he would return to his place in nature.

Now, that seems unlikely. It would mean the death of many humans on our overpopulated planet. We have trodden too far down this track.

I hear my friends laughing in the distance. I wonder if they appreciate the deeper power of the trip. Or do they take it all to be just funny visuals?

As they speak with each other, they are kept from going deeper into their own minds.

I think of the time. I do not have a watch. I am fully tripping now.

I wonder how long I have been standing in this place. My legs have held me just fine, but when I look at them, I am unsure of how they operate.

I do feel taller. This is something Sean mentioned he often feels while tripping.

When I misspell a word or scribble, I think, “Don’t worry, they’ll get it.”

But I must realize, they won’t get it. All of THIS, is captured only in my humble words.

I should stop writing and enjoy it.

It occurs to me to draw.

I laugh at myself for thinking I could draw such beauty.

I start to feel ill feelings. I feel them run a familiar track inside of me. I see them, like rushing rivers, encountering the dam of my heavily-fortified ego.

I observe, dangerously at this time, what my ego is built of.

The wind blows. I let it pass. I pick it back up.

My ego is built from who I think I am. My history, my present physical body, what others say about me …

It is hard to keep track of this thought.

I am fully tripping. I have stood in one place for so long, I had almost forgotten what it’s like to move.

I am fully tripping—these exact words occur to me again.

I constantly have these thoughts:

– What should I be doing?

– Is this, what I’m doing right now, productive?

And then I start to think into the future about what will be most productive …

I have to remind myself, that is not the game we are playing.

Stay here. Stay present.

It strikes me how easily I forget. I have an ill feeling, and then I am distracted, and then I forget.

Even control over my body seems to be something I could part ways with, other than for the convenience of my fingers which hold this pen to write.

Things occur to me as being beautiful, and in that moment of occurrence, nothing else matters. My senses are fully immersed in the beauty, like the sight of a crumbling tree trunk, split open and filled with forest debris. So dead, but so perfectly at home.

I think, how will these words sound to the others who read them?

I remind myself, it does not matter. Stay here. Stay present.

Of all the bugs, mosquitoes are the only ones I swat. I do not so much mind the prick and the drawing of blood. I am more worried about disease.

This idea of disease, planted in me by society, affects my behavior towards other living creatures. Again, I think of reading Ishmael.

I cough to spit. It surprises me that I have a throat and a mouth.

I am so at home in the woods right now. The wind blows through my hair, just like it does through the leaves in the trees.

I hear something behind me, a rustle in the leaves. I feel the desire to make myself unseen, to crouch low, to hide.

I feel that I understand my ancient ancestors in this moment. At the same time, I feel the call back to civilization.

I think of my friends and the house, and I smile.

I am surprised to feel my facial muscles smiling.

As the sun shines and the birds chirp, I am filled with so much love for nature.

A moment ago, it was dark. The clouds covered the sun. I was scared of what I could not see among the trees. I was alone.

I am resistant to going back, to have to talk.

I know it will be hard to stay out here for too long. I do not know the ways of the woods. I would lose. I do not want to lose, and so starts the civilization of man.

I was born civilized. At this point, it would take much undoing.

I see a runner on the street through the woods. It invokes a feeling of familiarity.

From where I stand writing in the woods, I feel perfectly balanced between far away from, and still close by, to civilization.

If I were farther into the woods alone, I might feel a more primal fear for my survival.

As I see things on the forest floor, I lean down with my paper and pen, like a photographer with a camera.

I hear trucks on the road. I remember what people have told me in the past.

I just feel so happy, particularly to be inside of my body.

To be contained in a physical being, capable of realizing thought.

The body is a beautiful thing. More than just the beauty of its form, but also of its function—to realize thoughts and feelings.

The importance of yoga, to cultivate this connection between body and mind, occurs to me now.

It is a practice I could spend my whole lifetime learning.

In contrast, I am less interested in certain aspects of my job. There are aspects that seem far removed from man’s natural state. Like keeping the body seated in the same desk chair all day.

Woah! A mother moose and a child moose just passed, not more than forty feet from where I am standing here in the woods.

At first, I felt immense fear. I could not tell what was near me in the woods, other than that it was big—bigger than a bird or a chipmunk.

Your eyes play tricks on you between the branches in the trees.

I am being bitten by mosquitoes. I choose to return to civilization, knowing the risks.

I am sad to leave. I must remember the connectedness to nature that I experienced here.

I hear my friends and their words. I cannot speak to them. They must come out here into the woods and experience it for themselves.

All around me, the forest floor is alive, mostly with ants. There are also mosquitoes, flying and landing.

There are many aspects. You do not need to fear that it will be over. It will continue. Whether your ego is involved, does not matter. You are a part of it all.

But these mosquitoes are insufferable!

I feel a drop of rain—another element forcing me to return.

My friends talk too much.

They do not wait in silence long enough to experience it themselves.

I look back at Marie, I think to talk to her as Marie—she, of the flesh and blood, with whom I share memories.

But she is not the same, as she appears to me now. She is participating in the One. She is a soul, and that’s all that matters.

I think of my own flesh. Am I housed in the bones I would choose? What does it matter, if we’re all the same.

These words are so meager. What art form then? What form could capture this most fully?

There is the question, first, of what art form could capture a lived experience most fully. Then, there is the question of what art form could capture THIS (tripping) most fully.

It occurs to me now that the “come up” has passed. We have arrived at the plateau.

I am not sure if any of the others would be willing to participate in this experience in the way that I participate in it.

The woods are a very clear analogy. Deeper in the woods, there is only the sound of wind in the leaves. The only movements are the ants on the ground.

Back at the house, there is music from man-made speakers, man-made words, and even man-made men.

These man-made men are the ones who do not understand.

I think of Ishmael again.

We come from nature, that is where we will find ourselves in order.

Man does not understand himself. Not even the accumulated knowledge of generations of man thinkers can understand one single man.

How then, can we expect man to build himself?

He cannot do the job of nature.

It occurs to me now, how brilliant the book Ishmael really is.

Even as I write these words, I realize that going back to read them will not be the same.

Impossible to achieve the same understanding.

I am aware of the ground being alive with ants. I cannot look anywhere on the ground where I do not see an ant.

These ants are like men—successful, relative to other species, and still working to further themselves.

The operations of nature make sense to me in terms of business. An enterprising species will take market share from others and win.

I almost caught a look of myself reflecting in the window, blue bandana. I looked away, not wanting to see my face.

Talking aloud to Marta, my voice sounds inadequate. I wish it were more musical.

You have to have your art form ready, before the experience.

When you are awash in the storm of your emotions, there must already be an artistic channel, into which that emotion might pour.

Without a specified channel, the emotion will search for one.

I am an emotional person, I realize now. I always have been. This emotion is my power. It fuels my actions.

If I allow it, the economy will engulf me here where I stand in this moment with the skills I have to offer, and my hopes and dreams to be used as motivators to put my skills to work.

The economy does not care where I land. It does not care what profession I choose. It will get use out of me, one way or another. This is management, the business of getting use out of people. And the managers report to investors, and so on.

This is the nature of the economy—investors pushing people to do things (who then push other people to do things) to make more money. It is the investor’s passion for more that sets the whole economy in motion.

Beyond skin

I wake up with my hand plugged into her heart like a battery. Her closed eyes staring past her eyelids innocently into the ethereal. My hand plunged deep into her chest in the dream world where skin is a permeable barrier. She breathes all the deeper, undisturbed. For a moment I feel as one with her not unlike the sexual encounter. It is as if we have both entered the dream world tethered together by skin. As if the dream world were a movie theater and we both handed the ticket man our ticket with the same seat number and proceeded into the movie theater to have the same dream at the same time and as the same person. I cannot feel where my fingertips touch her chest. It is like when your leg has fallen asleep and you can only feel above your knee. I can only feel above my elbow. The rest of my arm seems to be plunged into and past her body into the sleep world where my forearm and hand are cut off from physical sensation. My other hand cups her neck. We lay on our sides facing each other, an arm’s length apart, connected only by my two hands touching her, and some other link that goes beyond just skin.

Meat head

Oh here he goes
With heft again
Heaving as he may

Huffing and puffing
That big chest for something
But still he holds no sway

For strength aside
His muscles try
To make up for his mind

That door would budge
For just a nudge
If the knob were so inclined

soft skin

I trace

With my fingertips

Where her skin

Tells me soft stories

Soft, mostly

So I wonder

What coarse sand

Made this skin so soft

Shadow ribs

Standing next to the light

That shows shadows

In my rib slants

Shirtless

Knees against the mattress

Staring

At myself in the mirror

With a sideways glance

Observing

Parts of my body

That I hadn’t noticed before

Grinding my teeth

Clenching my jaw

Unaware until

My bottom teeth

Meet the top row

Mashing

Like corn in a mortar

To dust, powder

Eventually

But not so soon

More slowly wearing

Waking me

In the night

With yet another

Symptom

Of my anxiety

Gratitude

Today, when I got home after work, I laid on the floor with my eyes closed for a long time. When I opened my eyes, the first thing I noticed was the ceiling light in the middle of the ceiling. The second thing I saw were my hands. I turned them over in the dim light of the one lamp I had turned on in the room. I exclaimed silently to myself about how amazing it was that my mind had complete control over these physical objects. And then I realized how happy I was just to be alive in that moment.

Shoulder kiss

In the dark

In the night

With my eyes closed

Redundantly

I reach out

Quietly, slowly

With my lower lip

To touch her shoulder

Having to lean

My neck forward

Until I find

Her soft skin

Hands

It seems to me that hands work harder

Than other parts of the body,

Though maybe only more, in variety

As the heart surely works always,

Albeit the same beat is all

Whereas the hand writes and works

And picks up and puts down and rubs

And sews and draws and kneads

And most other verbs

Rise and fall

With my fingers

Interlaced

Over my chest

Lying down

Breathing deeply

Through my nose

I can feel

The rise and fall

Of it all

Gratitude for health

I am sick

Sound and central

Swept away

After who knows

How long

Healthy as can be

Forgetting

As I always

Eventually do

After some time

Just after

A period of sickness

That I am grateful

As I should be

For the health

God grants me

laying in bed

In a posture

I thought of moving

Observing each part

Thinking

If I move this

That way

Or bend that

This way

But ended up

Laying still

And falling asleep

Like I was

side sleeping

as i try to lay

flat and orthodox

looking up

at the ceiling

breathing

through my nose

i lay abstract

and off-center

spine twisted

like a wet rag

ringing out water

with one shin

straight

the other bent

and crossed over

shin bones

crossed over

hand over

half of heart

sloping down

rib cage

pelvis slanting

to the side

forearm slipping

underneath skull

other hand

between thighs

can only sleep

on my side

as hard as i try

to lay flat

tea affecting me

I think its when I start to think that I’m supposed to feel something that I feel at all otherwise just going along thinking mostly and acting instinctually unless I do something like drink a tea that’s supposed to affect me and all of a sudden I’m wondering has it hit me yet looking at my hands more closely and putting my palm over my chest to feel my heart beat asking am I sad happy excited calm when it’s really just an herbal non-caffeinated tea and I’m doing this all on my own

blunt tooth

v1:

i tongue this tooth

in my top row

touching

its blunted point

worn down

by my crooked bite

v2:

i tongue this tooth

in my top row

blunted by

my crooked bite

tonguing over

its point

sharp previously

now worn

worn tooth

the tip

of a tooth

worn down

i tongue

obsessively

wondering

if the wear

has come from

chewing

or grinding

my teeth

at night

socks still on

i swear

i took off

these socks

that i see

still on

my feet

just a moment

ago

undressing

after

getting home

standing

in the kitchen

looking down

expecting

to see toes

seeing

cotton socks

instead

vertigo

i don’t understand

how space works

right now

falling over

leaning on a wall

feeling for

a center of gravity

forgetting

how to stand

a stranger smiling

i love someone

stifling

a smile

trying not

to laugh out loud

inappropriate

in a public place

covering their mouth

and shrugging their shoulders

turning away

from the crowd

to have a private joy

with a merry thought

that popped up

unexpected

joyful face

watching the face

of one experiencing joy

as their eyes open

and a smile creeps

at the corners of their mouth

and their cheek muscles relax

when at first

immersed completely

in the joy

until the eyebrow creases

and the nostrils flare

now wondering

how long will this joy last

bare wrist

pushing up

my sleeve cuff

to check the time

only to find

a bare wrist

telling me nothing

realizing both

that i forgot to wear

my watch today

and i didn’t really

need to know

the time anyway

going back

to what i was doing before

thinking i might

leave my watch at home

more often

idle hand

after a while

wondering

what your hand

has been held by

hanging

off the wrist

waiting

weightless

for forearm

to strengthen

and grab hold

body and mind

i get more and more

up and outside

realizing

there is a mind

that decides

and sets the body

in motion

and the body then

runs along

until the mind

thinks up

something different

the realization

being that

the mind and body

though supposed

to belong

to the same

are often different

for the mind

that would decide

often does

at first at least

but then becomes

affected

by what the body does

and begins

to think a little differently

excuse for my boss

tried to rise

but in that time

that i decided to wake

after i’d gotten

my head off the pillow

but sometime before

i could get my feet

on the floor

my body pushed out

of my tired mind

that waking thought

and here i am now

finally waking

but sometime after

when i first

tried to rise

universal line

there is a line created

by baby’s body

when she lays

on her left side

facing me

facing the window

from which the morning light

comes over my shoulder

and onto her chest

making a shadow

where her breast

has its fullness

creating a dark line

like a fish hook

that any human

can recognize

as the outline

of one side

of a woman’s chest

loud kisses

her kisses are loud in my ear

like you wouldn’t expect

from such a soft thing

supposed to be sweet

but crashing loud, hurting even

so close to the drum

holding hands

take the most

exacting and useful

appendages

of the human body

—usually

always working

doing something

un-idle—

and make one

do nothing,

for a change,

other than hold

another

of its own kind

pulsing bathroom floor

the world is shaking moving

making faces at me

in the candle light

the tile floor gyrates

beneath my feet

the little white

hexagon tiles

each bordered

by gray grout

pulse back and forth

confusing my sense

of where my feet bottoms

meet the ground

mocking my

impaired mental state

more speech-to-text from that saturday that i almost lost in my text message history (08/24/19)

You just Gotta go on creating what you do being who you are digging deeper into the trench (edited, was “Trent”) you are born into past what may hold you back seeing others do something similar or different way do you like that you should or should not be looking out ahead and seeing what will come of it or looking backwards and thinking that this doesn’t match with who you are forget all of that it doesn’t matter but were you when you were in it and really beating chugging along wheels are on the rail punches are being thrown the water is boiling it’s time to go now being in it and God that’s it that present that time when it’s just you and you know you’re doing it or maybe somebody’s with you and you’re doing it together but god that’s the moment and all other times you’re just thinking of moments that I’ve been before and why it’s been so long since the next moment that’s to cut that start to come so you wait until it’s upon you and then you’re not prepared and can’t catch your breathBut have to make do with the breath you’ve got to sprint on (edited, was “spread done”) through

just make it won’t you man make more for me now while it’s here because it won’t always be talking in abstracts using adverbs instead of verbs not wanting to commit to much to any given idea right now but rather wanting to just express the feeling generallySitting on the edge of the bed now holding my Head in my hands my elbows on my knees my left finger is resting on the back of my right calf to talking to my phone I can hear the refrigerator in the apartment in the garbage truck outside in the bus that says one California to Gough and Clay looking at my phone surprised that it typed out those street names correctly and the bus takes off leaving me with only it’s Noise and nothing else to talk about the beep of an alarm and tell the car door slams still the fridge wearing onomatopoeia‘s are recorded very well by speech to text always got that word but not this out of the fridge just me alone to talk to myselfAnd being caffeinated so not wanting to do anything else

I don’t really know if it will last but it something right here now to me and that’s for sure a lot of goodness in life at large seems to be this way because it only so much can get to a size or last long enough for Manny to hear over years and in different places and see or however it may be experienced but the vast majority of things which are good seem to be experience on a smaller scale maybe only one person drinking his coffee in the morning on his usual bench watching the morning or lovers that of been together for sometime returning to one another after a brief vacation there are many of the small simple things

there are steps and rules to follow holes to slot quarters in lines to walk between buttons and computer keys to press laundry to fold instructions to read carefully emails to read and delete watches to watch and schedules to be on time for

with love, drugs, and other sorts of emotion, the main problem with getting up high enough is that you have to come back down

human body art

I think it’s interesting to compare the parts of the human body that create art and the parts that consume it. For example our hands create art that our eyes consume in sculpture and painting for example. And our mouths create art that our ears consume in singing for example.

don’t choke

things are fast and rushing frequently enough that a breath caught and soon let out makes only a momentary stop when any premature flex of muscles while inhaling will cause a choke and then it will be coughing and wide eyed slow

too tired

i want to have sex with her all the time, but i don’t always want to have sex. i feel my love for her well up and i want to express it physically, but i am tired.

hands

my hands

often hold

the reminder

that we are real

as i stare at

my open palm

and fingers

stretched wide

turning my hand

over in the light

exclaiming silently

at space

in general

to even exist

and more specifically

as something

i can see

and even more

as something

i am part of

and can affect

with a body

to which

these hands belong

abstract face

looking at

what was

a mirror image

of myself

that now

looking too long

has become

un-

identified

and broken into

constituent

crooked teeth

and an un-

recognizable

smile

wasting away

i feel myself

wasting away

when all

the attention I’ve paid

is to the out and out

on going out side

of myself

where most

meaning is made

and drives me on

but a body can only

be driven so far

by meaning alone

until physical matter

must be upkept

sitting cross legged

i used to sit so

things felt

only contacted

out of place

like one leg

slung over

the other

sitting in a chair

looking cool

but only feeling

the leg pit

or the knee cap

of either leg

at once

and so worrying

that one leg

isn’t working

so not even

sitting cool

do i get a break

from my mania

go so cerebral

don’t always

close your eyes

and go so

cerebral

open them

and find what

our primal senses

are more familiar

with understanding

stumbling in the dark

abstract feeling stumbling in the dark feeling blindly for the bed interlacing legs feeling only the warm ceiling of covers creating a home between mattress and sheets and baby’s legs on fire like a heat rock and fingertips touching my own heated chest and back reaffirmed by comfy flat mattress all this with eyes closed feeling for a simple world made up of bed time sensations and abstractly with broad brush strokes telling of a bedroom in the dark just as it speaks to skin absent light or sound

cerebral space

into a cerebral space regardless of what the senses say where a thought can start itself like a fire without fuel telling stories with pieces from different puzzles and letting a close eyed wanderer leave the necessary time and place of a body into a directionless mind travel that starts and sustains itself even dreaming when the body rests

an itch

an itch

turns into

something else

when left

and watched

with eyes closed

an annoyance

then a pain

that calls

for attention

a bug

perhaps

that has landed

beneath

the eyebrow

asking

to be scratched

Strong or fast

You’re either strong enough to hold the world and bend it to your will, or you’re agile enough to go along with it and to go quickly, farther than most.

Swollen knuckles

My knuckles swell until I can’t feel my fingertips, the sweat on my brow doesn’t bother me, my collar tightens around my neck, normally I would be uncomfortable, but this is what is required, it being time to push into it, and life asking to go on like this at first politely, later it will force me one way or another, later there won’t be enough blood to swell in my knuckles, my brow won’t bother to sweat, and my scrawny neck will slip from a sneaky collar that needn’t bother breaking it; I’ll be as good as dead then anyway.

Death destroyer and birth creator

The physical world chews me up anyway. I want to have some control over my own destruction. Like a child constructing a tower with blocks or a miniature toy cabin with logs, I build myself up partly for the joy of stomping through, smashing and tearing myself down.

I believe in the two sides of morning and night, birth and death. A morning birth is building up and a night death is tearing down. They might seem at odds except for that what breaks up in the night reconstructs itself in the morning. The parts of us that release at death are born into others.

Sexed and drugged

I come back to this sober world where I care for my physical body, my survival, and my future. Back from a whole month or more so sexed and drugged that I forgot who I was and just became a part of and in love with everything. I didn’t even realize I’d misplaced so much of my ego.

My meditation, too, served to lift me up and out of myself so that what I was concerned with most was everyone else and everything around me.

Now back here, more in my body, my thoughts are more often of looking better and maximizing returns on my investments, rather than poetry and dreams that came to me constantly while I was open to everything.

I was looking up into the open sky and overwhelmed by it so probably processing the same amount as I am now looking very far into a deep, narrow hole. They are either both lenses to the same thing or they are opposites.

Come in everyone

When I stare into the black backs of my eyelids, my heart and soul open up for other identities to pour in. I think and see and feel other people and live their lives for quick successive snapshots. People I don’t know or at least can’t remember or maybe my former selves. My ego opens up wider as my physical body is still the same and even my mental remembers mostly the memories that belong to my body but my soul that has a larger grasp opens up to a broader swath of the Self and let’s everyone else in.

Starting with the physical

I try not to think of it and reconstruct it in my own mental. I used to do this, reading and rearranging according to what I thought would be optimal. Performing my own mental surgery to rewire my brain.

Lately I try to let all that happen naturally in the physical. What my body takes in: what it eats, touches, hears, sees; how it breathes, exercises, works plays; who it loves and fights; where it spends its time in nature and the city. All these exposures subject my mind to certain natural rewirings via the physical inputs of my body in space and time.

If you believe that reality was created this way for a reason, and our hearts and souls were put here for a reason, it is not far off to believe that if you do the right things starting with the physical, then all the intended effects will flow up through the mental and to the spiritual.

Just by breathing and watching, so much can be done, even more than by a mathematician who tries to work out all the figures on his whiteboard or a guru who tries to memorize the spiritual texts. All that is higher is there in the base physical, too, ready to be absorbed by simple bodily actions.

It is when I remember, imagine, or hope that I am putting ideas into my mind that break the connection between my body and mind in the present physical reality. Ideally, always, I am thinking of what my body is presently experiencing so that I can listen to the story that the physical world is trying to tell me, without trying to piece together my own story from the confused fragments in my mind. A full cohesive and linear story is written into a lifetime in the physical world.

Body modification

Tattoos, piercings, and eccentric fashion are marks of free will. The most base body modification is none at all. Think of how a man would appear naturally, like an animal, with unkempt hair and long fingernails and naked. There is no choice at all in the natural appearance. Man appears as nature determines.

Next, think of man in society. He looks around him and sees how everyone else looks and for the most part dresses and grooms himself to not look any different, or at least not different enough to attract attention. Businessmen in suits, for example. In this case, man appears as society determines. In both these cases, natural and social, man does not himself necessarily choose how he appears.

It is only in the third case, that man chooses for himself how he will appear, makes his body like a painter’s canvas, and creates himself as art, such that his aesthetic appearance aligns with his metaphysical beliefs.

Dynamic body and mind

I am 23 and just now realizing how dynamic my body is. I can completely destroy it and return to health in just a few days of good habits. Or I can build it up and make it strong and destroy it in a short time. Same with my mind. I can be so stupid and forgetful in a moment and then so brilliant and creative in the next. The effects of drugs have influenced these thoughts I think.