My Too (Many) Cents

Each word I write is a prayer of gratitude to that which comes through me. It is only with this evocation that I may begin writing in the earnest.  I am a child of the ancient east, a land rooted in such spiritual depth that may not be uncovered in eons of the superficial passing by we have begun to call life. This esoteric romanticization of that which is mystical by a mind petrified into rationality. This is maya.  A student once approached a master and told him he had had an awakening experience. Yet he had forgotten the depths from which he had emerged and wanted to "get back" to them.  Everything flows, and cycles and grows. Like the vines engulfing concrete.  And yet this too is maya. The master told him. The student came back again after months of study. Having noticed deeply the contours of his mind, with the instrument of his intellect.  Master, I have seen the purity of this knowledge, distilled to its essence until it can strike a hole through a ...

A whispered prayer escaped the dream of an artist's most sleepless night.  It asked god in a sincere manner whether it would be allowed to piece together a necklace of words for its own amusement today. The innocent selfishness of a child creating a sand castle.  It had earned its worth in the mundanity of the writer's everday existence.  And so he picked up the pen, not to move another towards his point of view, nor to examine truth in the blazing fury of intellectual dissection. It was a tender and loving movement.  Like dew drops sliding across a leaf.  Like the meticulous smile of a parent whose child has come back home, softly balancing on the bow of their lips a wrenching heart and feelings that threaten to overhwhelm. The roll of a pebble on the road, kicked and forgotten yet merrily singing along to its own destiny.  I pick the pen today not for truth, but for what it can bring out of me.  A tear of gratitude. A night of solitude.  The scr...

 My drum teacher once told me that every great musician stops hearing the sound of others music after a point in their career.  They no longer look at others engagement with their instrument with greedy eyes that try to imitate ideas. It is a different place we must go to as humans. Only in channeling that tempest are we truly living, Competition is mediocrity for with that we will never end up changing the face of a field itself.  In such a situation, what is our relation to the giants who came before us? Those who inspired us to reach these heights in the first place? The truth is the fire that burns in this other place. It is beauty and love too. And to pursue it sincerely demands a certain discipline.  One can play beats for 40 years of their lives and not understand the internal magic of the drums. That which brings clarity, musicality and otherworldliness.  To play sports like a musician and to play music like a sportsman. To imbibe the quality of inspirat...