equal knocks equinox:
clear, sunny weather so much green still
fallen leaves brownness hint and nudge peripheries
Now where to plant those two lovely Aphrodite hostas?
I've run, read NY Times, enjoyed a meal with friends
and looked at homes and land with longing
Everything is in balance waiting on edge
to tip one way or the other.

Karma Train
mindless clickety clack
on old tracks clickety clack
me & Sisyphus are railroading
monster loads up the mountain

Specifics aren't important - ruts can happen under many circumstances - but here they are anyway: at critique of advanced class, most of the work was not good. Wasn't that it was so bad; just evident that little time and effort had gone into many pieces- and that's what got me. Can feel a physical sensation that comes with response, like a clamp on my brain.

After 24 hours, duh! realized once again - it was useless suffering (isn't it all?) that changes NOTHING. Then: relief, joy, lightness.

Can I get what I want or MAKE anyone do anything by being angry, upset, frustrated? Begin to see again (think I've even written about it here before), any coercion of others or myself(!) is fast track to suffering. It's not really about anger either. Hard to express. It's more like an aggression, a pushing, a mode of reacting to a want that has been in my genes for generations.

Railroad out of fuel
stopped still.
Feel the breeze?


Metta

Charged my batteries this weekend. Sweet swimming in warm waters of Lake Lure at Alice's gathering. Later enjoyable evening here for dinner. Down time - napped for 2 hours today. Feel like a refurbished computer....

It's a different track from the one inspired by Hades last week. Monday began with several hours in the Haywood County Jury Assembly Hall where about 100 of us waited to be called. There was nothing to do - or so it seemed.
A young woman behind me talked non-stop to a stranger about every small and intimate detail of her life.

"Some people talk really loud, don't they?" a woman next to me whispered.

I laughed uncomfortably and said there wasn't much else to do. Remember thinking- that young woman is avoiding waiting and whatever else the present moment contains - by way of words. All the time my nose was deep in Redbook, Entertainment Weekly, and every other magazine on the shelf! Who was avoiding with words?

Anyway, all of us were dismissed because the parties had settled. Yesterday I received $12 for my time. Truth is, I was curious, having never sat on a jury before.

Student energy was something else altogether. One student forced a warped piece of wood through the table saw - at the very same time I was telling him NOT TO. He later refused a different request until met with my evil eye and threatening tone.
From another - contempt/rudeness when told to observe a safety rule.
A third, began teaching beginning class how to use the plasma cutter.
All three had refused to sign an invitation to a critique because they didn't like where the other students had signed their names!

YIKES! I like students with attitudes and might be fostering it - but these mavericks had to be beaten back like kudzu too near the road. Truth is, while it's funny, it was also scary. Am letting go of so many things - related to control and ego, where is it leading? Sometimes it looks like disaster.

Woke up about 3AM mid-week, and The Thought Juggernaut began. How to handle this situation, how to deal with newly revealed health issue? For ONCE, did not struggle. Allowed and entered feelings. Sat up in bed - with pillows as zafu and watched. So many things became clearer. Reclined again; stillness and sleep slowly infused brain and body.

Next day, had one-to-one chats with my dear mavericks.

"We are an awareness; we are not objects; we have no solidity. We are boundless."

* * *

Boundless!

Summer feels not boundless but - unbound. Mornings and evenings have turned chilly despite warm days, noticeably shorter. Reading for the umpteenth time "Tales of Power," begin to see impeccability as explanation for some behaviors. Said another way, I focus my best energy on job, art, and whatever else, because I somehow cannot behave otherwise-am bound to do so - ha! while being...

Boundless!

* * *

"The world of objects and solidity is a way of making our passage on earth convenient. It is only a description that was created to help us. We, or rather our reason, forget that the description is only a description and thus we entrap the totality of ourselves in a vicious circle from which we rarely emerge in our lifetime."

- both quotes: Don Juan in "Tales of Power" by Carlos Castenada

Discussing with a friend the other day the meaning of Dog Days - because we're in them. Always thought it was the part of summer - near the end - where things are just "overly" and "beyond": hot, ripe, green. There's too many tent caterpillars nests in trees along the road, greenness has tinges of yellow or brown, summer no longer feels fresh....He thought it had to do with dogs sleeping. About the time he said that, a dog barked loudly and insistently. So he's probably right.*

Still more on Mexico: after a deep tissue massage given by Elodia, a Mayan woman who spoke little English, she asked "Como?" I took her hands in mine and said the most positive Spanish phrase I could think of -"Mucho gusto." Our eyes met, and it felt like our souls touched. No artifice - just the simple truth of two people connecting deeply. She then pulled me toward her and kissed me on the neck (probably intended for the cheek - were I shorter.)

Then there was the shopkeeper who really GOT Marya the Clever Shopper/Bargainer - big time. Math is not my strong suit, but usually simple math is not a problem. In town of Tulum, saw a blouse I was willing and looking forward to - bargaining for. However, having arrived only the night before - my head was fuzzy (that's my story and I'm sticking to it) and I was figuring 100 pesos to the dollar rather than 10!

Yes, that's right - I paid $25 for a blouse I thought I was getting for $2.50. HA! I didn't want to go any lower on the price because I didn't want to cheat HIM. Oh, the fury and shame after realizing the truth! Ms. Bruised Ego got talked out of going back into town and GIVING him back the blouse -

Maybe I should have...



************************
dict: Dog Days
- the hottest period of the year (reckoned in antiquity from rising of the Dog Star.)
- period of inactivity and sluggishness