Bareback Meditation

      Today, on a moment's notice, I drove my man an hour and a half west to drop him off at a 10-day silent beginners Vipassana retreat. That's right, for ten days, he will be sitting in meditation approximately ten hours per day, without being allowed to speak, exercise, stretch, write, sing, dance, or masturbate (though I don't really know how they could enforce that last one). Other than writing, that is an extremely long time for him (or anyone) to abstain from those things, and I commend him for his quest forward, to ease his cluttered mind, and to move himself closer to being the man he wants to be.
    The Vipassana retreat is by donation only, and you cannot donate until you have completed at least a 10-day course. The whole camp is run this way, with teachers, servers, and staff all being unpaid Vipassana students who are repaying their gratitude to the meditation technique through service. As he was preparing to go, we read all the info we could find on their site -- with some strangely irrelevant FAQs.
  Topping the list, was Why is the Course 10 Days? to which the response came that many different lengths were attempted and they found the 10 days being the most complete, and doable while still immersing the new meditator adequately to understand and use the technique in the future.

  While working at Club X, one of my "regulars" (meaning I saw him once every two weeks or so), was a lovely 70-something year old gentleman, soft spoken, with shiny eyes, and beautiful crows-feet that belied years enjoying the great outdoors and smiling into the sun. He always wore a floppy straw hat with a beautiful swath of fabric tied around it. We would speak at length about the status quo mentality in the country, and travel (which we both loved), and about the universe's plan, and how there are no coincidences.

  One day, he was telling me of traveling at length in Asia with some friends, and encountering a very enlightened soul whom he had heard spoken of by other friends. This stranger to him invited him to a Vipassana monastery in Tibet, and at first, our man thought it was silly, too difficult, and undesirable. As his journeys continued, he ended up temporarily parting ways with his group of travel buddies, and catching a ride cross country with a different group of hippies who picked him up on the side of the road in China. As it turned out, they were heading to the very same Vipassana centre, and at this he resigned to his fate and went along. At the time (sounded like the 70s from what I can recall), students stayed at the centre for months and months in silent meditation and work amidst the devoted monks.
  Our man was so taken by the silence, the beauty and the technique, that he returned many times for many years, and continued his practice at home in Australia, meditating daily for the following 30-some years.

  After his meandering story about his journeys into enlightenment, he asked me where the gay porn was and I pointed him around the corner to the section he desired. A few minutes past, I can only imagine in deep meditation about which movie to purchase, and again he returned to the desk to ask for my help in finding the bareback, twink porn. I came around the corner and we perused the section together, combing the racks for condom-free young men fucking, much the way Vipassana meditators comb their bodies for Senkaras. At last, we found two possibilities and in the end the film "Bareback Mountain", with its young supple Czech boys, its playful spin on the groundbreaking gay blockbuster, and its guarantee of nary a condom in sight won our enlightened, gentle septuagenarian over, and he was able to purchase the porn of his fancy, and leave the store a lighter man, smiling into the sun.

I'll let you know what parallels I can draw once my man is home from his 10 day course.
But I can bet that even if his mind is clearer, his loins will be soon to follow.

Habit, Routine, and Moving Forward

I was face-painting at my high school's Dry Grad this past Saturday, and in my kit I have a blue recipe box, that I was taught to use once at a Solo Show writing workshop, that has index cards with ideas. I keep face painting ideas there to show those getting painted for inspiration about "what they want". I noticed in it a card that held the names and ideas of the people I had encountered when I worked at Club X. The first name on the back of the card was Colin, and the second Darryl. Darryl was the boss. Colin was a longtime employee -- suspended in the patterns of an unconsciously mediocre life. I loved and cared for him dearly. Next to his name I have written " routines, the prince, e, cut weed".
  Literally every Friday after he finished work, for the past 10 years, Colin got off work, and walked the 8 blocks to The Prince in St. Kilda, had four pints of beer, smoked three joints (that were mostly rolled tobacco with little sprinkling bits of bud -- not enough to make up a quarter joint in my opinion...), flirted with the male bartenders,gossiped, watched people play pool, occasionally danced -- bobbing with tight hips, knees together. On Saturday, Colin woke up late, had brunch alone on his patio, got dressed, took half a tab of ecstasy at 2 hour intervals, and danced the night away, I neither know where nor how. Sunday, I think, was washing up day.
  On many occasions, I joined Colin after work, or he me on a Friday night. I enjoyed our connection, and friendship - from seemingly unconnected lives, needing nothing of each other but company, and enjoying whatever the other had to offer. Colin was a terribly nervous seeming man. He didn't stutter, but hunched in, with his hands holding each other close to his heart, or flopping about in front of him to make a point, which openly communicated his desire to become as invisible as possible. Occasionally, he would have a bender weekend, come in energetically reeking of shame, and endure the most horrific cystic skin outbreaks (requiring antibiotics) the following week(s). I forget what he would explain away the skin condition as, how embarrassed he was about it, and what caused it (which never had any link whatsoever to his recent indulgent escapade) but when it came down to it, I wished he would recognize the link and do something about it. Not about the behaviour, which is all one to me, but about feeling so deeply disgusted in himself for the behaviour. Instead, I sympathized with his physical pain, assured him it wasn't too awful, and that he was loved and cared for.
    My boss, Darryl, was (and is; I learn today that he's on FB) an obese, bald-headed, goatee-ed, motorcycle riding, teddybear of a man, who was a straight shooter, had learned to control a tempestuous spirit and had worked for Club X for many years, ascending to the rank of manager. He had a beautiful, sexual wife who immediately brings the colour burgundy to mind. He had Adult-Onset Diabetes, and continued to eat and drink (the same things everyday) in portion sizes equivalent to his volume. His legs were really bugging him. He wore compression socks and was dealing with painful ulcers on his leg, which shocked me one day to see -- the blotchy thick skin on desperate limbs -- as he displayed his chronic condition. But day after day, in he came, to sit in the booth and intake calories that were crying out for change.
   It was easy for me to see the patterns of these men's "stuckness". Yea. It's often easy for many of us to see where others are stuck, what they are doing that isn't working for them. I don't think it's often we come right out and tell the person (though maybe there are many who take pleasure in owning that duty), and if we did, we can expect the listener's ear is not primed for such an attack, and the message will be lost in the insult.
We have to be ready to change, through dissatisfaction, and already be asking the question. Then, the answer can appear.
   I say this, perhaps, as I am asking questions and waiting for my own answers. I am looking for the ways that I am stuck, and the little voice I so often repress, who is quietly crying out for help, needs some serious attention, a light to shine into the shadow, illuminating the closet. There are no killers here.
  Why am I cycling around, finding myself suspended, unable to really burst forward with the brilliance and potential I want to inherit as my gift to the world, my gift of purpose. Surely I'm not here to sit in a cold house, get high, dream about things that don't come to pass, feel lonely and disconnected, and have a visceral reaction to every time the phone rings.
  I know I love coming up with ideas and working towards them. I know I love research, and the outdoors, swimming, hiking, cycling. I know I love to play music and sing, to design, to play in the garden, to write.
Why do I put a million conditions before doing them? Why do I always feel "too poor" to do the things that would bring me the greatest joy? Why do I need weed to get through my life?

   Astrologically, we are at the start of a Grand Water Trine, which I know only enough about to say it is a time for our deepest emotional healing to come about. I recently met and connected with a talented, beautiful, and uproarious woman whose path and wounds comfortingly match my own. Something of those unhealed echos of the past is stirring, and I feel a bit like I have fallen in love with myself, motivated by how wonderful I think she is, and feeling like we are one and the same. It still looks like an awful lot of emotional work in front of me, but my sense of hope and positive outlook lead me to believe it will be easier than my worries allow me to believe. Regardless, I don't want to find myself in the same cold basement ten years from now, suspended in never doing what my heart truly believes I'm here for.