All Is One

(Or Not)

I find lots of scientific evidence as well as direct experience that there is some kind of "intelligence" or "movement" or "order" to the Universe. I don't mean this as some kind of God or personality or being that is apart from Nature. I mean that Nature is not completely random, there are laws that govern how things work at different levels of being, like the everyday physical world as well as the quantum level. These laws are what they are, not something different. If any of these laws like the "conservation of momentum", or "an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by another force", or even more basically "the law of gravity", was even a little bit different, the whole Universe would be completely different. Why is it this way and not another? I don't think we can ever answer this question. It's just a mystery. And these laws at whatever level you look at them are embedded in everything at that level. It's not like some planets have gravity and others don't. (At least it sure looks that way. I'm not ruling out other dimensions but we haven't found them if they're there.) It's really science that convinced me of "the oneness of everything", since scientifically it's impossible to argue for the existence of separate objects. Separate objects seem to exist only in our minds. Outside of our minds, there's no way to show where the border between any two things really is. Where does the tree end and the air or soil begin exactly? And what is a tree without water, sunlight, gravity, food, millions of micro-organisms and a person to call it a tree? According to science, everything is interdependent and is made of the same mysterious stuff. Even the "space" between "things" is made of the same stuff. So to me, separateness is a convenience of the mind to help us sort out this "oneness" of the Universe. And yes, of course, from the everyday life standpoint, I'm here and you're there. This is my book, that is yours. But there is another dimension where there's no difference between my book, your book and apparent space between the books. I think of a metaphysical teeter totter. I like to stand with one foot on the everyday separateness of things and people, and the other on the ultimate oneness of everything. I try to keep my balance between these too points of view without denying either. To deny either, in my view, contradicts all kinds of evidence, scientific and personal. If "all is one", nothing can be excluded, not even separateness. A big problem I have with so many religions is the concept of "the sacred" and it's inevitable opposite, "the not sacred". It seems to me that as soon as you have a "sacred" and "not sacred" the Universe is split and trouble follows (usually wars of some kind). I prefer to think of everything as being sacred, as in, awesome and worth worshipping. When people say, "This is sacred", I just hear, "I like this." The beauty and balance of the Universe at every level is awe inspiring to me. The more I find out about anything, either personally or through science, the more of this awe I feel. I mean Chickadees have a language with many variations, each signifying a specific thing or concept. Electrons under certain circumstances behave exactly as if they "know" what other electrons are doing. Circles seem to be Nature's favorite shape all over the known Universe. Not one spec of the Universe can be created or destroyed, only transformed into something else. Just looking at the night sky fills me with awe. If it's all a dream, it's a great one. The whole Shee-bang is sacred to me, not just the parts I like. And it seems to be moving somewhere, always becoming something else. I chose to see if there was a way for me to harmonize with this motion by listening to my body, which was created by this Universe itself (and made of the exact same stuff as everything else), and then doing what felt most deeply right within it. T'ai-Chi, which is a Taoist martial art, is not mystical "chi" bullshit. It is based on the physics of this planet. The main principles can be applied to any physical activity. Using no more than the force needed to get a result is a principle obeyed by many people in all kinds of disciplines. Even Evangelicals building a creationist museum don't want to waste energy. Contrary to what most New Agers believe, T'ai-Chi is based more on science than religion. I came to this "Taoist" point of view by experimenting, with my life as the "lab". It was not a conversion experience or a blind faith thing. I decided to try living this way and see what happened. With time I got better at telling which feelings came from the deepest place in me. I gradually stopped doing things that I had to force myself to do and focused on the things that felt right and that I felt impelled to do. When I did this, my life felt better, with less pain, more pleasure, more peace of mind, more of a feeling of connection and community with the world. And yes, more of a sense of the ultimate "oneness" of the Universe. Sometimes this "right feeling" tells me to do things that really seem irrational and contrary to my best interests, but it hasn't steered me wrong yet. I now trust this feeling completely, even if what it wants me to do is at times disconcerting or mystifying. You can call it intuition, but where does that come from? To me, it's me, a conscious little chunk of the whole, listening for a right feeling that seems to come from a source of information that is beyond my sphere. I can call it the Tao, or the intelligence of the Universe or whatever, but I have no idea if it's real or what it is. All I know is that this is the point of view that I like, and that works for me. It's not my only one mind you, but it's my favorite point of view. (Sometimes I'm alone in an impersonal mechanistic world simply unfolding as it does. Sometimes I'm in awe of the mysterious nature of existence and can't help but assign some kind of purpose to it. Sometimes I "feel" that purpose without understanding it or being able to describe it. Sometimes the Universe feels absolutely alive and responsive to my state of mind and heart. Sometimes the Universe "speaks" to me. Sometimes the only voice I hear is my own. Each is a point of view with value and benefits. To paraphrase Werner Heisenberg, "What I observe is not Nature, but Nature exposed to my line of questioning.") I just like this particular point of view best. But that's all it is really. I have no idea what's "really" true about anything. I experience that there's something inside worth listening to and encourage others who are inclined this way to listen to it too. It helps if I think it's something bigger than my little head and it sure feels like it is, but I don't really know what it is...it sure doesn't seem "transcendent" though, it's seems like it's an inside out thing that is embedded in every single thing in Nature. I do have some "religious" feelings in all of this and yes, in conventional everyday life, I call it my "religion", but mostly it's just my favorite point of view, and if and when it is a religion, it's probably the most scientific of all them. It states as science does that there are mysterious laws and "ways" of the Universe that are best aligned with if one wants to live harmoniously. In practical terms, my religion boils down to "Flow More~Force Less". Anyone can benefit from that regardless of why it seems to work... GB

Caring And Honesty

Haiti

Below you'll find an email from my friend Marian Spadone regarding what you can do for the people of Haiti. This organization seems on the level and doing great work. I just made a donation myself.

Here's a little side story: I was sitting around talking with my wife Samarra and I started talking about how we all naturally are constantly organizing and prioritizing the constant torrents of information that we are offered from the world. We have to really. It is not possible to give equal weight to everything that is happening. We have to favor some info, forget, ignore or prioritize as "low" other info. We can't "care" equally about everything except intellectually. We can pretend to "care" about everything but not really.

As an example, I said, if that earthquake had happened in New York, or Chicago, or Portland, or Ashland (progressively closer to home), I would naturally "care" more and more about the effects on people. But realistically, to be totally honest, I said, "I just don't care about the people of Haiti, not enough to give them any money."

Interestingly, though, the minute I said this out loud, a shift happened in me and I did care enough to give them some money. So rather than pretending that I care, or "caring" out of some guilty feeling that I should care, I prefer what I would term a more Taoist approach, which is to care if I care, don't care if I don't care, but to be honest about it, recognizing that when I am honest, I may change.

So here's my request of you.

Think about making a relief donation, and, if you would like to but seriously can't afford it, say it out loud.

If you honestly care, but not enough to make a donation, say that out loud.

If you honestly don't care and don't want to make a donation, say that out loud.

And, if you do care and would like to make a donation, consider the Mercy Corps link below.

Thanks,

GB

And here's Marian's email:

Hi friends,

If you've been stricken speechless, and feeling helpless about what to do for the people of Haiti, there's a great local organization called Mercy Corps who are doing exceptional work already there and can use all the help they can get. They're a 4 star charity, at least 89% of donated funds go directly toward relief, and they're primary focus is disaster relief. They've got teams in place in Haiti, some great ideas, and are already working to help the situation. I just read that estimates of the number of people dead are as high as 200,000. That's like one third...1/3.. the population of Portland. It's hard to imagine. So...if you've been a bit paralyzed, here's a link to easily go and contribute. No amount is too small.

https://donate.mercycorps.org/donation.htm?DonorIntent=Haiti+Earthquake&Custom15=E404&Custom16=captiontext

Blessings on us all,

Much love,

Marian

Another New Album!

Number Six...

I know this sounds a bit crazy and hey it probably is, but I have another album out! It's called "Up For Grabs" and along with my two double CD's "Undiscovered" and "Maybe Nothing's Wrong", and my one single CD "Flow More~Force Less", this makes six in one year. I've never had a year like this and maybe I never will again. Although I thought the four I did last year would be my all time record high...

As usual, all the songs are available for listening and downloading at my site www.GeneBurnett.com Downloading is free or you can leave a tip/donation in my "Digital Tip Jar". My experiment is to see what comes back freely when I give my music away freely.

So far so good. The video that this guy in Holland made FREE of my song "Jump You Fuckers" is currently at 51,000+ views. The video that a company called AutomaticChickenCoopDoor.com made FREE of my song "Free-Range Chicken" is at 4,000+ views. I've gotten loads of great comments, over 70 youtube subscribers, more CD sales than I ever got when I was just giving away 20 second samples, and I've even gotten some tips too. A guy named Butch Maier put several of my songs in his movie "The Bride And The Grooms". So all sorts of cool stuff is happening and I'm only just finishing up year two. I'm calling it my "Five Year Experiment" but that was more to keep my focus on the longer term bigger picture. It will probably end up being my "Rest Of My Life Experiment!"

I've spent a lot of time over the years trying to come up with some sort of relationship with "The Music Business" that felt right to me. I think I've finally found one that works: I don't want much to do with the music business as it is today. I just want to play anywhere I can, post everything I write free, and see what comes back. And as I said, So Far So Good!

This new album features my first Christmas song, a profane little ditty that should ensure my attendance in the "special" room in Hell someday. It's called "Let's Put The Ass Back In Christmas".

(Here's a link to my youtube channel where you can see the video of "Ass Back In Christmas" as well as many others. Most recent video posts: Shut The Fuck Up, Just Like Bob Dylan, and Smokin' Too Much Weed. http://www.youtube.com/user/GeneBurnett )

On the new CD, I also have a song inspired by the original Wolfman movie called "Destiny" which was the original title of the movie. There's a couple of songs from back in 1997 that I wrote with a female voice in mind: "Sure" and "Now Is The Time To Wait". I've even got some legal advice in my song "Easy For The Man". There's also a couple of Dylan-esque long ones: "Up For Grabs" and "Fated".

And as usual, Thanks For Your Support!

GB

Damaged?

We all are...

I find it so interesting how different two brothers can be, even raised similarly in the same family. My brother Allison was describing the differences between his two very young sons, and I asked him if he saw any similarities between them and us when we were that age. He said in his reply email that he couldn't see any obvious similarities, but added half-jokingly that he and I were skewed and damaged by the events of our childhood until we were 30. This, to me, pointed out the differences between us.

For instance, I see skewing and damage as inevitable results of being born self-conscious human beings. Whereas he seems to idealize the state of childhood somewhat and believe that if it weren't for the damage done to us as children, we would all be better people.

I think we'd just be fucked up in different ways.

I think being human is to be fucked up, that is to say wounded, conditioned by early traumas, stuck in the past, etc. There are different flavors and intensities for sure, but we're all, in my view, everyone of us, wounded, groping, overly something, underly something, not fully alive, all fucked up.

Great joy is possible, of course: the pleasure of living a creative life and loving nature and other people (all of which I experienced all through my childhood and still do), but I think we mostly miss the mark by a pretty good measure. I just see damage as so inextricably part of being human. I've never met anyone in my life who wasn't damaged in some core way. Life is damaging to all living things and ends up killing us in the end. To me, the task of existence is to connect with life and express myself as best I can in spite of whatever inevitable damage has occured. Preventing it seems mostly impossible. In fact, tons of damage gets done by people trying not to do damage. I would even go so far as to say: To have children is to damage them.

(I have a song about this on my new album, Flow More~Force Less, called "Scarred For Life". It's on my site under Musical Recordings. Other relevant songs, also on the new album, are "Grateful For The Shovel" and "I Don't Care What You Call Me".)

I hardly ever focus on what was done to me, or how I was damaged. I only want to touch life as fully as I can with whatever parts of me feel alive and functioning. True, I did a lot of work on myself, my body and its capacities when I was younger, to wake up as many parts of me as I could that felt asleep, but basically, with a few exceptions, the changes I made were modest. I'm still basically the same person I always was, I've just learned a few things, tossed a few patterns, and done as much of what I wanted to do as I could.

I've had a lot of pleasure in this damaged body, much more it seems to me, than many other people I've met who seem much less damaged in the standard sense. Then I look a little closer and I see that their joys are different from mine, that they value different abilities, and that they're as alive as I am, just doing different things.

Everyone seems obsessed to me. Seriously obsessed. Everyone. We're just obsessed with different things. We tend to look at other people's obsessions and call them "sick" or "obsessive" as though they had a disease and we're fine. But I have never met a single person who wasn't obsessed with something. Sometimes it wasn't obvious, but everyone seems to have something they can't say "No" to, something they "have" to do. In my view, it makes us all equal. We're all obsessive nut cases. Some are just more visible, or honest, or sneaky, or dangerous, or transparent, or legal, or societally approved of at the moment. I'm much more forgiving when I see other people this way. And much more alert.

I might be wrong here, but I think this fundamental fatalism of mine about damage, is a place where my brother and I are not very alike. Another difference, as I see it, is that he tends to express his opinions as though they were facts, as though what he's seeing is how things are. He has great confidence in his perceptions and opinions. I tend to express my opinions as opinions, because I think we're all, myself included, groping around and have no real idea where we are or what's happening. I have a limited confidence in my perceptions because I see perception itself as inherently inaccurate. I do have unlimited faith and confidence in the part of me that knows what feels right and what doesn't. I obey that all the time and my ground is most solid when I just report this, as in "Your song didn't work for me" vs. "Your song was bad.".

I think things out, I analyze like anyone else, I see a certain world out there, I have opinions that I express as facts too, but what I keep coming back to over and over is: I just have a point of view and it's probably mostly wrong. My certainty is constantly falling away, and I find myself less and less drawn to categorizing damage. I find myself more and more focused on what feels right to do right now. That, and questions like, Who can help me?, Who can I help?, and, Who should I stay the hell away from?

In these comparisons, I don't feel critical or judgmental, at least not that I'm aware of. They're just ways that we seem different to me. Like his kids are different from each other. Is it biology? Wired in? Is it a result of their experiences? Some complex interaction of the two? Who the hell really knows?

Flow More~Force Less

Finally!

Well my friends, the wait is over...

I have a new album out!

But first I wanted to tell you that I've finally finished adding meta tags to all the songs on all of the albums at www.GeneBurnett.com. What this means is that when you download a song to your computer, iPod or iTunes, you'll get not only the song itself, but also the song title, the album title, the album cover, the year it was released, my name (or as I put it: GeneBurnett.com), the composer (moi) and genre.

This has been a long time coming. Previously, there were either no tags at all, or mostly inaccurate ones. Now, anyone who downloads a song can easily find their way back to my site to download more, or buy CD's, or tip me, or email me nice comments, or whatever. Plus, these tags make it much easier for you to organize my songs into your own collection.

As you may already know, this has been the most prolific period of my songwriting life. Just when I think it's slowing down, another wave comes. After having released two double albums this year, "Maybe Nothing's Wrong" and "Undiscovered", I've got another one done now and that makes 5 CD's this year. And, I'm thinking I'll probably do one more before the year is done.

The new album is called "Flow More~Force Less", and as usual all of the songs are available for free listening and free (donation basis) downloading at my site: www.GeneBurnett.com

Tipping is totally optional. You'll make my day if you do, but I'll still have a good day if you don't.

I like this collection of songs a lot and I'm particularly happy with the recording itself. We changed the mic configuration a bit, and while I think that helped, I think the bigger difference was that the new configuration allowed me more space to move a bit while I was playing. A big part of what I'm doing and trying to capture has to do with the state of mind and body that I have to be in in order to make my sound. I'm as interested in sharing this state as I am in sharing the music itself. With a less restrictive mic placement I was, I think, better able to relax and sink into that state of mind/body connection and unforced balance that I'm after. So I liked what was captured the night I recorded the songs.

Aside from the title song, (which is about oddly enough, flowing more and forcing less) there are a few new favorites on this CD. "By The Stars" is about how little I think any of us knows where the hell we really are; "Grateful For The Shovel" is an ode to my guitar and the healing power of self expression; "Loner" is, I hope, about the loser in everyone and contains some adult language (hint: it rhymes with the title...); "I Don't Care What You Call Me" is about my obsession with writing songs, and "Hell Yes" is about the good stuff.

Here's the title song lyrics along with some links to ID some of the suspects. (Check out the links if you have time. They were really fun to find and I think you'll enjoy them.)

Flow More~Force Less

by Gene Burnett (2009)

I asked Jimi Hendrix

The key to his success

He said: Flow more force less

I asked Casanova

How to get the no to yes

He said: Flow more force less

I asked Michael Jordan

I asked Tiger Woods

I asked Leonard Cohen

How'd you get so good?

I asked Elvis Presley

How to shake it with the best

He said: Flow more force less

Flow more force less

I asked Donald Fagen

How do you lose the stress?

He said: Flow more force less

I asked Barack Obama

How to get out of this mess

He said: Flow more force less

I asked Mahatma Gandhi

I asked John Coltrane

I asked Willie Nelson

How do you ease the strain

I asked Bootsy Collins

How to get to his address

He said: Flow more force less

Flow more force less

I asked Blossom Dearie

How to sing with such finesse

She said: Flow more force less

I asked Mother Nature

How'd you get into that dress

See said: Flow more force less

I asked Michael Jordan

I asked Satchel Paige

I asked Leonard Cohen

How to get out of this cage

I asked Elvis Presley

How to shake it with the best

He said: Flow more force less

Flow more force less

Thanks for your support!

GB

Sick of the Beatles

Enough already. I think it's time for an anti-Beatles backlash. I think I'm going to write a song called "I'm Sick Of The Goddamned Beatles!" As much as I love their songs, I am actually tired of the frickin' Beatles already. It seems like every few years there's some new huge Beatles media push. One year it's "Oh, here's the Best of the Beatles albums", then it's, "Ooooooh, look! The Beatles Anthology...and a new Beatles song! No wait, there's two!!!!", then it's "Oooh, now they're on CD's!!", then it's like, "Ooooh! Look they're re-releasing their movies!", then it's like, "Ooooh! Now there's a new movie made up of their songs!", then it's "Ooooooh! Cirque du-frickin' Soleil is doing a Beatles show!", then it's "Ooooh! Look! An album of all their number one hits!" and then it's, "Ooooooooooh! Now look! They've done mash-up remixes of a bunch of their songs!", and, "A new version of Let It Be!", and then, "Wow! There's a whole bunch of tribute albums!" and now it's "Ooooooh! Look! Remastered versions of all their albums!" Not to mention, a full scale re-hashing of their entire careers every time one of them dies or turns 64. Holy Lennon, haven't they made enough money yet? Haven't we heard enough of this music? It's not enough that the rest of us musicians have to compete with these guys who're right next to us in every frickin' iPod in the country, but we have to weather a new media onslaught 5 times a decade. Look, they were a great band no question. Great hooks, great singing, great songs. But they weren't perfect. The lyrics are nice but mostly weak. Paul does not honestly reveal anything at all about any of his feelings about anything except: I'm in love and happy. John is mostly a testy head-case who's completely full of himself. (OK, maybe he came to his senses later, but that was later!) George is always writing these minor key dirges and when the frickin' SUN returns to frickin' foggy, winter ravaged ENGLAND, all he can muster is "It's All Right..." Ringo, is admittedly a great drummer: Simple, understated, never ever gets in the way of the songs and often (as with Here Comes The Sun, Something, and others) actually makes them much better than they are without him. But can we move on now? There are many great bands and songwriters who deserve more listening. These guys have had more than their share. Let's "Let Them Be" !!! Don't buy the new box set! Be content with your memories! Go to GeneBurnett.com and buy my CD's instead! Better yet. Download all my albums free! And then leave me a tip!

Impressed?

(photo by dasjadolan.com)

It's up to you.

Well, my 5 year experiment continues. I'm recording and posting everything I write on my site www.GeneBurnett.com and it's all available for free (donation basis) downloading. I also post as much as I can on youtube and myspace. My experiment is to see what comes back freely when I do this. So far so good! Lots of good comments, some tips in my digital tip jar, youtube subscribers and more CD sales than when I only had 30 second clips available on my site.

I'm doing what I'm doing because it feels right. I'm trusting that feeling and going with it. This is what "The Unforced Life" is all about: doing what feels most deeply right and natural, using as little force as possible. There are now 19 (soon to be 20) albums of songs posted. Four (soon to be five) from this year alone! I'm not trying to impress anyone, I'm just being myself. As a line from one of my new songs says: "I'm this way by Nature not by choice".

When I was younger, I wanted to impress every single person I ever played my songs for. I'm glad I wanted that and I'm glad I went for it. I have found that the desire to impress people is a very good thing to study and learn about, both in my self and in others.

These days, the more I focus on delivering my sound the best I can, and letting people's decisions about whether they like it or not be their business, the better I feel, and the more fun I have. It sure takes a lot of energy to care about, and try to control, what other people think of me.

I know I'm kind of a semi-autistic eccentric nut case, but at least I enjoy what I'm doing for its own sake. When I watch other people play, I want to see genuine enjoyment and I want to see a spontaneous act of creation. When a performer is rehearsed and polished but their essential feature is a hunger for worshipful attention, I tend to lose interest.

I guess this is why I am more of a singer and a writer than an entertainer. My first concern is to be true to my own inner sense of rightness and creative expression. Pleasing others comes second. I take my potential audience into account, but I write and sing for myself first. This can be entertaining, but it is not inherently so.

I don't judge my performances solely by whether my audience enjoyed what I did. Sure, it's nice if they do, but my real concern is, Did I play the songs the way I wanted to play them? Did I find that unforced balance between spontaneity and coherence? Did I breathe life into the songs? Did I feel better for having sung them? Did I sing them as naturally as I could without unnecessary effort? Did I get out of the way and serve the songs?

Most of the time, I'd rather play really well to a crowd that was indifferent to me, than play a mediocre set to a crowd that loved me. Missing the mark I find somewhat painful, and the fact that "people liked me" doesn't really make it worthwhile. I'm after that unforced feeling of balance and belonging that comes from singing my own songs in my own voice. When I'm doing that, the last thing on my mind is whether or not anyone is impressed or whether it's entertaining. And oddly enough, that is, I think, when I'm the most impressive and entertaining!

Bandon T'ai-Chi Retreat

Walking the beach

I just got back from my annual trip to Bandon on the Oregon Coast where my teacher Andy Dale holds a T'ai-Chi retreat. This year the events were organized by Ken Wright who did a great job coordinating the various instructors and scheduling the classes. It's a pretty informal affair with 6 or 7 classes offered each day. Students pay $10 per class directly to the instructor. The "dojo" is the beach. This year Ken set up a blog to help publicize things as well.

I taught 3 classes: Healthy Knees, Guiding Your Own Practice, and one on T'ai-Chi Troubleshooting where I invited people to bring their problem movements to see if I could help. This last class was my least attended but most enjoyable. I'm thinking of just offering 3 Troubleshooting classes next year.

To me, this annual retreat isn't really about making money. I'm lucky if I can pay for one night's motel room. It's really about hanging out with Andy, bringing a few of my students, taking classes, seeing how my work resonates with people, how the other teacher's work resonates with me, and mostly, it's about walking the beach each evening with my old friend Joel Hartshorne. He started studying T'ai-Chi with Andy around the same time I did 25 years ago, (although BaGua has always been his favorite art).

For the past 3 years we've had a tradition of walking 4-7 miles each night along the beach in front of the Sunset Motel where we all stay. (The Sunset is great by the way, not too expensive, friendly help, lots of different types of accommodations.) We know this beach really well by now and can practically walk it blindfolded.

If you haven't been to Bandon, it's got an amazing beach. There are these huge monolithic rocks in and out of the water. Some are huge, others small, but all of them are beautiful and very cool at night. And it's never crowded! And I mean never.

This year there was almost no moon so the stars were truly awesome. The tide rolls in and out and we sometimes hang out and practice as it comes in and see if we can stay just out of the incoming surf's reach. But mainly we just walk and talk and see the nighttime sites. And amazingly, there's almost always no one else out there.

At one point I wondered out loud if we were imprisoned on this beach and would not be released until we had walked the equivalent of the distance to the nearest star, how long would it take us? How many circuits from one end of our beach walk to the other? Of course neither of us could do the math in our heads and we...uh...gave up pretty quickly.

But here's the actual math: Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. There are 31,536,000 seconds in a year (60 X 60 X 24 X 365). So, forgetting about leap years, that means light travels 5,865,696,000,000 in a year (31,536,000 X 186,000). The nearest stars, according to our latest wisdom, are around 4 light years away which would be 23,462,784,000,000 miles (5,865,696,000,000 X 4). Since our beach walk round trip is about 4 miles, we divide 23,462,784,000,000 by 4 which gives us a total of 5,865,696,000,000 trips up and down the beach!

The average walking speed of human beings is around 3 miles per hour; but since we stop and practice, take our time, and are walking on sand, I'm thinking it's more like 2 mph. Since each round trip would take us two hours (4 miles divided by 2), we take our trip total (5,865,696,000,000) and multiply by 2 and we get 11,731,392,000,000 hours of walking. We take that total and divide by 24 to get the total number of days: 488,808,000,000. Divide that total by 365 and we get the total number of years we'd have to walk to win our freedom: 1,339,200,000. Only about 1-1/3 billion years of beach walking! That's only a bit more than a third the age of the Earth...(Special thanks to www.metacalc.com)

I was thinking as I walked this year that there are some things I'm really glad to have done in my life. Things that make me feel OK about dying.

I'm glad I got to record, perform, and write so many songs. I wanted to be James Taylor when I was young and while that level of success is beyond me now, what I've really enjoyed most is just sorting out so many things in my life and expressing them musically.

I'm also really glad that I learned to practice and teach T'ai-Chi. I became fascinated with Chinese philosophy and martial arts back in high school when I first say the TV show "Kung Fu". I wanted to be sage/bad-ass like David Carradine's character and while I've let go of the whole combat side of that dream, I feel I do have some things to offer people about health, balance, self-defense and living less forcefully. And I do it for a living which is really amazing to me.

I'm also really glad to have been married for 15 years to my wife Samarra. I always wanted to be in an intimate relationship where my partner and I could both really be ourselves and be accepted and loved that way.

I'm glad I found a way to live in a small town and make a living. I dreamed of living close to Nature for many, many years and now it's my life.

I'm also really glad that I got to see a bit of the world. While I'm anything but a "traveler", (I hardly ever leave Ashland), I have lived in New York City, Evanston Illinois, rural Iowa, Seattle and Naples Italy for a year when I was young. I've seen some really amazing wildlife and witnessed many of Nature's little and larger miracles.

And now I add to the list that I'm so glad that I got to walk along one of the most beautiful beaches anywhere with a good friend, talking about our lives, practicing unforced balance, and making each other laugh.

Thank You Bandon!

Thank You Joel!

Thank You Stars!

Tattoos?

Not yet.

Whenever I see someone with several tattoos, which honestly is about 10 times a day around here, I always think of those huge bellbottoms which were such a "must have" in the early 70's. I mean we would not have been caught dead with straight leg jeans. You had to have bells and the bigger the better. What if we had had those suckers tattooed on! Or those big parkas that were all the rage one year. Or mullets.

Today's cool is so easily tomorrow's "D-List". And, for better or worse, these things send distinct messages to people with distinct results. Imagine showing up for a first date or job interview or project meeting dressed in huge bellbottoms, with a mullet, mutton chop sideburns, a tight bright polyester shirt, a puka shell necklace, a big "Peace" medallion, a huge "Keep On Truckin" belt buckle, and platform shoes? It's hard to believe possible but in 30 years (or 30 minutes) tattoos could be exactly like that. And, they'd be under your skin and not too easy to get rid of invisibly.

Take the sacrum tattoo for girls. The first time I saw one, I thought, Oh that's kinda cool. Now it's the radical girls who don't get them. And the tattoos are being called "tramp stamps". And if yours is tattooed on, well...there you go...

I've got nothing against tattoos, if you like 'em, go get 'em, but man, I'd just be too scared to get some trendy thing on there and end up with a "tramp stamp" or something else that actively sends a constant message to the world about me that is no longer accurate. I want flexibility in my relationships with the people and the world and I'm very wary of doing anything that would take any of mine away. I believe it's in my nature to be overly cautious in this way, so I'm not fighting it. I'm just kind of guiding it.

That said, the kind of tattoos I really like are the ones that mark some kind of passage, like when vets have one of the branch of the service they were in. I had a friend once who was doing work in Laos in the jungle and the locals were so happy with the work he'd done for them that they "offered" him their ceremonial tattoo. He felt like saying no would have been in very bad form so he sort of bit the bullet and said, OK...

They let a big fire and he's sitting there shirtless and this guy comes out with a sharp bamboo stick and a little bowl of some kind of jungle ink. My friend is thinking, Oh Jesus, and just closes his eyes and lets him go at it. A couple of hours later the tattoo is done and the fire is out. The guy reaches into the fire and pulls out a big handful of ash, slaps the tattooed area and rubs it in hard. My friend thinks, oh God, I'm going to get every jungle infection known to man. But, it turns out, the ash is sterile and somehow helped the tattoo "set" or heal or whatever. He showed it to me and it was really beautiful. It looked like a Celtic knot or mandala. This a tattoo that reminds him of something incredible that he went through, not something he bought to feel cooler. It's more of a scar than a decoration.

I also really like self-designed stuff that seems in tune with the person or the physical lines of his body. The picture above this post is of a porn star who goes by "Bella Donna". I like the swirling one around her shoulder and breast. I think it really blends into her whole physical self.

It's the sort of randomly added odds and ends approach is my least favorite. But hey, whatever anyone wants to do with their skin is their business. I treat tattooed people pretty much that same as I treat everybody else.

Here's the thing: I have to commit myself in life. I can't not commit. If I say, I won't commit, I'm committed to that. And, when I commit to anything, I'm more vulnerable, my options go down. There's no avoiding it. I can't not commit. So what I like to do is commit consciously, in ways that enhance my life and where I keep as many options open as possible. I think ahead before I commit. I want to be as sure as I can that I don't end up committed to something that I really regret.

I search my mind and heart for what feels most deeply right. And then, if it's a tattoo. Fuck it. I'll get one. But it hasn't happened yet...