Form Follows La Palapa

Close to where the Lotus Petal Condo is located is this funky house. Now I have to get into the country to get a pic of the original Mayan Palapa.

Form Follows Emptiness

Today I changed rooms in my hotel and i changed the name of this blog. This name seems to fit better what i am writing about these days, Impermanence / Smart Design / Zen Living. Its a kind of Buddhist commentary on that Architectural dictum of Form Follows Function. From the Wiki

Origins of the phrase

The origin of the phrase is traced back to the American sculptor Horatio Greenough[2], but it was American architectural giant Louis Sullivan who adopted it and made it famous. Sullivan actually said 'form ever follows function', but the simpler (and less emphatic) phrase is the one usually remembered. For Sullivan this was distilled wisdom, an aesthetic credo, the single "rule that shall permit of no exception". The full quote is thus:

It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic,
Of all things physical and metaphysical,
Of all things human and all things super-human,
Of all true manifestations of the head,
Of the heart, of the soul,
That the life is recognizable in its expression,
That form ever follows function. This is the law.[3]

Sullivan developed the shape of the tall steel skyscraper in late 19th Century Chicago at the very moment when technology, taste and economic forces converged violently and made it necessary to drop the established styles of the past. If the shape of the building wasn't going to be chosen out of the old pattern book something had to determine form, and according to Sullivan it was going to be the purpose of the building. It was 'form follows function', as opposed to 'form follows precedent'. Sullivan's assistant Frank Lloyd Wright adopted and professed the same principle in slightly different form—perhaps because shaking off the old styles gave them more freedom and latitude. There is a song for teaching this[4].

Back to the name change, Emptiness is the ground of all being that Form arises within only to dissapear within. The dualistic relative acting out its play within the non dual absolute. I am kind of covering all ontological blogging bases here i know. Its complex thats for sure but its also a simple 3 word sutra that reminds me not to get attached to what ever i am getting caught up in, what ever form is arising within this emptiness, it ain't gonna last. Of course a true understanding of The Heart Sutra would tell you that Form is Emptiness and emptiness is form. But i am not that profound.

Mi Casa Camino

A month on the road, well a month since i left northern Europe for the Caribe. This is not really a road trip although i have a journey coming up next month to Guanajuato. Its more about how to establish yourself comfortably in another country as a traveller / resident doing something you love that is different from what you normally do. And that for me is teaching kids film/drama studies which i have resumed at a school here in Playa. Its also about being somewhere warm, having access to a beach, daily swimming, fresh fruit , living simply and integrating with another culture. For me thats Mexico. Last year i hung out with a bunch of other ex pat long term hotel residents living here for their own diverse reasons. I also got to know the local Mayan community around me, which continues to be a wonderful experience that settled travel brings. I can see that with the people i meet here like me others have made their own settled / nomadic adjustments to life. One interesting encounter came recently from an email address inscribed inside the book cover of a John Le Carre novel i had picked up from El Mundos. I wrote, the person answered , we caught up and discussed just this, the nomadic/settled life, how to adjust , how to simplify , how to de clutter, how find the books you want to read, how a traveler deals with extended sojourns in other countries, how to be content.

Two forces are operating, one is to settle down and acquire, the other is to release, then pack light and move, airport. The settlers and the nomads. In one sense i am lucky, i am able to work in Europe over the summer save enough money to keep me in Peas, Rice & Monte Cristo No 2s over winter in the Caribbean . I don't have family responsibilities, although i question the decisions in life that have led to my current solitary existence, and one oppotunity in particular that slipped away. Those forces act to a greater or lesser extent in all of us, mostly sub consciously. They are vestiges of our nomadic genes trying to over come our more recent civilizing urge to be in one place. The second is about 10,000 years old and the 1st is probably 3/4 million years old. If you have been a nomad the older you get though the more you do want to settle, and to have loved ones around you on a day to day basis. The more i understand about the possibilities of an organically designed eco house lifestyle the more i want to find that piece of land again and touch this earth lightly*I know for me its somewhere in the sunny tropics, speaking of which we have had about 2 weeks of solid rain here, kind of monsoonal in its intensity, i have a theory that its the energy of an unformed Hurricane slowly dissapating over the Eastern Yucatan. Bummer for the beach. Hey ! there is no perfect place, but there is contentment.
* Glenn Murcutt A very smart in tune Architect

The Wheels of Samsara

Passing through yet another orbit of the sun on this planet is designated a birthday, well having just spun round uno mas i am contemplating the significance of it all. Birthday wishes from someone i love who has an incisive, humorous angle or two on meaning, amidst the pain & suffering, reminds me that we are like Hamsters in a cage eternally running on one of those spinning wheels. So today i went down to a pet shop to remind myself of the Hamsters world. While no Hamsters where engaged in this exercise i did get a good look at the cages and the wheels.
Fine pieces of work they are too, coming in many designs and colours, your upwardly mobile Hamster would be proud to call them home. And when ever they take to that wheel in a flurry of legs and arms peddling madly, they be sure to tell you that they are going somewhere, and somewhere important at that!

Well what's the difference with us humans? We are trapped in a kind of cage ( the fleshy mortal coil) confined to a world that appears to be important , where there is the illusion of freedom , where we go about year after year doing more or less the same thing, thinking we are getting somewhere. Deluding ourselves about what is important to do , to have , to be. What really matters when all of what you do happens inside a cage. So what is significant ?

This eternal spinning is what's significant. Just examine the physical set up for a clue or two. We are on a planet that is spinning on its axis while it spins around a sun that is spinning around a central point in our galaxy, a galaxy that is spinning around a central co ordinate in the cosmos. What's the cosmos spinning around? I wonder. Don't you ever get dizzy and want to get off?

On another level the Buddhists call it the wheel of Samsara. Its Karma that keeps the wheels turning. They have an 8 point plan to get you off the wheel and out of the cage. ACIM has got another 'No Spin' rescue pack. But there ain't no point in investigating these exit strategies until you realise that you are trapped , and going round and round in life, when you think you are going forwards to that eternal important something.

All these wheels within wheels, all this spinning. You know, a little Hamster in the pet shop told me that the business to be in here on earth is OIL. Keeps those wheels well lubricated, keeps those looney humans spinning around, birthday after birthday.

Lotus Petal Condo

Well i never thought i would be awarding a Lotus Petal for a Condo, especially after my polemic The CondoQuest of Paradise, still i am open to suprises and this development is, as i thought from outside of the fence the other day, a fine example of thoughtful creative Design Integration. A stricking fusion of Local ethnic La Palapa with international El Condo. Preliminary investigation revealed that it was a collaboration between a Mexican Architect & a Spanish Architect. Well done. Why isn't there more of this ?

'What we do in Life.......'

I wrote this on the Blackboard today. I asked the kids to recall a line that had stuck in their heads that meant something to them from a movie they had seen. I get ' Hasta la Vista Baby !' from Arnie's The Terminator and 'May the Force be with You' and Darth Vader's 'I am your Father 'from Star Wars and 'This is Sparta!' from The 300 & "My name is Bond, James Bond' & from ET 'Phone Home' & ' I will not die because of you , i will die to save Scotland' from Braveheart.
I wrote up Maximus's famous line to his Roman troops from the beginning of Gladiator or El Gladiador as it is spelt in Spanish. (thanks be to girl in Blockbuster who found me the DVD from which i will be teaching scene structure next week)
" What we do in Life Echoes in Eternity!" If these kids could only get the significance of that speech, In Europe I wrap a whole Leadership Retreat for business executives around those words.

Integrating Architecture - The Venacular

Well i began to smile when i first saw it , right near the school where i teach, finally an architect who had managed to integrate
local indigenous design & materials with a condo non the less. Hard to see whats been done here, i need to get better pics, (the bard wire high fence doesn't exactly endear you to investigate) but this looks like an ultra modern condominium that has incorporated The Yucatan Palapas structure on the roof. Not as some extra cheap sun shade but as a design feature. You see the Palapas all over the place here, on the beach for bar roofs, as car ports , as extensions to resturants, but this is the first time i have seen the thatched intricately woven roof design as a design feature. Its almost as if the Architect started with the Palapas shape first and designed top down.I will have to get a closer look next time i go back. Could be a Lotus Petal in the mail.

Hello Vera!

In the Australian Bush like in many cultures around the world,indigenous knowledge says that if you get bitten by some poisonous critter or stung by a toxic plant the first aid ER you need is within 25 metres of where it happened.I could be wrong on the radius of remedy but the point being that within nature is both pain & the pain relief, the cure. Now in most concrete jungles you are not going to be able to put this to the test but here in the Yucatan, you can find relief to a lot of skin ailments like burns, especially from the sun, stings of various kinds right outside on the street where you live. Aleo Vera (Sebilera del Mayab its called here) has been used medicinally for thousands of years especially for skin problems. You can drink it too. I have treated over exposure to sun on my face with the gel from this leaf many times, picked straight from the street, outside my hotel. I just step onto the road walk 25 metres and look for this long spiky green leaf plant.... "Hello Vera"

La Dulce Vida

There are some definate delights to living in the tropics, one is the availability and variety of exotic fruit that appear in the shops throughout the year. Now if you are following FIT for LIFE eating you know that its fruit in the morning, while your body is detoxing.In these latitudes i supplement my normal fruit intake (bananas apples gapes pears melon ect which you can buy anywhere) with some of the exotic tropical Mexican delicacies. I went on the hunt this morning for a Marme Sapote, a brown skinned fruit about the size of a big Avocado with a creamy orange flesh inside that tastes like would you believe chocolate suffle,unfortunately i didn't track one down . What i did find was these 2 : A Starfruit, The Carambola, its got a watery zingy taste to it that wakes up your taste buds, and a Sweet Prickly Pear called the Tuna here, its got a purple inside that tastes like a sweet beetroot , but its not a beet but a member of the Cactus family.

Another tropical delight on a balmy tropical night is the joy of smoking a Vainilla Cubanitos cigarello and sipping from a shot glass of chilled D'AARISTI a Yucatan Licor de Anis y Miel de Abejas. Honey & Anis ......Fit for Mayan Kings. I discovered this combination in the Grand Hotel Merida some years ago and have fond memories of sharing La Dulce Vida Yucatan & Vainillas.

Pumping Iron

Thought id take to the Gym again and pump some iron. Haven't joined in gym in years. I spent 12 years in the fitness industry back in the mid 70s the 80s, Not a lot has changed that really matters, the basic exercises are still basic. Weight resistance exercise is still the best body shaping / strengthening program. As you get older maintaining lean muscle mass becomes not just important for looks but for health and reducing the negative effects of aging. I am doing x 4 workouts a week plus my x 5 swims, all early morning. The only time to train. Also enlisting the support of 2 supplements Creatine Monohydrate injested prior to workout for the boost it gives to muscle energy, and L Glutamine amino, taken post workout to aid recovery & reduce muscle soreness. More later on exercise & ageing.

Its Geckoman!

Geckoman up there on the wall
do you ever have the feeling
When you are walking the ceiling
that you 're ever gonna fall?

Its written on the walls.The language of colour

One of the delightful experiences of travel is to notice new colour configurations.Many of us come from more bland expressions of the use of colour in urban planing, so when you arrive in a place like Mexico, colour speaks, sometimes loudly. You get woken up by some unique colour configurations. All of these were on walls around where i am living now.

The Mad Genius of Urban Planning

OK I finally got it. I look back from say 10 years in the future maybe less, 5 years, and developers have built Condos across the beach all the way down to the water. A sea wall has been built, like the Malecon in Habana, and the old Faro has become a massive Street Lamp. Brilliant!

Why didn't i see that before ........?

Conclusion

In a tropical downpour an Umbrella is totally useless.

Jumble Juxtaposition.... a lotus petal !

What i am fascinated about this crazy mixed up world is just that, it is mixed up, with no obvious rhyme or reason that things come together the way they do. I both love it, and at times loath it. Good example of this is on 10 nte. in Playa del Carmen. Just down from Java Joes (see Gaggia Expresso Machines) and just up from the Condo & the Faro (see How close can you build a Condo to a Lighthouse ?) there is a really cool looking hotel. The KINBE, avec un accent on the e. While i am no HIP Hotel photographer, here are some shots of the reception. I haven't seen the rooms but i suspect that the design aesthetic has been transmitted with fidelity. The set at an angle book shelves is truely original.The fact that there is a copy of Sur la Rue by Jack Karouac en Francais among the collection, and that there is a Canadian number on the business card leads me to believe there is French (Canadian) Connection. A first Lotus Petal
is duely awarded!

Ship Shape mas barcos

Ask any Naval architect and they will tell you that hull shape determines the way in which a ship will glide through the water.Heres a shot of the bow of one these wonderful local barcos, and an idle beauty about to be put to work.

Incommunicado

Etymology; from the Spanish Incomunicar to deprive of communication.
There is something in the anonymity of travel that does one of 2 things.It either creates an anxious frenzy of communication
to friends, family & associates to let them know where you are, and what you are doing , or it drives you deeper into the realisation that you don't really want to be that connected to the people who are in your life. At least for awhile. Some quite space might be healthy. Now here is a traveller's challenge that dawned on me many years ago that not that many people have had and it is this : Have you ever been anywhere on this planet where no one who you know , knows where you are ? For a week perhaps or even for a day ? Where you are completely Incommunicado with the world that you know, and that knows you. For people who have occasionally gone underground, dissapeared, dropped of the map, gone AWOL, like your reporting Agent, i can tell you it is a liberating experience. Once you have had it, you may finally get into direct communication with what is around you, where ever you find yourself. And more scarry than that, you might get into direct communication with yourself. Once achieved you can bring more of your real self home.Leaving the excess baggage behind.

Mayan Pyramid Selling?

No its not a Mayan Pyramid Selling Scheme. Or for sale, or an illusion from Egypt.This pyramid house is on the northern end of la playa. It has been there at least since i lived here in 2005. I have never seen anybody living in it, all the time i came to the beach. Who ever owns it has done something very unique with a prime piece of beach frontage. However with development creeping steadily in, it could be lost like a lot of pyramids in the Yucatan, but this time to the concrete jungle.

Gaggia Italian Expresso Machines

Some of the best shots of expresso are poured around the world, from Italian made Gaggia expresso machines. This one is in Java Joe's in Playa, an establishment cafe popular with locals and tourists alike. Adjacent is the Hotel Libreria.Very airy, spacious reception, interesting concept with the books, a neat space to walk into.

The idle beauty of boats.El Barco

I just love the sleek shape of the local sea craft - el Barco.

How close can you build a Condo to a Lighthouse ? bout this close ...

Now Playa del Carmen has this little Faro , well its not that small, and it is probably not a functioning Faro in that it warns ship captains of dangereous reefs, but it is a lighthouse non the less, and was a standout edifice on la playa. Until. The question is 'How close can you build a condo to a lighthouse?' Well, about this close....I know beach front real estate is as prime as it gets, especially in paradise, but this is a prime example of selling architectural space that doesn't exist to build in.
I could continue my polemic on The CondoQuest of Paradise, alas this morning, i would rather focus again on The Idle Beauty of Boats.

Travelin Books

The was a wonderful documentary that i really loved called Traveling Birds.It tracked the migratory paths of a number of long haul feather flyers around the globe. Using some very inventive camera techniques mounted on UltraLights, you literally climbed on board with them and flew over vast stretches of country and ocean. No mean feat navigating from breading grounds in the Arctic to your winter residence somewhere in Africa.
Now i think books do the same.When ever i am on the road i am always on the look out for books to read. I catch up as do many travelers on unread novels whilst on the move. As you move, so do the books you are hauling. And with the vast distances these days that travelers cover, books can clock up the miles in no time. If you fitted a gps chip in the cover of a classic novel that readers tend to re read , say Siddharta by Herman Hesse you could track its movements around the globe.
There is a sort of unwritten code of conduct with us travelin readers, ok maybe you buy your departure Airplane reading book from a bookshop before you leave home , you progressively read it on the road , but once you finish it , you quickly become aware of what i call Book to Back Pack Weight Ratio- B2BPW%. Now your beloved author, whom you have been so intimate with inside of his or her fabricated world becomes a weight liability. It might be just paper weight, but books are heavy critters especially when they are read. So what to do ? well meeting a fellow traveller you offer as a gift, or you find a second hand bookshop and do a trade, or you leave behind in your hotel room, a random act of reading kindness that you enact for the next occupant. With great delight I have done all three.
Travelin Books will get future posts for sure and there is a lot to recommend and discuss. This pic is of the interior of Mananas Cafe on Isla Mujeres , which has a sizable colony of resting books, probably the 2nd largest collection of novels after Alma Libre in Puerto Morelos. At Play in the Fields of the Lord by that remarkable American author Peter Matthiessen has hitched a ride with me this time, who knows where it will end up in the Caribbean, who knows where this novel has been so far ? I always look for any readers inscription or a stamp inside its pages , that might indicate a previous owners memo to him or her self or to the next reader. This book has done some miles by the look of it, published in 1965, it has a Los Arcos Reds English Library book stamp from Antigua inside its cover, so its been migrating around Central America probably for some time.
The other pleasure that always goes with reading in cafes at least for me, is a good short sharp shot of expresso, if Isla Mujeres is on your flight path be sure to go to Mananas and refuel there, get Karen to make it for you.

The idle beauty of boats

The kind of boat you see along the Riveria Mayan coast, often idling on beaches , is a sleek strong workhorse of a craft , but once it takes to the water, zips along muy rapido.

The impermanence of I

Walk along a beach. Look at your footprint in the sand . It is there, and so are you. And then your footprint is gone. Many have walk this earth, Don't get attached to who you think you are.

The CondoQuest of Paradise´part 1

For many road weary travellers like me, averse to the more frigid latitudes, the tropics is Paradise found.Unfortunately the more i see of 23 degrees north and south of the equator, the more it looks like Paradise lost!
Dense equitorial rain forests have been denuded at an alarming rate around the globe,more for their wood resources than any idea of surburban habitation.However a few more degrees of lat north or south and the Sun Belt becomes an attractive Real Estate proposition. Having grown up in semi tropical Oz, i know how attractive that kind of living can be,especially if you are situated by the coast.Here on the Riveria Maya it is no exception, with crystal clear aquamarine waters, talcum powdered white sands, cenoytes , and pockets of exotic rain forest scattered througth out the more coarse low lying selva.This side of Mexico might not have the surf of the Pacific coast, but it does have alot to offer the self unemployed beach bum, in between gigs. Leaving aside sleeping in a hammock suspended between two palm trees on a Tulum beach, civilisation here has exploded like the big bang ,along the Caribe Mexicano coast line.Its only & what seems to be its prime directive was proglamated about 40yrs ago in direct competition to the thriving tourism of the Pacific west coast, with popular resorts like Acapulco.
Go forth and multiply
And multiply was what has happened since, in the shape of Condos , Mega Hotels & Beach Resorts. Often with little or no eco impact planning, creative architecture, or a thoughtful urban infrastructue.Paradise lost. Well for a while ...maybe ?
When i lived here for 2 years thats pretty much all i saw, and most of it was an eye sore, devoid of anything distinctively Mexican in its venacular or inspiring in its design.The ubiquitous Condominium was so homogenus that you wouldnt know you were in Mexico, let alone in tropical latitudes. To be sure there were some exceptions but alas few and far between. Eventually i turned my eye to the world of natural beauty here for which there is no man made competition when it comes to creativity and organic design.
Where some maverick builders had sort to integrate natural harmonies in construction & materials was south of Tulum a little out of the geographical reach of the general investor, at least at that time.
6 months ago i came back to Playa del Carmen to teach, and witnessed at 1st hand how that town , now city i guess had expanded. At one time it was Latin Americas fastest growing location .When i lived just south of there in Puerto Aventuras it reminded me of an energetic frontier boon town, that sprawled in dissaray every which way.I once made the rather unkind comment that it looked no different after a hurricane had ripped through it.Re organise chaos with chaos and it is still chaos. One taste- plain ugly.
But then on my last trip i saw something new, i discovered something between the gaps in the prime directive , i experienced a vibrant Mayan community that filled the space outside of the Glitzy distractions of 5th Avenue. I also saw evidence of a return to a more inspiring design ethos in some resturants, boutique hotels , shops, ocean front appartments and in the general beach culture.

The CondoQuest of Paradise will continue all around the global tropical zone, nothing will prevent that. If you build um they will come ! maybe not so fast in these slightly surreal financial times, but they will come and alas, Paradise will go.

Part of what i am searching for on this trip around the Caribbean, is that unique creative spark, that holistic design intelligence, that x factor essence of wonderment, which is inspiring in tropical architecture & living. Where designers have created a tropical space, a place , where the heart & soul of a sensitive sentient ( not a client or the buyer or an investor)can sojourn at peace. For that at least in this ever changing mundo, will be return to Paradise.
In part 2 i will be looking for The Lotus in The Mud.

Windy one day Wiped out the next!

A comment should be made on my previous post about paradise. About how the tropics is a delicately balanced weather system, particularly between June & October. Hurricane season. Having been through 2 Cat 5 ´s here in the Yucatan, Wilma & Emily, i can say that it ain´t no fun, before, during and after they hit.Before its the impending fear and semi hysteria about what to do , board up & do airport , or board up and stick it out.Once a 3 - 5 day track is issued by the NHC and you know that its probably going to hit you , airfares go up, there is a run on petrol, and food, generators , water and everything else you need for survival.Sticking it out is pure hell, i have never felt such power in nature. Once it has ripped through you, you wake to a devastation that you can´t really get your head around. And then the fun begins , with no power , water , communications, petrol, banks for money,ect you find yourself in a very basic environment devoid of the single thing we take for granted 50 cycle hum - electicity. Candles are very precious, so is freshwater and food. I can remember one time really seeing the stars here at night as there were no street or condo lights. Fishing became a necessity and the one house that had gas to cook with in Puerto Aventuras became a nightly tribal HQ.Communities spring up everywhere made up of those residents who have stayed.With the airports closed tourists are stranded in schools. In this part of the world it takes time to get things back together, i admired very much the spirit of the local Mayans who are tireless workers and had no doubt seen big Tempstas come and go for hundreds of years. Everyone thinks that Cat 5´s make landfall only in certain areas around the Carribean, but i saw a map once charting exactly where they had appeared from 1896, hurricanes were marked in red. The entitre Caribbean was red.

Perfect one day Beautiful the next !

There is something magical about the tropics, that kind of lulls you into a trance state of relaxed wonder. Back when i was growing up in Oz ´Perfect one day Beautiful the next´(or was it the other way around ?) was at one time the Queensland´s tourist commission branding tag line. Well it also fits the Riveria Maya. I must be aligned to these lazy latitudes now as i completed swimming freestyle the full length of the local beach early this morning. Last time i was here in Nov 07 it took me about 3 weeks to train up to. Its not that far maybe half a kilometre +, but i have´t swum for 6 months living in the European north, and so i was not expecting to do it so soon in 3 days worth of swims x 2 per day.I had vowed not to leave the island untill i had done it.When i travel i always do some kind of training.You can get out of shape very quickly when you travel for various reasons being On the Road as Jack Karouac called it can be challenging to your health & fitness.
Right now i am easing into my morning travel training routine. After a meditation , BreathFlex & Pranya exercises on the pier on the playa(more later on that system of exercise)i swim. I go back for another afternoon swim before sunset cevesas.Following Fit for Life eating system, which i always find easier to do in the tropics, haven´t quite got into a Mexican version of Paleo nutrition yet , more on that later.
Swimming is an absolutely delightful sensual total fitness activity , currently i am trying to learn more about reducing drag resistance in the water, rather than power stoking through it.The system of Total Immersion Swimming has a revolutiuonary technique for this. I have to find a course to learn.

To Tao or not to Tao ?

Dear people close to me are going through some turbulant uncertainty at this time, and so i remembered a chapter of The Tao te Ching which has to do with letting things arise as they will, so they can fall , allowing change to happen of its own accord ,so that then you can act at a more auspicious time. Its difficult to do because you want to act swifly to bring about a certainty that will alleviate your anxiety.
I know from my own turbulant anxious past that there is much wisdom in the old master Lao-tzu´s words, usually you get what he is saying in hind sight....which is kind of too late !

Anyway the chapter i refere to is 36, translation by Stephen Mitchell, which is i think the best one out there.

If you want to shrink something,
you must first allow it to expand.
If you want to get rid of something,
you must first allow it to flourish.
If you want to take something,
you must first allow it to be given.
This is called the subtle perception
of the way things are.

The soft overcomes the hard.
The slow overcomes the fast.
Let your workings remain a mystery.
Just show the people the results.

When you are in Slump !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO4tIrjBDkk

This is one of the best inspirational speeches ever written for film
to get you out of a slump, delivered superbly by Al Pacino ,
from On Any Given Sunday directed by Oliver Stone.

"Now, what are you gonna do?"

Form Follows Emptiness or Waking Up (part 1)

By way of introduction let me state that Agent M is half asleep. A sleeping sentient, a sleep writer. Who wishes to wake up. Who like many has realised a kind of lucid dreaming quality to living reality. When you become aware that you are dreaming, the dream doesn't end, you just know its a dream, but then some new possibilities arise. Something is aware that if its only a dream there is another reality called AWAKE! Something stirs . Now you can stay in the dream and get lost in it , and I do all the time, or you can dream the dream and watch it at the same time. A kind of eyes wide shut meditation, difficult to maintain, or you can wake up, even more difficult.....still waking up is what this blog is about.

Waking up to what?

Well that is unanswerable. Words are not going to do it .The most enlightened mystics , the most inspired poets, crazy wisdom teachers down through the ages have done their best, far more eloquent than i, they can they only point to AWAKE. The Buddha did about the best job with the pointing out instructions, but he refrained from talking too much about what its like after you wake up. So waking up to the WHAT is not what this blog is about.

To the degree that we have awoken from this world we can compare notes, we all exist in one form or another and we all share the same present, but its not about waking up to

It is about waking up FROM............

And the from i would like to address here is suffering . The Buddha nailed it in one.

The dream wouldn't be so bad if when we were dreaming it we didn't suffer, but we all do to varying degrees, all sentients , througout time , everywhere.

Another word for the dream is the Illusion. We are living in the illusion of a reality.Waking up means seeing throught the illusion of things as they seem to be, and seeing things as they really are.
By seeing i mean realising , knowing, not believing in something.

What is so experiential about the Buddhas approach to waking up is that he starts wilh varifiable facts, that you yourself can know directly,he is not asking you to believe in something outside of your current experience, like Nivarna. He is not prosletising about a heaven that awaits you or promising something that he will do for you. You have to wake up to yourself, to your true nature, and you can begin to do just that exactly where you find yourself, right here right now. Sleeping.......

Samsara, this everyday ordinary world, IS the very place you wake up, with all its seeming distractions and with all of our attachments and aversions to them.

We all need some training in waking up , or at least I know I do, and i suspect that if you are reading this you already are practicing some kind of approach to realising Truth. My current primary source of wake up training is what I understand of Buddhas insights, but I got here by a long and circuitous path of teachings and of teachers, crazy and serious , experiences and experiments, and like you from simply being curious about the world around me.

Form Follows Emptiness is a precursor , a primer , a pointer , to a deeper more profound absolute truth and that is FORM IS EMPTYNESS - EMPTYNESS IS FORM which of course is the big wake up call of the HEART SUTRA.

Wake up to that one and you will know what waking up to the WHAT really is ....

The Pantheon

My absolute favourite pilgrimage site of antiquity stands in the Eternal City. Attributed to Agrippa,
constructed after the battle of Actium in 31 BC, the latin inscription on the facade is a generous
recognition by Hadrian, who in 125AD undertook a major organic reconstruction. If inspiring
architecture is frozen poetry, then the second you enter its massive doors you transfixed by its vast paneled Dome
& floating Oculus. I am sure the ancient gods of Roma paid homage to its beauty. Nothing prepares you for the transition from the square Piazza Della Rotunda to the Pantheon's interior, as you entered a vast sphere. The optical effect you experience is because the height of the Dome and the diameter of the interior floor, is the same, 43.3 metres.
All Domed buildings constructed since have their drawn their inspiration from this building, and for me what is truely
remarkable is that it has been in constant use for 2000 years. Just imagine who has walked in wonder over
the centuries. If you have never been, then prepare yourself.
1.Arrive at 0800hrs 2.Sip a sharp shot of expresso at Tassa d' Oro Cafe in the Piazza 3. Be at the entrance 0830hrs,
and you may be enlisted to help push open its massive bronze doors 4. Enter and let your spirit soar ! 5. Check out one very
famous Renaissance painter's tomb 6. Return and renew your spirit when ever you are in Rome.

Everything Changes for L Shakti with LOve

Nothing lasts forever

all things come & go

this earth it keeps on turning 

sometimes fast, sometimes slow

Ends are just beginnings

truths they turn to doubts

what you loose on the swings

you win on the roundabouts

Everything Changes

well thats what i've read

everything Changes

like the Buddha once said

Everything changes

yeh it really does

everything changes

just look at us ....

Cos everything changes

nothing gets away

everything changes

as night turns into day

Everything changes

and thats all i really know

everything Changes

the way all things seem to go

Everything changes

better get used to that

everything changes

cos thats where it at

Everything Changes

you bet it does

Everything changes

just looks at us ....

lyrics by Agent M

The Unbearable Heaviness of Stuff

"My hut lies in the middle of a dense forest,

Every year the ivy grows longer.

No news of the affairs of men,

Only the occasional song of a woodcutter.

The sun shines,

I mend my robe.

When the moon is out i read poems.

I have nothing to report to my friends.

If you want to find the true meaning,

Stop chasing after so many things!"

/RYOKAN

Gravity Rocks!

Rocks have personalities. There is something that calls you to certain stones on a beach.The shape, texture & feel of them in your hand instantly aligns you to mass and with it as you balance them one on top of the other - to gravity. All thoughts stop. The mind rests and allows the body to stack , balance and assemble as if in a dance. A gravity trance. If you are calm centered & patient, and if you allow the stones to fit themselves together as they want to , you end up building a sculpture. It is a great way to change a mood to access creativity and to do something different in the great outdoors, regardless if people see them or not , you don't really care. I have watched people walk right past them as if they were not there. Other people come up to me and stare.The next day they may be gone. Wind , birds , kids , a meteor on Mars. The impermanence of this art is a teaching not to get attached, but i can't resist taking a photo.