musical ness and epiphanies

does epiphanies look like a strange combination of elephants and fanny to anyone else? or is there just something very very wrong with me? i realised that i pronounce 'demon' as 'demond' - does this reflect upon my traumatic experience on the recieving end of an exorcism, or simply my inner bogan that likes to pronounce 'cutlery' as 'cuttelry'? a little from column a, a little from column b.

lachlan just sung a Very Lovely song to me. it was very very glorious. he is Gifted. he now is using me as a drum. he is special. my wrist is now the focus of his attention. i am going to give him my mala beeds for a bit. now he is merrily gigging them up and down, singing 'beads, beads beads beads, beads...' and looking sleepy and cute and like a snuggly muffin of happiness.

it's an ah-ha moment night.
you know, those resounding moments, when you see something with just, some crazily intense clarity.

see, i've been in the process of developing a mindfulness practice for years now. since i first heard and understood what mindfulness is. and, i have been struggling and fighting and intellectualizing the process for years as well - which, obviously, is the antithesis of mindful practice.

and is it the medicine buddha sand mandala, or the culmination of several years of attempts, or the 8 months of intensive therapy, or just a few weeks of sleeping really well, or even this new, abiding passion for black coffee (it really sharpens the mind) it's really Clicked in the last week or so. it's difficult to put into words in any coherent sense, or in any form that is verbal. again, part and parcel. (that is a demented saying).

but. to the point of this particular bloggity tangent. Syncretism (random brisbane music thing) had performances by RICHARD CHARTIER + CAMILLA HANNAN (capitals due to me doing a bit of nifty copy-and-paste action from the room40 site). as with almost every single room40 thing i have been to, the support act is equally if not more exciting than the thing i went to see. perhaps because i often go to them with little or no expectations. anyhow, their sounds were phenomenal. profoundly, densely phenomenal. camilla had recordings from cane fields, melded and blended and intensified, in this beautiful, movement-y, crunching soundscape. it was the sort of sound you close your eyes to. (and don't actually fall asleep. i do that sometimes. i am a sleepy engine). richard chartier is a minimalist sound artist/musician - and his sound is full vibrating in a sound- sense, with flickering sounds that viscerally moves, in these small little tips, up and down your neck. these are sort of asides though, to the Realisation of Mindfulness.

see, i am blessed to have two gurus in this incarnation. one of my books in my collection describes the people we struggle with, who cause the most insense, solid illusions of feelings, solid negativity and anger and fear and so on - those people are our greatest teachers. we learn how these emotions arise, why they arise, how we deal with them, if we can only observe the mind watching the mind without attempting to stifle the feelings, or hide from them, or transform them into action. if we can sit, in full awareness of these feelings, we have learnt more from these people than we do from those we love and cherish. in turn, we can learn to love and cherish all sentient beings.

i sat, watching my own anxiety grow, my physical reactions manifest, my eyes glaze over into some indiferent face. my mind spins out of control when i get anxious, running faster and faster and less and less logically, trying to work its way out of this rat cage of fear and resentment and anger and meaningless dead wounds. but insted of the usual responsive rant of "for god's sake, get Over it, it's in the past, it's irrelevant, you are being silly, come on, stop it, you are so Lucky etc etc,' i just sat with it, and watched my mind run through its paces and chase itself around. it slowed down eventually; the sensations and movements of the sound coupled with the calmness below the top of my thoughts to draw myself between the space of the mind and the mind-watching-the-mind.

so yes. i was still scared and angry and felt sick to the stomach, and accordingly felt stupid and small and confused as to what i care about. i felt bad and cruel and childish and trivial, and intensely guilty for my own part in 'the grand elizabeth fuck-up of 2004' - but i sat and i watched it with the awareness of the mind-watching-the-mind. not just sitting there out of control of the mind; but knowing there is something more deeply real and profound below that shallow tumble of thoughts.
so thanks, 2 people who inspire all that stuff. no, seriously, sincere, profound thanks. the difficult people are our gurus, our buddhas, our movement towards a better sense of being human - that is the honest to god benefit of the human incarnation - the capacity to draw ourselves out of the shit of the mind, without luxuriating in perfection, but through understanding the shite, and understanding our own Mind. yes.

productive me.

in other news, i have flea bites. they itch. and i managed, after these Important thoughts, to get my skirt caught in the back of my laptop bag, and share the Joy of the Flowery Undies with anyone standing behind me. i giggled.