Times Three

We are all born unfinished. Like the seed, caterpillar, stone, we are un-hued and naturally require the work that pulls, polishes, and sets.

I witnessed my Son in his frailty; a Time Traveler arriving in our temporal reality. Me being his host, welcome young Man to this trip we'll call your life.
I remember you speaking to me, telling me how draining it was to arrive; how it was easy to sleep, to stay between both worlds. but the love we shared served as your guidepost. the lamp you followed to your corporeal beginnings came from our heat, my voice, the touch.

I witnessed my Woman in her distrust; a Goddess walking this earth. You challenged me with your myriad tasks. All designed to destabilize me, all designed to prove that I was worthy of you to open up. And I did. I remember you telling me how you didn't want to be hurt again. How it was too much to let go. But we danced. Slowly, with soft steps, and with a rhythm that is uniquely our own.

I see my Self in my unfolding; Stumbling through the basics. Bopping my head on the obvious. Having to re-learn that "Yes, Abner, you're back in school." "Yes, Abner you need to learn this in order to move on." "No, Abner it doesn't matter if you've done this in the past, you need to do it now." I look for shortcuts and ways out, only to remind myself that there is no other path for me. No other space for me. No other moment than the one I create/embrace/accept.

Untitled

If...

... you give yourself...

... permission...

... to open up...

... you may find...

... that what you feel ...

... is an overwhelming desire to

Love All

...those that came...

...those that left...

...those that stayed...

... we all have room inside of you...

... we all fit ...

in an interdependent causality that moves in all directions

at all times

But...

its too much

too allow yourself to intertwine with the ineffable. to dissipate, dissolve, not cease, but simply, Be.

When what we all long for are the moments of validation. The intimacy of sharing. The dissolution of our very selves; Every fiber, every atom, resonating with the simple fact that we are all truly and deeply intertwined.

El Tropico Nightclub Pt. 2

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One fine evening, in the hallowed, but crusty halls of El Tropico Night Club (The famous East L.A. haunt that specialized in hookers, transvestites, cocaine, and ghosts. "Broken Hearts & Broken Noses")two of my favorite patrons strolled in. One was a retired cop that worked security and had his own mechanics' shop (from his garage), the other was a Cab Driver. They were always quite jovial and had a great knack for telling stories and chiming in with each other. This particular time Jorge, our Cab Driver, walked looking like he had seen death itself. Angel, our retired cop, had his arm around him and looked like he could barely contain his smile. They sat at the Bar:

Me - Hey Man, que traes?

Jorge - Nuthin Man. How you been?

(Turning to Angel)

Me - Sup with your boy? Looks like su vieja se lo madreo!

Angel - Nah Bro. It's better than that! (Laughs)

I pop open a couple of beers (the usual) as they settle in

Jorge - (staring at the bottle) I can't fucken believe it.

Angel - (to me) You see, Jorge here is suffering from what us cops call "shock"; A near death experience; you know, "shaking hands with Jesus"

Me - (to Jorge) Not Jesus, my cousin, but the Man upstairs?

Angel - The one and only! (pats Jorge in the back) you'll make it through this homey.

Jorge - It wasn't my fault...

Me - Relax Man... What Happened?

Angel - (holding back a smile) ...well I don't know about that...

Jorge - (To Angel) Cmon! I just did the usual. (turns to me) I was doing my rounds; you know, hitting all the bars and clubs looking for fares. Its easy money to take a some drunks home. And sometimes I pick some hot Mamacitas!

Angel - (Laughs) ...right...

Jorge - Hey Man! I'm telling you I was just following the game plan! I picked up this old lady, over at Luminarias. She was sloshed! I figured: easy money. I'll take her home the long way, listen to some tunes, and ask her for a nice tip.
(Takes a swig of beer)
...Damn...

Angel - Tell em what she said first.

Jorge - This old lady sits down in the back, and before I can ask where to she says: "All Men are Idiots"

Angel - "Bola de pendejos!"

Jorge - Yeah, so I get her address and we're on our way. I tell her "you shouldn't be so hard on us, some of us out there our good catches..."

(Jorge takes a sip)

Jorge - She starts sighing.

Angel - ya vez las novelas...

Jorge - She says: "Hay Mijo... if you only knew... just what I've gone through..."

Me - ...and she starts crying...

Angel - ...I'm tellin you...

Jorge - Yes! So now I've this drunk old lady just bawling in the back. And I'm trying to calm her down.

Me - Of course you are! Damsel in distress...

Angel - More like Gramsel!

Jorge - Anyway, I'm saying stupid shit like "Oh, it's gona be alright" and "maybe you're better off without him"

Angel - Bad Idea...

Jorge - She cries even louder when I said that! "How could you say that to me?!" she says.

Angel - Real bad...

Jorge - So now I'm apologizing! I'm like "Senora I didn't mean it." and "I'm sorry." and all that.

Me - Ah, my favorite line with my Ladies: "I'm sorry..."

(Me, Jorge, and Angel together) "...it was all my fault"

(clink beers)

Angel - Wait, it gets better. Go on bro.

Jorge - I don't know how I got into this mess, but we go back and forth all the way through. Till finally, I'm at her house.

(Angel is again holding back a smile)

Jorge - I tell her the fare and she says: "Ok, young man. Pay yourself." I looked in my rear view, figured maybe she was gona hand me her purse, I don't know. Oh, man... She's leaning back on the seat. I'm like "What?" and she starts pulling up her skirt! "I said, Pay Yourself! Be a Man. get back here, and pay yourself!"

Angel - Yeah! Get to it Son! (Laughing)

Jorge - I said "Ma'am I'm sorry, but you've had to much to drink. I just need my fare and I'll be on my way.

She says: "What are you? some kind of faggot?!"

... she pulled up her skirt...

...oh man...

(Me and Angel) - ...oh man...

Jorge - "Maricon!" she says. I had to get out of the car and open her door. She wouldn't leave! Just kept saying it: "Maricon! Maricon!"

Jorge stoped and just stared at his beer bottle for a while. Angel and I stared at each other with ear to ear smiles till finally we both broke into guffaws. Angel patted Jorge in the back a few more times. Jorge smiled and shook his head.

Me - Guess you could have told her the usual again...

(Jorge, Angel, and Me) I'M SORRY. IT WAS ALL MY FAULT!

Hold Your Attention Sir!

Disconcerting dynamic of our current times: We've been accustomed to blurb like living. Where our attention is only capable of accepting seconds worth of clips. All popular media is designed around this frame. Whether its news, music, TV, or any other medium, it is all compressed around a tight, minimal attention style.

Perhaps our need for streamlining and efficacy has gotten the best of us. As we've seemed to embed into our day to day an inability to focus, pay attention, remain silent. We are educating ourselves into natural states of attention deficit!

It was said Bodhidharma spent 9 years in a cave, meditating, listening to the ants scream.

Giving himself the time

to unfold



and yet we bombard ourselves with enough static and noise to fill a lifetime of unfulfillment. We create urgency and hurry that drive us deeper into urgency and hurry that drive us deeper into...

Note how we actively seek out continual distractions. Note how quickly we end one task and look for another to fill the space. Note how we cannot simply walk and contemplate without dialing a friend or playing a tune. Have you ever seen anyone simply standing on the street thinking? I mean one who wasn’t homeless. It is not an easy thing to be solely with oneself, yet it is a glorious experience and an exercise in conversation with your soul. The silence may seem like a threatening place, but it is from where you spring forth. You need to go to the point of discomfort, delve into it and find there your revelation; Because it is in the engagement with your shadow, your silent self, that your nature, purpose, and actions can be revealed. Besides, staring at the sun will make you blind. Next time, notice how shadows bring out the beauty and nuance of an object.

Some of us happen to be quite uncomfortable with silence. Silence as reminder of our impending death; as time wasted in a “go get em’” world. If you’re not busy you must be doing something wrong. If the phone doesn’t ring you’re a loser. If you don’t have any emails this morning, other than spam, you don’t have a life. We long for constant validation and wallow in the implications of its repression. Hence silence is proof of failure. Inaction is an example of weakness. Not having validation is a clear sign that we are both unworthy and unwanted.

Let's re-evaluate the implications of silence: Embrace the silence that comes to you; better yet, actively look for moments of nothingness. Pure untouched emptiness. We have super saturated our lives with the constant noise, static, gibberish of the everyday in order to avoid the obvious. Have you noticed how quickly you fill your life with things “to do” from the moment you awake till the moment you sleep? Its no wonder you feel the overwhelming anxiety of not having “enough hours in the day”, when in reality, you are merely filling the voids in your life in order to avoid your responsibilities to yourself.

Pay attention. Its right there in front of you. You may be exhilarated to know that its coming. That its here. But do not confuse that with fear. Know that your task is to polish the mirror of your soul so that you may know, live and understand. And that, my friend is nothing to be afraid of, but rather, it is something to revere. It is the thing you have been waiting for.

Looking back at you.

Now.

Schrodinger's Cat or Why I'm Such a Fan of Kitty

Schrodinger's Cat is an illustration of quantum superpositions. It is a theoretical experiment that goes something like this:

You place in a sealed box a live cat along with a device that releases poison. The trigger to release that poison is a decaying atom. Now, the atom has an equal probability to decay or not. Which means the trigger and poison may or may not have been set off.

Without looking inside the box, is our Kitty alive or dead?



The moment of observation defines the result. In other words, you gotta look, to see what you got. Before the observation our Kitty exists in a Quantum Superposition. He's both alive and dead.

Kind of like flipping a coin. You wont know how it landed, till you lift your hand and take a look. But its not that the coin under your hand has a heads or a tails face up, but rather that the coin is in a nebulous cloud like state. The outcome is now tied to the moment you take a look. You are the deciding factor. you are the decider.

This is the unique position in which our learned men of science found themselves after delving deeper and deeper into the nature of existence and its building blocks. We can only imagine what an awkward moment it must have been for all our lab coated scientist out there when it began to dawn on them that they were actually affecting the very results they were trying to "objectively" unravel. So much for the aloof detachment of Science.

"Boy is my face Red!" said Dr. Schrodinger "What am I? a peeping Tom?!"

The crux of the matter is there are no sidelines for us. This is not a spectator sport. The myth that there exists objectivity in observation has been debunked. The key player is the Eye that opens the box. Lifts the hand. Sees.



If we continue with this premise, the part that becomes striking is not so much that we've stumbled upon the interconnectedness of the self to the universe (ask any Mystic), but rather, that the "moment of observation" is a way of describing a process that is ongoing. In other words: We are always looking, thereby creating and recreating the results of our world.

This is not a singularity, a one time event. The illusory feeling that we are at the whims of the winds of change that are greater than ourselves has been replaced by the knowledge of our unique participation in this drama. The co-creation of the universe occurs continually, incessantly, in a process of observation, gauging, and appreciation.

This is not a singularity.

This is an ongoing and eternal dance.




See also my other posts:

http://thepassionateheart.blogspot.com/2009/03/im-going-to-tell-you-some-stories.html

http://thepassionateheart.blogspot.com/2009/05/on-subject-of-contending-realities.html

On the subject of Contending Realities:

There was a quaint little restaurant on the North side of Chicago that specialized in Spanish style Tapas and flowing libations. It was owned by an Argentinian couple that had settled out of court after the wife was run over by an ambulance. A couple of million, as I understand it. Saturdays at "El Nandu" consisted of an open mic, singing, jokes, or whatever the brave and inebriated ones could drum up.

On this particular day, an older gentleman, in a tweed jacket and hat, the kind of man that can dance a good Tango, walked up to the mike and gave us a gorgeous acappella rendition of "Dos Almas". The ladies swooned and the men reminisced. It was melodic and had just the right touch of nostalgia. Afterwards the man made his way around the tables, drink in hand, talking about the good ol' days etc. When he came to our table we all doled out praises.




I said: "How come your not a professional singer?"

"I should have been."

"In Argentina there was a show that we would all listen to on the radio. It was one of those variety shows where they did skits, and had live music and such. I must have been no older then you. In my prime."

He puffed out his chest a bit, then continued.

"One of my biggest dreams, at that time, was to sing with a group. Like my hero Leo Marini and his Sonora Matancera. When he would come on the show I would always drift off and imagine myself as part of their group. Would believe that they announced a contest to tryout and maybe join his band?! They gave us very specific instructions on how to petition to audition. I think half of Argentina applied. They would announce winners who would then come to the studio and try out."

"I still remember the day they announced the winners. It was a Wednesday,and they played up the whole thing with music and everything. Leo himself announced the winners."

"And how I felt when he announced MY name as one of the contestants?!"

"I was thrilled. I was ecstatic. I knew I was going to walk in there and I would impress them and that I would be asked to join Leo and the band."

"I couldn't sleep for days. All I could think about was the big day. Wednesday."

"The day came and I took particular care to wear my best suit. I remade my bow several times, just to get it right. I even remember the bus ride down to the station; I stood the whole way because I didn't want to wrinkle my clothes."

"When I got to the station the I went right up to the security guard and presented myself: My Name is ________ __________ I'm here for the Leo Marini contest"

"He gave me a puzzled look. Then looked at his clipboard."

- "There's no contest today."

"But there is, and I'm in it. I won the contest for the singing today!"

- "Let me check"

"He went back and called someone. They spoke back and forth and he repeated."

- "I'm sorry, but there is no contest happening today or tomorrow. I don't know what you're talking about."

"...the contest! I'm in it. I don't want to waste any more time! I need to be upstairs!"

- "Look young Man. I cant let you in. There is no contest."

"I'm not leaving here until you let me in!"

"I was so agitated! Eventually, the shows Director had to come down and he re-explained to me how they've never announced any contests of the sort. He apologized for any confusion and thanked me for being a devout listener."

"I felt like the weight of the world had fallen on me. He must have seen it on my face because the Director and Door Man kept apologizing to me."

"I guess it was just a dream. I dreamt the whole thing up."

We all stopped and pondered this Classic Man's story. Someone at the table said that they should have let him up. Then someone else made a joke how we prefer him here with us. Classic Man simply smiled, shrugged and moved on to another table.

Then some drunk took the mike to make a joke about his wife and we all forgot about Classic Man...

Signs and Sadness

My family, on my father’s side came to this country from France. They quickly settled in central Mexico and became a well to do family in the small town of Zinapecuaro. After the war with France (Yes, Mexico had a war with France, it’s were the Cinco de Mayo celebration comes from), given that French weren’t highly regarded during that time, my family adopted the Flores last name.

Having white skin in Mexico was a guarantee of position and status. The dividing line of color and features made it easy to distinguish who was who. Although this presents the easy option to forgo any moral or conscious stance, when you’re on the European side, it certainly does not remove the tragic nature of the conquest. Nor does it remove the obvious subjugation of a culture and a people to the forced semblance of integration which really meant you were the one saddling my horse and shoveling the shit. My Grandfather who was raised by Indians, the caretakers, the dark skinned, felt the growing urge to even out the incongruous rules that made it ok for you to clean up after me, but not to eat at my table with me.

This was the beginning of the wonderful divide that is my family, my heritage, my unraveling. I shouldn't’t have much to worry about, cuz between you and me, the dice were rolled, and I came out whiter than my brother, whiter than most in my family. But the crux of the matter, for me, is my heart. My heart has been seasoned by the dusty streets. Mis tacos de perro. The earth drawn heart that is open, pulses, and drips slowly in the delicious agony of its sensitivity. The biggest subversion of the human spirit is not its divisiveness, but rather, its inclusiveness. The rebellion of the Indian was not to fight back, after all, it was a doomed effort. The Aztecs themselves, just one of the many conquered nations, had foreseen their collapse and had predicted it to the day. The Indian and the European were destined to meet. It had been seen as an unmistakable marker in the future of the Aztecs. The seers had long ago known of the calamitous days that would lead up to the arrival of the bearded men. Quetzalcoatl was returning; The feathered serpent that represents the unification of Heaven and Earth and which is emblazoned in the Mexican flag was coming back on this day to bring and end to the days that once were.

The signs were all around us as they led up to the portentous day when the bearded ones arrived. The comet that hovered over the city of Tenochtitlan which lit up the sky with its surreal glow for hours on end, immobile. The deformed human being, that wandered about the outskirts of Tenochtitlan, showing his dog like face and bulbous deformities in a gleeful dance of revenge. The knowledge, with the accuracy of the stars, that on Good Friday of 1519 Quetzalcoatl would return from exile to stake his claim to his land and his people. On that day, the Aztec sentries saw the massive sights of the Spanish galleons and the armored soldiers as they landed on the sandy beaches of Veracruz. There were negotiations and battles; Manipulations and coups. It was all part of the inevitable events of the “conquest.”

The true coup was not in the subjugation of the people or the destruction of a culture by some marauding Spaniards who were hungry for gold. It has been told time and again: The story of the conquest as a collision between contending cultures, worlds, philosophies. In this version, the two worlds are represented by the misunderstood enigmas that were Cuautemoc and Cortez. I offer you a different version of past events: The true coup was in the planting of the seed of the Indian heart within the souls of this new way that is our modern world. My Grandfather would always say “I have the heart of an Indian.” This was no lie. The Heart of an Indian is that incisive part of us that does not use words but enjoys silence. It is the part that removes its shoes to walk in the dirt. The part that does not run for cover when it rains. The Heart of the Indian is the heart of the Earth. The pulsating certainty that comes when I feel the Wind God stroking my face, letting me know just how I’m doing and what’s in store for me next. Anyone who understands sacrifice and loss will know exactly what I mean. The Sun still rises for us, We are still here.