What a piece of work is a man

"What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet,
to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me—
nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so."
~William Shakespeare

I am amazed. I sit in rapt awe and gaze hard long at the wonder. People floating as if they weigh nothing or as if the laws of gravity do not apply as they dance and become love in motion. I watch as a man leaps from a cliff and flies like a gliding vulture or diving hawk through canyons and valleys, rising up above the world and embracing eternity. We are an amazing monkey. Do we descend down out of the image of gods and angels or do we rise up out of the dust and likeness of the primate brothers and sisters who walk the forests like our ancestors. I am not sure which is preferable.

There is true delight in all of this. I am witness to something beautiful. You can here it in the voices of angel choirs that sing out of human throats as well or when you watch people risen to eternity in dance or in the notes that are coaxed out of a violin or guitar. We sing constant praises to God as an angel choir at times.

But we are also this quintessence of dust. As much as we can bring the Kingdom of Heaven among us, we can also raise up the lowest pits of Hell. There is a balance in humanity. On one side is the beauty, the art, the love the joy and on the other the pain, the evil, the malice that we as a species do. I see in things like this dance that we can rise up out of the ashes of our lesser selfish selves and become greater than what we are. In every smile there is a chance for us to prove to the universe that watches that we are divine and can keep the world turning in beauty.

"The Way is in the Training" ~Musashi

Greetings Adventurers. Adventure tip of the day: Make a habit of your training, whatever that may be. I start almost every day in my little gym that is pictured above. I get an awesome workout in, usually involving some footwork and shadow boxing, hitting the heavy bag, training on the wooden dummy and then doing a bunch of body weight exercises. I feel so much better when i do this routine than when i do not. I feel alert and ready to go the whole day. I try to get another workout of some kind in later whether it is running, weights or something. An object at rest tends to stay at rest, but an object in motion tends to stay in motion. The more you make your body like energy, the more energy you will have. If you have a desk job, get out of your seat as much as you can and move.

"The way is in the training" as Myamoto Musashi said. Your training has to be effective and you have to get in that habit. It is difficult at first, but once your body adjusts it is even more difficult to stop. Do not make excuses. Move. Get up 15-30 minutes early and get your body moving. I also find that it helps to find something that you truly enjoy doing. If you hate running, you are not going to last long trying to run. This is just as important if you are trying to learn an instrument, a language or any skill. You need to get in the habit of practicing. It was great being in Florida with John Williams. We got up almost every morning and went down to one of the big pavilions in Quiet Waters park and did some training.

If you need some pointers or starter workouts let me know. I have lots of ideas on this subject and love to help people find spiritual and physical health (i really do not believe there is any difference between the two but that is the subject of another blog.)

I hope all is well, continue to strive to be awesome. See you the next time.

People have made the false distinction between mind and body,
as if they are two different things.
There is only one type of stuff in the universe,
and that stuff is energy,
whatever that means.
Matter is merely energy moving at a slower rate.
Make your body like energy.
Get out of your seat,
Move, flow, dance, love.
Everything rises and falls together.
I am a part of the great flow of energy
that runs through everything.
As i still my mind and move my body,
i realize the great truth of the sages,
everything is everything else,
we are all a part of one great field.
As i move and come closer to that state,
i come closer to the Divine.

The Infatuation of Evil

I have been noticing a lot while we have been down in Florida that there is this fascination with evil. A friend of ours had a shirt that said something like, "Who needs a God when you've got a Satan!" We spoke to another girl on the shire on a faire day who was telling us that she is evil. She could not be convinced otherwise, she was evil. She had the black eye liner and deep mope lines to prove it. She is not the only one. Lots of people really really like the bad guy, so why this fascination with evil and being dark and brooding?

I think part of it is that people really do not think about what they are saying and what it actually implies. A lot of the images we think of as evil, like Darth Maul here, i am going to face it, they look really cool. But, it is not really what evil is. Evil in the real world is not just wearing cool make up and a black cape and kicking butt and taking names. Real world evil is much more exemplified by the Senator Palpatine role to stick with Star Wars analogies. Evil is the creepy politician in the background pulling strings and shutting down factory towns to line the pockets of his cronies. Evil is the adult who takes advantage of a child and abuses them because of their position of power. Hitler was evil. I really think that most of these people who claim to be evil do not revel when they think about these things. Does the person who likes Satan hear that her nephew was molested by their local preacher and go, "Yeah Satan!" Does the evil girl from the faire wake up in the morning to find her car stolen and raise the devil horns in the air and cheer, "Yeah evil!" Does the guy who is an evil dude who can't be contained find out his boss is closing down the plant to ship jobs to a sweat shop in Asia and say, "Yes dude, that was so evil!" I really don't think so. But, those are the things that the bad guys really do.



I think what it comes down to is that people are mostly addicted to the mope. We have created a culture that loves to think life sucks. We find the brooding vampire and gaunt pale moping guy sexy. We also idealize the selfish. These two things are coming together to create a pretty miserable society. Very few people are actually decent to each other and we are addicted to our sadness.

We here at the Lords of Adventure (the sword fighting show i do with my buddy John Williams) have fully embraced being good guys. We are also really addicted to the air we breathe and living life to the fullest. I definitely see it taking people by surprise and they don't really know how to deal with it. One thing is for sure, they love it. Being positive and embracing the side of the light is kind of addictive. We have found that on occasion, we will say something like, beautiful morning today! When the mopers have sent us back a "Why is it a good day?" We reply with a truth that is really really primal and deep, "The choice is yours."

That is deeply deeply true. You can choose the type of day you have, you can choose to wallow, or you can choose to live your life deeply and with meaning. Smiling and being positive is actually a lot sexier when you are around it for more than about 2 minutes.

Endorphins

I have been training in the martial arts for a very long time. I have spent thousands of hours in the gym, hitting a bag, sparring, grappling, lifting weights and generally working out. It keeps me in good shape, but honestly, that is a side effect. I have never worked out to be in shape although that is nice. I love that i can run up a set of stairs or play all day with younger cousins or kids that i am teaching and have them get tired way before i do. It is pretty awesome, but truly, that is a nice side effect and not the reason why i keep going back.

The practical side of the training is to improve my martial arts skills. That has always been my quest. The philosophy of Jeet Kune Do is perfect. I see no difference between the spiritual quest and trying to figure out what is the most efficient and effective fighting style. I am a man of peace, make no mistake. It takes way more than it should to drive me to be angry, but i still want to know, honestly if what i am doing works or if there is a better way.

Those are the practical and the side effect, but the addiction runs deeper. Make no mistake, it is an addiction. I need it to feel good as sure as any junkie does. On days that i do not get to go to the gym or get my body moving, i feel groggy and i withdrawal. I love this addiction though. Those endorphins make the world come into focus and when they pump through my veins, i can imagine no sweeter high. I am glad to be an addict in this case.

The thing about the endorphin addiction, and the key that i think makes it a healthy drug, is the fact that you have to strive and work for that high. You do not achieve a state of higher consciousness or feel that runner's high after a single punch or five steps on a run. Opening the door to the gym and stepping in does not put you over the top. You must achieve it and push through the hard parts of the training to arrive at bliss. And that certainly is what it is. There is that point in the work out where everything is flowing smoothly and the body is alive with reaction and action. It is a moving meditation. It is no longer TJ punching the bag when i get to that point, it is just punching of the bag. My ego dissolves away. It is lovely and one of the favorite things i have ever done.

William James said that drugs were a valid form of religious experience. He was right, from what i have heard really, i do not have a lot of experience. I have never needed to because my drug was always found in the sweet sound of flesh pounding into canvas and the music coming out of the speakers. Drugs can do for you what the endorphins do, but it is like the dark side of the force. You do not need to go through the fires and the battles to get there. It is the quick and easy way. The same thing could be seen in the eyes of the people i saw in their cars on Mount Washington in New Hampshire. I had walked there from New Jersey, i arrived on that peak after a grueling day of seventeen miles through the woods. They drove up for a half an hour. They could never feel exactly the same connection and spiritual peace i felt with that mountain, because i mixed more of my labor with her majesty.

I have watched friends who need the drugs. They have to smoke pot, or drink from the bottle they keep ever on hand because they have managed to turn the volume of their lives down. It may have been abuse or a gradual turning away from life living itself over time, but they have found their way to the easy drug. It saddens me a little.

The quick and easy drugs turn the volume of one's life down. The quest to release your own endorphins, the healthy high of your own mind, turns the volume and clarity of life up. It feeds on itself. It is a circle ever returning into itself and it enhances ... everything. I am alive, i am alive. I feel the fire and electric running through my legs of muscles pushed to their limits as i type this and i know it is true. I am alive.

Not saying i would not enjoy a beer right now either. Just saying. That can be awesome too. But, people of the world, find your inner drug and get high on your life. It is pretty awesome, even if you might not think so at the moment.

New Year's

New Year's have never been a very eventful holiday for me. It started with Calvin Martin at Rutgers University i think. It was his philosophy and classes in Native American history that got me on this road. I don't really know what to call his classes really, history seems inappropriate even though that is the department they were seated in. Calvin thought history was the problem, and because the native peoples of these lands would not have dealt in history as we know, he would not deal with it in his classes either. It was not their story. The native peoples of the Americas told myths, so that was what we learned in the classes of Calvin Luther Martin at Rutgers in New Brunswick. We also talked a lot about the nature of time. We had a seminar class that was entitled simply "Time." Calvin claimed it was the only class in a history department anywhere that he knew of that talked about time at all. Odd since that is really the subject of the whole business.

Anyway, what he said was powerful. There was a veritable cult of Calvin Martin at Rutgers. Our classes would have upwards of 400 students attending, all wide eyed and eager to here the weekly lesson. He spoke powerfully. Myths are like that though. I saw that first hand when i taught high school. The most unruly classes would sit in rapt attention for 25 minutes without a word whenever i would tell them a story. It was amazing. There was a truth there that rang out to all of us in the class. I learned much and it has shaped me and the ideas i have had ever since. Since my philosophy is Jeet Kune Do, i took what was useful from the class and it is definitely a core component of what makes up the way i navigate my world view. Others had a harder time separating the knowledge and the power of the stories from the man himself, and some people were broken when Calvin moved on. I feel it was probably similar with Bruce Lee. He tried to get people to find their own way, make their own style, but they followed him and wanted to be like him. He eventually had to go because students were not getting it. I have wondered at times if that is partially why Calvin moved on.

Anyway, to move on now myself. Those stories and what we learned about time in Calvin's class led me to much of the worldview i hold today. It led me to give up age and really led to a separation and eventual divorce from time. It has been an amazing road. As a short recap, i have given up time and age, that does not mean that i think i do not "age." It is the measurement i have a problem with. I can be totally down with the event of a changing body and the way we live our lives from birth and growth, through eventual slowing and decay to death. It is a beautiful cycle, but i do not need to deal with trying to place numbers and value of years on that process. I think it has dire implications that i have talked about in several earlier blogs.

It hit me tonight driving home from my friends house after making merry for New Year's Eve, that the holiday has really never held any real value for me since i shaped some ideas in those classes at Rutgers University. It is holiday that is all about the measure of time and since time and i have had our divorce, i have really not given much care or thought to this holiday that is the child of time. There have been years i have done nothing, gone to bed or headed out into the woods. None of it was done because it was New Year's Eve or day, but because it was what i chose to do as i would have chosen it on any other day of the year. I go to parties on New Year's the same way. I will go for the same reason i would go any other night. I even participate, but it is really to be social.

Thoreau said in Walden i believe, "Time is but the stream i go a'fishin in." Beautiful words that exactly get what i am talking about. I do not believe that Thoreau meant that he went fishing in the stream called Time, but that the way he dealt with time, literally was the stream he had his line in. It was the event of the place, the Earth living herself, that was real, not numbers on a wall or in a calendar. Just some stuff to think about.

It is beautiful when you get into living in the event. People all around me say that time is going by so quickly. I feel that nothing is further from the truth. If anything for me, time is moving more and more slowly as i become better and better at living in each moment, infinitely. It is hard at first, because time wants to hold on to you and gets his claws into you. But eventually, if you are persistent, Time will begin to realize that he is more desperate than you are and he will start to slowly let you go. Once that happens you can fall into the vast canopy of the stars and persist there forever in a night. You can float on your back down a river and be carried on the time of the Earth, not on the time on your wrist. You can be here in this moment breathing in and out as the lungs of the Earth and you can realize what it means to be truly and deeply alive and forever in a moment. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand lads and lasses, embrace it. When you get outside the shackles of time, your life will be set free.

Ideas

I got to thinking the other day that the biggest problem our politics is having right now relates to something Chris Rock said in Dogma, “I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier. Life should be malleable and progressive, working from idea to idea permits that. Beliefs anchor you to certain points and limit growth. New ideas can't generate. Life
becomes stagnant.”

Our politicians on each side are holding onto their point of view like religious beliefs and no one is willing to see that what they really should have are ideas that we can all work together to change and shape to the benefit of everyone. Either side of the political spectrum also seems to have this belief that to listen to anything the other side says and think about it is tantamount to blasphemy. If the other side says it, it must be wrong. We can not get anywhere like this. Lets start having some ideas people and stop taking ourselves so seriously.

The Adventure

There have been dark valleys. There have been long walks in the shadow. I realize that reading the last post in my blog here. I do feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I have learned a great deal about myself. I am becoming the adventurer i tell everybody that they should be.

John and i recently did the Connecticut Renaissance Festival and someone asked us how we are able to do it, how do we keep so happy and energetic all day. His response was brilliant. He pointed to a child of about 7 or 8 years old who was all smiles and running by and he said, "Because we never forgot how to do that." So true. The embrace of one's inner child is so fundamentally important, especially when you are working in interactive theater and want to bring that joy to the people you see who desperately need it.

My Godfather Bill Cash knew that. He passed away to the next adventure this week and i spoke about him at his funeral. My earliest memory of my Uncle Bill, as i called him, was when he took me to a Phillies game when i was probably about 8, back when i had an age. We had to park in Section 8, because, as he explained to me, a Section 8 is the discharge crazy people get from the military. Bill was definitely crazy in that way that is awesome. He even made parking at the baseball game fun, he made it an adventure.

I have been feeling that again. It has been a long and winding road but i am definitely embracing the inner joy. I got a pair of pants the other day that had a fuzzy lining and they are warm and feel like a cloud inside. I told my old roommates, "These pants are awesome, it is the best thing that has ever happened to me." And in that moment it was sincere, although a little crazy to think of a pair of pants as the best thing that ever happened.

But, that my friends is the childlike way of looking at things. Everything to a baby is awesome because everything is new. The sheer joy of seeing the sacred in everything, in life living itself, the whole dream of all of this. It is brilliant and i am truly honored to be a part of it. Life is good and i feel stronger for my journey through the valley of darkness. The sunlight looks all the sunnier and i am excited for what adventures may come.