what comes is better than what came before

read this today:  Prozac pollution making shrimp reckless ~ as Lou Reed says "What comes is better than what came before" which I want to believe except that shrimp used to go about their business being shrimp writing novellas eating short cake now they drink pipping hot coffee while sashaying at the edge of the Mariana Trench


what comes is better than what came before i need water through my toes a straw hat crown a walking stick Gandalf staff two inflated tires a brain bucket thighs burning chest sucking no batteries nor windows nor clocks nor supposed to be ~ a sundown ride past old houses sunken lots stray cats chasing dogs wild flowers curb scuffs bus routes gutter weeds lotus and mint and people my friends my kin my loves in every direction plus strangers to meet later


your heart beats true and loud your own blood transports sublime melodies more than this more than this the tides bring new things twice a day

“What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven.”

~ Ludwig van Beethoven

“ The manner in which Americans consume music has a lot to do with leaving it on their coffee tables, or using it as wallpaper for their lifestyles, like the score of a movie --it's consumed that way without any regard for how and why it's made.”

~ Frank Zappa

kick your own ass

"Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of

colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the

night." - Rainer Maria Rilke

"It is essential to have Knowledge; it is also essential to escape the

Known." - J. Krishnamurti

HEALING SHOCKS

Many of us are essentially asleep, even as we walk around in broad daylight. We're so focused on the restless narratives and repetitive fantasies unfurling in our heads that we only dimly perceive the larger story raging in all of its chaotic beauty around us.

To have any hope of permanently breaking out of our fuzzy trance, we require regular shocks. A single jolt might cause us to briefly come to attention and see the miracle of creation for what it is, but once the red alert has passed, we relax back into our fixation on the dreamy tales our mind never stops telling us.

In the course of its conspiracy to shower us with blessings, life does its best to provide us with a steady flow of healing shocks. But because it tends to err on the side of tenderness, its prods may be too gentle, allowing us to ignore them. Gradually, life will up the ante, trying to find the right mix of toughness and love, as it encourages us to WAKE UP!

But our addiction to the phantasmagoria is tenacious. The stream-of- conscious narratives and ever-bubbling fantasies, even when they're racked with torment and terror, are perversely entertaining. And so we may avoid responding to the kind shocks for so long that life finally has to resort to stronger medicine. Then we might get sick or lose our job or muck up our closest relationship.

It doesn't have to be that way. We could cultivate in ourselves a sixth sense for the wake-up calls life sends us. We might develop a knack for responding with agile grace to the early, gentler ones so that we wouldn't have to be visited by the more stringent measures.

There's also another possibility: With hungry intent, we could seek out and hunt down invigorating jolts. We wouldn't wait to have our asses kicked, but would kick our own asses -- over and over again, with a creative ingenuity that would be the envy of a great pronoiac novelist or musician or filmmaker. Who knows? We might even master the art of inducing shocks that feel really good.

~ Rob Brezsny

"It is eternity now; I am in the midst of it. It is about me in the sunshine; I am in it, as the butterfly in the light-laden air. Nothing has to come; it is now. Now is eternity; now is immortal life."

- Richard Jefferies

a myth in the mess

'Psychology regards all symptoms to be expressing the right thing in the wrong way...

Follow the lead of your symptoms for there's usually a myth in the mess, and a mess is an expression of soul.'

- James Hillman

“We are witness through which the universe becomes conscious of its own glory.”

- Alan Watts

"There is no past, present or future. Using tenses to divide time is like making chalk marks on water." - Janet Frame

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be." - Kurt Vonnegut

"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are." - Anais Nin

Famous last words:

"So little done. So much to do." - Alexander Graham Bell

"I have not told half of what I saw." - Marco Polo

"Zen practice in the midst of activity
is superior to that pursued within tranquillity."
Hakuin, 1688-1769

Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.
- Ambrose Bierce

Before the beginning of great brilliance and beauty there first must be a period of complete chaos.
- I-Ching


I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson


A day without sunshine is, you know, night.
- Shannon

Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.
- Goethe

Once at Cold Mountain, troubles cease
No more tangled, hung-up mind;
I idly scribble poems on the rock cliff
Taking whatever comes, like a drifting boat.
- Han Shan

Picture a massless particle.
- Koan of Modern Physics

Lift the stone and you will find me; cleave the wood and I am there.
- Jesus

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
- John Lennon

One sees great things from the valley, only small things from the peak.
- G K Chesterton

Do not fear mistakes- there are none.
- Miles Davis