Whistle Dance .net

Living with Spirit

2009-06-28T08:09:00.007-07:00

I'm leaving today for the "Living with Spirit" retreat up at Ananda Village. So for the next two weeks I'll be camping, meditating, doing yoga, taking classes, experiencing life in a spiritual community, and doing other fun things. Oh, and hoping I don't miss my first tomatoes, though Cathy will be looking after them for me. See y'all mid-July!

A New Favorite Narrator

2009-06-25T13:19:00.000-07:00

I just finished listening to Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts, narrated by Humphery Bower, and I have to say I spent every one of those 43 hours completely enthralled with his voice.

First of all, he's Australian (appropriate for the first-person protagonist of the book) so everything is delightfully accented, even just the "base" narration. But it's the character voices that always really sell me on a good narrator. Most of the book takes place in Bombay, so there are umpteen different Indian characters, all with distinguishable, recognizable voices. Aside from that, though, there are numerous characters from other countries, with accents as diverse as French, German, Spanish, British (London and Liverpool versions), Canadian, American, Iranian, Pakistani, and Afghan. And as if juggling all that weren't enough, he also handles cases like British-educated Afghan, New York Pakistani, and an Australian faking an American accent while speaking Hindi. The guy is a genius.

And even beyond the accents, the overall narration is just exquisitely done. Every little shading and coloring of emotion and meaning is conveyed perfectly in the intonation. Not too much -- I've heard narrators that overdo it -- but just right. This goes both for matching explicit descriptions in the text and for applying his own interpretations to the rest of it. There have been a number of times when I could tell that I would have read something in a very different way in my head, but that Bower's version worked much better.

So if you're a connoisseur of good narrators, definitely listen to this. (Or I expect any of the other books he's read would be excellent as well.)

Peas!

2009-06-16T11:08:00.003-07:00

I think peas really have to be just about the best plants ever. Lacey gave me a couple small Cascadia Bush Snap Peas about a month ago, and I got to pick and eat the first one last night. I love these little plants. This is how awesome they are:

They grow quickly.
Their vines climb with delightful little grasping tendrils. (I always think vines are wonderful.)
You get to build trellises for them (or, in my case, tie crazy arrangements of string and sticks to balcony railings).
The flowers are adorable.
The peas are delicious!

I mean, really, what more could you want?

30

2009-06-08T11:06:00.002-07:00

(Potshots #2797, by Ashleigh Brilliant.)

Well, it's a new year and a new decade for me today. Thirty still sounds like too big a number, but I've also kinda been looking forward to getting out of all the late-20s nonsense of the past few years. So I'm assuming it'll be good. :-)

I got to do several fun things this weekend, starting back on Friday with dinner and birthday stuff with Mom, Lacey, and Cathy, before going out waltzing. Then a Waldon gathering on Saturday (more of a general family reunion, but family + apple cobbler + double chocolate brownies is close enough to a birthday celebration for me). Then yesterday Cheryl and I made one of my weirder ice creams (about which, more here) and other amusing sillinesses.

So today, the actual day, will probably be a bit different. But I always like to make sure I get some quiet, introspective time around my birthdays, to think and write and such. And to plant a lot of new seedlings in my garden. And to work my way through the leftovers of five different, excellent desserts from this weekend. That'll make for a good day.

Homemade Vanilla Extract

2009-05-29T11:53:00.001-07:00

As with many good things of this sort, this was inspired by my sister. Turns out it's actually quite easy to make vanilla extract.

Get a bottle of vodka.
Get 6 vanilla beans.
Slit the beans, stick them in the bottle, shake it up.
Put it in a cupboard for a few months.

You can take it out once in a while to give it a shake, and to watch the color deepen as it goes along. I find this kind of thing rather fascinating, actually, so I took photos at intervals:

As you use it up, you can top it off with more vodka, and if you need a vanilla bean for something, you can pull one out and replace it with a fresh one. So it can be a fun sort of ongoing thing. Yum!

And Hills for Climbing

2009-05-21T11:57:00.002-07:00

Nightingale has a beautiful song on their third album called "Hills," which I only started really hearing properly a couple weeks ago.

It's actually from a poem by Arthur Guiterman, and apparently they turned around the last two lines, but that's the part I now like most about it:

God, give me strength to climb,
And hills for climbing.

We can pray for strength, but what is strength without a use for it? Both sides of the equation have to go together.

Those lines for me resonate back two years ago, when I saw the movie "Evan Almighty." I think it was a decently entertaining movie, but one part burned into my brain and crowded the rest of it out. Morgan Freeman, as God, is comforting Evan's wife, and says:

Sounds like an opportunity. Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, do you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If they pray for courage, does God give them courage, or does he give them opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for their family to be closer, you think God zaps them with warm, fuzzy feelings? Or does he give them opportunities to love each other?
(video clip)

It's a good reminder. If we're going through difficult times, we're not just suffering -- we're learning to be patient, or brave, or loving, or whatever our own personal lessons need to be. It's an opportunity to consciously acknowledge and accept those lessons. Sometimes it may be hard even just to tell what's going on, but we can still keep climbing our hills, and trust in the strength that goes with it.

So let me hold my way,
By nothing halted,
Until, at close of day,
I stand exalted.

Dance Limericks

2009-05-12T11:04:00.000-07:00

In honor of Limerick Day, which I only just found out existed, I dug up a bunch that I wrote probably about 8 years ago. In Richard's social dance classes, we had to write a one-page "essay" each quarter, to justify him giving us an actual unit. After a few years of this, I occasionally had to get more creative, like when I submitted the following collection of limericks. Many of you Richard-Powers-groupies out there may recognize some of his teaching metaphors. :-)

An arrow protrudes from my chest,
And a laser beam comes from my vest,
I take the blow with my back,
As we roll, Jill and Jack;
The waltz tends t'wards violence, at best!

The hustle, as a dance, isn't funny,
Except when one hops like a bunny,
I simply can't stand,
To see a one-two-three-AND --
It just makes my insides all runny.

Occasionally persons pontifical,
Say the waltz is a dance quite centrifugal,
But whether forces act out,
Or around and about,
Is a question considered most difficul'.

There was a young lady named Cindy,
Who danced a remarkable lindy,
Her skirts and her hair
Just flew through the air,
Whether or not it was windy.

Some people may think you are odd-ish,
When the ska plays, and you dance a schottische,
With a one-two-three-hop,
And some pivots on top,
That makes their legs tangled and knot-ish.

There once was a dancer named Luke,
Who made a bet with a good friend from Duke,
That he could waltz 'round and 'round,
And around and around,
And around, until ready to ... stop.

While attempting to waltz on my toes,
I repeatedly fall on my nose.
It is quite a treat,
To get off of my feet,
But my nose flows a rose on my clothes.

Son of Contra Plus!

2009-05-04T16:16:00.000-07:00

So if you missed out on Contra Plus!... well, you missed out. But Bob and I are going to be DJing for the first couple of hours at Big Dance this Friday, so you can come get your fix of contras + couple dances there. We won't have the incredible band we had a week ago, but we've still got plenty of good stuff lined up, so it'll be fun. Come dance! (And then stay up all the rest of the night and dance some more!)

Contra Plus!

2009-04-14T09:11:00.000-07:00

Bob, Lacey, and I have been organizing a new dance event. It's called Contra Plus!, and will be about half contra dances and half couple dances -- waltz, swing, polka, tango, etc. The music will be awesome, Decadance will be performing for us, and Bob and I will be calling. If you haven't done contra before, just come to the class beforehand and we'll get you up to speed right away. If you're primarily a contra dancer, it'll be a fun chance to do more couple dances. Full event details are on Facebook -- feel free to pass it around and invite all your friends!

Thirteen Moons

2009-04-09T18:40:00.000-07:00

A little over a year ago I was beginning my first Vipassana meditation retreat on the evening of a full moon. On today's full moon, I'm going to start level 1 of Ananda's meditation class series. I like the symmetry of that.

The Living Wisdom of Mirabai

2009-03-22T14:06:00.003-07:00

Mom canceled our plans to go to a Patrick Ball concert last night, because she had been to see the Living Wisdom School play the night before and was so impressed she wanted to see it again with me. So we went to that, and I'm more than happy that we did. I would recommend that everyone go see it, except that last night was the final show.

Every year, LWS puts on an original play about the life of a great spiritual figure. In the past they've done Buddha, Jesus, Moses, St. Francis, Martin Luther King Jr., Kuan Yin, Yogananda, and others. This year it was Mirabai, a 16th century "mystic poet princess of India." I'd never known much (well, anything) about her, nor have I ever been particularly interested in devotional poetry such as she wrote, but this was a wonderful way to learn. What really struck me, though, was an overall sense of how truly uplifting the whole production was for everyone involved -- actors and audience alike.

The cast is made up of about 60 kids, ages 4 through 14. A few of the larger roles are played by more than one child -- there were five Mirabais, for instance, who would sometimes take scenes individually and sometimes work together (it sounds odd, but made sense in practice). This probably makes it easier for the littler kids to make it through a full length play, but it also lets more of them have more types of roles. And nearly everyone had multiple roles, even if they weren't Mirabais. The way Mom put it, this gives everyone a chance to experience lots of different ways of being -- they can express their royal nature, their devotional nature, their warrior nature, their peacock nature, etc., one right after the other. It's like the karmic actors concept I wrote about recently, but compressing multiple lifetimes into a single play.

And a lot of these kids really rose to the occasion in their roles. The three primary Mirabais, all age 10, were especially impressive. They tended to look kind of like you'd expect awkward 10-year-olds in costume to look, but it was amazing what they put into their performances once they started speaking. The smallest of these, in particular, had such a powerful presence that she seemed to be just absolutely channeling Mirabai herself when she was reciting some of the poems. Another of them sang a song in some Indian language, which of course I couldn't understand, but which was just so heart-achingly beautiful that I couldn't do anything but stare at her and cry the whole way through.

Of course, watching all of the kids was an absolute delight. They're all wonderful and they're all putting so much of themselves into such a good work that it's impossible not to just sit there and love them. Even crying through Mirabai's song, even during the treacherous or tragic parts of the plot, I just had an immense grin on my face and in my heart the whole time. And I realized that this is giving us a glimpse -- on a human scale -- of the sort of love God must have for us. We may be acting out all sorts of wonderful or ridiculous things here on Earth, being a priest in this lifetime or scene, and a warrior in the next. But He loves the souls behind all that, just like we love the children doing the acting, and a constant sense of joy and love permeates everything as the true core of what's going on.

I'll leave you with one of Mirabai's poems. Perhaps not the most typical of them, but the one that still makes me laugh when I think of the five little girls in blue dresses up on stage, reciting the last lines together.

Mira Knows Why
The earth looked at Him and began to dance.
Mira knows why, for her soul too
Is in love.
If you cannot picture God
In a way that always
Strengthens you,
You need to read
More of my poems.

Karmic Actors, and Forgiveness

2009-03-08T21:30:00.002-07:00

I've recently been listening to a lot of Asha Praver's talks and classes, which are all available to download from the Ananda website. A couple of points really caught my attention as a very elegant description of, well, everything that truly needs to be summed up:

The spiritual path is a continual process of becoming aware of and understanding the laws of cause and effect at progressively subtler levels. I find this fascinating for the sheer range of human experience it covers, i.e. all of it -- from a clueless jerk who doesn't understand why nobody likes him, to a guru who can describe the karmic path of your soul across lifetimes.
This learning is part of the overall quest to seek joy and avoid suffering. This sounds like a rather selfish cause, and at a lot of the lower levels it does manifest that way, but the point is that you eventually realize that only divine joy and not worldly joy will really achieve this fully. So it's okay. :-)

In the course of this quest, our souls try to have literally* every possible experience, trying to figure out what will make us actually, lastingly happy. The more we do so, the more we learn and the more we evolve spiritually. Paramhansa Yogananda teaches that if we have no desire to do a particular thing (e.g. commit murder) that is only because we have done it enough in the past that we've learned it doesn't work. And absolutely everything that people do, including both committing murder and being murdered, is a continuation of this learning process.

I like this because I try to make a habit of learning whatever I can from whatever happens in life, whether good or bad. But it also has important implications for the topic of forgiveness, which I think is a major lesson that's been trying to work its way through my life for some time now. David Praver spoke about this at the service today, specifically about just accepting whatever comes as being for our own ulitmate good, learning, and enlightenment.

This isn't to just completely condone any and all actions, of course. If someone hurts me, I should still find the best way to resolve the situation, and not just give up and take it. If I'm being cruel to someone else, I shouldn't justify it, but try to catch myself in it and make a change. But I suppose that's because I've already had -- somewhere in the past -- the experiences of just giving up, or of being mercilessly cruel, and now I'm ready to start doing better.

The important point in terms of forgiveness is to recognize the essential role other people play in this process, even if it seems horrendous or hurtful. Tormentor and victim are each going through their own necessary experiences, while at the same time acting as a foil for the other. And they will each flip and take on different roles for different experiences, if not in this lifetime then in another. A movie wouldn't be very interesting without a villain for some conflict, even though that actor isn't inherently an evil person and may play the hero in the next movie.

Deepak Chopra makes this point beautifully at the very end of Jesus: A Story of Enlightenment (a parallel to his Buddha book that I wrote about previously). The narrator is an old Himalayan yogi who met Jesus and has been sharing his story with us:

Sometimes I went to the bright line etched between this world and that. I met Jesus there. We never talked but simply bathed in the radiance that conquers all illusions.

I didn't tell Thomas about these journeys. He would have believed me. But he never would have believed that Jesus brought Judas along.

"You are a great soul," I told Judas. "You were willing to play the villain on earth. You must love Jesus very much."

Judas was modest about accepting praise. All he would say was, "The earth is God's child. How could I not help a child?" It was understood among us that without Judas, there couldn't be this new thing, Christianity.
[pg 249]

Isn't that a glorious way to look at Judas? "You must love Jesus very much." May we all aspire to see that level of good in everyone around us.

- - - - -
* This is one of those things that is easier if you accept the idea of reincarnation, but which still conceptually "works" even if you restrict it to just one lifetime. For instance, I've at various times noticed myself in one relationship acting out the reverse role of the same issue from a previous relationship. Even if one role felt very foreign to me, it was as if some part of myself had to check, and try it out, just to make sure.

Waltzing in Bozeman

2009-03-02T20:07:00.005-08:00

Lacey and I flew out to Bozeman, Montana this weekend to visit Antonia for her birthday. (And in the process, met Keri, another visiting friend who, it turns out, lives just a few blocks from me.)

I must admit that I was moderately terrified of leaving comfy California for somewhere with highs that barely cross freezing temperature. But it turned out to be not too bad. Going to the Norris hot springs at night was quite a contrast, though. It's very daunting to change into a bathing suit in 20° weather and make the scurry over to the warm water. (Which you want to go into slowly because of the dramatic temperature change, but also quickly to get out of the cold.) Then your body gets all cozy but your head is sticking out in the freezing air. Golly. But the core warmth stays with you for a while afterwards, which is really nice.

We spent a lot of time in the kitchen over the weekend. In addition to actual meals, we made oatmeal raisin cookies, brownie bites, an apple pie, several lemon cheesecakes, and perhaps other stuff I've forgotten already. Most of these were snacks for Sunday's event. Oh, and Antonia has the most wonderful gigantic drawer of tea. It's an absolute delight to behold and sample from.

On Sunday night we had the "excuse" for the whole visit: Bozeman's first ever Waltz Night. Antonia has always liked Friday Night Waltz out here in the Bay Area, and has been wanting to take the concept out to Montana for a long time. So she organized it all and I agreed to help by teaching a cross-step waltz lesson and DJing.

It was a very satsifyingly successful dance. Not a huge group for what I'm used to, but for a smaller town and a brand-new event, it was very good. We had contra dancers and tango dancers and ballroom dancers all show up, and we did the usual FNW sort of mix of dances, plus a contra and a circle mixer. The last waltz was fun, too, since we developed an amoeba of about 9 or 10 people that found several amusing ways to all dance with Antonia at once. A lot of folks thanked us for running it and seemed very happy about it overall, which made us all glad.

After the dance, we had a celebratory late night "dinner," which in my case consisted mostly of ice cream and cheesecake. Which didn't help me sleep much last night. Which in turn made it harder to get up at 5AM for the plane flight this morning. So I'm probably going to go to bed soon....

Detachment, Unity, and Choice

2009-02-04T13:40:00.006-08:00

[A bit more here on the subject of choice, since it seems to be a theme in my mind these days.]

When I was learning Vipassana at my first meditation retreat -- almost a year ago now -- I had one main concern about it. It seemed to me that if you really did manage to let go of desires and aversions, then you would end up never doing anything ever again. How would you make choices? Why would you bother taking any actions? I forget precisely what the teacher told me when I asked about it, and I don't think I fully got it at the time, though I decided it was enough to be getting on with, at least.

The idea is that detachment actually allows you to make completely free choices, unencumbered by fears, worries, selfish desires, etc. That leaves you open to base your decisions and actions solely on whatever knowledge, wisdom, and love you may have. Which is generally better than what we usually do.

I recently read a couple of excellent books by Deepak Chopra that illustrate this really well. The first is Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment. I was surprised to find a portion of the story that took place between Gautama losing his sense of self and his becoming fully enlightened. A peasant girl has found him emaciated and nearly dead, and is nursing him back to health. He's aware of everything around him, but is so detached that there's just nothing there -- no great spiritual leader, no nothing. I found it somewhat alarming but also fascinating at the same time, because that was exactly the fear that came to me last March.

So what is left to do at this point? The final change occurs when he stops identifying with nothing, and begins to identify with everything. That is what makes a Buddha.

But there's still the question of choice. If anything, the Buddha has far more choices after enlightenment, with knowledge and options far beyond what most of us realize. He could even choose to simply remain sitting under the bodhi tree and enjoy his oneness with everything forever. But in his omniscience he also realizes that there are countless other souls out there, still imagining themselves to be separate, alone, and suffering. And the same spiritual passion that drove him for years to find his own enlightenment now guides him to do the same for his newly expanded, universal "self." So he again picks up the body that "he" started in, because all the individuated souls will need that in order to understand how to relate to him, and he uses that to go forth and teach.

The other of Chopra's books I wanted to mention was The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life. This is an incredible but very challenging book, because I think it takes you as far towards complete universal oneness as you can get through mere words and intellect.

But even if we don't get so far as believing/understanding that we are the universe, hopefully we can all agree that we're at least a part of the universe, simply by virtue of being in it. So our choices and actions at any level really are affecting, changing, and therefore creating the universe. We can't help it. Thinking about things that way gives us an interesting new framework of significance or even responsibility in which to evaluate what we do. How might we make different choices if we view them in terms of creating the universe we live in?

Love, Obedience, and Choice

2009-01-10T13:51:00.001-08:00

One of our (extended-)family traditions is picking an angel card at the beginning of each year. If you aren't familiar with angel cards, each one has a positive quality written on it (e.g. "Happiness," "Freedom," etc.) and you just choose one at random. It's not meant to be predictive or anything, but more of a suggestion. It challenges you to consider how that quality manifests in your life, and to see if you can be more aware of it, or encourage it more for that day, or within whatever context you chose it for. Again, they're all positive, so you can't really get a "wrong" or "bad" one.

That said, there are definitely a few cards that tend to elicit more groans than others. The card I drew on New Year's Day for 2009 was "Obedience." That tends to get more of the "ha ha, now you have to do everything we say" sort of response from the people around you when you draw it. But given that it's my card for the year, I've been doing some thinking to see what else I can make of it.

First, I'll back up a bit. I also like to pick a "personal year" (as opposed to "calendar year") angel card on my birthdays, so at any given time I have two overlapping "themes" to be conscious of. For my current personal year, which I'm right in the middle of, I have "Love."

"Love" has the obvious emotional readings regarding romantic love, familial love, etc. and those are certainly all good. But another aspect to it is that of choice. Where does "following your heart" take you? What people, or activities, or paths -- out of all the world -- do you choose for yourself and your life? Older Tarot decks sometimes depicted the Lovers card with two women and one man, to illustrate this aspect. Sometimes one of the women would also be shown or interpreted as the man's mother, accentuating the difference between families of birth and families of choice.

(There is also the lesson here that truly loving someone is a deliberate choice, which implies a different relationship approach once you've passed the emotion/hormone-driven limerence stage of things. But I'll save the relationship discussions for another time, and stay closer to the general theme of choice for now.)

So let's come back to "Obedience." What I see happening here is that obedience brings choice into a different context. Whereas love is an internal choice (you can have unrequited love, for instance, where the object of your affection perhaps isn't even aware of it), obedience is more external, rooted in the world around you. Someone (a person, God, etc.) or something (a law, a moral principle, a street sign, etc.) requires something of you, and only then can you choose to obey. (If you were going to do it anyway, then it's just coincidence, not obedience.) That's why this angel card is illustrated with a street light, as an example of an external requirement. The angel could, of course, run the red light, but she chooses to stop.

This interpretation of obedience as choice has two important results. First, it puts the power back with you, not with other people or the world around you. Rather than just helplessly doing whatever everyone wants you to, you're consciously thinking, examining, and deciding.

That examination leads to the second point, which is that you can become aware of what you are obeying and why, and start making decisions between these sources and reasons. Do you obey your religious upbringing, or peer pressure? Your boss, or your spouse? Speed limits, or your impatience? Because it will make you happy? Because it will make someone else unhappy? Because it's better for the world at large? If you consider your obedience a currency, what causes will you invest in or support?

Listen to the difference, just in a simple case: "I'm driving the speed limit because that's the law and I have to do it." (Alternatively, "I'm speeding because I'm impatient and I feel like going fast.") VERSUS "I'm driving the speed limit as a way of keeping the streets safer, reducing accidents, and setting a good example for other drivers to do the same." Which would you rather have?

So how will this play out in my own life? I don't know yet. I'm definitely in an extended transition time these days, which means there are lots of choices to be made and I have no clue where it will all lead. This past year of being unemployed has given me some good opportunities to choose to do a number of things that I want and love to do. But this phase has also been less "obedient" to the structure of society at large, primarily in the areas of financial stability and employment. I've been feeling that tension for a while now, and it will have to be reconciled at some point. So I hope I'm able to make the right choices and find the right way to fit my life into the world.

Camp New Harmony

2009-01-05T15:53:00.001-08:00

We got back from Camp Harmony yesterday afternoon, and camp was, in a word, fantastic. At the peak day we had twice as many people attending as last year, so there were lots of new friends to make as well as old ones to see again. And since everything is volunteer-run there, having that many more people just meant that much more great stuff to do. Camp has been needing to have a knock-it-out-of-the-park year for a while, I think, and this was it.

The new location (Camp Newman, in Santa Rosa) is quite lovely. It's still nice and woodsy, which I like, and it's decorated all over. There are murals on all the buildings, tile mosaics lining the pathways, etc. It's quite hilly, though, which is rough on people with bad knees, and dangerous when frosted over and slippery, so you have to be careful. There were a lot of good workshop and jamming spaces. I was worried about having to rent a portable dance floor, but that ended up working out quite well. There were a wide range of accommodations. At the top end they have a few buildings of what are basically two-bedroom, furnished apartments, complete with a small kitchen, living room, couches, and everything. At the other end they have the "youth dorm" that we stayed in: rickety metal bunks, saggy crinkly mattresses, cold tile floors, and a miniature space heater working day and night to try to keep the place warm. The cabins in between were probably the best places to stay, in terms of being more comfortable but still with lots of your friends.

I taught three dance classes. The first two were beginning East Coast Swing and beginning Lindy Hop, getting people ready for the swing dance evening. I was super lucky to have Sylvia Herold and a bunch of other great musicians playing music for the classes. It's hard to get used to interrupting fantastic live music just so you can teach another basic swing move, but it was really a privilege to have them there. And the lessons went really well, I think. I also taught a Cross-Step Waltz class, again with live music. Lacey and Rowyn very graciously helped out by being my lovely assistants.

Sylvia was also teaching a swing guitar class all week, so I went to all of those. Swing guitar has always seemed frightfully complicated compared to the folky stuff I'm used to, but she did a really good job of breaking it down and making it accessible. I'm going to have to see if I can keep that up and get better at it.

It was a very swingy camp for me all around, actually. The swing night was my favorite evening dance. There were a number of new campers this year who were good swing dancers that I got to dance with. And a lot of the younger kids are also starting to pick things up. I danced with several of the girls who don't have much in the way of basic steps or technique but who could still more or less follow all sorts of stuff, which is wonderful. In fact, I'm just getting more and more pleased with that next-younger generation overall, because more of them are getting to the point where they're really participating in the music and dance activities at camp. I was thrilled one evening when I saw Adam and Mary dancing an excellent cross-step waltz that they had just learned in my class that afternoon. They told me later that they were on a mission to become "superdancers" like me and Lacey. Talk about melting a Graham's heart.... I caught them practicing a few other times throughout camp and piled more moves on for them to learn.

I played tunes for the Irish dancing again, as usual, and also got in a couple nice late-night sessions. The new location had drawn in some more of the Lark in the Morning contingent, so there were some Irishing folks I haven't gotten to play with before. I also played some Quebecois tunes, though I only know a handful and they're hard to pick up on the fly. I mostly did fiddle the whole time. Never even took my mandolin out of its case, since I didn't figure my wimpy calluses could handle that after the guitar classes every day.

New Year's Eve was good, though strangely it felt smaller than usual. Probably because the dining hall there was bigger and because people were off in other places around camp as well, and not all congregating at the same place. The real heart of camp for me, though, wasn't so much the New Year celebration as Bob Reid's annual kids concert. He had an even bigger crowd with an even wider age range than usual this year, and it's amazing what an intense emotional experience gets created between everyone. We laugh like crazy, and some of us bigger kids go down the crying end of things, too. When it was all over we had a giant hug pile on Bob, and then just stayed there for a while, milling around the room, hugging people and playing with some of the littler kids. That's the time you really remember that everyone there is really just one huge family, and it's beautiful.

Other fun stuff:

Shapenote singing. (Missed one session but scheduled a second to make up for it.)
Calling my first contra dance. (On minimal preparation, but it went well enough.)
Mask-making for New Year's Eve outfits. (And "leading" the workshop for Quena who was on a quest to retrieve her missing dance shoes from Davis.)
Katie's surprise birthday party. (With 12 silly people crammed into a small, dark, stifling room for 20 minutes because she was late.)

Anyway, all around it was a very successful camp. I was glad to sleep in my own comfy bed last night, though. Now it's sort of sad, post-Harmony time, but there are also a lot of music and dance things that I'm inspired and excited about, so that's good. Happy New Year!

Modulation to the Relative Major(ity)

2008-12-29T13:32:00.001-08:00

I just did a bit of counting and found that I've been attending Camp Harmony every winter since 1994, which makes it half my life now. I didn't stay for full camp the first year, but after this year, I'll have also spent half of all my New Year celebrations there. Wow.

Camp is in a new location this time, up between Santa Rosa and Calistoga. I miss the old Boulder Creek location already, but I'm excited to see the new place, and to see all the people who are coming out of the woodwork to see it too. (Camp has sold out for the first time in years, which is great.) Lacey, Rowyn, and I are driving up first thing tomorrow morning to help with set-up and welcoming, along with many wonderful members of our Harmony family, whom I can't wait to see.

Happy New Year, everyone!

P.S. I almost titled this post "Picardy Third," which also involves going from minor(ity) to major(ity). But that implies a final cadence, which isn't quite what I want. As for relative major instead of parallel, that's because we've moved to a new location (tonic note) but we'll have all the same good people, music, and dancing to fill in the notes of the scale around it.

That Ringing in My Ears

2008-12-07T10:45:00.001-08:00

A little while ago I realized that my cellphone ring was taking over my brain. It may be that I'm just overly sensitive to music, but I've come to the conclusion that the whole melodies-as-ringtones thing wasn't the greatest idea in the world. At least not for me and my phone.

First, I found myself occasionally noticing musical notes that matched the beginning of one of the melodies my phone uses. I don't have perfect pitch, but I apparently have enough pitch memory to set off associations sometimes. This resulted in periodic, split-second jolts of "oh-my-phone-is-ringing-oh-no-it's-not!" at the beginning of random songs, other people's cell phone rings, etc.

After that, I started being more aware of the part of my brain that's always scanning for my specific ring tone. If I left the TV on and go into another room, something was still picking up faint individual notes from the commercials and promoting them to brief moments of attention, in case they turned out to be from my phone. (Interestingly, though, regular music I was deliberately playing didn't have the same effect, perhaps because I was already consciously following a known melody.) Sometimes I would carry my phone with me from room to room, even though I knew I could hear it fine if it actually rang in another room, just to shut up that part of my mind that's out scouting for it.

Anyway, this all finally got annoying enough that I went and changed everything on my phone to real, honest-to-goodness ringing sounds, like a proper phone. And I must say it's been kind of a relief. My phone doesn't ring often enough to re-train me very quickly, but it doesn't have to. I know it won't be playing a melody at me when it does ring, so the musical part of my brain can relax and go back to it's normal job. Ahhhhh....

The Ghost in Love

2008-11-25T10:39:00.002-08:00

The Ghost in Love, by Jonathan Carroll, is probably the most fun and fascinating magical fantasy novel I've read in a while. Cory Doctorow wrote a great review of it over on BoingBoing, which is how I found out about it, and I agree with everything he says there. There's something else that really colored the whole reading experience for me, though.

Normally when I read a fantasy or sci-fi book (or series), I expect to spend some extra time and effort in the beginning, just to get mentally situated. You have to get your bearings, figure out how this fictional world works, see what are the basic assumptions, structures, premises, etc. After that, you can coast a bit more, just absorbing the story as story.

That's not the case with this book. In terms of this particular quality, the entire book feels like a first chapter. You think you're okay once you've got the idea that a guy accidentally didn't die when he was supposed to, and then he coexists with his ghost, who can be seen by and communicate with dogs but not humans. But it just keeps going from there. You're constantly trying to figure out what's possible or not, and why on earth various things are happening. This could have been frustrating, but I found it more enthralling than anything else. It puts you in the same boat as the main characters, after all, who are also trying to figure out how their world is being rearranged. So it really sucks you in and makes you feel a part of it (similar to the way MirrorMask created such a good feeling of dreaming). I also like it just for the sheer flow of ideas. The author isn't going easy on us, or holding anything back, but just letting us drink from a fire hose of imagination. That's fun.

I'll mention one other interesting point, as long as I'm here. Carroll's writing style at times feels very simple, like very straightforward, fairy-tale storytelling. Overall, that's probably a good thing, since there's enough complexity in the content that you don't need more in the presentation. But every once in a while he'll come up with a real zinger of a line that just hits you right between the eyes, and is all the more powerful for the simplicity of its environment. Example: "Like any illness, when happiness has run its course, time is needed to recuperate from it -- sometimes an entire lifetime."

This was the first Jonathan Carroll novel I've read, but I'm thinking I should go find more. If anybody has any recommendations, let me know.

Walking Meditation and a Glass Half-Full

2008-11-16T09:35:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I went to a 1-day meditation retreat at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City. It was my first time there, though several people (Mom, Alice, Eric, Jill) have been telling me about it for a while. It's a good place. The format and feel of the retreat was rather different than the 1-day I'd been to at the CVC's South Bay Hall, so it was an interesting contrast.

Most significantly, the sitting periods were shorter (45 minutes) and they alternated with periods of walking meditation. I don't think I was terribly interested in the idea of that much walking at a retreat, but I found that I really appreciated the opportunity to practice mindfulness in a different physical context. Also, it provided a physical break from the sitting, while keeping your mind focused on meditation, rather than having complete breaks between sessions. That gave it a different sort of continuity, mentally at least, if not physically.

Gil Fronsdal gave the talk at the end of the day, but the part that I think I most needed to hear was something he just quickly noted in his morning welcome. He pointed out that as your meditation practice improves, you can actually go through a phase of having it feel more frustrating. For example, if you're just daydreaming the whole time and not noticing, an hour could potentially pass pretty quickly and stresslessly. But every time you do notice your attention wandering, you have to bring it back to focus. If you're catching it every time, that could easily happen dozens of times in that same hour. And that's incredibly frustrating, because you constantly feel like you're messing up and starting over. So you just need to remember that the correct comparison when you're learning is not to absolute concentration, but to absolute daydreaming, or whatever your mind would otherwise be doing on its own. Appreciate the number of times you were able to rein in your wandering mind, rather than worrying about the number of times it wandered off.

Hot Chix Dig Environmentalists

2008-11-11T12:54:00.001-08:00

Do you know someone who is both male and environmentally clueless? Then start training him using the power of positive associations, and get him this for Christmas: The Hot Chix Dig 2009 Calendar: Fighting Global Warming One Pinup at a Time. You can also just buy it for anybody who likes this kind of thing. :-)

The whole Hot Chix Dig project is a clever idea, and it doesn't stop at calendars: check out the rest of their galleries, and the blog as well. I know several of the lovely ladies who've been involved and I'm glad they've had a lot of fun "using [their] best assets for an important cause." So go support them! And follow some of their environmentally friendly tips while you're at it!

LASIK Anniversary

2008-11-09T09:44:00.001-08:00

As of today, it's been a full year since I got LASIK surgery. The short update on it is that I'm still immensely happy with the results, and getting it done was one of the best things I've ever done for myself.

My eyesight is still excellent. The only lingering side effect is that my eyes still tend towards dryness. I mostly only feel it when I wake up in the morning, a bit more so if I'm dehydrated, say from exercising or something. But I keep some eye drops around for when I need them and it's not a big deal.

Overall, I love it. I love not being tethered to external objects for something so essential as vision. I love having peripheral vision with glasses frames at the edges. I love being able to hug and cuddle without knocking bits of metal on faces. I love not having that wall, thin and transparent though it might be, between me and the world. It's wonderful.

A Few Post-Voting Notes

2008-11-05T11:35:00.001-08:00

I'm mostly unpolitical here on the blog, but I had a few things I wanted to say now that California's propositions are counted. (Here's a good map if you want a breakdown within the state of what votes came from where.)

First of all, I'm disappointed that Prop 8 passed. I won't go into reasons since it's too late and Eric has already done a much better job of that than I could. So I'll just say I'm sorry to the people that this will affect, who I believe are mostly not the people who passed it. But this is how democracy goes sometimes, so we'll just have to take this decision for now and hope we'll get a chance to vote on it again someday.

I also wanted to say that I voted against Props 7 and 10, which didn't pass. This morning I heard someone on CNBC express surprise that California would shoot down alternative fuel bills, and they speculated that it was because gas prices had dropped so much over the last few months. To that I'd like to reply emphatically (and, I hope, accurately) that no we are not that shallow or shortsighted. We voted them down not because the issue is unimportant, but because it's so important that we need better plans to get it right. Believe me, I wanted to find an alternative energy proposition I could support.

As for the really big question of the day, I'm reminded of my first day in Romania when my host family made a point of confirming that I supported Obama. I'm looking forward to having a president I can be proud of, both at home and abroad, not to mention the first president ever that I voted for. And I'm proud of our country for finally being willing and able to achieve such a milestone. I know the euphoria will wear off, and Obama will turn out to be only human and have his faults, like everyone else. But there is still a lot of hope (and, I think, a reasonable probability) that he will at least be a very good human, and a good president.

And now that that's all over I'm left to wonder... will we ever see a gay president in my lifetime?

Autobiography of a Monee

2008-11-02T10:48:00.000-08:00

Or: Top Secret Project Revealed
Or: Why I Love My Family

Yesterday we had Monee's 80th birthday party and the unveiling of this year's top secret project: her autobiography. This is something she's been working on, off and on, for the last 20 years or so, so everyone knew about it in a general sense at least, but without really expecting anything at any particular time. Around March or so, when I started going up to Rossmoor to visit more often, she told me she was planning on resurrecting the project, finishing it in secret, and surprising everyone with it at her birthday. I was appointed her Secret Editor in Chief, with duties that included proofreading, editing, formatting, and general motivation and encouragement. We chipped away at it a little bit every week, then two months ago Pa and I took it down to a copy shop to get all 70 pages of it printed and bound, along with 50 pages of photos Greg had assembled for it years ago. Then we had to just sit on it quietly and not give anything away until the appointed moment. But it made a beautiful book and it was immensely satisfying to hand them out to everyone when the time finally came.

I am extremely proud of my grandmother for getting this completed. It was no small task, especially since her health was none too good back when I joined the project, and it was very slow going at times. But everything worked out wonderfully, and I'm honored to have been a part of making it happen.

After dinner, dessert, and presentation of the book, the assembled multitudes (well, moderate multitudes) got to go around the circle and share what we appreciate and love about Monee, Gramma Kathy, Mom, Kathleen, or whatever else we all call her. And while we expected (and got) very loving things from family members, I think what struck me most was the non family members. That's sort of an artificial distinction, though. The concept of "family" at these gatherings always feels very fluid and extendable. Not only did several people have significant others there, but there were also two ex-spouses and an ex-girlfriend. One of the exes was my dad, who also brought along my step-mother and step-grandmother, who I don't think had even met any of my family beyond me before.

And what comes through the most from all these supposedly unrelated people is how much a part of the family they became, right from the very beginning, being welcomed and loved right along with everyone else. Shaleece said she was nervous the first time she came to meet everyone, "but as soon as I got here, I wasn't nervous anymore." Grandma Marian said she was welcomed like an old friend in spite of meeting them for the first time. Mom talked about never feeling the slightest doubt about being absolutely, unconditionally loved, and I think it's clear that when you can raise a family like that, it extends well beyond the literal family.

Having grown up in this family, I realized that this is something I've kind of taken for granted, and it's easy to forget that not all families are like that. And it's even more impressive when you realize so much of this is flowing down from a woman who can't remember ever being told "I love you" until my grandfather came along and said it to her. So I admire my Monee all the more for that, and I'm incredibly grateful to be a part of this wonderful family, may it grow ever larger.

Halloween Limericks

2008-10-29T10:31:00.004-07:00

Mom is having a Halloween Limerick contest at work and enlisted my suggestions. Here's what you get when you leave me alone for an hour with that idea. Make up your own and leave them in the comments!

From the "I Can't Believe I Ate the Whole Bag" Department

Start with Gobstoppers, Skittles, and Twix,
Add some Baby Ruth bars to the mix,
Stir in the Kit Kats,
And some marshmallow bats,
And your sweet tooth will have quite a fix!

Butterfinger, Snickers, and Mounds,
I measure my carbs by the pound!
With 3 Musketeers,
Coming out of my ears,
My failing heart makes not a sound.

From the "Scary Yet Repentant" Department

When a frightening thing with a sack,
Shows up at the door of my shack,
I shoot it on sight,
Then, very contrite,
I go bury the child out back.

From the "Arsenic and Old Lace" Department

Where the old Brewster sisters abide,
You'll find several dead bodies to hide,
The elderberry wine,
Masks arsenic, strychnine,
And a pinch -- just a pinch! -- of cyanide.

(Yeah, I know, it doesn't scan quite right. Oh well.)

From the "Off-Topic But At Least It's Bipartisan" Department

What really fills me full of fright,
Is the week after Hallowe'en night,
Whether terrorist-pleaser,
Or a senile geezer,
I surely do hope we choose right!

From the "Teasing Mom About Her Limerick Attempts" Department

If your badly-planned limerick dies,
Just pray from the dead it may rise,
To terrorize villages,
With rapings and pillages,
And possibly gouging out eyes.