The day the Buddha sat down

Maybe some of you have seen this already.  It just came to my attention yesterday.

Today while beginning my December tradition of reading a chapter a day of A Winter Walk, I saw that some December since 2006 (when the book was published), I had made a note about Bodhi Day, which comes on December 8.

I had written:

The day the Buddha sat down.  He was 29.

On first watching the video and not paying close attention, I didn't realize immediately that the walking person was a young woman.  I was struck by what I thought was the vulnerability of a very delicate young white man whose physical presence seemed to have little to do with the voice of an edgy elderly Jewish/Buddhist man as his death approached.  Now that I know that the walking person is a young woman, everything shifts.

This November was the month when I finally cried long and hard and felt relief.

Here is what November looked like in Bellingham, Washington, this year:

Another yearly tradition is purchasing a Nikki McClure calendar.  I bought my 2020 calendar as soon as it was available.  The November page for 2019 celebrates a quiet family moment, and it gave me a sense of peace each time I looked at it.  Maybe I will give it a permanent place on the wall next to my drawing table when January 2020 arrives.

It was only on a second viewing of "Happens To The Heart" that I saw that the sitting figure rose into the air.  Too much like Mary's Assumption.  Oh well.  I experienced that rising with a sinking feeling. I wonder what Leonard Cohen would have thought of that image accompanying the end of his haunting song.

Then I remembered William Blake's words:

You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.

And this:

If you don't realize the source, 
you stumble in confusion and sorrow.
When you realize where you come from, 
you naturally become tolerant, 
disinterested, amused, 
kindhearted as a grandmother, 
dignified as a king.
Immersed in the wonder of the Tao, 
you can deal with whatever life brings you, 
and when death comes, you are ready.” 

― Tao Te-Ching

Björk from Iceland visits my studio via YouTube on Janis Joplin's birthday with a gift of creative energy / "You shouldn't let poets lie to you"

The YouTube video below is about all I know about Björk from Iceland: "You shouldn't let poets lie to you." (3:29).

If you have time, it is worth listening to all that she has to say in this interview from 24 years ago, before so many households had computers in addition to TVs and before flatscreen TV.



In the video, Björk's television is sitting on a table that reminds me of the kitchen table from my childhood! Did anyone else have a kitchen table with a red top and a silver-colored band at its edge? Our family of five ate around that kitchen table for many years.

* * * *

Today is Janis Joplin's birthday. She was born in 1943.

If you wish, you can listen once again to Janis singing "Me and Bobby McGee," which was written by her friend, Kris Kristofferson.



"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

The first time I heard this song was the day Richard returned from Vietnam early in the morning on December 8, 1970. I've told this story before, but I will tell it again in today's context. We were both stoned on bad acid cut with speed, given to Richard by his older brother who was also a veteran and had been in Thailand a few years previously. It was just after sunrise, and we were in my pale blue-green (anyone remember that color?) VW bug, driving out to Half Moon Bay to surprise his family who had no idea that he had returned from Vietnam.

Here's a photo my sister took of me with my 1966 VW before Richard returned from Vietnam:

















I can't remember which of us did the driving that early morning when we were 21 years old, but it was most likely Richard. He had survived a year in Vietnam while functioning on various drugs--marijuana, speed, LSD, heroin--for much of that time. He went through withdrawal from heroin in Vietnam and never used it again. That day I was unwillingly in touch with my total inability to handle drugs and was suffering from extreme paranoia and relentless hallucinations that lasted for about 24 hours. Janis' voice of experience and understanding, singing ("Busted flat in Baton Rouge, waiting for a train, feeling near as faded as my jeans...") from the car radio, broke through my shatteredness with about 4-1/2 minutes of relief from what was surely hell.

Janis Joplin had died the previous October 4th, alone like Amy Winehouse, suffering from alcohol and drug addiction. Jimi Hendrix, an Army veteran, had died under similar circumstances a few weeks before Janis.

Thank goodness for Janis' voice that day and always.

My surprise and relief at hearing Janis' voice singing a new song was much like that moment in my bewildering and often terrifying childhood, that moment when I was 6 or 7 years old, and my distress was interrupted by Mahalia Jackson's powerful voice, unafraid, coming from the television set.

It was like the moment I first saw Augustus Tack's painting titled "Liberation".

It was like the moment I learned about Ayin (nothingness/nothing left to lose) from a book and then was able to find that page again in that book this morning.

My creative energy is moving today.

One more chorus of Janis singing from her heart at 4:11 in the YouTube above:

... Lordy Lordy Lordy Lordy Lordy Lordy Lordy Lord
Hey, hey, hey, Bobby McGee

(That photo up at the top of this post was taken from my porch a few days ago when there was a sun break. Mostly we've been under a heavy snow-cloud cover. It was 50 degrees inside my home when I woke up at 5 a.m. this morning to begin work in the studio. It's almost 11:45 a.m. now. Almost 7 good hours in the studio! Time for my yoga practice and then some breakfast. I'm looking forward to a 4-mile walk in the snow with a neighbor, Jenny, this afternoon at 1 o'clock.)