It ain't that hard!
 -Stephanie stean

1. I steal flowers from my father's grave.
2. Aunt Susie stole her penny collection in 1965.
3. The neighbors all hate us.
4. Men grope her in choir practice.
5. People drive by in cars and laugh at her.
6. My dad had a crush on my best friend Lisa in 11th grade.
7. She can't be friends with people from the other branch of presbyterianism.
8. My brothers and sister and I are all jealous of each other.
9. Her friend Debbie pokes her daughter with a pin.
10. I do not love her because she is not perfect.

I am attending the Lynda Barry workshop Writing the Unthinkable this weekend with dear Sonali.  I am very excited as I learned so much the last time I enrolled in the class.  Lynda is a great teacher.  This class looks to have about double the number of students as the class I took a little over a year ago.

Since attending last year, I have become acquainted with Pat Schneider's Amherst Writers and Artists methodology, and I am meditating on her Five Essential Affirmations:

• Everyone has a strong, unique voice.
• Everyone is born with creative genius.
• Writing as an art form belongs to all people, regardless of economic class or educational level.
• The teaching of craft can be done without damage to a writer's original voice or artistic self-esteem.
• A writer is someone who writes.

Let's all write and write and write in 2008.

So, where are you going to? I don't mind
If I live too long, I'm afraid I'll die
So, I will follow you whereever you go
If your offered hand is still open to me

Strangers on this road we are on
We are not two; we are one

                                           --Ray Davies

by Rumi

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

http://www.marlysmagazine.com/strips/bigcomeekp0.gif

This is sort of a question for Paul (but I hope anyone with ideas will answer too) based upon his statement that he is in search of living with a pure heart.

What is purity, pure, purify, purification?

I am internally resistant to those words.  Maybe it comes from my Christian background.  It makes me think of those  passive air filters that collect black stuff from the  air.   And then God comes along and wipes the black stuff from your heart.

I just suspect that somehow the black stuff is part of one's purity, or should be accepted somehow.  Or maybe it's that I would hate for anyone to feel impure.  Or perhaps it is balled up in the idea of sexual impurity--which is usually used in an unfair way.

Or maybe it is because I am not a very tidy person, and I am defensive.  Erg.

Anyway, please tell me all about what you mean by purity and why it is important. 

Thank you in advance.

I walk with Stephanie once a week.  And I love it.  This week I thought of a new name for her: Sonali, which means Golden One.  She is golden in her countenance and in her immense worth to me.  Precious like a Rinpoche.  Plus Sonali starts with a SS sound and ends with an EE sound, like Stephanie.

I just started a five-session insight meditation class.  The first session was last night.  It was instructive, and a bit daunting.

The first exercize involved eating a raisin in a mindful way, after first trying to observe it with new eyes, as if we had never seen a raisin before, as if we were from Mars and had no reference for raisins.  What might we notice?

Here is my brain-stream:

"Hmm..I can see where this was once a grape.  It is basically a deflated globe.  I wonder where the seeds went?  Perhaps they remove the seeds before drying it, but I do not see a wound where the seeds were removed.  Maybe they use seedless varieties.  That is kind of Frankensteinish. What kind of barbaric beings would rob a plant of it's ability to reproduce.  I guess that would be us.  But I doubt I would enjoy raisins as much if they were seeded.  Every package of raisins I have ever seen says 'Seedless Raisins', which makes it sound like there are also seeded raisins.  Maybe in the old days all they had were seeded raisins, which would be horrible in cookies.    If I was a Martian, I would not know that this is a dried fruit, but I might recognize it as organic.  It looks like a booger.  Perhaps I would think it is some kind of human nasal discharge--if I had a concept of nasal discharge--if Martians have noses--or perhaps I would think it is poop, that humans poop like rabbits and then eat it in their cookies."

I have a lot of work to do to quiet this crazy brain.

I would print:

Love of money is the root of all evil.  Get rid of all your dirty filthy money.  Send it to:

Dawn Johnson
PO Box 1234
Boca Del Vista, CA 90123

And I will dispose of it for you.