Play and exploration of the self and the body
Greetings folks,
This is a reminder to everyone, including myself, to look out at the sky in the early morning hours this week to catch a glimpse of Venus’ current radiance.
Also if you are interested and able, please try to show up in person or online tomorrow, and this week, as this will be my last for a little while.
Finally I leave a few questions built into this week’s newsletter—
In what ways are our practices a house of cards?
In what ways is yoga akin to science fiction?
Peace,
-[s]
Here’s a beautiful and telling magic trick. Sure the house of cards provides a resonate metaphor for the events in the world outside, but also within us. Isn’t our sense of self a house of cards?—a Buddhist-friendly notion where we move from thinking that the “I” is actually something, to the point where it falls apart.
THE LAST WEEK IN LOS ANGELES (FOR NOW)
IN GESTURES OF MEDITATION | CLASSES THIS WEEK (PACIFIC TIME)
Sunday (2/6) @ 10:15am
REGISTER | Led Primary Series, Ashtanga Yoga
Sunday (2/6) @ 6pm
REGISTER | Surfing the Dreads: horror and the open heart is the theme of this month's Dharmanaut Circle, a Zoom gathering devoted to meditation, weirdness, and deep discussion.
Tuesday (2/8) Doors open @ 7am, close by 10am
REGISTER | Self-paced, self-practices in a shared, trans-personal space. Mysore style and beyond. Learn more.
Thursday (2/10) Doors open @ 7am, close by 10am
REGISTER | Self-paced, self-practices in a shared, trans-personal space. Mysore style and beyond. Learn more.
EATING THE SKY
All times listed below are in Pacific time.
Venus is the brightest planet. And right now it’s blazing, exceedingly bright. It will reach its 2022 brightest on Wednesday (Feb 9). Look for it in the pre-dawn morningtime. | EarthSky, Mental Floss
At this moment no planets are retrograde. Mercury & Venus have recently been retrograde but are now stationed direct. Maybe this is good… During retrogrades we can feel an increase in intensities, or the strange feeling like when we abruptly put the breaks on and the body flings forward. Often retrogrades also mean old business, things from the past. But now things are moving forward again. Perhaps not as planned, but nonetheless, we’re all moving on.
The moon is currently waxing. It will ripen into its Full Moon brightness next Wednesday (Feb 16) in the morning.
Star gazing in NYC? Check out Joe Patterson’s new column featuring a monthly glance at the daily highlights in the sky, including many worthwhile history tidbits. I’ll be reading this regularly. | Big Apple Sky Calendar at the Broadcast
Ingrained within our collective minds as a place made of sunrises, Stonehenge does illuminate, opening up the cosmos with time and space. The new British Museum exhibition promises to present its long history of traveling, with many mobile populations congregating there for millennia. It argues that Stonehenge has never settled upon a singular meaning. | The Guardian
IF OUR BODIES ARE OUR SPACESHIPS, HOW MIGHT WE FLY THEM?
This recent gathering gives me hope in considering radical ways to share our time together, imagining other ways to use our bodies. Jayna Brown on Samuel Delany: "His work begins with the notion that there is no fixed norm... no true universal form... That there are no biologically determined mandates, or at lease no permanent ones. And most importantly that his characters are perfectly at home in a world of play and exploration of the self and the body. And there's a plethora of ways that his characters inhabit bodies." | Black Universe: Samuel Delany’s Early Sci-Fi
RESONANT FREQUENCIES
Really digging this—the New Delhi and San Francisco based GHUNGHRU performed a delicate, entrancing transmission on Jan 21, 2022 from San Francisco. Contemporary, ambient, experimental sounds that gently tumble and fold-in various sacred, liminal & mundane wavelengths of “Indian classical music and other traditional sounds of India, modular synthesizers, drones, lyricism, and texture." This edition ends with a captivating rendition of the sublime Dagar Brothers performing Raag Bageshri in New York in 1983. | NTS
When I think of postures I obviously consider body gestures. This drummer’s explorations are more about dialing into, strategizing, and posturing resonances. More sonic architectures than songs. | Eleven Postures by Music Research Strategies
Today is William S Burrough’s birthday. Enjoy the next two minutes listening to Patti Smith read a small poem in his honor.
The erudite independent scholar LD Deutsch (Mythologies of Time and Timelessness, Pluto & the Mythic Dimension) always leaves me breathless. Her pamphlets are published though Sacred Bones Records remind me of 45’s in the 90’s. THIS WEEK she’ll be live & in-person in LA: A Lecture On Time: Reality at the Edge of Itself on Wednesday, February 9 at Zebulon.
This newsletter’s opening image is from a wonderful article in defense of the few remaining old growth forests. | From the Oldest Forest in Montana
“Bliss filed the receptive surface of each sense glass-smooth. Perception turned suddenly in (as the vanes of a ship might turn) as he walked the brick street, mortared with confetti. He felt the presence of his centered self. His world focused on the now of his hands and tongue. Voices around him caressed his awareness.”
—Nova, Samuel R. Delany
Many luminous, unthanked spirits feed this gesturing, musing, contemplative mind. Many of shards are shared above where snagged from passing streams from folks like Melanie Jane Parker, Dr. Concrescence, Sasha van Aalst, Erik Davis, Emily Leon, Roberto Maiocchi, and others. Thank you for sharing, sharing the light. Peace.