The third TED talk in less than 24 hours to be posted here.  As you can see I really enjoy those talks and have been deprived of them from some time; I have recently embarked on a new stage of my life (certainly feels that way at least) and so I have been checking out some of my passions.

This following talk stays on the theme of the previous one, ethnomathematics.  No corals in this one but, instead, African villages.  A very interesting talk.

Enjoy:

This is another TED talk which I had watched several months ago.  I enjoyed the pace of the talk, the topic, and the presenter.

Enjoy!

In this video Diane Benscoter talks about her experience of being a Moonie (a follower of Sun Myung Moon, a member of the Unification Church).  She talks about how she was part of that cult, of how her mind was “infected” such that she truly believed that that was best.  And she talks about how it is important to help people preserve critical thinking.

A heartfelt talk.

Writing about birth.

…

I was at a friend’s house, only a few minutes ago, a good close friend.  She had delivered her baby only a couple of hours ago.  The baby was birthed by her, her partner, and support of two midwives and family.  Born into water, as the birth took place in a large water tub.

I’m really speechless, it has been a long time since wrote …

February 16th 2009

After a long day at work on the 15th I only went to bed at 2am.  Twice during the night I wake up and rolled over to my open computer to see if I had received info on whether the baby was being born or not.  Sleep was good though and at 6/7 am I was finding myself totally awake in bed.  In high spirits, singing random made-up songs, I got out of bed, had some water, a nice shower and left the house.  The air was different and it stopped me at the steps, I walked slowly and took my time starting up the bike.  The most significant thing were the birds.  Hundreds of them.  The days had been rainy, drizzly, unpredictable until this morning.  This morning was crisp and hundreds of birds swarmed from one tree to the next.  I had not received an email about the birth but the signs were so striking…  I continued singing out loud, looking forward to seeing the new mother.

It was 3pm when I made it over to the house.

I don’t know what to say about the experience.  Or how to describe it really…   How to describe what it felt like to see my friend’s face, exhausted and happy, holding a baby – her baby.  How did I feel when in the presence of this new family, her, the baby, and her partner? I’ve been reading up on birthing for a few months now, reading and watching dvds over and over; fascinated by birthing, fascinated by the topic of hospital vs homebirthing.  When I was at the house I was blown away by … by IT.  By the what is happening there, not happening, nothing was happening but yet the happening in the place was overwhelming.  I mean, I knew I hadn’t seen a birth before (and this still wasn’t the time) and that I hadn’t seen a really really young baby in real life… but how different could it be from watching so many movies.  Don’t movies allow the body/mind to live the experience to a certain degree….
I’m blown away.

I rode the bike to my office, where I sit now, and my mind and my body and my spirit are so quiet.  Tears came to my eyes, that lump in the throat…

I’m blown away by presencing this new life.

I want to step up and embrace the world even more than before.  To step up my involvement in the world even more.  Yet, I know that that is not done by making/doing more things.
Part of me wants to buy presents, send gifts, find that special gift… and yet that is what I have been doing for so long, and recently shifted to simply being and sharing my presence.  Now it’s all confused.  Do more?  Do less?  Do?  Perhaps this birth has called out to my self and it is writhing with a want for birth too.  Perhaps.
This world cannot contain a life.  Contain as in containment.

Birth.  Birth ladies and gentlemen.
Is there a feeling to ascribe to seeing my friend’s belly grow and grow and grow and then see this baby…  Simply awe.
I want to do a pilgrimage for this baby.  A fast…

I’m a little overwhelmed right now.

As a christmas gift to ourselves, my wife and I decided to go to Pt Reyes on Monday to enjoy a walk along the Pacific coast, and possibly,  if the weather was good, a picnic too.  It turned out to be a gorgeous gorgeous day, blue skies, cool temperatures, it was drizzled in the morning so things were green and the air was clear.  We saw plenty of wildlife, we had our picnic, we enjoyed the presence of the Pacific waters on our feet, sighted a Harrier Falcon/Hawk and got our hands on something dead…

the path

ursula

jellyfish

riders on the beach

Pouring water in through the foramen

Hummmm

Scooping out the brains

Definitely one of the more recent developments in my awareness has been around the Soul.

Religion talks about the soul, new age hippies talk about the soul, it is a concept often talked about and, for me, it became just that – a concept, a word, without an embodied reality.

The shift for me definitely began during my time at the Florida School of Massage, very possibly during one of the many rounds in which we were asked to: “feel what is going on in your body, your heart, your soul”.  I was confused, mentally, “what is going on in my soul?”.  I assume I have one, yet how come I can’t simply answer the question?  So many instances in which that word -soul- shows up and yet I can’t answer this question?!

The body, the physical body, was, for example, feeling achy after all the climbing the previous night.

The heart, my emotional state, was feeling excited, excited and happy.

My soul though… and I often answered “clear” or “curious” because I either came up to a blank or an unknown.

I now don’t remember when (or even if) there was an exact moment in which I began to really understand how to tap into what my soul felt.  But I do remember the multiple ways in which I saw and felt my different interactions in the world.  It was like learning about this extra sense, a sixth sense.

I remember one time I was sitting at a Vipassana circle, on a Wednesday, where Paul Linn was, after the meditation, addressing a woman who was having some difficulty in waking up early enough to sit before starting her hectic day.  She expressed how it just felt so good to lie in bed for that extra half-hour instead of getting out of her comfortable, warm, state to dozzily sit cross-legged.

He said, and this is not a quote, that there is a great and undeniable pleasure that comes from waking up in the early hours of the day, before the sun has rise, and snuggling even tighter into the warm bed and going back to sleep.  And yet, there is a different pleasure that comes from getting out of bed and sitting in meditation.

This different pleasure – what is that about?

And at some point the shift happened and I came to better understand many things in a different light.  I reflect on how I value my need to go climbing even though I may be pressed for a work deadline, or go dancing even though my body is tired.  I reflect on the ways in which a long night out partying and drinking can affect me the next day, or how telling a small, insignificant, lie can sometimes stay in my mind for a while.

I used to walk by a piece of trash on the floor and think: “Should I pick it up, something is inviting me to pick it up but it’s not my trash.  Should I?”

I think the main catalyst for the shift came through the presence of particular friends.  The experience is that different people have different qualities, possibly different qualities of presence.  The truth of that experience is that I am fed in different ways by different people, and whereas certain people feed my body, others feed my heart and others feed my soul.

There is a sense that is more subtle than the others, subtle in that it is commonly less evident (even though it is always more evident).  Tapping into this sense is in a way tapping into the reason behind things, behind the thoughts, the words, the actions.  Tapping into living according to this sense is becoming an immensely joyful experience, joyful in that wide-eyed way akin to watching those videos where the camera was zoomed in on some region of the Earth and gradually zooms out until one sees the whole planet, then the whole Solar System, then the whole Galaxy.  It is the “Ahhhhh” of understanding that spontaneously comes out even though there is not understanding, no words.

I can ask myself now: “Is this action necessary?  If not then why would I want to do it?  What does it feed in me?  What does it satisfy in me?  Does it feed my soul?”

Example of picking up litter.

Many years ago i found myself questioning myself and others about relationship.  The question I would ask them would be something along the lines of: “If you eat because you are hungry, then what is the root of the wanting to be in a relationship?”  Somewhat related (and this I did not ask people) is “what is Love?”

Is it physical? – Sex, need of physical touch

Is it emotional? – Fear (of being alone), insecure (and needing reassurance), or other

Is it soulful? – Greater than you

A quote by Nietzche comes to mind:

“Was aus Liebe getan wird, geschieht immer jenseits von Gut und Böse.

What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.”

There is a sense of alignment, and possibly clarity, that comes from walking down the street and picking up a stray piece of trash.  Not because you/I should, should has nothing to do with it, but because it feeds that sense of alignement.  There is some more expansive calmness that comes from getting out of the comfy warm bed and washing one’s face, gently stretching, and then simply sitting quietly.  Not sitting because one should sit, not sitting to save the world, or to become enlightened, just sitting because it promotes that same Ahhhh, that same expansive calmness, and there is something in that, beyond words and explanation but definitely something… “beyond good and evil”.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,

there is a field.  I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other

doesn’t make any sense.” – Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks)

I visited the beautiful country of Colombia once.

I was living in Florida at the time and had recently reattained communication with two childhood friends, a brother and a sister, whom I hadn’t seen in over 13 years.  Of the brother I recalled many challenges on the tennis courts, he had been instrumental in my tennis development in that few people my age court equal me on the courts back then.  Of the sister I had fewer memories yet they were fond ones, of a very long phone conversation, with many silences, many words meant to simply fill up space and keep us connected.  Soon after that conversation she, her brother, their family left the small arabian paradise which I continued to call home for many years.

So it was with great joy that contact with them was reestablished in the internet era.  Talk about a visit was easy and as one thing led to another that visit materialized and I decided to spend 10 days, and the entrance into the new year of 2006, with them in Bogota, Colombia.

The view which the general population of Americans has about Colombia is not a very … let’s say, it is a very biased view.  And I’ll also say that that view is not one that encourages the American people to visit that country (unless they fantazise about being kidnapped, shot, mugged…).  Yet, having travelled plenty, I was aware of how misguided some people’s views of alien countries can be and I very much looked forward to stepping off the plane onto South American soil.

The small event that stays in my mind and which I’m about to recount was just one of the many events lived during my stay.  It is a sweet-and-sour event yet in no way was this taste the main one to my trip or even the one I left with… but it is one that my mind keeps accessing for some reason.

It took place one sunny evening as I walked by myself along the streets of central Bogota.  The friends I was visiting had to work and with a simple map I was thoroughly enjoying taking my time and observing both the people and the city.  I was relaxed and attentive, at peace and alert, curious and street-smart, and thankfully so.  I eyed the food vendors, the old statues, the random soldier fully equipped with even granades…, the way people were dressed, their mood, the mood of the city.

In the center of this city is a “palacio”, a building of high importance, surrounded by strikingly new-looking fence only interrupted for small entries where two guards stood.  I was told that at the main gate one could see a changing of the guards which was particularly interesting for tourists.  And it was while I was making my way along that fence, coincidentally right in front of one of the guards, towards the front gate that the event in question occurred.

In my state of observant awareness I couldn’t help but notice a pretty, sweet-looking girl walking in the opposite direction, in my direction, and as we crossed our eyes met and I may have even hinted at a smile.  Our bodies crossed and not a second had passed when I hear her voice calling me.  Surprised and curious I turn around and smile as I see her smiling, and making her way slowly towards me.  What was she saying I am not sure; she asked my name perhaps, maybe asked how I was doing, or maybe it was “where are you from”, yes, that was it.  And as I observed this Colombian belle in a curious, interested, and reticent way my peripheral vision caught sight of the erect and stoic guard to my left who, with the most slight of movements, (undoubtedly enhanced by the fact that, as most guards, he was an image of unmoving alertness) rotated his head to one side and back.  The child who is yearning to go out to play and whose mother tells him/her “go ask your father”; that child now stands observing the fathers’ face for the slightest of signs.  The slightest of signs.  And at that moment my gut knew and it was like a cool wind swept through me awakening what was dreaming.

“Gracias, tengo que irme” to the persistent girl whose temperament was rapidly shifting to a darker cloud; “who broke my spell?” cried the evil witch Maleficent…

I turned my back and continued on not looking back once like a fish that just managed to squirm through the holes of the fisherman’s net and whose body says “just walking along”.

An excerpt from the book Meeting the Shadow.  The text is by Michael Ventura.

“Which is the major difference between the expectations of a marriage and a relationship.  My experience of a relationship is two people more or less compulsively playing musical chairs with each other’s selected inner archetypes.  My tough street kid is romancing your honky-tonk angel.  I am your homeless waif and you are my loving mother.  I am your lost father and you are my doting daughter.  I am your worshiper and you are my goddess.  I am your god and you are my priestess.  I am your client and you are my analyst.  I am your intensity and you are my ground.  These are some of the garish of the patterns.  Animus, anima, bopping on a seesaw

These hold up well enough while the archetypal pairings behave.  But when the little boy inside him is looking for the mommy inside her and finds instead on this particular night a sharp-toothed analyst dissecting his guts.  When the little girl inside her is looking for the daddy inside him, and fids instead a pagan worshiper who wants a goddess to lay with, which induces her to become a little girl playacting a goddess to please the daddy who’s really a lecherous worshipper and…little girls can’t come.  Or if a woman is attracted to a macho-man who is secretly looking to be mothered: when a man’s sexual self is in the service of an interior little boy it’s not surprising that he can’t get it up or comes to quick.  Or they’re really not there at all, they’re masturbating, really, men in their little-boy psyches for whom the real woman is just a stand-in; while the woman who happens to be in the same bed, an extension of teir masturbation, is wondering why even though the moves are pretty good she doesn’t really feel slept with.  And why he turns away so quickly when it’s done.

On the other hand, teachers fuck pupils with excitement, analysts fuck clients with abandon, and people seeing each other, in bed, as gods and goddesses light up the sky – bu the psyche is a multiple and a shifting entity, and none of these compatible parirings hold stable for long.  The archetypal mismatches soon begin, and then it’s a disaster of confrontations that can take years not even to sort out (it would be worth years to get it all sorter out) but simply to exhaust itself and fail.  And then the cycle starts all over again with someone else.

My experience of a marriage is that all these same modes are present, but instinctively or consciously it becomes a case of two people running down each other’s inner archetypes, tackling them, seducing them, cajoling them, waiting them out making them talk, ‘fessing up to them, running from them, raping them, falling in love with some, hating others, getting to know some, making friends with some, hanging some in the closet on each other’s hooks — hooks on which hang fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, other loves, idols, fantasies, maybe even past lives, and true mythological consciousnesses that sometimes come to life within one with such force that we feel a thread that goes back thousands of years, even to other realms of being.

All of this is what we “marry” in the other, a process that goes on while we manage to earn a living, go to the movies, watch television, go to the doctor, walk on the Palisades, drive to Texas, follow the election, try to stop drinking, eat too much Haagen-Dazs.”

So, this past Friday, April 11th, there was this awesome African Music performance by a group called Agbedidi Jeliya which is based in Gainesville, Florida, at the University of Florida. And I am fortunate to be a part of this awesome group Agbedidi Jeliya as one of the djembe players!

The directors of Agbedidi Jeliya are: Abou Sylla & Mohamed DaCosta – excellent teachers at the University of Florida. Also performing are: Lansana Camara (on the Cora: a string instrument), Abou Sylla (visiting from Texas on the lead djembe), Aboubacar Soumar (on bass Cora and on the large drums).

I handed my video camera to a friend sitting in the front row, hoping to get a little bit of footage. He and his son ended up filming the whole thing and good footage!

The experience on stage was such a blast! Really high and joyous energy!! I hope you can get a feel for that while watching these clips.

Enjoy!!!!!

Part 1: this is the introduction to the group as well as the first part which is called Lambam: “Griots are West African poets, praise singers, and wandering musicians that represent a repository of the area-s rich oral traditions. Also called jeli or jali, they form a special and well-respected case in West African society. This piece is dedicated to the jeli themselves, honoring their dignity and pride in being griots.”

Part 2: This piece is called Mankan: “Literally “noise”, this piece consists of variations on the dematigalan rhythm. Led by the djembe drum, and accompanied by the balafons, it highlights the expressiveness of the drum section.

Part 3: This piece is called Fosson. “While only in second grade, Abou Sylla heard “Fosson” on the radio performed by one of the greatest balafon players of the time, Elhadj Jeli Sory Kouyate; it has been a favorite of Mr. Sylla, throughout his career. Here it will showcase the balafon players and the expressiveness of the instrument.”

Part 4: This piece is called Kuramissa. “This piece is dedicated to the cousin of Mohamed DaCosta, a courageous woman who recently gave birth to quadruplets.

Part 5: This piece is called Yankadi Makuru. “This piece is composed of two related rhythms from Guinea called yankadi (slow) and makuru (fast). Both are rhythms of seduction traditionally danced under the moonlight at parties where young people – mostly teenagers – gather to play and dance, representing a time in their lives in which increased freedom is gained from their parents.”

Part 6: This piece is called Djondjon. “Featuring a double-balafon solo by Abou Sylla, “Djondjon” is based on an ancient melody dedicated to those who have endured and overcome hardships such as war, political turmoil, and persecution.”

Part 7: This piece is called Wali. “This piece features “four brothers” from Guinea: Abou Sylla, Tassana Camara, Mohamed DaCosta, and (another) Abou Sylla. Wali translates as “work”, a suitable name for a piece that encourages just that: work is necessary and rewarding part of a healthy lifestyle, as opposed to laziness. The message here is to enjoy what you do and to do it well. The musicians themselves, of course, are examples of hard work and talent manifested in a successful career.”

Part 8: This piece is called Agbedidi. “Composed by Abou Sylla, this is a praise of the ensemble’s musicians and their dedication and abilities in learning challenging material quickly. The lyrics encourage listeners and musicians alike to embrace happiness through musical participation.”

The movie doesn’t seem to be embedded so here is the link to youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6YHWFBb3Sc