What burns through flame and mist?
What banishes dark?
What makes the children straight and bright?
What makes the mountain sharp?




The sun is our lord and father
Bright face at gate of day
Comfort of home and cattle and crop

Lord of the morning
Lord of the day

Lifting our hearts we sing his praise
Dance in his healing waves

--Opening poem from Riverdance

Time Rhythm and Inertia

I have been giving some thought to why it is that I don’t do the things that I most want to do. In front of me are my art supplies, languages, computer ... why don’t I engage? My excuse at school is that there “is no time.” But that is no longer valid.

I have come to the realisation that time exists. I often think back to Costa Rica where there was so much time and wish that I was once again in that context. I usually have these thoughts when I look at my messy room that I come back to only to sleep for a short seven hours and then leave again. According to my nostalgia if I was in Costa Rica my room would be clean, I would study all matter of things that I wanted to study and go on hikes, visit people and pray. But in fact I have time enough now and yet it is still hard to clean my room, study those subjects that I now “have the time for” and do a whole host of other activities that there is no time for in school. The only thing that is holding me back is my lack of discipline, or not so negatively, my lack of rhythm.

So time exists, and that is not the problem.

There is something about having a morning routine. There is something about waking up in the morning and knowing the first thing that needs to be done and doing it. It is like setting the rhythm for the day. I think liturgy had that effect. I would wake up and say the liturgy and for some reason, even if I hated saying the words (because I felt that there was so much more to be doing) yet if I did not say them my day would fall into pieces.

A good day

I have discovered the joy of runing to music. Because I will not get much space and time to dance this summer I am going to run. I have discovered that with music it is the second best thing to dance.

I have been thinking about what I want to write and I realized that I am a bit afraid to post now. I am afriad of being honest with my thoughts and pblishing them because sometimes they feel heretical. But keeping my thoughts safe in within the precieved box of orthodoxy does not leave much motivation for writing. I shall have to confront this and start writing again what is really on my mind.

A day of good byes, airports, thoughts and semi consciousness. I am tired: I have been up for about 36hrs now and am looking forward to a dinner and a good night sleep with nothing planned tomorrow. I have had a lot to blog about and I intend to keep a farily tight journal these next few weeks. For now my brain can do little more than generate common details, but I decided to get into the habit of posting again, so here is my first post for the summer.

Recital

Piano recital. It went well. Apparently I almost made someone cry. (if i were a cat I would allow you to congradulate me...). There were a few interesting performances. I think one person was in tears, another looked smug, another cute... there were many little human enotions all over the place. As I sat there, shaking with nerves, I began to understand that performance is not about perfection and mastery, but about humaness. If I wanted perfection I could easily listen to a CD. Of course it is amazing in a recital if someone does not mess up plays a piece perfectly. This can also be very dull. Rather something amazing is when a performer manages to capture both self, music and audience into the same dialogue of listening.
It was also beautiful to watch how people interact and respond to themselves and to others. One person, when almost finnishing the song lost completley her thought. Rather than ignoreing the people watching she engaged them and called out to her teacher for help. There was a little dialogue from the stage to the audience and then the song was completed. Perhaps it is less formal, and certainly this would be frustrating in a concert. But in this case it was beautiful.

Cars?

I have never liked cars. I associated them with beer, porn and all that is dominating, arrogant, crude and masculine. They belonged to American men with three women on their arms and too much money. I feel that I should write this last because it brings up too strongly a paradigm for my mind to engage an entirely new thought.

The CDB sent me a picture. I could not see it. It was a sheet of metal. Smooth, it looked cool, but it was still a car. Last night, however, after two years of suggesting that there is something more, I think I finally touched on something.

To see the picture requires that a new mind be taken to it. Something totally unrelated to "cars" (the name even is too loaded). It had to do with the lines. Searching in my mind for a new paradigm to interpret the lines with I found they resembled a nose of a sleek animal. (I love animals.) A cheetah. In particular that place where their tears are so perfectly designed to fall.

For a moment it ceased to be a car and became something living. There was something in the construction of its lines that even if I could not yet fully appreciate them, I found a new place for it in my mind. A new meaning was given to it. The car was living not because it is conscious, but because I am conscious and somehow I saw beyond it. I never would have thought that one day I would see beauty in a car. (unless i was pretending) Nor does it feel natural to apply these words to a machine...

Don't worry. I will not become a car fanatic...