Personal Practice Development Collaborative

I mean to get the following up on craigslist if the free internet connection lasts.

Every so often I get to thinking along these lines--serving others in a counselor-type therapeutic role. The basic idea behind this (instructor of meditation: "more peace, more patience") came to me during a long still-sit at the Kroc Center earlier today--here modified and made broader, more collaborative, more informal.

Personal Practice Development Collaborative

[Post in services: therapeutic, personal: activity partners @craigslist

Or neighborhood door-to-door, newsletter.

and on web site.]

Areas where I need help:

- eating for nutrition, nourishment; not to pass the time. . .
- helping, serving, being useful to others.

Areas of experience, ongoing inquiry:

- fitness
- diet
- philosophy / nature of meaning
- identity / nature of self & society
- relationship, communication for cooperation
- mental hygeine / training / meditation
- the cycles of an engaging day/week/month/life

I'd like to help, perhaps by being a sounding board for anyone who could use one. I prefer to interact in person, but for now over the phone and via email are good too.

This is meant to be a collaboration between us,
and I am also doing this to be of service: at the very least you may offer me the opportunity to be useful to someone.

The goals of our interacting can be to change our lives, habits, views in order to live more meaningfully, with more fun, with more grace, with useful service to others-- (or perhaps you can think of a statement that better interests you).

I'm located in the SDSU area/Rolando--

I am infrequently employed as a challenge course/teambuilding facilitator. When in SD, I often stay with my 92-year-old Grandma. I enjoy leaving often to go camping, however. I have a driver's license but get around on foot or public transit.

If you mind me writing about parts of our interactions--I won't. Occasional incoherent blogging seems to be part of my practice (fo-rest.blogspot.com).

How we might interact:

- you can ask me questions
- we can share our thoughts on the area of interest--for example we can share our ideas and habits related to eating, exercise, meditation, how to help, etc.
- we can show each other different practices/exercises we find helpful

If you would like to collaborate on the development of lives, views, and personal practices, please let me know.

Peace,
Colin

Oblivion

Consciousness fading, or bare, holding on. Would like to write, nothing to say.

Plans: swim, weights. @Kroc stall, now.

then sew. (listen to librivox: that will be good)

then, I guess, dentist plans, continue on that track. (relatives' interest is helpful in continuing that)

walks to use the Kcals. Was actually closer to 195 last post. Now around 192.

[Was not mentioning it, but may work 10th, 4th (challenge course), which lends some structure to the future.

--- ]

An obliterating event has been being imagined, a

megaton asteroid fire in the still, muddy, occasionally burping pond of my mental life.

Melodrama helps me say something though lessens integrity, respectability of voice.

And how can I write about this sans spreading puff on creeping cloud of global death?

Imagine you've guessed. I don't expect it [, what I'm referencing, to happen]. Given time and distance, escape is given. But closeness, compelled. Classic gift of life.

"Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?"

Yeah, but--Pequod beats off that shore following [slave to] a grander goal.

The captain, mad; the one wakened man, overpowered by captain's nonrational--gift of illness--charisma [power]--

A [day]dream of the future, with earth in it, with that shore in it, instead of the beating off, to escape--[I] had one. Fading.

The ["]soul["], reviving.

I love instead the fellow sailors, men, perhaps women too, not of the long shore.

Just need to keep their faces, yet unknown, before me.

---

Returning to the forest, camping,
saw the known emptiness there.

What gives strength to all consumption,
to all the running these youngsters do?

Carnal love sets life ongoing,
Food lets these lives stumble on.

The search for what they're missing--
Frantic energies consumes.

[neglecting many other pleasures here--scientific? Organizational? I've rarely (recently) felt the first, rarely the second. Musical? But we're headed to stillness again--All but organizational lead me back to stillness(?)]

Stop, be still, find that spot, remember it--

But that spreads stillness,
Release from gifts.

---

[Stillness in the cycle, then, as the result of engagement? Sing in choir every day because of joy and peace it enables?]

These themes are everywhere;
Everywhere unresolved.

[and the relation of social practices, tradition, news, activity (working together), awareness (we are all concerned about . . .), to both stillness (joy, peace) and engagement. In earlier, embedded lives, engagement, joy less avoidable, but soul less free?]

We know how to be still.
We know passion, lack of restraint.

Theo[-]retically we can consecrate each engagement,
Open each engagement to having it proceed from the divine--the larger, mad goal--all engagement proceeds from.

---

Dear,
what is your long-term view of this,
were we to
as once mentioned?

--

Peace,
Love,

hazard

Dumpsters, a lot of stuff is in them.
Yesterday: 1 Little Caesar's pizza, .5 gal vanilla ice cream, .5 gal chocolate, 100+ turkey hot dogs, two cans baked beans, 8 bags shredded slaw vegetables, 1 orange, 1 apple, 1 tomato, 5lbs bag Maseca masa harina (corn & lime), ~15 bananas, chocolate fudge/strawberry/etc flavor frozen on a stick, pork sausage frozen, white rolls frozen and not, shrimp, 5lbs bag sugar. All generally expired, torn or something.

Did not go out of my way to visit these, one near the laundrymat, other walked by and was curious.

Now I intend to be retraining myself not to look. Done it before, but tend to lose the restraint on urban camping trips.

Would be great if I could be selective--good old beet greens gathered from Santa Monica Co-opportunity--but only eating what I buy from people or pick from ground or trees has been a main strategy for limiting killer calories in.

Typing as I walk, now exercising with more intent. At 191 lbs (not more?). 183, if exercising, lifting, means leanness I appreciate. . . About to walk by site of a MeChA (Mexican Chicano American?) celebration on SDSU campus yesterday. . . Last year there was much alluring left over. Will I look?

Will pass again on my return, but was here yesterday, looking then (coed marachi band; line dancing; food).

A solution: eat so well of non-dumpstered food that dumpsters do not draw.

Longer-term solutions: learn to practice restraint when eating free food when no one is around; eat so well while camping, urban or otherwise, that potential variety, extra KCals in dumpsters do not draw.

Just passed a (white) young man, nearly professional looking (exercise suit)--were it not for all the bags--collecting cans, bottles, by bike, on SDSU campus. Curious about him.

The restraint

And there's the older, bellied, non-white, ambulatiory latero ('lata' = 'tin', 'can' in español, hojalatero=tin collector). . . The more-expected type.

And there, just passed an abandoned Nutri-Grain bar. Crumbled in its wrapper, but there. Were I not so calorically topped, it'd have been swallowed by now by my former self. Many are the abandoned calories not in dumpsters. Restraint would benefit me there as well.

The standard I-would-benefit-from-more-exercise plan: get out at least an hour, AM and PM.

But first day back from camping, old routine unthinkable, did not leave shelter, ate, good stuff at first, cooked over fire. Decline began with a date loaf given me by Grandma Ann, then further regressed to microwave-cooked white flour (taken from Gann's supply), pasta (left over from camping), the only goal being an ending to preoccupation with food.

My teeth seem better than they have been in a long while. Their (dentin-protecting layer?) decay is hastened by eating too much, too often, such that the pure teeth-restoring saliva solution is not washing over and building the teeth, due to cud-chewing from excess eating and remnants of food in mouth. Frequent fruit sugar seems to eat dentin [protection] too. It may be that my eating of a lot of cream cheese at the end of October could have helped (a loose interpretation of Weston A. Price).

Developing restraint, though, is a main opportunity here.

A god of restraint in a land of only fruitcake. . .

A strategy: fill time with other pleasure than eating, and with things that take one away from easy food access.

But it is really about the whole life, the community in that life, the food habits that (social)ecosystem supports.

And personal dedication, devotion to the benefits of not eating too much.

Being passionate about something.

"We eat so that we do not become lean and die" --Serene Reflection(?) buddhists' grace

"Full engagement in the claims of life demands hearty eating" ~-Mynher Peeperkorn, _Magic Mountain_. As much eating went on in _MM_, growing waistlines were not once mentioned.

Peace,

_Moby Dick_

Been wondering how I could write a simple, acceptable statement of why I seek a career in the maritime industry. I don't think it will be too hard to write a simply-structured five-paragraph thing when the time comes, at a simple eighth-grade level. One paragraph intro, three developing ones, one as conclusion, each (or just the central three) with topic, illustration, and relation of the illustration to the topic and theme--
something like that.

The alternative, to go crazy with it, I won't do any more, I've done that enough. See especially my adaptation of the resume and coverletter genre to be more personally meaningful and relevant to my as-yet-undefined career--find this in my applications to work for Duke and CTY summer programs at http://j9k.org/cv -- click back to older versions a few times. (In terms of some of the indicators I developed, such as nights spent outdoors, days spent in carfree space, days not shitting in drinking water, my career may have been progressing.)

But now I may have to resist referencing Melville's _Moby Dick_. He comes right out with 'this is not about career but life.' HR pros hypothesize careers--(well, there is a business to run, not a cult/temple/church/ashram/community of inspiration/tribe--right? Southwest Airlines what do you say?). Anyways:

"Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation."

"If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings toward the ocean with me."

"Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea?"

"But that same image ['the tormenting, mild image' seen by Narcissus], we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life, and this is the key to it all."

---

That is not my orientation--I'd write a different essay. I'm headed seaward because the ungraspable phantom has left me, so far, with 'nothing particular to [focus] me on shore' beyond preparing to leave. Nor do I seem to share Ishmael's need to relieve "a damp, drizzly November in [the] soul."

Peace,

---

"For my part, I abominate all honorable, respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind whatsoever. It is quite as much as I can do to take care of myself, without taking care of ships, barques, schooners, and whatnot."

Photos up--

Los Angeles 2008-11-18

Scout

Waking up two mornings ago, not sure what to do, bag heavy with food in case I wanted to head for Rustic Canyon. For days.

That was the day I wrote last? No. After writing I got that food, after photographing dense smog, and feeling fatigue--all the traffic.

Emerging from Rose Bowl (two morns ago), called Coast Guard re: MMD status: (it was) To be mailed out that day.

And I thought I'd have two more weeks.

Read chamber of commerce magazine about Pasadena (it was in a newpaper dispenser in front of the PO--I was thinking of mailing some stuff away so I'd not need to carry it, stuff such as the MMD paperwork): Trees have been a part of Pasadena's design from nearly the beginning. John Muir recognized city's artistic, intellectual something-or-other in 1886. Caltech is the largest employer, followed by the community college (7[?]th largest cc in the state), followed by the city. Parsons is a design/build firm (with a very large building labeled "Parsons". Perhaps they build prisons.) Caltech has more Nobel Prize-winning faculty and alumni than any other institution (?!). The first highway (er, freeway, as in non-toll road?) in the US was the Pasadena Freeway, the 110, Pasadena -> Long Beach, via downtown LA. Caltech runs JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), funded by NASA, which was behind many or most US space missions, including the recent Mars robot expeditions (but a guy from U of Arizona was the mission head/PI).

No city the size of Pasadena (130-170 thousand) has as many cultural, educational, etc, resources. They also have CA Culinary Institute, and Art Center College of Design. Significant museums.

Most notably, though, to me, they have a downtown and appear to never have let it become a (weekend/after-hours/car-commuter-centric) wasteland (by/in the 80s) as did every other (larger) US city I have spent time in.

The light rail from Union Station was completed in 2003. The light rail is one reason Pasadena has become one of my LA homes. It is easy and pleasant to get to. Prefer trips by rail over bus+pavement.

----

Waking, wondering what to do, each morning, is not super easy. Get up or lay here? Cook or not? Read? Stay here or walk?

Went to library to get bus schedule for trip back to SD.

Walked back to Fuller Theological Seminary to photo a life-size statue of Jesus being nailed to cross. Chatted with Jimmy(?) about his mission to Russia with iteams.org (/com?) & Jesus. Posed for photos at food distribution site until deciding to walk south (to Long Beach?).

Spent $2.18 on corn tortillas, buttermilk at Trader Joe's (exercised the store owner's something-or-other on the way out as she glanced at me, with headstrapped load). Ate these next to Fillmore light rail stop. Wanting more(?), Raided dumpsters, found pizza, bananas. Walked on, roughly following light rail south. Drive-by donation of $17--I said "no, that's ok", but driver said, no, go on. . . "thanks brother." Had been enjoying the freedom of my costume and role. That donation threw me a bit. . . I'm playing around, and not really generous or deserving (and sort of have a policy against giving money [to others]. . . I seem not to want it to be just given to me? Needing to work for it/food is one of the few [helpful?] constraints I have?). There was a black homeless guy in a doorway with cart and two dogs across the busy way (why don't I give it him? What was effect of my initial refusal on drive-by donor?), across from the Pasadena Water Department's 5Os-style (er, 'art deco' may be the term) extravagant 25' tall jet fountain in the cool mist of which I'm:

Got message about being human guinea pig. Later returned call, but haven't heard back.

Ate my treasure (not the bananas though). . . A bit much, but in the end, seems to have been good (wanted fat, I think).

Kept catching the eyes of this older woman photo'ing the fountain. I wonder about my non-interaction sometimes--should I say something friendly to not be so odd/potentially fear-contributing? Am I reproducing my own fear of interaction/standoffishness in others?

Shared some bananas with the black homeless guy. . . only because he sort of helped with a silent "what have you got there?" as I walked by, and I certainly didn't need or want to keep carrying them all. . . He had a nice missing-[some]teeth smile, belly, bit of white in hair and beard, polished shoes in hands. He said "oh these are good!" not what I was expecting, about the b's. . . Later thought of asking if he'd tried shelter/transitional living (Jimmy [iteams, Russia, missionary] used to work with homeless in downtown LA and got to talking about how to really help vs. just get a feeling of helping. . . and would have helped me find a transitional living place it sounded like), but he had walked away for a bit.



Wandered south through more interesting hoods. . . Pedestrian stairs, narrow streets, (picturesque cottage/castle/gable/tower/courtyard/wall/patio/window panes on wood-floored open, decor-ed, rooms/old large trees, shade and things growing there, fall leaves/ ways wind round hill, stairs direct/ houses fronting right on the ways) then to the Oak Lawn (architecture history plaque, grid, mansion, larger setback) suburb. By pedestrian bridge found path to secluded spot along the rail line.

Hours there, finishing _Magic Mountain_, digesting. (Homeless guy, clean, non-grungy type, hispanic, across the fenced-in tracks, put washcloth out to dry, cleaned his spot, me wondering how the litter had got there. Elsewhere, directly under the bridge, was a very littered homeless bed.). At dusk walked south again, a long ways, getting a pound of lard ($1.65?) at a great low-cost store (in low-cost hood). . . Monterey St and Ave 63. . . continuing quest for unbingeable fat. . . could not bring self to buy more nasty, salty parmesan. Know I seem to need to add a bit of fat to every eating time. Walked on just a bit further from this wonderful, newly-open, asian manager (slightly pudgy) helping bag, empty store ("Double Saver"?), to the urban camp spot from heaven (if it were not for freeway 110 noise), discovered on previous walk south along the arroyo. Slept well, long, with earplugs, dreams.

---

Three banana breakfast. What now? Jesus said go back down hill, get on at nearest light rail stop (Highland Park, turns out). A woman I am happy to remember, mixed, acne scars on lower face, part hispic?, pronated (or the opposite?) shoesoles, with bike, got off there on my last ride. Might I see her? (how rare to see a fine, marked, cheap-shoed she w/ cheap bike. . . what is her mind like/the psychology there, . . . Like to think a bit of my glances do her no harm, I feel her, she me in some way, dream of the days when our phones might refer us to our online IDs [bluetooth already sort of can, but I haven't messed with it]--that would not help her interest in me--but, unlike Neutrino, and younger me, I let them all go, every one, unless hugely remarkable, until s/he, and the feeling, are there a second time. Yes. Great public space.) Why was the thought (Jesus?) pointing me this way? Did not obey exactly, may never know, but did send me by Culebra, the park [created] by that LA CityRepair-variant mentioned in earlier post, and a fine-looking homeless latina in a dirt ped alley with a makeshift shelter; alley began with knee-high chainlink, ended with ped stair. Before the fine woman (how could she be here, smiling?), I stopped to photo an aviary. Is this the Herman hood? Doubt it is spelled right. (Some day may be less bashful about asking to photo people--she might say yes, then you could see and wonder too, and I could study the still image and wonder more.)

No more wondering, anyway, returning to SD. To continue playing Boy Scout with the merchant marine.

Few of us are genius enough to do something great with a blank sheet of paper, wrote a guy on the worldchanging blog (and me, sort of).

Yeah. So give me some direction, tell me what to do, at least a little bit.

Why am I not at Caltech? Or any number of other. . .

Why do I like this bureaucratic hoop-jumping?

It has nothing to do with my personality (as long as I pass background checks; am willing to submit, as Mike M is not, to shoes, passport, driver's license).

I do/ did like the Boy Scout model (self-paced requirement fulfillment). This whole merchant mariner licensing business seems similar.

In any event, when I finish the next steps (dentist, character letters, statement of why), and if that app gets me to the next step, I get to go to Long Beach (er, Wilmington, to the SIU union hall) again and can wander around after that until they tell me it is time to go to Piney Point for training.

Never mind that the more I wander around, the less I think I'll want to hang out for long times on small ships. . . But nevermind that.

I just spent two point five hours today practicing belly focus/ meditation while waiting for the TWIC card registration system to get back up to speed after freezing/molasses, while a broken door screeched as other lambs arrived. . . And valued it, possibly others did too.

Could I start an urban camping ecotourist business? (sick, this endless business question, but how great it would be to help others not have to wonder as much? Think I may be making that kind of contrib, but not by business-starting?)

Peace,

what to do

Back in Pasadena, @Caltech.

Veteran's Day? City lib closed, if so. Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena City College, Caltech all open. All within 1.25 mile of each other.

Got photos off camera at City College. And uploaded to Picasa, but haven't finished labeling, rotating, deleting (connection failed).

---

Paying attention to the good habits helped out by living this way:

o Lots of sleep
o Much less eating to pass the time. Very little eating at night.
o Lots of time. Very little rush.
o Doing good reading, reading literature, not just news/Internet

Got to thinking of monastery again last night. For 'cockroach effect' partly. Help eating less, doing good.

For some reason, was aware of how eating will kill--

heart, intestines, rectum, colon, sight, teeth, gums, mind

Was able to have the space and time to consider. To ask about and become familiar with non-eating pleasure, or just the simple state.

---

Guess I'll write a bit. Sat before this a while. Maybe next will read. Have not sewed, but soon--don't have a lot else to do.

Not sure what's next. Air was poor, my throat and lungs affected, from fires, exhaust--thought of walk to coast, N. Or return to canyon. And monastery.

What will happen? Sort of fascinating to watch day, mood, and wonder.

---

Feeling love, wonder, amazement for this place. A lot of care in the beginning and over the years is apparent--more, so far, the more I walk around.

Felt amazement yesterday at large wilderness park on the way to downtown LA: Earnest E. Debs Regional Park. Amazement.

Felt fear at cooking two nights ago . . . fear of discovery and alarm, police encounters, and so on.

I know enough now, though, that I can move around, camp and cook different places without problems. Places to shower as well, for free.

Sun heat, intense yesterday, every day. Wondering that I was thinking I needed Mexico for warmth. Of course, coldest yet to come, and rain.

---

Will I stay in this area, or move more?

Since finding a kind of freedom here, not as keen on mariner school/work--and I get doses of awareness about mariner life from the blogs I read--Paul the Pirate on toilet etiquette for example.

But I'm happy to have that process in the works. And it could be good to go to a dentist and get 'all work needed,' if I could bring myself to do that--

But need to stop harming self with the manner of eating. Last night and today's space in that respect may be a good sign.

---

All this, my life, sort of comes down to getting space from compulsions---mindless eating, reading, exercising, repeating of cycles. In order to be open to, to explore, newness--perhaps.

What will come into this space if it becomes more free from habit, compulsion?

---

And people, what a wonder.

In my explorations I find the others, many alone, walking, under bridges, in overgrown washes, stream beds, often by the sounds of the radios, even mini-TVs, they have for company. My sign is the cellphone glow, the brief cooking fire, the LED reading light. . . I've heard of great communities--one along the SD river--of outdoor-dwellers, rough sleepers (the UK term?), only heard of them. And the Santa Cruz forest.

Last night a man on a cellphone talked for hours on the hill above me.

Don tried to call three times, my phone was off, out of money, low on charge, but not too low.

Not sure at all what to make of the solitariness of this time--seems undisturbing, but then I am close to Mike, Taylor (not sure, I may not have been a good guest for him?), relatives in SD.

It is a tentative joy to be finding this way of life perhaps possible. I don't want to remark about it, then its opposite and shortcomings come to the fore. And this is not a solution for many?

Standing outside everthing rushing by, abandoned green carfree space, abandoned time, I'm one of the few inhabitants.

---

Interact. What could I do? Will I have motive--

Could I just sit here and have reading as my project?

---

Thanksgiving is near. One sort of goal was to avoid SD for the holidays.

---

Mike, the other Mike (SD/Portland), seems to call me out. . .

---

Would I want to get other outdoor-dwelling literature readers together? Doesn't seem like it. Expired, my organizing tendencies.

---

I appreciated the Unitarian minister's comments on practice. I see the value in the ministers' work. They helped me-- count blessings, give thanks, be grateful, Merton: there is no half-way. Maybe.

---

_This_ is a library. Celebrated, reverenced, silence, peace. May never have experienced as fine.

A sign alerts me to the half-hour the custodian may use adjacent closet and the possibility of noise. Outside, carts are electric. AM leafblowers? Doubt it.

Windows, double-paned.

---

That may be all, my friends, my few celebrated readers, who sometimes make presence known--

I've thought, there are books, they want to be read, they are my company, they support and reward and reinforce this odd path: yes, this is why I do this, this is why I stay free, this is why I have endless time--to spend time with you.

---

Peeperkorn has died, and I left Hans Castorp directionless, not joyful. Behrens seemed to suggest Castorp would soon be returned to the world he left behind an uncounted number of years ago. A relative came to get him back once, but left hurridly, unannounced, after a week, afraid of getting caught there too.

Peeperkorn represented power of feeling, personality, charisma. Claims--or classic gifts--of life, good food, wine, love (of women), games, making everyone feel special with his attention, to experience his manner, presence. [All followed from his feeling, all other wills yield(ed) to this greater-feeling one.]

There is the transcendental element. . . reverence for ceremony, sublimity, fear, awe, ignorance(?), authority. . . aristocracy, secrecy, terror, suffering. Naptha.

There is the bourgeois, progressive element, pursuit of happiness, democracy, well-being of all, endless work of science. . . Settembrini.

There is the fully miserable and neurotic, self-denigrating, self-harming. Wehesal(?). [we know this]

There is Cladvia, the passive principle (? responding to the degree of the feeling one brings to her), no--the self, as she is, no apologies? The unknown? The (female/male) love interest? The earth? (the tears ever-flowing, over the earth, such that the earth is named after them?) [just a bit of free associating there, no connection?]

Who knows.

How has the work affected me? Its elaboration of stepping out of worldly time and for 'taking stock'(?)--for doing nothing until God does it? (No, for that is brought out and contrasted. . . but does seem to have the upper hand.)

Settembrini: Only keep talking, that is contact, that is life. . . not silence.

---

this contact is fizzling, sense and source---

and at 1530, the sun is getting low--only an hour's good daylight left.

---

Peace,

cupcakes-dead spirit-defrosting-!terorst

Debating whether to write.

From the old orchard walked to find water, sat next to stream, water very good, read _Magic Mtn_. Walked N to camp Josepho/phine, BSA, and past till impassable.

Next day, Thurs, walked up backbone trl. Walked N toward Reseda. Much walking. Feasted on foraged oranges/grapefruit. Found Metroliner near Pierce College. It is a bus with dedicated busway. Got on subway (DC-style) at north hollywood. Shopped in HOWES where they were filming a commercial for Pizza Hut(?).

In Union Station called from payphone to resolve cellphone issues. Gold Line to Memorial Park, walked to spot, cook--after indecision--not really hungry, but: what to do? is the routine, noting differences: more (reasonable) fear re: fire, more noise, light vs. being out in canyons.

Friday woke, cooked, walked down arroyo seco, found roving archers, where skill gathering should be, walked east to Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, got Neufchatel Cheese, corn tortillas. Ate, read. Walked to CalTech, sat in library, read, charged.

PM walked to huntington.org, walked on east to another cement creek--Eaton Wash. No good wild park along this one, eventually went to end of Gold Line, rode back to Memorial Park (-$1.25), eating Smart&Final flour tortillas, back to Rose Bowl spot.

Saturday walked over to Rose Bowl aquatic center, considered monthly fee to lap swim, walked up Arroyo Trails, sat, read _Magic Mtn_, sat, exercises, photos, walked to Neighborhood Church (UU), next to Pacific Oaks College, USC Architecture's Gibbon(wrong) house, near historical society, got squirrel, walked to library, got brightkite into friendfeed, did other net stuff, looked into foodstamps, laundrymat, grocers (to find cheaper ones). Called about being guinea pig in medical tests.

Walked toward food stamp place (closed). Found non-opulent part of town and the market where latinos shop, prices reasonable, even some cheaper than SD.

Walked to aquatic center. Swam (-$2 rec swim: 2-4:30, other times cost is $10 or $55/month). Ate cupcakes, frosting, yech. Defrosting. Cooked lentils, peppers, onion, garlic, cabbage. . . yam, on park grill. Ate carrots. Walked back to spot with warm pot.

---

Here I am.

---

News: TWIC (transportation worker ID card) approved.

---

Tomorrow may go to 930 UU service before skills gathering. Also walked by Quaker meetinghouse and a buddhist place, but they're not close. Nor as grand.

---

May be able to stay here a while? Once sew pants, work at Trader Joe's/get food stamps/guinea pig money? Hmm--I remember there's a challenge course just up the arroyo from the Rose Bowl too. They want Caltech sperm donors. . .

----

the existential issues, and time to spend with them.

here I still lose self in not so helpful patterns but not as much as in SD.

the time to wonder "what to do?", to read, sit, wander, welcome.

[also: reading re: astronomy/astrophysics, "biology" of the entities of the universe. . . In the CalTech journal _E&C_]

_Magic Mountain_, a helpful, relevant text, man free to do nothing [but living in a social routine/supportive social structure], questioning stillness vs. engagement/activity. Addressing origins of intense[/transcendent] life, intense spirit, of experience of flow of time, of nature of mental occupation. "nothing is more abhorred than dead spirit"

realizing I offer a spirit dead to the projects/life activities of many I know--even Mike, Taylor, sd perm friends, even, maybe to the skills people I [may] meet tomorrow. . . Not entirely. And Mike, I gather, understands.

But a spirit not dead to the experience of "what now?"

---

Now I can return to _MM_? Now I can sit still? How much will what I've written bounce around/be reconsidered?

---

Peace,

Ballona

2008-11-11-1600

I stayed in the spot Mike told me about (near Marina del Rey) all of Sunday. Hardly moved. Monday, walked up Ballona Creek bike trail, went up by west LA College (another good camp spot), then walked quickly crosstown/north to meet Taylor, another friend from the spring origin skills gathering and previous editor of LA permaculture email newsletter. Much of that day I was still, reading _Magic Mountain_.

Spent Monday night at Taylor's, now I'm in the Santa Monica Mountains, above Will Rogers State Park, near where there once was a Nazi camp that got shut down just after Pearl Harbor, Taylor said.

Currently sitting in an old carob and olive orchard eating too spicy garbanzos, rice, celery, beet greens (scavenged), sweet potatoes, potatoes, bit of turnip, rutabega, parsnip. Some eye (/all orifice) flies are here.

Been pondering what Mike's message for me may be.

---

Don't know.

Ethan Hughes (Haul of Justice, etc.) comes to mind. Also does another guy who went to live among Amazonian indians and has stayed.

---

Well, I've been learning LA. Doesn't seem to be something to be afraid of. It's beginning to appear to have many advantages over San Diego.

It's creeks all appear to be culverted/cemented in. . . but they all appear to have bike trails along their length (nothing comparable in SD), along which it is a different world: water flows, people are not in cars. Even saw a family go by on bikes, somewhat professional looking, with an extra-long trailer carting four of those large Rubbermaid bins with a pushbroom laid on top.

Once one accepts the flow of cars--possible perhaps because the exhaust isn't so bad or is blowing the other way--they almost seem just another part of the world, no more obnoxious than anything else. The world of the walkers and bikers is a separate one--sparsely populated in much of LA. We outside the cars inhabit a sort of limbo/lymphatic system, as cars rush by, confined to arteries.

It does seem somewhat easy to get away from them and I tend to hang out in places where traffic is often only a distant presence.

Especially when I take whole days to stay still, to not move, to not encounter them, to read.

---

Actually sat near a highway off-ramp for an hour waiting for Taylor, and found peace there, and watched an old mango and coconut seller, and wounded vets walk the rows of cars stopped at the light as the sun set over the walls of the highway. Wilshire and Sepulveda, SE corner.

---

Did not get far pondering Mike. Being with his family at a mealtime, understand his verbal charisma, maybe how it got helped to develop. Non-stop high-volume verbal play.

I'm about as competent speaking as I've heard the US president to be, if that. . .

Mind slow as molasses?

Unless we're talking about something I've thought about?

---

That's it. May hike north over hills to ride a 'Metroliner' into town. May just sit here and read. I like to see where the trains go. And here it costs half of in SD (sort of).

Mike says it's never oppressively smoggy.

Peace,

colostrum, receding gums, world my camp

2008-08-11-1932
I may as well write to avoid forgetting where I am.

I went out to Santee on Weds (-$2.50) and camped within 400 meters of the trolley stop. Cooked, enjoyed a good meal, read some _Magic Mtn_. Got up early, rode trolley (-$2.50) to SDSU, walked to Gann's, dropped off electric toothbrush and another device, like a waterpik, but it goes on the faucet, uses no batteries--forgetting the brand name. And picked up pattern to make the pants.

Caught bus downtown (-$2.25), got 0830 greyhound/crucero to Long Beach (-$17). Made some copies (-$0.75), walked to Coast Guard, chatted with some of the others there (first real mariners I've got to talk to!), submitted MMD app (-$140). Wondered what to do. Sat still where there was glimpse of harbor.

Caught series of light rail lines to Pasadena Memorial Park stop (-$3.75). Walked to Rose Bowl, cooked, enjoyed good meal, read _MM_, got call from Mike M.

[NB: greyhound to Long Beach is better than Greyhound to LA: stop is near Anaheim st light rail stop. Easy to get to LAX, Union Station. . . LA GH stop is an inner circle of hell and surrounded by outer circles. . . No light rail nowhere nearby.]

I'd been by the Rose Bowl before on a visit to Path to Freedom (.com?) on interdependence day 2006 (July 4).

Next day, went to library, then made it out to Marina Del Ray and found Mike and family!

Today walked to Santa Monica. Visited Mike selling dates at farmers' market. Saw Emily, wearing a google shirt, who I'd met in the *being* group at Univ. of Washington (only remembered where later--not sure she remembered me. Remember writing, perhaps, that she gave gordon and I hugs. . . but maybe that was the cellist?).

Told the Organic Pastures sales manager in next booth about JM's documentary "the real truth about raw milk". He broke out a mac and got a youtube sample right there. Later, asking about what was colostrum, he gave me most of a 1 pint sample ($10/pint).

Standing around by Mike selling dates watching all the people was where I saw Emily.

Mike and I later caught bus to the Venice Learning Garden. He showed me primitive skills stuff. I then walked to a camp spot he recommended, where I am now, doing the usual.

_Magic Mountain_, by the way, is well addressed to my question to Bill: how do you find joy in doing the same routine for so long. . . The sort of answer: you don't: variety is important to preserving our sense of time and our sense of being alive. The more radically one's situation changes, the slower time goes--or the more time seems to have passed when one looks back. So years as a child generally seem longer (richer?) than years as an adult in peacetime.

I'm sure there's much more going on in the novel and in life than that.

Felt somewhat sure I'd see someone I knew from the past today. Walking on beach from MDR to Santa Monica, and 3rd St, is sort of like walking around Battery Park or nearly anywhere else in Manhattan, subway especially, a cultural epicenter/nexus?

Whatever your culture (even anarchoprim/neobeduin) you'll go through those spots at some point?

babble.

Looking forward to more _Magic Mountain_. Pasadena may be a bit nicer spot for me to hang out--may return there tomorrow or next day. There is a primitive/origin skills gathering over there on the 3rd sunday, 11/16, Mike says. I plan to be there.

May still go sailing with someone, but my 7knots crew resume may still be too odd, though I toned it down a bit.

4-6 weeks until the MMD may be mailed to Gann's house.

Then need dental letter (no work needed), three character refs, to finish application.

At the Coast Guard REC I met a young cook who had been to the Paul Hall School!


Yeah, I think my teeth/gums may now be my weak point--in terms of living the way I do.

And having this blog may turn off some captains from contacting me.

So what to I write about teeth here? Was thinking I might shut down public access to this.

Well, I'll leave it at that. Health is important though. . . Nearly primary, but after *meaning*.

(Some of) The World Is My Campground

Peace,

[note that coming to LA meets condition of being one of my fears. For someone who plays hot lava with cars. . . who walked up a hill in Vista one day in the mid '90s and saw the LA-area smog grey all around. . . the suburb hell . . . Well I'm here!

Peace,
2036]

principles

The plan was to go to Long Beach, turn in the Coast Guard forms, camp out and/or visit Mike M. Perhaps stay away for the holidays.

Not to happen?

Laying on sofa looking out large-hot-tub--sized window, slim strip of skyline with a Mexican mountain in it, planes landing, floating over my toes, taking off to the left of my wrist, which is raised, holding this.

Read Alex Wilkinson's (?) book about Poppa Neutrino.

Getting route to Long Beach REC, logged on, read aboud suicidal GM Indian farmers--100,000? 10,000? 100 per month--I remember that.

Read about issues in merchant mariners' careers on GCaptain blog.

It is cool outside.

Poppa Neutrino--a caricature, an extreme manifestation of what I could be, helps me see a part of me, will?, more clearly.

At the moment, I do not want this element.

I want to ask the opposite of his question.

How can I live least remarkably? How can I spend the least time with indecision, uncertainty, troubling questions? What direction requires the least risk, commitment, effort, initiative? What brings me closest to the mental life of the large pine tree framing the right/west edge of the large window?

How long could I lay still?

May/probably will return to Grandma Ann's house. Will get the pages telling my fortune that Chef Jem copied for me from _The Secret Language of Destiny_, walking by the Enchanted Garden.

Saw Mariah yesterday, strong dose of attention, engagement, love, me unsure, burbling mind, breathed with steps, got to beach, got to library, got the book, the thought-churn, what did that, what does she ---, had subsided.

What's her name? Byron Katie? What happens if you let yourself go, fall, all the way? Lucky me: eventually my dad comes, moves grandma ann out to TN? The house I'm stuck in is sold. Maybe I go to TN and live in woods there.

Vision of the least remarkable (Neutrino style): the developmentally disabled on a Camphill farm, or, even less, in a Lemon Grove group home, taken to the Kroc center to exercise, wipe counters, windows.

Making no effort beyond a certain minimum to alter/affect any circumstance which occurs. Not accepting/taking responsibility. Needing prodding to move at all.

So, it's a game with the mind: what is the least movement, action necessary? How slowly can one move? What is the least?

----

did think about the monastery again.

----

principles. Mariah, where is this talk coming from?

It's just a sensing, a coming from directionless but past-informed stillness.

like neutrino.

Peace,

----

Foil Jake has arrived, the yardworker I am not. Follows me from one grandma's house to another, does physical, social labor for pay. Friendly, a good guy.

----

Playing in the cycles. The only criterium is in own mind as affected by nearby others.

The day proceeds. Can I go out and exercise? First cycle. If no, stay, read, eat until can.

then, walk, at the least, incorporating tasks, such as, walk somewhere to apply for work.

then read, sit still, eat, some or all of that.

----

Grammie is having to tell my story on the phone, ". . . not gone to Long Beach."

----

If I were to go, it would be first thing, which is why not today, was finishing the book.

----

writing/not writing, part of the cycle too.

----

What pushes me away from staying here, and from staying at gann's may contunue to do so. So, who knows, may be headed to LB 0830 tomorrow. This may be a feint, as with my finally crossing the border.

----

may go tomorrow, return same day? Avoiding camping out? Not knowing where I'll sleep? Newness? Long dark cold?

the gCaptain blog post just reminded me that the mental questioning/dissatisfaction, uncertainty about direction just continues indefinitely

and sure, in the monastery too? [except that their focus should be to help contain and manage that]. So back to stillness, until I'm moved.

peace,

love, compassion

Returned _eat, pray, love_, did not read whole thing, but did want to note the mention of god as love, and of living from the heart.

Related, YES! magazine emphasizes compassion. The kids in the old painting cried as the adults watched as the bird died to demonstrate creation of a vacuum. A kid cried because a dry leaf he was holding broke.

Writers can exacerbate ailments of the mind. Reading David Foster Wallace, who killed himself this year, reading Elizbeth Gilbert, considering the effects of writing here, all these bring that to mind.

The quality of Thomas Mann vs. Wallace vs. Gilbert vs. Tolstoy vs. Merton. Vs. TNH.

Writing here to sort of note a point of lack: love, live from heart. . . Writing here may add to sense of lack in reader. . . Reader could wonder who these people are, wish she knew.

Another way to take this: as pointing to possibilities--your/my mind (not heart?) comes here seeking more engagement or helpful / interesting [/ novel] suggestion.

If I want more love, may look into _Learning True Love_ (sister chau ngiem [sp?]).

I am walking through a somewhat somber space these days. A lonely howling dog. A [generally] silent, shuffling, hard of hearing old man alone in a huge house with not a lot to do. Airplanes roaring overhead. Many cars driving on much pavement. Knowing there's another (young very young) old person alone in a medium house with not a lot to do. And many others.

Then there are people like Liz Gilbert and John McCain running around making tons of news. The old people watch about it on TV. I read about it.

This is a special space. I have escaped some of the energetic rushing around. I can be like a DF Wallace character and sit in one place all day, day after day [in my case], as the sun and shadows move about the room. I could stand by a road touching a post, waiting for my mom to return even if she never does.

I've walked away from birthdays, holidays, endearing expressions, tradition. [not entirely, not resolutely, only from what I don't feel, or from what I find unhelpful. I even seem to be walking away from activist friends, permaculture, a plant teacher, for similar reason/feeling.]

There is still love there. How odd is that?

I haven't walked away? There is love from/with the others who love no tradition, who honor no commitment? [who honor no mass behavior even if it be self-preserving? and for the greater good?]

----

read a little, write a little,

peace,

starting, may not stop [prfrmatv spch]

[18:43 working on this again, after dinner.
{Will I return to this and send it? Why?}
@16:29 was caught in re-reading, conversing-with-self mode when I hit:
"----

hygeine, cycling

----"
that released me, and I could leave it, made it home by 1700. That is the performance in "prfrmatv sp(ee)ch". I began to look at _Eat, Pray, Love_. . .

{the neighbor's dog, lonely, howling, whining, suffering, barking <<it's more peaceful in maid's room downstairs. Planes quieter too. Upstairs light may excite him/her.>>}

The considered title for this post:

terrible mind --> beautiful mind

Carolyn of the sifter/craig's list and of la jolla fantastic(?) frisbee has the former as her sig ("the mind is a terrible thing"). It stopped me a while the first time I read it. It seems to sum my attitude ever since I learned from TNH:

"Breathing in, I calm my body. Breathing out, I smile"

Wow, my mind is running like a maniac. I/my mind is making me miserable.

So, a recent (half-aware) theme has been: let the mind do all its crazy stuff. Let it. Follow it. Enable it {better: smooth its path}. Watch it and wonder why. Where is the goodness, helpfulness in this cycling, restlessness, frequent change of focus of the mind?

----

Here's some other speak-of-the-mind I scribbled while walking back:

{my job is to read YES! magazine} (intended for a particular spot)

{Do the least you need to do to cycle the mind so you can be content staying still/moving little.}

<<also (not while walking, but in the time since last posting) there was a concern/imagining about economic collapse-->>

{You may plan great movement, pretend to be preparing for great movement, yet never need to actually move.}

{Cutesy-- avoiding right livelihood/larger self?}

on to the old: (temporal collage/conversation between slices of time)

the substantial, caring, compassionate people never self-stimulate like this? Merton did? There is an other-focus. Merton did write for others. Only his journals perhaps like this. Peace--]

A new adventure. I'm in Point Loma. Laying on warm asphalt in the shade. [Sitting cross-leggéd.] On the grounds of a school.

Let many thoughts go since last written post. There is a quality in not writing. {in not having written.}

Mental hygeine. Vs engagement. One brings to mind rinsing, washing, cycling. The other, focus.

Met with mom. First time in nearly three years. Would be three years in January. I am her son. I saw anew who I am and who I've been. What I reproduce.

Avoiding self-critical reflex: the reflex to criticize self as inhuman, lobotomized.

[we had good fun, and a day at the beach like I've not had since I was a little kid (and a walk through her memory in OB, where she and dad lived before/after I was born), and just today I got _Eat, Pray, Love_ from the library. She recommended it. Had a good time attempting to explore/ explain issues related to monkhood/spiritual practice/creativity to grammie, mom, mom's friend, thanks to mom's friend's interest--was thinking of doing the two weeks at the monastery before committing self to job/mariner school.]

There were some "lobotomized Colin encounters feeling Mom" moments though. The resolution of them feels to me. . . to have ended well (nvr mind the grmr).

Really let things go--no weights, not lasting in the pool. Sort of catering to the smallest impulse. Want out? Let's go. [watching the cycling--how long do I need to be away before I can return and continue. Attempting to check in with larger self--the half-hour monastery bell-ringing, the leaving house to exercise every (early!!) am, pm (go to sleep.), regardless; awareness re: eating. The larger self that cares for body-- the self caring for the future, the longer(, wider, stiller, ever-) view, rather than the moment's engagement.]

Let's go.

And some days/nights mindless eating and probably reading was an issue. I watched "self"(?) cease to exist--all that was there was a strange sense of not being nourished, wondering what to eat.

Think it was lack of fat--the visit with Chef Jem (up to 4oz raw butter/day, 3pints/day raw goat milk +bee pollen +spirulina--see last photo in recent album), +kombucha, +kefir, helped. Things that will satiate, was avoiding: the whiting, and the parmesan/romano too salty for me to want to eat. So using the hiking staple: cream cheese. Is cultured, and --

----

very nice day here

----

Let the temp app go, haven't followed up. Let it go.

All that I was following was the MMD app--Merchant Mariner's Doc. Physical Monday, -$60. 8-10 passport photos (6 for SIU app) -$50. Up to Long Beach REC (regional exam ctr) Tuesday (-$140 mmd app, -$20 bus fare), and Mike M. is up there, so why not stay.

Thinking I'd stay in mts, but remembered the coldness, darkness--so maybe by the sea. Santa Monica?

Remembering the soloness. Why wander around alone?

{remembering the mad eating of free, unbought bread. . . how did mind forget? Did it?}

Now, there are many crewing opportunities. Found the Latitude 38 list. Big baja cruise left SD 10/27. Let them go.

A famous sailor, BJ Caldwell (briefly youngest solo circumnavigator--he didn't tell, I searched on his email), is delivering a yacht to Hawaii, leaving SD within a week.

A trimaran leaving Morro Bay for SF within two weeks. And redpill too, and so on.

----

I called 211 searching for public health clinics for the physical. Later I thought to call the Maritime Institute (local training school) for referral to someone familiar with the coast guard forms.

----

Read _Spartina_, about a guy who makes his living from the sea in Rhode Island, and about his lover, and the boat he built, and a hurricane. It and _Gone With the Wind_ were nearly the only real {as in paper} non-Harlequin books left. Got several more ebooks: _Magic Mountain_, Obama's, _GWtW_, David Foster Wallace, _Atlas Shrugged_. Started _Magic Mtn_--already deeply relevant, memorable: time is Lethe, and so is change of place. And DFW is good/great.

----

hygeine, cycling

----

Read much YES! Magazine before that. Remembering the sidebar on "what if I don't have a calling?": hogwash. But just begin where you are with whoever is there. Not separate from them--you're not--.

----

My Point Loma grandma is off to Salt Lake City to (?) care for ailing (black sheep? smoker) sister. I'm here with grandad.

Packed up as if leaving for weeks this morning. Just me and pack, ready to go.

Was hard, but not as hard as before, to do that.

Ordered pattern and cloth to sew lightweight pants: green chili pepper #128, per jardine's rec.--see del.icio links/_beyond backpacking_. -$28: 8' grey (nylon) quilt cloth, -$9: pattern, elastic.

----

Updated 7knots crew profile: it is linked to from j9k.org/cv. Looked at other profiles there with photos: a genius {very accomplished, 10yrs my junior} engineer/artist guy is just below me.

Trying not to be self-critical, but think my profile just expresses a sort of oddness, unease: You're not here to get a crew position/temp job/whatever, Colin, but to use the applying as a vehicle for some sort of expression/discovery? Which has an effect on concept of self, life, propriety, in general?

{I really just want to be homeless? To call 211, ask for housing help, food, to be able to say I have no address, to apply for foodstamps? Do I really? Is that my calling? Which I've been avoiding?}
----

There may be a fundamental misdirection in making profiles like that, in writing here. The photo should not be of me, but of what I'm looking at, looking for.

"to be of service": the photo is of the ones I will serve.

"right livelihood": the description is . . .

----

Returning to the ???? {quality, way of being} of not writing. Grandad, sort of, I'm serving. It is 4pm. An hour to walk back. An hour to prepare for dinner. I nearly never eat with Grandma Ann, but here it is part of the routine. GAnn won't let me do anything? {yes, I could be a gentleman/insistent once in a while, maybe. Easier to stay out of way?} But here, a salad to make, rice to cook, we have jobs to do. Gann won't turn off the TV. But here there's a fancy TVless dining room with a view of the airport/skyscrapers/some of the bay where the sailboats, some old schooners?, some $$$ racers, were swiftly sailing today. And my grandma who's exasperated with my grandad (caregiver marathon fatigue?) is not there.

----

{the dog is not at} peace,
2017
peace,
2036
peace,