Day-end, Buddhist Inventory

I'm trying to keep an inventory at the end of each day as recommended by Buddhist teachers-- an inventory of both the good and the bad; keeping tabs, I guess you could call it. Doing so, according to this wisdom, makes determination to improve less difficult / more likely. It's all about being mindful. Being mindful requires great effort.

I inadvertently went to the beach today.
At first glance, today's bike ride was promising nothing but cool spring, four days into Summer.
Half-way through my ride around the Seawall the sun skipped past the grey with incredible warmth and nearness. I dismounted. (I didn't lock up my helmet, people don't steal helmets)(I did, however, slide my white M.E.C. L.E.D. A.K.A. 'Turtle Light' forward so that the black elastic band was most visible and the LED/plasticy portion was less conspicuous)("crimes of opportunity", you know)
At Third Beach I took my spot on the sand.
Touching, slowly, drawing circles and curves and alleys and birthmarks.
The top layer was dry and inviting,
any deeper, the sand was much darker and wet,
smelling strongly of the sea,
hinting at decay and the brittleness of sea-shells.
I poured the hot, dry sand on my hands, from one hand to the other.
I briefly thought of each body my fingers have ever known and that the sand's superficial heat means so much.
I imagined doing continuous somersaults along the border of sea and sand, well, along the front of Third beach. Actually, it was forward-somersault twist into backward-somersault to log-roll to forward somersault...(forever and forever)(or until I hit the wall)(they would think I was crazy)(am I?)(somersaults aren't crazy)(34 year old somersaults along the sea to sand lapping broder, maybe. maybe crazyish)(well, you didn't do it, so.)(can I even do a somersault anymore?)(do a somersault anymore)
I drew more circles in the sand. I stood up.
I hooked the sand out of my shoe with crooked finger.
I looked at the ten or so other people on the beach and thought, "we're the fortunate one's today" and  "hey, an empty beach on a Saturday"
I walked back to my bike and put on my helmet.
The padding was still cold and wet with my sweat.

Tree of Life: Movie Review

I feel total awe when a filmmaker sets out with the ambition to make a metaphysical movie and succeeds. Malick does this in Tree of Life, all the important stuff is there: being, existence, time, purpose, suffering, love, indifference, etc. But he reaches even further than I've seen before, balancing between material creations and the immaterial conceptions of his characters. In the process his film creates strong emotional reactions/connections with/from his audience. He alternates between idealized scenes of nostalgia and childhood wonder / contrarily showing the blindness and the beauty of the Universe.  The paradox of the ideal and the meaningless and how they both exist and rely upon each other  There is so much wisdom in the movie. The dialogue's often prayer. Literally. I remember reading Ebert's review and he said that the movie was a prayer, and well, initially I thought he meant metaphorically(in it's beauty and desire, hope and desperation),-- and while it certainly is that, I'm fairly convinced that a lot of the dialogue is literally prayer-- the sacred thoughts spoken by the various characters; poignant wishes of love and strength, the courage to choose between good and bad, truth and lies.  Anyway, Malick has proven beyond any doubt in my mind that he's an artist of the highest caliber. 

10/10. Thought it was perfect. Wisdom and poetry from a modern, popular movie-- a rarity worth celebrating and sharing.

See it.

--
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_tree_of_life_2011/

pareidolia stream

thought bananas skins, thought them interesting-- purposive digression goes: full of brown, clustery freckles in (distraught or smiling) bruisey(eyes, nose, mouth), emotional faces. Distinctly British Face of Banana Bruises. Their suggestive, oxy-aberrations need to sit in my mind's eye a lil' while longer while I think of all the instant-and-created faces I've ever known; found in the repetitive, wood veneers, all indented, hard-gum, topologies-- found in the connect-the-dots, mosquito-pasted, wallpaper of earlier still-light-at-bed-time summers, and the starry gaze of each trampoline-and-I'm-cold-but-TRAMPOLINE!-sleep-overI can live in this yard and see the stars because I'm not in my bedI'm outside and thestars make faces and each face has so many more faces if that's the eye this time and the bright one is the mouth do you see it and my best friend is beside me oh a shooting star where do you see it there and my dogs are so happy I'm outside with them and they think I'm good being out here with them they're under our bed tonight we can jump on them and I'll probably go in if it gets too cold always around dawn and I won't consider how that makes you feel my friend because I'm a little bit afraid of being outside and I'm young and a feeling sortascared that someone will stab us from under the trampoline.remind me again about pareidolia, remind me again, because it thrills me.

preterquilt

preterquilt, a photo by rjbeeswax on Flickr.

"Phenomena are not analytically contained in their conditions; rather, a synthesis is required out of which a phenomenon not antecedently existent comes to be." (after Nagarjuna), Buddhist scholar: Jay L. Garfield