Cultivate: Coronavirus Communique May 26, 2020

Reflecting on:

'Parkie' life- it's a good life
If you are traveling around America and get the chance, check out Yosemite National Park- preferably during off-season...

Pak City Parkway Strut
How does one power-walk while listening to Kool and the Gang's "Jungle Boogie" without strutting? It ain't easy y'all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BM5wPOe0xQ

As my story goes... early mornings are my most coveted moments these daze. I have cultivated a routine that I look forward to, thrive from and desire to keep me blossoming during these times.  So imagine this morning my bubble shattering- enough that it pissed me off.  There was so much fucking trash all about the PCP this morning.  I just lost my shit silently screaming in my mind. Between the cacophony of litter carelessly strewn about on and off the path and discordant sounds coming from deep within my Solar Plexus, I felt like I was swimming in a pile of ignorance.

This reminds me of living on the Big Island (of Hawaii) when I was studying at University of Hawaii, Hilo. I lived in this fucking amazing area along the eastern coast; Richardson Beach.  I lived in this household of funky people, none of which were also going to university.  They were actors/actresses at the community playhouse as well as holding down their day jobs responsibly.  I used to bike and run along this long, fairly remote stretch (especially if heading further east from Richardson, towards Leleiwi Point. After that it turned to a path (circumnavigating a majority of the island actually- the King's Highway (Pi`ilani Trail). 

This area was so strikingly beautiful it could make you weep. Quiet solitude, local living, nature so wild and unkempt that it was thrilling to be in its presence. But... it was full of trash on deeper inspection.  I mean the little sugar-cane saturated clusters hiding various pullouts so intricate it's like a tunnels leading to treasure chests- of rubbish.  Trash everywhere; furniture, toilet paper, just fucking garbage thrown out of car windows or deposited late in the night by people perhaps not wanting to drive to the dump and dump their shit because they were too fucking lazy.

Beautiful Hilo, Hawaii- but you best remember to walk lightly upon this eARTh... This place is full of mana. No disrespect, eh...

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hilo,+HI+96720,+USA/@19.6865437,-155.2300207,11z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x79524b5a6c97dec9:0xc15ba900330c15c6!8m2!3d19.7241106!4d-155.0868193

That's what it is... laziness. So seeing trash in my current hood just really made me sad this morning.  It's laziness from all corners of the globe. Why would you not want to responsibly throw your trash away?  I fucking hate this... Pick up your fucking trash.

As I look deeper into the situation I think about what's behind it. Right now we are back in a 4-day lockdown over the course of the Eid Al Fitr national holidays. Covid cases have increased a bit recently and mitigation measures were needed on the fly so this is what the government came up with.  It seems a responsible measure, honestly.

So how this perhaps trickles down to this travesty is that the Bengalese and/or local workers that take care of the grounds (beautiful rose gardens!) aren't working? So normally they are picking up everybody's fucking trash... What the fuck? That shit ain't right.

Rant over.

Each lap, though, I can purge that shit feeling and surround myself with cultivating beauty. Looking forward to seeing my favorite rose bushes each day brings great pleasure, as well as bittersweet sorrow to observe them wilting as they complete their life cycle.  Yes, bittersweet.

While listening to jazz (jazz funk being my 'go-to', I spend a lot of time working on memory exercises in my mind while working out. Each lap I pick one of these mulberry things and eat it and rate them. I think about what I want to blog about as I wander in and out of my own moving picture show that sets the stage for pondering deeper. So many topics come up that it is a challenge to remember each. Just remembering how many laps can be a challenge some days... I concentrate on words/grammar I'm learning in my Portuguese language studies and what I got wrong, etc.

Figueira da Foz
Getting more and more psyched about cultivating my near future... As a back-up, I continue exploring other parts of Portugal to perhaps settle, but I'm not having any of it. Figueira da Foz is it.  There is this sweet village just outside of the (small) city, Maiorca.

So yea I work hard to cultivate my present. I indulge myself into my 'fantasy-of-owning-property-that-is-evolving-into-reality moods. It feels good. Real good. The present is dealing some shitty cards on large scale to Mother Earth these days, down to the scale of global pandemic, and can be reduced further down to each individual's response to all this over-stimuli coming at us. Whatever. I'm trying to turn that shit into lemonade.

Reach the Beach.

Cultivate the Beach... Be the Beach

-peace

Coronavirus Communique #3: " I was dreamin' when I wrote this. Forgive me if it goes astray" May 1, 2020

 "I was dreamin' when I wrote this. Forgive me if it [I] go astray"
                                                           -Prince

me.today.vibe:EternalSunshineoftheSpotlessMind.for real. And da kine.  Always da kine.

I've been meaning to comment of the floral bouquets wafting through the air in the early mornings here when I'm power-walking or running around the building complex here.  Lockdown restrictions have been lifted somewhat recently (since Ramadan started) yet I've been lingering around my health den, my cocoon of cleanliness so to speak. If I'm being honest, as a host of you know, I'm not the most organized of housekeepers... And it's perfectly fucking fine...

So you know... yes, the flowers... Each day I've gotten into the routine of starting out on my 1st lap just getting into my breath, trying to establish consistency: deep inhalation.hold.controlled, constant exhalation. Over and over.  Let's get all that shit outta our lungs, right? Am I right??? [I call this covid-19 protection. That's right, I drank THAT koolaid and I wanna believe.  An, unrelated, unconfirmed coronavirus claim I recently said that smoking MAY protect you from the virus... Weird. Wouldn't that be a strange conundrum...]

Flowers. Yes. So I sense this aromatic sensory sweetness. Yes, it's sweet. Because it's fleeting. And you have to work for it. That is the challenge here: finding the beauty where you can- either externally or internally.  Da kine. Right?

By the 2nd lap there is a flower in my pony tail (I'm thinking to bring back the term 'pig tails' this season...) or my right ear. Because, Hawai`i & shit.  I do miss the shit outta Hawai`i.  I try to live Hawai`i as much as possible here.  Everywhere.

How can someone greet a flower with a grimace? Someone can't.

[side note here, I just finished reading Tom Robbins' Villa Incognito & there is a knock-knock joke that frequents some chapters:

     knock-knock
           who's there?
      It's me. Himself

...I'm not entirely sure why I brought that to attention. I believe it was the 'someone' & the 'himself' association.  I could be wrong though].

So, books.  I've got a lot of 'em.  I've plowed through many of 'em.  I'm quite impressed with myself. Kinda like braggadocio rights I give to myself. This reflexive instinct, however misguided, puts me into another category as a compulsive book collector.

You see, I can't turn away a free book.  I carry them all around the world with me. Different bookshelves in different countries they sit. Awaiting that one day, what might never arrive, for me to pick it up, look at the flyer or postcard or museum ticket, or receipt of something incurred while traveling... Next in the process is to read the back cover. Last, delve into it.

I picked up a VERY eclectic selection when I lived in Yosemite.  Nothing but sweet fucking memories of pure goodness working that gig.  What a trip it was.  The fucking Sierra Nevada!!! Anyway, Parkies read it all. I mean, Tom Robbins? I poured through his quiver 30 years ago while living in the jungle on Maui doing that thing that one does living in the jungle... Yes, it's true. All of it. 

While I'm pondering books, I recently read some unpublished work by a colleague. Short stories is a 'newish' genre I've delved into. The result? I enjoy them.  There is something to the structure, or how you need to structure your mind, energy, psyche for short-story enjoyment.  I enjoy the challenge, the science of it.  My brain digs the chemicals it produces. So does my body. I mean, I work hard to produce the right chemicals. Tirelessly.

So the stories got me to thinking about connections. While I couldn't find a connection between all the stories, I sensed that there was. I just didn't know what it was yet.  I was rewarded in the end to find that indeed a ribbon was weaved through the stories, traveling to-fro contemporaneously or sequentially.  Yea, my brain digs these treasure hunts; sifting through the sands to get the satisfaction of discovering the jeweled nuggets.

OH OH OH you guys.  You NEED to listen to this podcast: Prince: The Story of 1999.  

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/prince-the-story-of-1999/id1488187430

Sheer fucking genius.  The Prince Foundation does an excellent job of presenting these intimate grains of sand of Prince's vast desert he surrounded himself with: Deserts of art, music, friendship, experiences. Each grain goes through this hourglass of information learned about his sheer fucking genius.

The part about working with his favorite studio sound engineer, Peggy, to working with Lisa (and her interviews are so raw and descriptive) to Desmond describing when their band opened up for the Rolling Stones, which ended up a total disaster. It's said that the Stones' fans were not ready for Prince's 'show', and things got ugly. 

Even if you're not into Prince, the podcast is well produced. 

Peace. A purple protective perspective piece of peace to you all

Some projects as of late...