FEATURE 54 - The Divine David - No 1

The Divine David can be simultaneously camp and amusing, whilst also being perceptive and astute. Sometimes he's savagely right on the button, and at other times there's a disturbing edge ( and its not just the bizarre makeup ) you don't quite know where he's taking you, but you do know it makes for uncomfortable viewing. These sudden shifts can be quite unnerving, as in this case when he manically cackles at the end of this.

That said, The Divine David remains undoubtedly a unique voice, This one is called - The World is Burning Let's Masturbate.

DREAM - Losing One's Daughter

I'm in Cambridge still, wandering around with my young daughter. I guess she's about six or seven. I'm very protective of her, showing her a lot of love and affection. At a point in the dream, I'm distracted by something, and she wanders off. Afraid she's in danger, I search quite frenetically to find her. I do eventually find her, and everything is restored to how it was. My daughters name is Atula.

DIARY 125 - Waking Up To Wesak

Its been a demanding few weeks, preparing for the Windhorse Wesak celebrations on Friday 28th May has consumed every psychic inch of my energy. I have felt strained, but tried to focus on the end I'm wishing to accomplish. If I was a tight-arsed perfectionist it really would have brought me to my knees. I imagine these rituals, and I just want to bring them into life. As a creative process its a bit different to painting or writing ideas, in that, in the end, they are entirely dependent upon others whether they work or not. At some point you have to give up your ability to control the result. Due to having a background in performance, I am more able to go along with whatever happens. In a way that's what makes rituals exciting to engage with. As long as you stay confident and calm, so will everyone else. If you panic, so will they, the audience will not be absorbed, but anxious or nervous, for you.

The warehouse was low on manpower, so I couldn't have much help with getting the Stupa and shrines set up. Devising rituals is easy, getting things prepared is the backbreaking bit. In future I'd like an assistant to help with preparing props and logistics. The rest of the Wesak Organising Team ( Arthasiddhi & Nagavira ) helped with planning everything else, and this was indeed a huge relief. I find holding a lot of organisational detail is what produces a lot of tension. This time I made a list of what I needed to do, and when, which helped keep my planning anxiety in perspective. Each day I'd cross off what I'd done, and moving elements as yet unresolved, on to the next day. Sixty plus points later the day before Wesak, I ran out of things to do, and I felt this great weight drop from my shoulders. That evening I was so excited I hardly slept. So I approached the celebration surfing on a wave of adrenalin and caffeine.

The mornings celebratory ritual, went very well, and for the first time I actually was able to enjoy leading the ritual, which was immensely satisfying. Though I've received expressions of appreciation from folk, I'm not sure exactly what effect it had on people. All I can say I experienced a buoyant lightness and excited air to folk afterwards. Not everything went according to plan. One ritual element turned out a bit chaotic. The idea was for everyone in a circle to pass around a ball of rope, and whilst being unwound, simultaneously it would be winding itself around the base of the Stupa. Whilst this was happening I'd be leading chanting of the Prattiya Samutpada formula.

If rituals don't work out how you expect, it may be due to a combination of three things; the set up wasn't explained clearly enough; why they're doing the ritual isn't self-evident enough; or there were elements in the ritual that hadn't been checked or worked out in sufficient detail. In this case it was mainly the latter, but the other two had a role to play. The slightly shambolic result did not bother me in the least. It seemed to demonstrate conditioned co-production all the same, just not how I envisaged. Trying to wind yourself up the Spiral Path whilst simultaneously trying to unwind yourself from the Wheel of Life, is apt to produce a chaotic clash of energies, pulling in different directions, which we certainly got.

That said, everything else went more or less as planned, so I feel a good deal of elevated satisfaction, thats put all that happened beforehand in a less strained perspective. That said, I still feel the need to step back from devising/organising rituals over the Summer, just to focus on a different sort of energy and engagement for a while. The energy I was using over the last few weeks was a very masculine one, overriding emotional resistances, and focusing solely on the end result. The dream I had mid-week very clearly demonstrated I was in danger of losing touch with the more sensitive, poetic and feminine aspects of myself, evoked by my recent retreat. I'd had to drop this sensibility in order to be able to crack on with Wesak preparations. Now that its all over, I want to give myself plenty of open, unstructured space for this aspect to re-emerge into.

FEATURE 53 - Charles Bukowski - Bluebird

Paramanada recites poetry from memory before meditations, this one by Bukowski, strongly moved me. It poignantly portrays that sense of holding oneself in and turning oneself into a prisoner. It may lack a certain atmosphere not hearing it recited by a gruff voiced Londoner. But here's the author reciting it.

BLUEBIRD

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pur whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

DIARY 124 - Harmonic Imperfections

I've recently returned from a weeks retreat at Rivendell Retreat Centre in the Surrey countryside. The retreat was called The Heart of Meditation, and was co-led by Atula and Paramananda. I'd read an article by Paramananda about the body's role in embodying our practice, and instinctively knew this was what I needed. An image came to mind to describe the current state of my practice - it was a very familiar room, though filled with beautiful objects it bored me as soon as I entered, whilst outside sunshine chased across lawns and trees, but never entered the room.

I'd done a couple of weekend groups at Windhorse with Atula, maybe six years or so ago. They were important, first, in the depth to which myself and others communicated ourselves, second, in the way he was able to highlight patterns in my behaviour in groups. My tendency towards being silent, getting 'locked out', and consequent frustration at being unable to make myself be heard. Returning to this form of process based group work, was hence a reunion and a return to test where I currently am at with all this.

Both Atula and Paramananda talk about 'soul', not in the sense of an eternal part of human existence that survives death, but as an archetypal grounding element in the human psyche. This element needing to be in a co-existing and balanced relationship with the rarified purity of the 'spirit' element. These ideas are derived from the pioneering work of James Hillman, who single-handed created Archetypal Psychology by amplifying and adding to aspects of Jung's work.

The group was large, an even mix of men and women, all members of the Triratna Buddhist Order. We eased into the group work via dreams. we were encouraged to put our dreams into a box. Then during one session each day we'd all gather in a room where the box would be in the centre surrounded by five chairs, four of us would be asked to volunteer to sit in this inner circle, pick out and speak about a dream from the box. People could leave or join this circle whenever they felt they had something to say,or had finished. The anonymous dreams would tap into some sort of collective psyche and expose intimately personal, yet universal themes. Within a few days we were into more informal process orientated groups where there was no theme other than whatever we spoke of or brought to it. This was often a challenging and frequently bumpy ride.

As the week went on, my initial reticence in bringing myself forward broke. I could sense my strong tendency to adopt a listening empathic role in groups setting in, and consequently not to bring myself fully into the group. This began increasingly to chafe, but it wasn't accompanied by self-recriminations or punishment, which used to be there ten years ago. So there has been progress. I know, understand and am much kinder to myself these days. So much stuff came up that I'm still processing and reflecting on things. It wasn't only my stuff, but also the stuff of others which stirred up things within me. I saw how strongly I use the 'social mirror' to reflect back to me, what my own feelings, ideas and thoughts are. They don't seem to arise easily or spontaneously from me without this external prompt.

Meditation wise, Paramananda, has some poetic and potent ideas about where we go wrong with our practice. Instead of observing the body breathing, in the 'mindfulness of breathing' practice, there's a tendency to objectify and act from an 'idea' about the practice, not a lived experience of it. No wonder it becomes dull, lifeless and an unrewarding effort. So I'm focusing more and more in my practice on abiding with my body breathing, observing how my centre of energy shifts upwards when I start straining to direct, or over analysing what I'm experiencing. I need to work on grounding my awareness in my body, probably for quite some time. I've habitually skipped over preparation to get on with the form of the practice. I can see how this leads me into not fully experiencing myself, and maybe that's the real reason, to avoid discomfort.

I came away from the retreat very conscious how I can hide myself from myself, and from other peoples scrutiny, whilst simultaneously feeling I'm never being fully myself, or actively being present in the world outside. The two, obviously, are connected. Though I am currently working on becoming more visible through my work with ritual, I'm all too conscious how uncomfortable that visibility makes me. It's all too easy to bare all via this blog. Real communication is personal, and requires presence, the virtual world takes place at a safe distance - you can filter and censor how you present yourself to the world, in some respects you might just as well be anonymous. Real communication, like I experienced on this retreat, is very rare. when it happens you feel simultaneously an extraordinarily naked exposure and relief as something never said before is released to fly from bondage.

DIARY 123 - Troubles Braids

I've never been one who actively enjoys, or seeks to create, situations of contention or controversy, I find myself temperamentally averse to them. In the last week, however, I've stumbled into the centre of a hornets nest of upset and disapproval. The cause was my starting a work project to convert the lunchtime sleep room into a small lunchtime shrine room. I was expecting there would be some resistance, but nothing too major. But within a day there was a petition, with an ever increasing number of names appearing on it. Any collective warehouse meetings I was present at, had an awkward atmosphere with an unvoiced strongly negative feeling tangibly hovering. Eyes avoided connecting with mine.

The accusation was 'a lack of consultation', which was true, there was none, because I mistakenly thought it wasn't such a big deal, so wouldn't be necessary. Though I doubt that lack of consultation was really the issue, nor that if I had done any, that it would have made the slightest difference to the level of reactivity. I've been reflecting over the last week on consultation. Folk usually cry out about a lack of consultation only when something happens that they don't agree with. When its something they agree with, there is rarely a call for consultation then. Only a psycho-pedant would consistently call for consultation on every occasion or circumstance. So prior consultation, though seeming so reasonable, isn't what its about really.

Consultation has the virtue of sounding principled, whilst secretly being partisan. It passively punches someone in the face, whose viewpoint you don't like - you didn't consult me you bastard!! A call for consultation is often a procedural obfuscation, politicians use it all the time. If a policy initiative goes down badly its buried in a consultative process. By the time the consultative committee reports, passions have cooled, and no one quite remembers what the fuss was about. So, several months later, whether the committee comes out in favour or against a governments policy, no one gives a fig. Whilst your in such a process you're delaying taking that unpopular decision. Calls for consultation are frequently using a democratic process, either as a form of smokescreen, or to bury the oppositions viewpoint in it .

Anyway, I wrote a response, explaining what I was doing and why, for publication in the weekly Newsletter. I've had a number of bits of positive feedback, but there are still some faces even more set in stony disapproval. Though the issue seems small, its caused all this furore, touching a raw nerve or two. It represents a dichotomy in Windhorse, and more broadly, between individual needs and habits and collective practice and spiritual vitality in a Sangha. The two often work against each other. So in this case, sleep is set as having a higher value in the hierarchy of needs than meditating. As Windhorse currently has no freely available space for anyone to meditate in every lunchtime, this is to my mind a calamity of significant proportions. Effecting any change in a Buddhist business is, paradoxically, more difficult than in an ordinary business hierarchy.

The effect on me of all this has been the arising of a huge amount of fear and anxiety. I don't know exactly what I'm fearful of happening - but disapproval, being ostracised, hated or attacked verbally or physically, are definitely in there as chief suspects. There is no talking myself out of this reaction, its something from my existential being that I just have to endure. I took my time over my written response, and I think in the end I got the tone right, reasonable, but clear where I stood. After all ,I stand to gain very little from this, I want to do it for the benefit of everyone, and the spiritual efficacy of the business. I need now to move on from this issue, I've plenty of other projects and ideas to be getting on with. So whoever makes the final decision will do so without me. I've had enough of taking all the flack, of people ignoring the difficult choices the issue raises, and shooting at the messenger.

FEATURE 51 - Mirror

My second Tarkovsky Movie in a week,very different in style from Andrei Rublev. Mirror is such a mysteriously personal movie, more like childhood as in a folk tale, but one that has no linear story sequence. The viewer is allowed into this world of Tarkovsky's recollections, but we aren't given any help to understand it, its jumbled up, and associative, there is no guide book. This is heightened memory, filled with poetic imagery,the exagerated myths of infancy.

Like many men he has a complex relationship with his Mother, he seems to be living in a state of blame towards her. He has the same actor play both his Mother and his estranged wife. His Father is absent, he has left the family home, why, we are never told. Though I'd hazard a guess Tarkovsky believes it was his Mothers fault

This clip is an evocative dream of his Mother washing her hair, she turns briefly into something monstrous,and then the ceiling plasterwork of the whole room collapses in. The dream ends with his youthful Mother looking towards a mirror, as the camera turns from framing her to showing us the mirror reflection, we see not a youthful Mother, but the older Mother of the present day. It's so striking a sequence it's lived on in my memory since the first time I saw it twenty years ago. Powerful film making.

FEATURE 50 - Andrei Rublev

I bought the DVD of this movie today, what a real pleasure and a joy it is to become reacquainted with it. This clip, unfortunately without subtitles, is from after the Tartar raid when the church has been ransacked and desecrated. Rublev's dead icon master Theophanes returns to debate with him about whether there's any value to painting in the face of cruelty and death. Rublev decides to take a vow of perpetual silence and ceases to paint.

Listen out for Tarkovskys use of bells at the beginning, which brilliantly lend atmosphere and poignancy to the scene without a whiff of over emotionality or manipulation. The bells will not toll again until the great bell making scene at the end of the film.

FEATURE 49 - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

I'm by no means a fan of everything this New York combo do, but the 2009 album - It's Blitz is a corker. Something about the guitars reminds me of early Talking Heads/Blondie with a roughening edge of No New York stuff thrown in for good measure. Dig the dress sense, are they just ever so slightly arty or what? My current favorite track is - Heads Will Roll - so sing along - off off with his head - dance till your dead - heads will roll - heads will roll.

FEATURE 48 - Matlock Bath Snaps

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With leave time to use up before the end of March, I took a fortnight off. one week was spent writing a Closing Ritual, going to see exhibitions in Cambridge,and visiting London to look round Westminster Abbey ( £15 entry fee!!!!) and a matinee performance of the play by Jez Butterworth called Jerusalem, starring the brilliant actor Mark Rylance.

The second week Jnanasalin and I took a few days break in Matlock Bath, Derbyshire. The Cables B & B where we stayed was simply the best - Highly recommended. We found the Regency Cafe, which was also excellent, with a great range of cakes, and innumerable types of coffee and tea. We ate out every evening, Italian, Thai and Indian, none of them was a dud meal. The Balti Indian Restaurant must however be singled out as probably the finest Indian meal we've had, stylishly and beautifully presented with a great range of flavours. We've eaten in curry houses where everything we ordered looked the same colour and consistency. The Balti was not like that. it was also heaving with people on a Wednesday in mid February.

As you can see from these pictures, we were blessed with good weather.

DIARY 122 - Getting Into Rituals

Looking at the date of my last entry, its been two months since I posted a fresh diary. During that time I've been putting my creative talents to writing/compiling rituals and pujas for work. Just after Christmas I spoke to Keturaja about Right Livelihood at Windhorse needing to catch up with the profound changes in the business. In my opinion, this could only begin with a revived vision for rituals. We've been in our current warehouse for eight years, and we simply imported most of our spiritual practices from the old warehouse, and I'd say never really embraced the potential of the current warehouse as a ritual space. Well, I should have kept my mouth closed if I'd wanted a quiet life.

As it happened other folk were also thinking about how to revive Right Livelihood too. So in February we launched a months intensive practice in the warehouse, for which I conceived an opening and a closing ritual. Both of these were a great success, if the amount of positive feedback about them is anything to go by. This has personally been immensely gratifying. I do get a real creative buzz out of devising them, because they utilise my previous arts performance/theatrical experience and writing skills so well. A happy melding of my talents and interests. It could almost seem like everything has been unconsciously preparing me for this.

My main focus when devising them, has been to build in elements that will actively engage people in the creation of what happens in the ritual. Rituals can all too easily be passive affairs, emptily mouthing the words, whilst ones emotions stay stalled or in a low gear. So I find I'm thinking about others most of the time when I'm writing them, on what the effect or benefits will be for them. It therefore fits into my recent decision to do more things that are for the benefit of others.

I'm learning quite a lot about myself in the process, how I work on them, how to lead them, what works best in a ritual, and what blunts its impact. Simple ideas, simply executed seems to be the watchwords. Complexity easily leads to confusion, and disengagement. So any tendency from me to over egg the pudding by putting too much into them has to be watched. I like to keep elements in a ritual secret, so people don't know what they are going to be asked to do. consequently they have to respond more directly in the moment, and can't so readily slip into auto-pilot.

I've also realised how a kinaesthetic experience of the rituals spacial organisation is vital for me. If I don't get that kinaesthetic experience early enough, ideas stay lodged in my imagination, not concretised internally, buzzing away like very persistent bees. I have to be able to put them down. I get increasingly tense and stressed if this planning stage becomes too protracted. I'm not happy holding the entire weight of responsibility myself, either. I've done three rituals over the last six weeks, and I've been in a semi-anxious state throughout this whole time. Not a good thing for me, at all, not being able to mentally/emotionally put it down. My energy and sleep get depleted. I had a serious intestinal/stomach upset after the closing ritual, and I was right off food for four or five days.

In future, I need to build a more collaborative role, either with one other person, or a group of folk to devise and organise rituals. For the moment I've become 'Mr Ritual' at Windhorse, though I'm sure there are other folk out there capable of organising one, its just a question of exposing them. There's planned a series of events running up to Wesak at the end of May, which I'm sure I'll be involved in. I'm hoping the responsibility will be distributed more broadly. If not I have to have a fall back position, or a better way for me to be the deviser, organiser and leader of rituals. This might mean only doing specific rituals spaced out throughout the year, and not allowing myself to be on a ritual conveyor belt, creating one after another.

FEATURE 47 - Those Sneaky Gays

Here's a 'Sue's Corner' from the very wonderful GLEE. This is brilliantly written stuff,delivered with great sarcastic relish by Jane Lynch, the second most famous Amercian lesbian after Ellen Degeneres - in fact her former partner no less. Tongues firmly in both cheeks guys n gals!!!

FEATURE 46 - Hans Richter

Went to view an excellent exhibition at Kettles Yard called Modern Times - responding to Chaos. The curator Lutz Becker has chosen mostly line work done on paper and covers artists from 20th and 21st Centuries. I was struck by the intesity of their graphic explorations, and the complete absence of any definite perspective visually or culturally. In fact this era could be called 'The complete loss of perspective'. The new fieldwork that this opened up for art to explore was liberating at the time. I get a sense that its well exhausted now, and all we are left with is the feeling of not knowing what we are looking at, or looking for, any more. The multiplicity of ways of seeing is confusing, if not overwhelming. We've now moved into the era of 'Too much Choice.'

My favorite bits were the early film experiments of Hans Richter. Crudely executed by modern day standards, but experimenting with what the new art form film could do in visually abstract ways, once robbed of the need to tell a story.

FEATURE 45 - Turning Japanese

Though this is fun,it also has a sense of unease to it. What exactly is Murakami implying by having Kursten Dunst prancing around like a figure from a Manga comic singing the old Vapors song 'Turning Japanese'? I strongly suspect that any answers are probably not going to be all that helpful.