"I'll Have a Heineken with that Zen"

There is way too much negative energy in my life as of late. Not negativity necessarily (a lot of the negative energy is trying to be filtered out towards something good), but definite negative energy. Some of it is trivial (the perpetual swearing and hoarse dog-barking of my neighbors) and some of it not so trivial (the lives of my friends). But much of it is infused with negative energy. And I try not to absorb it, try to let it just run off me. But still it sits there. Like a thick wad of soap-scummed greased hair, it's plugged up all my shit. And nothing good has been coming in or going out lately because of it.

Most of this negative energy is seeping out from the things and people that I love so goddamned much that I think I've not even noticed that these people and things were leaking in the first place. Some of the leakage I understand. Some I don't. All of it I feel empathy towards, at least as much as I can, which is probably why I'm all clogged up as of late. Lack of caring and lack of compassion is like Draino and just lets all that bad shit slide straight on through. But I think because I do love and understand these things and people, I didn't even notice all that matted scum-ringed mess until I finally realized I was standing there, ankle-deep in my own filthy waters.

I have a tendency to listen listen listen and somewhere along the way, I think I started forgetting to speak. Started forgetting to speak, and started forgetting to listen to myself. A sad and accidental muting. And that's part of what's clogging me up as well. All these thoughts and feelings inside me that haven't been directed outwards in a long damn time. Lately I've been in a place where I rarely speak except to reverberate with echoes of listening. This is good. But this is also not good.

Yesterday, I realized that I've really gotta do something about this. Michfest will help, no doubt, but I'm gonna need something that'll start a bit sooner and be a bit more long-term and constant. A regular "cleaning of the pipes" one might say.

So last night, I went and did a bit of meditation/Pranayama down the street for 45 minutes. I sat with my body straight and centered, aligned, and tried to give it time to speak again and time for me to listen. It is terribly hard for me to quiet all these bass-drum, Harley-trembling, dog-barking energies rattling around me at all times, but I did my best. I stretched my body. I quieted it, and in the quiet, I listened. I remembered what it sounds like to hear myself breath. I remembered what it feels like to have the pulse in my stomach, so familiar, beating slow rhythms against my outspread palms.

But even then, in the quietest moment, the outside rocked in with a crash--a large decorative bronze plate fell off the wall mid-meditation, almost leapt off through the quiet, resounding with a flat gonging rattle against the floor. Everyone chuckled, the peace momentarily disrupted, like a reminder that this will take work and this peace is an achievement, something we all need to direct our energies towards.

At the end, we joined together with an exhaled, extended OMMMMMM. This is my favorite part of meditation--the intimacy of dozens of voices joined into one note on an exhale, a thousand breaths mingling into one to be inhaled again by everyone moments later, the sense of connection to one another, to the universe, with just one small drawn-out word, one trembling note that lays itself softly over all of us and then settles into quiet.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It is now raining outside! The first time in weeks. And it smells fresh and clean, like it could quickly and easily smear away these past few weeks of bone-dry heat and make everything new again. And in the distance, I can hear the thunder growling with the slow tectonic shiftings that come with change.

-------