Y'dig?

When, at Kurt Hahn, in Brooklyn a couple of months ago we tried getting the students to raise their kundalini and put themselves in bandhan, it really didn’t work, they were looking at each other, embarrassed or even hitting each other with their arm actions. So mostly, we are keeping the meditation as simple as possible and it’s working.

However, in Kurt Hahn yesterday, there was a smaller group than usual, 12 or 14 in total, and we tried having them raise their kundalini and put themselves in bandhan, we did a meditation of the left channel, saying affirmations, as we had done the week before and the vibrations were noticeably stronger and the students went noticeably deeper.

We tried the same thing in Fordham Arts, there we had 14 students, two of whom had never meditated before, and again with the left-side meditation with affirmations, the result was the same, a much deeper meditation and the vast majority of students who in this case have only been meditating for a month, went noticeably deeper.

What does this mean? Probably that in a classroom situation, after a week or so we might experiment and see what happens in other situations.

“Know thyself” is supreme wisdom; but how can we know ourselves? Is it a mere intellectual knowledge that we want? Modern psychology may explain a good many of the workings of the mind and make interesting and helpful guesses; but this is the study of the mind as an object. How can the mind be known as a subject, except by experience? We all know different values in our daily life: the difference of inner life when the routine of daily tribulations, great or small, makes us feel that we’re not really living, or when we hear a symphony of Beethoven, or read Shakespeare, or Dante or the Upanishads,  if we can read or listen; but can we know what allows us to be conscious of our own consciousness? Can we know the essence of our life which allows us to live and to feel and to think? If we did, we would then know ourselves, our Atman (AW. Spirit), we would know God. We could then know, even as we know that we are alive, but with far greater intensity, that there is a centre within us which gives us that oneness which we call consciousness and that can be one with the ONE, the invisible link that gives the unity of our little lives and is the oneness of this vast universe.

That is the great adventure and the great discovery. No one can do it for is. Until we reach the top of the mountain we cannot see in full glory the view that lies beyond; but glimpses of light illumine our path to the mountain. These glimpses of light give us faith, because then we can know, not with the external knowledge of reading books, but that certainty of faith that comes from moments of inner life. But if in intellectual pride or in the dullness we deny the light, thereby denying ourselves, how can we avoid being in darkness?

This is why the greatest prayers of men have always been prayers for light and love. We cannot buy light and love in the marketplace of men; but they are given to us without money and without price.”

From the introduction to the Penguin Classics, The Upanishads, translated by Juan Mascaro.

I rang the bell at 2.40 pm Sunday. No reply. I waited a couple of minutes and rang again. Still no reply. I phoned Joseph’s cell phone and a sleepy voice said he’d had a late night. We’d agreed I’d show at 2.30 pm. “So what do you want me to do?” I asked.

“Can you wait ten minutes?”

“Sure.”

The late November New York sun warmed me as I stood outside the apartment building on Sedgwick Avenue. A young Afro American woman approached the door laden down with clean laundry, pushed her apartment buzzer and was admitted. The buzzer rang again and I went in. I made my way to 3E and Joseph was standing outside the door in welcome.

The acrid, stench of urea, of cat urine greeted me as I stepped over the threshold into the overheated apartment. There was a long corridor, with papers on the floor, leading to Joseph’s black walled bedroom.  Half a dozen guitars and a few pentangles adorned the walls and on the floor, a couple of Marshall practice amps and a Peavey were stacked  beside a large Emerson monitor. There were several cheap bases, including a Fender Squier P bass and a large makeshift drum kit.

I walked in, put my coat and sweater on the bed and unzipped my guitar.

Joseph had said he had two Les Paul Specials, they turned out to be Epiphones, but hey, I’m no guitar snob which was just as well for when he started playing, it was immediately clear he was miles better than me. He played through a special metal pedal and had a fast technique even though he’s self taught, learned most of what he knows through youtube and has only been playing 18 months.

He was soon joined by two other guys, a bass player and a drummer. What amazes me is that in Europe many young white guys like black american music. Here, young Hispanic or Afro American guys like heavy metal! The other week I was in a school in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, and a young woman said, when I told her I was Irish, “How exotic”. She looked dumbfounded when I told her that living in Ireland, Brooklyn sounded exotic to me. Black American music these days is, I suppose, gangsta rap. Perhaps some young American black people prefer heavy metal to that? These young guys neither smoke nor drink, they are upstanding and kind, so it’s understandable that the ethics of the prevalent music here wouldn’t appeal to them.

Anyway, we jammed for a couple of hours. The bass player was really good, and he drummed a little and played some mean lead guitar, but his bass riffs and technique were excellent. The drummer was more enthusiastic than good, and Joseph, after 18 months playing could hold his own. The weak link was me, and they didn’t ask me back. I could just about play pentatonic riffs, didn’t know any of their numbers, which hardly mattered because I could pick up the chords quite easily, it was all in Am or Dm. But I couldn’t really add to anything they were doing, except playing a few rhythmic riffs.

However, I really enjoyed it and I take my hat off to them for being so friendly and for being not remotely unkind.

I even learned something too, and this morning, as I practiced, I was noticeably more adventurous in what I was attempting and actually brought it off too.

from Ask Travers – the Rolling Stone film critic

I can’t wait to see what Johnny Depp and director Michael Mann do with the John Dillinger gangster saga Public Enemies. But there’s lots more: Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, Joel and Ethan Coen’s A Serious Man, Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones, Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock, Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant, Paul Greengrass’s The Green Zone, Clint Eastwood’s Playing The Enemy, Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life, Rob Marshall’s Nine, Judd Apatow’s Funny People, Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Homes (with Robert Downey, Jr.), Pedro Almodovar’s Broken Embraces, Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits of Control, Mira Nair’s Amelia, Lone Scherfig’s An Education, Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are, Todd Solondz’s Forgiveness, Woody Allen’s Whatever Works, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Biutiful, Wes Anderson’s animated The Fantasic Mr. Fox, and James Cameron’s decade-in-the-making Avatar. It’s looking like a hell of a year (at least on paper). As for book question, I agree about Shantaram—Johnny Depp has been trying for years to get it made (so far no luck). As for me, I’ve been waiting to see what kind of trip director John Hillcoat takes with Cormac McCarthy’s masterful novel The Road. I’ll finally get my wish this year.

“One O’Clock Jump” was really a showcase for the fierce tenor battles between Herschel Evans and Lester Young that became a band mainstay. The two couldn’t have been more different; Evans was a tough, fiery soloist in the style of Coleman Hawkins, whereas Young favored an airy approach in the upper register. But Basie found that if he pitted the two against each other, it brought out the best in both of them. Basie intentionally fanned the flames, fixing it so that people really thought that there was a feud between the two and acting as the instigator. Basie said, “I used to tell Herschel that Lester had said something about his solo, and then tell Lester that Herschel has said something like, ‘You know, that cat really thinks he really got me on that last go round.’ And it was on. They would both be raring to go.” But despite rumors and appearances (they were placed at opposite ends of the bandstand) the two respected each other and were close friends. The two traded the opening salvo; Evans traditionally got the first solo on “One O’Clock Jump” and Young followed.

On June 6, 1938, the band recorded Blue And Sentimental, a feature for Herschel Evans’ Texas tenor, with a solo that possesses the emotion and inner strength to move us still. The splendid trumpet growls here sre by iron-lip lead-man Ed Lewis; and what about Lester’s eerie clarinet that creates such a perfect foil for Evans’ opulence towards the end.

Those two guys (Lester Young and Herschel Evans) loved each other, but the public didn’t know it, and they came to see a battle … because (Young and Evans) played as if they were really battling for blood.”

What is beauty, what is wisdom, what is genius, what is love? What is divine? And what if one might recognize these in one person? What would we the impact of that on an individual’s life?

There is the Goddess, and the rest of us, She came to us, She put up with anything and everything, and She only offered love in return for what we gave Her.

ydig, is a website dedicated to understanding, knowledge, awareness and enjoyment.

“Dig”, comes from the Irish “tuig” meaning to understand, but it evolved in New York street argot to mean “to become aware of, to understand, to know and to enjoy. (See Eric Partridge’s A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English and the New York Time’s article Humdinger of a Project: Tracing Slang to Ireland.

My brother Mark calls the site, “Why Dig?” but the pronunciation is yuh dig, in the manner a New Yorker would say it.

discretion |disˈkre sh ən|
noun
1 the quality of behaving or speaking in such a way as to avoid causing offense or revealing private information : she knew she could rely on his discretion.
2 the freedom to decide what should be done in a particular situation : it is up to local authorities to use their discretion in setting the charges | a pass-fail grading system may be used at the discretion of the department.

discrimination |disˌkriməˈnā sh ən|
noun
1 the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, esp. on the grounds of race, age, or sex : victims of racial discrimination | discrimination against homosexuals.
2 recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another : discrimination between right and wrong | young children have difficulties in making fine discriminations.
• the ability to discern what is of high quality; good judgment or taste : those who could afford to buy showed little taste or discrimination.
• Psychology the ability to distinguish between different stimuli : [as adj. ] discrimination learning.
3 Electronics the selection of a signal having a required characteristic, such as frequency or amplitude, by means of a discriminator that rejects all unwanted signals.

discretion |disˈkre sh ən|
noun
1 the quality of behaving or speaking in such a way as to avoid causing offense or revealing private information : she knew she could rely on his discretion.
2 the freedom to decide what should be done in a particular situation : it is up to local authorities to use their discretion in setting the charges | a pass-fail grading system may be used at the discretion of the department.

discrimination |disˌkriməˈnā sh ən|
noun
1 the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, esp. on the grounds of race, age, or sex : victims of racial discrimination | discrimination against homosexuals.
2 recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another : discrimination between right and wrong | young children have difficulties in making fine discriminations.
• the ability to discern what is of high quality; good judgment or taste : those who could afford to buy showed little taste or discrimination.
• Psychology the ability to distinguish between different stimuli : [as adj. ] discrimination learning.
3 Electronics the selection of a signal having a required characteristic, such as frequency or amplitude, by means of a discriminator that rejects all unwanted signals.

‘Raised to the ground,’ I’d heard
A Zen koan perhaps, as one hand clapping.

McArdle would put his arms around me,
His sweat, pungent as he lifted me on a bum-shined board
that straddled the arms of a perished puce barber’s chair

A white sheet tied around my neck
like a surplice, a choirboy in St Donard’s,
“Short, back and sides, no oil please,”
(My granny said it made your grow too fast)

I’d give him a tanner and a three D bit
Hot from the palm of my hand

Later, I was lifted on to the glass counter
of McAdams’ chemist shop
My right boot removed, I stared at the blood-clotted sock
As though it belonged to someone else, then across to where my mother fell as she fainted.

Maybe it was shock, that detached me from pain,
But I like to think that part of me knew I was being raised,
That none of this mattered.

raze Look up raze at Dictionary.com
1547, alteration of racen “pull or knock down” (a building or town), from earlier rasen (14c.) “to scratch, slash, scrape, erase,” from O.Fr. raser “to scrape, shave,” from M.L. rasare, frequentative of L. radere (pp. rasus) “to scrape, shave,” perhaps from PIE *razd- (cf. L. rastrum “rake”), possible extended form of PIE base *red- “to scrape, scratch, gnaw” (see rodent).

raise (v.) Look up raise at Dictionary.com
c.1200, from O.N. reisa “to raise,” from P.Gmc. *raizjan (cf. Goth. ur-raisjan, O.E. ræran “to rear,” see rear (v.)), causative of base *ris- “to rise” (see rise). At first sharing many senses with native rear (v.). Used in most of the varied modern senses since M.E.; some later evolutions include “to bring up” (a child), 1744; “to elevate” (the consciousness), 1970. The noun is first recorded 1500 in sense of “a levy;” meaning “increase in amount or value” is from 1728, specific sense in poker is from 1821. Meaning “increase in salary or wages” is from 1898, chiefly Amer.Eng. (British preferring rise).