Remembering 1965 / Living Now

Set list taken from YouTube comment by Brinley Zhao:

0:17 I'm A Rambler, I'm A Gambler 2:35 There But For Fortune 6:26 Copper Kettle 9:22 Mary Hamilton 15:30 Don't Think Twice, It's All Right * 19:00 I'm Troubled And I Don't Know Why * 22:12 We Shall Overcome * 26:31 With God on Our Side 34:07 Plaisir D'Amour 39:37 Oh Freedom 43:32 She's a Troublemaker 45:48 The Unquiet Grave 50:35 It Ain't me Babe * 54:39 Isn't It Grand * 57:43 500 miles 1:01:10 Te Ador/ Ate Amanha

Images from mid-October to today (mostly taken in the morning during my yoga practice). I ended my final contract as a medical transcription editor on October 16 and am now finding out how to live on my Social Security check. I know it's possible to do. Several of my friends have been doing it for years. Anything is possible. My relief at being free from the pressures of being a medical transcription editor for pennies is immense.

(The unexpected early snow has melted. No snow in the forecast)

(Hard to believe that our generally unwanted president is still in the White House after this long strange year since Tuesday, November 8, 2016)

Here's Ursula K. Le Guin's version of #9 of the Tao Te Ching:

Being quiet

Brim-fill the bowl,
it'll spill over.
Keep sharpening the blade,
you'll soon blunt it.

Nobody can protect
a house full of gold and jade.

Wealth, status, pride,
are their own ruin.
To do good, work well, and lie low
is the way of blessing.

Here are The Roches. An appropriate song for today:

Birthday Totem Meditation: Roll On John / Watching the Wheels / Here and Now

I've always been struck by the fact that, in this song, John didn't say that he didn't believe in God.  What he did say was what he did believe in. He believed in himself. He believed in himself and Yoko. He believed in reality.

"All of us are apprenticed to the same teacher that the religious institutions originally worked with: reality."

(Gary Snyder)

I can't find any documentation for this, but my memory is that on the album where the song first appeared, John's song was titled "god" with a small "g."

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali begin with the word "atha" which could be translated either as referring to "God, the root of all things" (not in the Jewish or Christian or Muslim sense of the word, but in the Native American sense of a mystery at the root of all things) or which could be translated as "here and now."  My perception is that John was saying that he believed in "here and now."

Reality.

Of interest to me is that, among many other spiritual traditions that John was curious about,  he looked into Hindu thought.  The song "Instant Karma" was a result of that.  "Karma" is a Sanskrit word meaning action, work or deed. Yep. There are consequences to our actions.

The concept of "wheel" or "turning" is contained in the word "chakra," a concept of Hindu thought that John was likely familiar with, although he chose not to align himself with any religious or spiritual tradition, which is also my choice and a choice that many of us make.

Born: October 9, 1940, Liverpool, United Kingdom

Happy Birthday, John!

You would have been 74 years old today. 

Thank you for singing about god/God so eloquently.

You were my favorite Beatle from the instant I first saw you singing on the Ed Sullivan Show in February of 1964 when I was 14 years old. You are dear to so many of our hearts.

"You burn so bright. Roll on John."

(Bob Dylan)

Here and now.

Addendum:  See October 10 at whiskey river!