UNLIKELY MYSTIC

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao."
- Lau Tze, Tao Te Ching

There’s no history of meditation, chanting, or studying of scriptures in my upbringing. I was raised (as my father used to proudly announce) a ‘Devout Atheist’. I was never a believer in anything beyond a comforting Cartesian/Existentialist perspective of life and the universe.

Before my experience at 18, I was living in small-town middle-class Canada, struggling with issues no more profound than what I should wear on a Saturday night.

So afterwards, little had changed in my life outwardly, but there I was, a “nobody” little person from nowhere, harboring some awesome secrets of the Universe.

Still, I found it futile to talk about something that was beyond words. Occasionally I took a stab at it on the computer, but failed miserably every time.

Frankly I also discovered it had the effect of putting quite a few people off. Although, looking back, maybe it had something to do with my lousy communication skills... Oh well.

10 IRISH RULES

In Ireland there’s a charming [as with so many things Irish] term for foreigners, or people from the ‘outside’. They are called Blow-Ins.

In the past, it used to be reserved for those Irish who had moved in from other parts of the country, since up until only recently, Ireland was never really much of an immigration destination. Until the latest economic boom, many people felt Ireland hadn’t much more going for it than cool accents, great dairy products and a decent pint of Guinness.

But now the term ‘Blow-In’ also applies to all of us International ‘Fehr-ners’ who’ve been settling here in droves lately.

And by the way, in a similar fashion to Asia, and totally unlike America or Canada, you are ALWAYS a blow in. You never, EVER get to graduate to being a full-fledged member of the holy inner circle of locals.

That being said, in my experience [having had the pleasure of being a Blow-In myself for ten years now] there are countless unwritten rules you must become aware of if you are to at least fit in. Here are a few:

1. Don’t take no for an answer. Typically, an Irish host will repeatedly ask if you want more tea [or anything else on offer], just to be sure you really DID mean ‘No, thank you’ the first two dozen times you said it. At first I thought they just liked to hear the dulcet tones of my Canadian lilt, but was disappointed to find out they do it to each other too.
   
   
2. Resist the temptation to wear light coloured socks with any shoes other than runners. This is considered a fashion faux-pas.
   
   
3. Never arrive on time. No one ever expects the party/meeting/dinner to start at the time they said it would.
   
   
4. Even when discussing tableware with your mother-in-law, make sure to pepper your speech with plenty of colourful language, but pronounce it ‘FECK’ and ‘SHITE’ instead.
   
   
5. If you want an honest opinion on how you look or how you’re doing your job, never ask an Irish person. They would rather lie to your face than risk hurting your feelings.
   
   
6. Never, EVER get between an Irish lad and the TV during a Gaelic football match. No really, NEVER!
   
   
7. Same goes for suggesting an Irish person put out their cigarette.
   
   
8. Learn at least one good Irish song you can sing in a pub. No kidding, they really do break out in song with a few pints on them, and they’ll expect you to do so as well. Frankly, if you don’t, you’ll regret it for as long as you live, because there’s no better ‘craic’, as the Irish would say.
   
   
9. "Your Woman" or "Your Man" rarely ever means someone either of you knows, and is never a reference to the hired help. A more accurate translation would be something like: "that person over there", or "the one I spoke to before"
   
   
10. Don’t mention leprechauns, shamrocks or Riverdance in public, you’ll never live it down.

Sadly, no matter how hard you try, you will occasionally fail to observe the Irish Rules. Luckily, the benefit to being a permanent blow-in is that, even after decades of living here, you will be forgiven all these sins with “Don’t mind her, she’s only a blow-in after all!”

PUNCH LINE

Jessica on Making Movies
My oldest daughter Jessica (she's 6) likes to fly around the house almost daily making little movies with my camera. She will record anything that moves, giving them characters with voices and little story lines to follow. She will even stage epics using gum drops and tissues as characters and props. She's fascinated by the process, although still at the stage where her most sophisticated special effect is rotating the camera around or doing extreme closeups. But her passion for it is contagious and I can't but help be proud of her... here she talks about why she loves it, and what (in her experience) makes good content. Watch out for the punch line though....!

FACEBOOK FRIENDS FOR SALE

I recently started playing with this application on Facebook that’s pretty popular called Friends for Sale.

As I described it to a business friend of mine in Los Angeles “It's a capitalist's game, you'd probably love it. The object of the game is to profit through buying and selling, and your product... here it comes... is people. It’s very simple, being designed I suspect for the lowest common denominator, but fun all the same. Average profit per sale is about 4% so it takes a long time to rack up any decent change.”

Anyway, I started playing so I could "afford" my own friends and family at first, but it has this Heroin like addictive quality to it, and I got a little hooked. I still can't afford everyone either, but slowly I'm collecting all my family as I go.

Now as you can probably guess, the most effective strategy is to collect and sell good looking women (duh, no big mystery there)...

But after a while, I stop myself and I think... C'MON!!!! What the heck am I doing? Not exactly my type of activity for beguiling the time away... when I have it to beguile, that is.

One surprise that came up though is how expensive I've become myself. Thus, I was trapped in my own pride after that, and so became a little compulsively addicted to the shallow thrill of rising equity in my superficial identity. Very weird.

Well, at the very least its a great mirroring of how attractive the truly vapid can often get, and sure, I got to meet some interesting people too! Or... well now... did I really...?

Anyway, I still play, cuz I'm totally bling now and so why waste that cachet honey, right!

PEACE IS THE BOMB

In mass marketing terms, Peace sure has a lackluster appeal. It seems to mean little except to a few who’ve had that rare pleasure to experience the kind of peace that extends beyond fleeting moments, maybe lasting for hours, weeks, or even a lifetime. But boy, when that solid bedrock of Peace is exposed in you, you’re changed forever. And so are a lot of other things too.

It’s ironic to me now that a pursuit of Peace (and there’s an oxymoron for you right there) needs encouragement. But like a lot of other people, I used to underestimate the impact it could have. I had the common mis-perception that it would take a lot of effort, so it never seemed worth my while. Anyway, this couldn’t be further from the truth, as I found out eventually.

Keeping the smokescreen up of drama which makes up our mini-mythical life stories is what actually takes effort. I’ve discovered too that you don’t ‘push’ Peace to make it happen; it does all the pushing ultimately. And we do a lot of resisting. If we just stand back get out of its way, a tsunami of Peace can just explode through you and through your life.

I love that analogy too, of Peace having a force, because it seems like a paradox. But it does have this wicked ability to just ‘clear the room’ inside my head. And not only just inside my head too, because it also shifts a whole lot of mess out of my life as well. Things like animosity, impatience, and intolerance are all given a good swift kick in the bum and out the door, and suddenly I'm relating to people and my work and my kids and... like... everything in a totally different way!

This inner amplifier of Quiet is like a silent mushroom cloud that flattens all the constructs of conflict around, smoothing out the way for a more friendly experience with the world. And making way for a friendly experience with other people is how I'm told we become the Peace in the world. That might seem like a tall order, but I'm convinced now that it isn’t.

Starting with myself, I can clear out a little pocket of Peace around me that goes with me wherever I go. Imagine a computer game where the hero gets this sort of impermeable ring of protection around him, but instead it’s a ring that softens and disarms everything and everyone within the perimeter of it. And instead of having to master level after level, all we do is sit back, open up and surrender to it.

Totally wicked.

HUMILITY

“The game is not about becoming somebody, it’s about becoming nobody.”

– Ram Dass, Western Yogi

“We sit together, the mountain and I, until only the mountain remains.”

– Li Po, Taoist Poet

“Play your part in the comedy, but don’t identify yourself with the role.”

– Rumi, Sufi Mystic

“The Essence of Humility” is my new Koan. The space I take up in a room often crowds out what I am there to learn. The cloying, clinging, grasping 'me' makes an awful mess with the volume of its desperation sometimes. So receptivity over amplification... OK, I can live with that for a whle.

BELLIGERENT SOCIAL TICKLING

I love the reaction pink hair gets from people, especially children. It’s remarkable to have your very presence inspire open-faced grins everywhere you go. Of course it’s not really me that’s inspiring the smiles, being the perfect stranger that I am, but it feels good just the same. Such a simple act, colouring hair, but the result is a celebration everywhere I go.

THE GOOD FIGHT

"Do not save your loving speeches for your friends till they are dead. Do not write them on their tombstones, speak them rather now instead"
- Anna Cummin

There’s a lot of death around me lately. In the last month my dad died, an old friend passed away, a colleague’s sister died, even our neighbour’s cat, Bubbles, shifted his mortal coil.

As I move through the grieving process, I am particularly struck by how much we all focus on the person’s best qualities after they go.

Life is short. In fact life, in the context of infinity... well it hardly even exists. Yet ironically, we take ourselves so seriously. Our self-ness is so important we even pick fights over it.

We put all this effort into hiding our flaws, and broadcasting our strengths. But in the end being glorified post-mortem doesn't seem sufficient celebration of a life.

It’s an incredibly vulnerable thing to lavish someone with praise. It takes real nerve to compliment people to their face all the time. I admire anyone who's up to the challenge, while we're all still smarting from the battle.

MY SOUL IS A JOKER

Everything is fleeting, slipping away all the time.

In the winter I get a bit maudlin, I apologize. But what I’m saying here is nonetheless true. It can all feel really meaningless, when nothing stands the test of time. Sometimes it’s hard to find the meaning in anything, and life can seem not worth the effort.

When I get like this though, I find my mind sceptically questioning this conclusion.

Yes, everything is in a state of disintegration. At the very zenith of its realization, a thing is on its way out. I’m referring to “dust to dust”, that sort of thing. The waves of quantum experience surface, and in their emergence are drawn into the natural pull of their home, their source: the Void. The world is in a state of perpetual creation and dissolution. It’s an organic & psychological core quality of life.

So I don’t question the validity of the fact. I question the absoluteness of it. Is there really NOTHING that endures?

I go mentally searching my own psychological memorabilia, sifting through experiences, objects, people, anything that might yield substance.

I’m not referring here to finding some supernatural thing either; I want to make that clear. I’m not looking for God anymore, I already got to the bottom of that supposed mystery thank you very much.

No, it defeats my purposes to go looking outside of life for what I'm looking for right here. I don’t need to be convinced of the existence of the Eternal. What I want now is to know exactly where the Eternal shows up here.

I’ll admit, I often come up empty handed in my search. In fact the only thing in my life that might actually survive my close scrutiny is this funny indescribable undercurrent of I-don’t-know-what that runs through all my interactions. It’s a strange, amorphous energy that I can’t quite put a name to.

No, it’s probably more like a funny kind of objective affection, if that makes sense. It has no agenda really, it is more of a happy little joker taking pleasure in just soaking it all in. This happy little joker has a smile even when I’m in my blackest hole.

The truly weird thing is that I see that joker in everyone I know too. Not hiding, but sort of hidden. Just sitting there, behind everyone's eyes, soaking life in and getting a chuckle from it all.

Anyway, it’s comforting I guess, and it’s all I really have to go on right now.

SPY VS SPY

Ok, back to live-in relationships for a minute. I have this theory that the proposal to live together has a dark underbelly.

Picture the happy couple, smothering each other in kisses and strokes, and the idea is kicked around in conversation "Why don't we move in together?" Its such a fuzzy, lovely feeling to toy with the notion of your loved one being so close... ALL... OF... THE... TIME.

Lacking the wisdom of experience, or maybe seasoned and burned a few times but still clinging to romantic notions, there's a headlong rush to seal the deal and share a toilet. Yes I feel you, I've been there.

What if our minds are so soaked in the horny juices of slushy romantic love that we don't even perceive our own ulterior agenda? Because when the move is over and there's a few months of day-in day-out under our belts, other benefits of close proximity come into play, and they certainly aren't conducive to intimacy and trust.

What I'm talking about here is when we start to watch each other's movements, inspecting them for violations. We all do it. We observe the habits of the other while they cook, dress, shower, entertain themselves, or whatever. We watch the clock, we may even read the emails. We pay attention much too closely.

What ARE we looking for? Do we keep our boo so close so we can really bask in the love we feel for them, or are we more concerned with watching for those tell tale signs that they're drifting away?

Some of us are peripheral in our watching, while others are radical. In fact, some people will watch their partner's bowel habits if they think it will serve them somehow!

I think there are definitely people out there who don't do this. I even think on occasion they get into relationships with others who also don't do this, albeit rarely. What a fine thing to live so close together and respect each other so well.

Wouldn't it serve us all to do the same?