Meditation Course

Things have gotten busy so I haven’t posted in a while. I’m going to try and catch up in small spurts. Right after my last posting, my partner Sky Blue and I (yes, that’s his given birth name) drove the trusty band van up to Boston. We spent the night at a co-op there, two houses with a large garage and a garden/lot in Jamaica Plain. The main house was totally amazing and beautiful—3 floors, each with a kitchen, bathroom and bedrooms. The place was full of amazing art work, interesting reading material, and very sweet folks. It was super late by the time we got there but our host still cooked us up some spaghetti and a few of us sat around chatting late into the night about music versus speech as a form of communication, the importance of urban communities and the state of the world.

Tuesday morning we drove to Shelburne Falls, MA to begin a 10 day meditation course taught be Master Goenka, a Burmese businessman who has started Vipassana meditation centers all over the US and the world (dhamma.org). I was definitely feeling nervous and resistant, and it didn’t help when they commandeered my violin upon arrival and sent me back to the car to deposit any books, paper, pens, or pencils. I’ve sat long, silent meditation courses before, but this was my first time at this more rigid center. Despite my resistance and fears, that evening, I resolved to submit to this new and different technique and give it a full and fair chance.

The basic technique is to sit and pay attention to the breath as it goes in and out of your nose, then after developing concentration for 3 and half days, the instruction shifts to doing scan of the body, feeling any sensations that arise on each body part and noticing the sensations with equinimity. Sounds simple enough, but try doing this for 10 days straight….It was quite a challenge. But, I’ve been practicing some form of Vipassana meditation for nearly 3 years now, and I felt ready for the challenge. The intensity and simplicity of the technique allowed me to go much deeper into the silence, into myself, and into the sheer physicality of my being than in my previous experiences. I had a number of breakthroughs around things that I’ve struggled with, and I also found it very satisfying to use my mind to explore my body in this way. I even came to some large life conclusions/decisions, namely:

--When I’m done traveling and exploring, I want to move to a medium sized city on the west coast, live in a coop house and go to massage school.

and

--I want to keep being involved with Sky in a big way

Some of the deeper physical/emotional work that happened was around my relationship to my sexuality, which has been a point of growth and struggle for many years. This time it was around the ways that I still rely on my sexuality, (namely being attractive to men and sleeping with them) as a self-esteem booster. I began realizing that this manifests itself in a lot of the small and subtle in which I interact with men, even those I’m just meeting casually for the first time. I came away with some resolve to shift this, and work towards interacting with all people from a stronger and more independent, self-loving place.

So much intense emotional work, of course I was totally antsy to talk and reconnect with Sky after those 10 days! We finally got to see each other on the 10^th day, though we were still prohibited from touching. It was very intense, we were both quite giddy and nervous after all that time quieting our energy. Of course, we ended up having the Big Relationship Processing conversation right away (I couldn’t wait a moment longer), but it was pretty quick and painless. Sky has been very interested in moving to the West Coast, as well, and we also about what it meant to be more committed primary partners. It felt so good to be with him and talk with him after 10 days of one sided conversations in my head.

more to come soon...........!

here and gone

tomorrow sky and i leave for massachusetts--we're going to do a 10 day meditation retreat there, which i'm very glad for.  this week has been good in lots of ways, though its very disjointing to keep coming back to twin oaks for short periods.  it felt really great to connect with all my women friends here, its something i really miss while travelling around.  also had a good reconnection with sky, and i feel very solid and comfortable in our relationship now.  

well, this is it for the next 10 days....

ups and downs on the farm

i got back to twin oaks Sunday night--so far its been great and hard and confusing and satisfying. these transition points really hard the roughest part of the transient
lifestyle. the hardest part has been continuously re-negotiating my relationship with sky. sunday
marked a year of being involved, which is pretty amazing for me. generally i'm pretty relationship-phobic. i really love our relationship--we have such an ease and comfort with each other. he's also great about challenging me while taking responsibility for his own shit. its definately the most exciting and fulfilling relationship i've ever had. all of my coming and going and future uncertainty has put a lot of stress on him and the relationship, and my wild-oat sowing doesn't help either. (not that he hasn't sown a few of his own while i've been gone)

last night apple and ali, to awesome women friends and i went out to visit our buddy kate (check out her blog at trespass.motime.com). she left twin oaks last year, and pretty quickly stepped into a radically different life--in a (relatively) monogomous, committed relationship with a man who has 3 kids from previous
relationships, going to grad school fully time for sociology, and living a somewhat mainstream life.

it felt so good to be with these awesome women and just talk and laugh and be silly and snuggly and supportive. its such an enigma to me that our lives have taken us to such different places
when we so clearly should all be living together somewhere.

losing and finding center

last night aaron and i met up at Maia Meyhane, the Turkish bar on Ave. B. Romashka (gypsy band) was playing and i'd never seen them. the place filled up pretty quick and soon felt like we'd been teleported to Turkey, hookahs everywhere, people dancing and jostling the belly dancer, music blasting and beautiful. afterward aaron and i played some of that old timey music out front and made a pile of money, which we immediately spent on beer. back at the apartment, harry smoked us up and chatted briefly, my mind was dominated by an interaction/conversation between aaron and i, one of many where he is clearly holding back his thoughts. this one was about my socially awkard nature.

after the pot i was wide awake, my head racing with thoughts and reactions--i really wanted to engage with aaron, but he was just not there. i couldn't calm my mind down lying next to him, since much of the agitation was about him and us. at some point out of sheer desperation, i started talking out loud to him and to myself, just vocalizing what i was feeling. really, i just wanted him to reach out, to say or do something that showed how he felt. alas.

this morning we went out busking and then spent all the money on food at zabar's, a giant gourmet/jewish market broadway.  its just exhausting to try and keep up the stream of meaningless jokes and punny commentary.

music and more music!

yesterday i drove out to long island with bruno, an old-time fiddler who's converted to arabic music.  he plays in david's andalusian band, which is how i met him.  he's an italian from brookln, very sweet and down to earth.  its a long drive and i spent the whole time picking his brain about being a musician and living in new york. Some highlights: he advised getting totally immersed in whatever style you are trying to learn, (when he was learning to play bluegrass and western swing, he moved
 to nashville for a year!) and to learn the language of that style. then to push yourself to start performing as soon as possible.

afterward i met the aarons in brooklyn to see stephane wrembel (the modern day django) again, and aaron (lewis) borrowed a fiddle to fulfill his year-long dream of sitting in with him.  he (aaron) is so talented, its both inspiring and intimidating.  we got drunk on guiness and i and stayed the night in brooklyn. in the morning, after tacos and tamales, we went to St. Joe's for the soup line and gave them a little old timey concert after the soup line closed.

my mind is whirling with all of the different musical styles that i want to learn: old-time, bluegrass, western swing, jazz, arabic, turkish, moroccan.........it really is endless. i told bruno and david that my secret life goal is to learn every different kind of music and dance style that exists, from every country and culture.

looking forward to going to the country, but this visit has been great. coming around with aaron, too, remembering why i love him. he's just so solid and steady. it's a relief to me.

Pharoah's daughter and Capoeira

i felt very emotionally low today, and went to see the band pharoah's daughter tonight, on my own. from their website:

Blending a psychedelic sensibility and a pan-Mediterranean sensuality, Basya Schechter leads her band, Pharaoh's Daughter, through swirling Hasidic chants, Mizrachi and Sephardi folk-rock, and spiritual stylings filtered through percussion, flute, strings and electronica.

it was at Joe's Pub again, but this time i arrived early and got a choice spot of one of the plush velvety red couches, front and center. i nursed a beer and let go into the swirling wash of beautiful sounds. dancing felt good too. it was very inspiring to see folks playing slow, meditative and very deep music. music that heals the musician and the listener. i want to create more of that in my musical life.

after the show, i was heading home and saw a guy on the street with a berimbau and asked him where i could find a capoeira class.

from Wikipedia:
Capoeira is a Brazilian martial art developed initially by African slaves in Brazil, starting in the colonial period. Some people believe that capoeira was created in Africa. They say that capoeira originated in Nigerian tribes where they fought with music and the winner won a partner, usually female. Participants form a roda (circle) and take turns playing instruments, singing, and sparring in pairs in the centre of the circle. The game is marked by fluid acrobatic play, feints, subterfuge, and extensive use of groundwork, as well as sweeps, kicks, and headbutts. Technique and strategy are the key elements to playing a good game. Capoeira has two main styles, known as "regional" and "Angola."

he said there was one right now, upstairs, and i should come watch. he wouldn't take no for an answer, and once i got up there another dude took over in getting my onto the floor. that was all it took, and i was fully in, throwing crazy kicks and pushing myself to keep up. it was amazing and intense and felt so good to surrender body and mind to this dance/martial art form.

stating to feel ready to go "home" to twin oaks, good friends, organic food, and quiet nights.

nest interrupted

today was a loooooooooong ass day! last night i stayed over at aaron's friend aaron's house (how do these things happen!??!) in outer flatbush/mangolia...then it was a long morning of meeting other aaron's high school friend at the H&H bagel factory on the water front: long train ride, long walk etc. i took my bagel stick to the waterfront for some much needed peace and quiet, and it was quiet lovely, in a Manhattan sorta way. the water was comforting and the air cool and breezy.

afterward, we bussed and trained to union square and played for while as a banjo/fiddle/mandolin trio, making shit for money. finally i took off for home, put in a solid 45 minutes of UWS busquing, and then wearily made my home home to recuperate from 24 hrs out and about.

tonight we saw borat, which was disturbing and hilarious, then indulged in mass quantities of amazing sushi and saki. i bid aaron farewell for the night and came home to the nest. sometimes, i wonder if he even likes me at all--i don't have the same fast paced sense of irreverant humor that all his friends cultivate.