if you’ve asked yourself this past week “what can I do to help?” start with you. changing society by transforming the individual. start with you.

do not accept the idea of powerlessness or self-denial. numbness should never be your only alternative. feel.

a lot of us run from/avoid important moments within ourselves because it sparks uncomfortable emotions. we have to be OK with feeling uncomfortable. don’t run from it. don’t fight it. you start fighting with yourself and instantly you are lost. and so many people, in seeking spiritual truth, fall into that error. we cannot doubt ourselves, our feelings, our experiences. the real answers can only come out of you. close your eyes and meditate on it.

living within outward. only then do we recognize our deepest feelings and become responsible to ourselves in the deepest sense.

we search and ask for answers, and if we’re lucky, we are given methods and techniques. but we have to find our own answer through our own effort. we have to find our own answer through our own suffering, and through our own penetration. within, within, within.

abhyasa: constant inner practice against habits. break your habit of searching for. we have to find fulfillment through, not from. every.day. we have to be more than a proclaimed title.

for the first half of my week I couldn’t get through a full day without the thought that I wanted to quit, feeling doubt or invisible, thinking I was going infuckingsane. having an unpopular opinion can make you feel crazy sometimes…but if truth is on your side, it’s not really an opinion. it just is what it is. find your truth. breathe. give yourself credit.

duende

a face in a trance, evoking duende. intimacy, discomfort, love, control and lack of.

Sound: Courtney Moore

I posted a photo of a painting by Jack Bush on my Instagram yesterday. The caption read: “Jack Bush painted this decades ago foreshadowing how I’d be feeling today.” I often feel this way about music. The strange yet deeply profound connection between the artist and me. A perfect phrase or arrangement of sounds that manifest thoughts and feelings. I want to share this with you.

Healing. Definitions are vital starting points for the imagination. Until late I glamorized the word. I don’t know where I gathered such notions, but there isn’t much comfort in healing until it’s done. Maybe I found comfort in the end result. Much of what I learned this year is to take each moment for what it is (thank you Gwendolyn Brooks). Be in the moment. Go through it, and move forward. Even if it feels stagnant. It isn’t. Wu wei.