Gradually

The foot cannot relax into the Earth until the spine relaxes into the leg. The spine cannot relax into the leg until the Earth comes up and frees the head. The Earth cannot rise until the foot relaxes into it. This is why progress is little by little.

Relaxation

Earth thrusts up through sole and spine, entering the head. There it expands, dissolving anxiety (thought), filling the brain with an open and attractive emptiness – a feeling that it can and does contain everything. The head then becomes as the heart. In fact the whole spine frees up, poised above whichever heel, lengthening down and up. This is just relaxation.

Existence

My therapist (one of them – I have many – sound counsel is one thing that is not in short supply here) is constantly telling me that we create our own reality. It is the fundamental truth of existence: we are totally responsible for everything that befalls us. And the only way to cope with this truth is to enter it openly & wholely – without the possibility of blaming any one or any thing for anything, because if we truly enter life then everything is always in its rightful place.

It is the giving – the entering – that heals us.

All the leaves
are down except
the few that aren't.
They shake or
a wind shakes
them but they
won't go oh
no there goes
one now. No.
It's a bird
batting by.


James Schuyler

Writing in earnest requires an engagement that doesn't cease. James Schuyler wrote that poetry requires a certain "force" in order to approach it. I think he meant force in terms of ferocity, passion, and attention. That's true of life too. You know all of this, but poetry keeps you honest to it.


Jess Mynes

Rather than fearing the worst, hope for the best. Or better still, create the best. Or, more accurately, don't let fear prevent your natural good energy bringing the best to you.

Spelling the letters to make words, they really
       made knots.
               These knots are propelled and snarled
by will itself, and by the cunning
       of syntax—
               a force that meddles
with the relations of things.

Rachel Blau DuPlessis

Relationships

I have been given 3 bits of wonderful advice regarding relationships since I have been here in Israel, the first from Nitsan: "Relationships are easy: just stop thinking in terms of me and start thinking in terms of we." The second from Prema, Nitsan's wife: "The only chance a relationship has is if you can both put love of God before love of the other." The third from Miriam, wife of my 91 year old student Yosi, married 60 years: "Enjoy their good points and overlook their bad ones."

I'm beginning to realise that what inhibits my own progress more than anything is taking myself too seriously. It is a condition that stops life being the breathtaking ride it should be. Humour & lightness – basically good energy – offer a buffer that prevents the world from crushing in and flattening us. That humour also softens and transforms whatever it touches, as we all know. It also makes and gives time – a fascinating prospect.

When my children came to visit me in Israel last April my son begged me to let him bring his paint cans so he could tag the wall. The answer was no.

Tense shoulders indicate morbid fantasizing: shrouding the heart with disconnexion.

No technology.

Soul

The fundamental quality that develops soul is humility. It is by feeling your own insignificance in the face of, especially, suffering, your own and others', that soul deepens, enrichens and permeates your physical and energetic structure, softening and tenderizing as it goes. Softness without soul is not possible.

Without soul a teacher cannot really teach – there can be no transmission.

Photo: Lyndy Stout

Bet Café, 09:45, Ramat Aviv

for Ofer

Much life in the clouds
Machinations
Condensations
Ball of pen rolling on page
Illuminating
A bus empties & floods the sidewalk
I fall in love 3 times
Writing brings the world alive
Caffeine hits
Nostrils cool, skin puckers, edges sharpen
Watching breasts walk by
Coffee in a glass
Beseder gamur
Palms against concrete
This clarity the fruit of my anger
Scooter takes the bend at such an angle
Ella from the right becomes Blossom
Gives the day a lilt
Potted shrubs still bloom mauve & crimson
The fullness of life is the emotional content
A full spectrum

Jacob's ladder – the bridge between Heaven & Earth – is the spine.

A holy man is always accompanied by angels.

Soul

Ultimately I suspect the only way to come to fullness or wholeness is to really experience life as a continuing and developing communication – conversation – with God. It is only by consistently reaching beyond ourselves that we allow ourselves to softly fill. Our periphery – the trembling torn edge of life – must in no way be hard, clear or well-defined. It must become as a mist, and there must be fluid exit and entry across that boundary, an activity that is felt as a tender poignancy – almost a tearful sadness. It is only by abiding (suffering) within such a space/reality that we develop soul.