Yesterday i failed a friend...or did i?

Okay, so yesterday at the end of the day I found myself mentally and emotionally exhausted. I had spent half the day with a friend of mine who from the moment I saw him was on some new shit. What I mean by that is that he was particularly difficult to deal with as he was in the throws of a bitter dispute with life. His space was reminiscent of the clutter and debris in the home of his spirit...his body lived in the same mess as his spirit.

I know this look, I have had it myself. I often have found myself in a deep depression where I can't seem to keep things around me clean. I remember telling my therapist once that I can gauge my level of depression by the amount of floor I can or can not see in my house. Lately there are pockets of disorder in my life as there are similar pockets of disorder in my spirit. Last evening was one of those pockets.

I should have seen the reading unfolding before me yesterday. I began to see the definition of Maat Tem Maat/Amen Tem Tchaaz (estrangement into youthful folly). The theme that reoccurs for me is that a failure to understand the intrinsic, interrelated true nature of things can and will cause a lack of rest, discord and internal disruption. The true gift though is in being able to see the growth potential in the situation, not simply the aimless ramblings of youth.

The reading signaled a departure in behavior that acknowledges and values the true law of Love...that all things are in balance and order. That no bad day is without a good one and that all things are interconnected for the good of all. Thus, the chaos in someone life that I witness is an opportunity for my own growth as well as for theirs.

Intrinsic in this reading of Maat & Amen is Heru and Geb. The will and the vitality. If I am to live the truth of Maat's law of Love I will have to make it a conscious decision, not simply because I know how powerful love is but because I know that none of what comes my way will harm me because of the great universal Justice that accounts for all deeds done, benevolent or malicious.

It is that peace that becomes disturbed during these moments of forgetfulness that creates this internal discord. That discord is what causes a lack of rest, a lack of comfort and a great disconnection from what keeps us vital and alive. Our vitality is connected to our ability to remain stable and at peace during the rapidly changing tide on the rivers of life.

SO>>>>>>>>> I've actually had to ask for my space back last night. I couldn't take anymore. I felt bad about it and I could tell my friend was taken aback at the fact that I told him to go home from my house. I think he might have been offended but that's just the estrangement at work, not seeing the interconnected nature of things.

Moving to Houston

Well, I have decided that I'm moving to Houston, Tx. Not for good, at least that's not what i think it's about today. I don't know though...I'm not sure what it's going to be like. I've been to Dallas to visit Toyia but haven't been to Houston. I have been having the hardest time getting out of NY though. I feel kinda stuck.

I think I'm afraid of these major moves. I'm kinda slow to move even though it's like my deepest desire. Let me clarify, I do NOT desire to leave NY. I am a NYer through and through....so I don't fear that I will never get back to NYC, I've just made so many moves before I kinda think I should get somewhere and get stable.

I know I can make a good life in Tx...hell, I can make a good life anywhere. Let's go for it, eh! Okay...post the New Year when I have some $$$ in my pocket I'll give it a go.

Linux Mornings

What an idea...wouldn't it be nice if your PC could not only tell the time but would know what types of things you would need it to do at various times of the day. For example, In the morning, I'd love to hear some music and have the news/weather and info playing.

I guess I could write a script for that so that come a certain time specific applications would launch with specific content but for the average user that's too complicated. There must be an easier way to code for the average user. What if there were a visual programming language that was based on icons rather than words. Almost like a lego set but with bit's of logic code represented visually.

I bet Linux could accomplish such a task, I know Apple tried to address this with their robot scrip creation tool but it seems to have gone no where...although they did roll it out. I wonder...not that I'm prepared to shift course but that's an interesting question. Development away.

Reading for Today

Where do I need to focus my attention as I move forward.

Geb Tem Maat

Nekhebet Tem Tchaaz

Auset Tem Maat

Inner Truth -> Dispersion

RE: School

Tehuti Tem Tchaaz

Asaur Tu Tchaaz

Inner Truth > Waiting (Nourishment)

Linux ROCKS!!! Blogging might just be easier

I realized that I don't like to login to a website and post things, I'd much rather stay local to my computer than having to go out to the wild wide web. Now I've worked on all platforms, Windows, MacOSx, Linux, Unix...various versions and releases of all.

I have to say that I'm impressed with this. I can stay hidden in the shelter of my home PC and still post to my blogs...etc.

Let's just see which of these applications work best though...

Until then...Big Love

New Linux Box

Ubuntu Linux running on my system now. Trying out some of these blogging applications. Let's see how this works

Buddha Black - Black, Gay & Awake

It is said that gatekeepers are so dedicated to the awesome responsibility of caring not just for themselves but for the world that they would sooner die at work tending their gate than leave it unattended and thus close a door to the otherworld. This type of awareness and acceptance is reminiscent of Buddhism. The compassion and resolve to give your life for others is a very common Medicine Buddha pratice, the master of healing. 

Interesting is the blue body of the medicine buddha, that gives him his most distinct characteristic. Blue with gold flecks, lapis lazuli. Having met the Baisajiah Guru thru Dagara cosmology I saw beyond simply and saw water, the Buddha of healing was the color of water. How appropriate that his message would be one of the peace and reconciliation required first in the mind in order for healing to occur. But in Dagara cosmology water is not only blue but black.

Black for the darker parts of our emotions, the deeper pain and anguish that is down in the deep part of our souls. The Yoruba call him Olokun, the spirits of the Africans that line the bottom of the ocean, the deep, deep grief and death. African-American gay and lesbian folk in particular but humanity as a whole must find the courage to dig down into the darkest parts of our grief and shame if we are to find healing. We must be dedicated enough to sit at our gate lest another door close on the world.

Why hasn't buddha been black? The original images of Buddha are very similar to Africans. I mean, Africa is on the other end of the Silk Road. Buddhism was a gift to me from my fathers mother who still at 92 and in the journey toward transition can escape the sufferings of this world in quiet meditation. Her lessons of giving, acceptance and detachment have been beacons for everyone who's met her, even the nuns she meditates with. Her life is an example of the power of diversity. 

One day, while in seminary struggling with my desire to succeed she called me. I was sitting at my desk at work and was as far from a conversation with my grandmother as one might imagine. It wasn't even 9am and she sounded alarmed. "I had a dream about you last night," she started, and it was a wrap from there.

"The leak is coming from inside." she would go on to tell me. That was the message from the very elaborate dream she witnessed. The dream in it's fullness is a private matter between my Grandmother and I but I thanked her and began the journey inside to find the leak. 

I am something queer. I feel as if I have stumbled upon a gift yet I was the one who left it and better yet, I was the one who created it. I asked for Spirit to show me and there, in my grandmothers dream Buddha went from blue to black. 

I had struggled with Buddhism in seminary, it seemed so passive. I felt as if I had been forced to detach myself from the suffering of the world as a result of the abuses I've endured but those lessons were there to teach me other things. The leak my grandmother spoke of is one that only I can conquer, no one can push me or force me into it. I had a lot to learn about Buddhism that reading was not going to give me.

Some 25 years earlier I had gone to visit my grandmother in her apartment in Brooklyn. When I arrived and made the usual rounds of hellos and greetings to the elders present I went looking for my grandmother. She looked like she was sleeping when I tried to tip out of her room and not wake her. She wasn't sleeping, she was meditating. She explained to me that the doctors had told her she had some sort of illness and being the RN in the family she knew how serious it was.

Her response was to go within. She was a devout Catholic woman and was known for giving away more than she seemed to have. She never complained and never fussed. She worked hard and gave herself fully. She was living a good life but realized that she needed to look further and choose Buddhism. I knew enough to not be lost in the conversation but I also knew that she was on a journey and I was watching the train pass through the station...or so I thought. I was already on the train, just sleeping.

So here I am, now trying to discover what being me means and I'm listening to my grandmother in one ear tell me about leaks coming from inside and in the other a trusted friend talking about men who are much like me sitting in service, just like my grandmother did, selfless. I saw a parallel.....

Perhaps the next Buddha is black and gay and living by the thousands in the Diaspora?