Did my "Shiatsu for friends and family" class today - it went quite well, had 12 people come by. Apparently that's the most so far for a workshop at the Well. Yesterday was Kagami Biraki at the dojo, special New Year's class - started with 1,000 punches and went from there. Yes, I'm sore. And that's not helped by still having my car window busted out (note to all: do not take your car to Russel Automotive for any sort of work) and having to crawl in from the passenger's side, since the driver's side door is all taped up.
Anyway, Happy Frickin' New Year. Here we are back at Zelda's.
exercise the first: a poem about re-inventing yourself
the start of every year we make resolutions
try to change
to reinvent ourselves
first must be the concept, the promise, that change is possible
that we are not stuck like this
the promise of impermanence
the promise of change
the inherent promise of death and decay
to take the scythe from Death's hand
and use it to cut a path
to reinvent myself is a divorce of sorts
from the person I was
a break-up, a letting go
a loss and a liberation at the same time
every new year's resolution is a harsh judgment
every new year's resolution is a recognition that the possibilities are endless
this year who will I be?
who can I be? who do I want to be?
who do they, teachers students bosses friends foes, want me to be?
where will I go? what will I do?
and how much of that is my choice -
is all this consideration meditation cogitation on reinvention just mental masturbation
or is there some illumination?
This year I will go places.
This year I will do things.
This year I will write words.
This year I will be the person who does these things, and I will be the person who sees where they lead.
exercise the second: from a received line, "there were 3 of us but now it's just me & I barely escaped"
there was past me future me and present me
there were three of us you see
there was the me I used to be
there was the me I wanted to be
but none of them were contemporary
looking back, I could not see;
looking ahead, I wasn't free
trapped and tugged in ways binary
pulled to the past, then yanked futurely
past and future would not agree
to leave me peace, to let me be
I barely escaped. how? cleverly.
knowing the fiction that is memory
loosing the tangled web of fantasy
I'm left with no one else to be but me
From later this evening: the seed of this one, the idea of the topology of love, came a few days ago. This is just a first cut:
if we could pull each other into our hearts
so that you could look out though my chest, through the tattoo that runs over my breastbone
and I could look out through yours, between your breasts
in this moment as our bodies intertwine and connect I believe it possible
we could pull each other through each other without intersecting ourselves
love is a topology beyond three dimensions
a pair of linked Klein bottles, each containing the entire universe, each containing the other
a finite surface with unbounded capacity