Moby's "Destroyed" a religious experience...

A few posts ago I talked of my struggles with "Christian" music and how I often feel obligated to somehow like it because it’s tagged Christian. Quite often it just seems derivative, a pale imitation of the music found in the world to which it is trying to show its relevance. 

It's not the first time I’ve written about this. I've also talked about the "spirituality" of so-called secular music. Personally, if I like something I don’t care how it’s tagged. I hate labels and find them divisive (I’m reminded of the DDJ quote (loosely paraphrased): “There are already too many names so shut up already.”). Quite often I find that non-Christian (at least not so designated) music provides a greater catharsis as it taps into the raw emotions of being human.

Moby's new release provided that several weeks ago while I was on the road. Working seven days a week for the past six years has been quite a challenge. Granted, the weekend gig isn't exactly laborious but it is time away from home and it is quite isolating as with the exception of the security guards I am isolated.

I have lots and lots (probably too much) time to listen to music, read and watch movies, quite frequently to the point of distraction. But it is often put on in an effort to drown out the background noise of machinery.

My thoughts are often occupied with things of a "spiritual" nature and the restlessness of my soul.

Anyhow, I'm listening to Moby's new album, Destroyed. I've read many reviews and critics are not being too kind to it. Granted, the Play album is always lurking in the background both as his magnum opus and - the inevitably of fame - the point at which he sold out. I put Moby on the backburner only dabbling in his post-18 releases as my interest moved towards things of a "dub" nature.

But my interest in Moby's music goes back to circa 1994 when I was introduced to the rave scene and his Move EP. I was instantly drawn to his music.

The love affair lasted for over five years until Play hit the big time (y'know the "Oh, you're just discovering him. I've followed him since..." kind of thing). His music - Ambient, Everything Is Wrong (especially the DJ mix version) and Mixmag Live 2 - provided the soundtrack for me during some of the most challenging, yet rewarding, periods of growth in my life.

Moby's professed "Christian" beliefs contrasted with his "punk" attitude resonated. Yet the music had a vibe was not churchy in any way but it had a strong pensive, seeking, melancholy longing to it that seemed to me a pursuit of things Real. At once a criticism of things of the world it also provided a catalyst toward finding answers. The gospel tinged Play was perhaps inevitable.  Its genius has been lost in the mist of its ubiquity. 

However, once removed from the insular context of the album itself and launched into a world of car commercials and elevators the meaning was drained. It was many, many years before I would listen to Play again, though the B-sides was a pleasant surprise.

So when I read the previews of this album and its creation in isolation I knew what that meant. Immediately, I ordered the vinyl.

The album itself is gorgeous. At first, it appears to hearken back to Ambient in its simplicity. This will surely disappoint listeners looking for the Play type sounds. Personally, for what his music has been to me, this album is exactly right. I'm in another one of those reconfiguring periods of life. So it captures the spirit of that time in my life but provides a certain soundtrack for now that allows my soul to wander freely in search of the Real.

Several weeks ago, I had escaped from the 9 to 5 grind by going on a road trip to one of my company's suppliers which, in reality, was more an excuse to get out of the office for a few days. I was really struggling with the feeling overworked (or, more accurately, feeling like work was getting in the way of figuring out what’s gnawing at me), fretting over being trapped by the stuff of the world and a longing for a sense of freedom. Over 900 miles of driving in two days was exactly what the doctor ordered.

On the way home I was listening to this album for the first time. I stopped for gas at an exit in Michigan somewhere and I spotted a Goodwill. Now you have to understand that for many, many years I was a thrift store junkie. Any new town was a chance to scour the thrift stores (primarily looking for vinyl but other curiositie as well). I passed up more than a few this time around. Yet I was drawn to this one.

What did I find there? Moby's Play DVD. So what? Well, God has always dealt with me in signs, mostly having to do with music (of a secular nature, truth be told). I knew immediatley that this was a confirmation. All the doubts, frustrations and fatigue I had been feeling were replaced with a moment of ecstasy. I was excited about the DVD, certainly, but the odds of finding this DVD at this thrift store at this point in time hundreds of miles away from my home was too obvious to miss.

As I hopped back on the highway feeling pretty good, the album continued to play. By the time I got to "Lacrimae" at about 70 mph I was in bliss. It was one of those rare, memorable confirmations. I was exactly where I was supposed to be and my troubles evaporated. Everything past is laid to rest, no regrets. Moving forward was not really on my mind. It was quite "Zen" in the sense that I was in the moment enjoying the feeling of the speed of the car, the sounds in my ears and the sensation of being divinely guided.

If you don’t think there is a “spiritual” element to this album, try listening to “The Right Thing” through “Lacrimae” in one sitting, either undistracted or completely absorbed in doing something (like driving…). You’ll find some elements from his earlier works (Play, Everything Is Wrong) yet there is orchestral, almost symphonic, sound that is much more elevated than in previous releases.  Moby as composer?

Moby's music has always had that kind of "vibe" that moves me. Can't tell you how many nights his music catapulted me into feeling of bliss (often chemically induced but not this time...). I think it's my relationship with his music over two decades that has me glowing about this one.

Once again, context defines an albums meaning. The experience lasted for a few hours.

Though I may fail as a music critic on this one (even the abrupt endings on the songs feels right) I can certainly tell you that the album will take you places if you allow it.

Baraka: The Other Soundtrack

This was originally posted at another blog of mine that was recently deleted by Google.

The film Baraka is easily in my top five films. My journey (though a bit longwinded) of discovery with it, if you’re interested, can be found here.

The novelty and naïveté has worn off but this film always take me back to that original burst of spiritual awareness that burst forth that year.

Anyhow, if you’ve watched the film and listened to the soundtrack you’ll notice immediately that the soundtrack is sorely lacking.

These are songs not included on the soundtrack and extended versions of some of the tracks from the soundtrack.

Add these songs to the soundtrack and you’re close to the soundtrack as it’s meant to be. You can find a straight audio rip of the DVD here.

The only thing not included here, and unavailable outside of the tidbits found on the soundtrack, would be the score by Michael Stearns (with an uncredited appearance by Lisa Gerrard during the scoring of one of the film scenes).

The Blu-Ray is available and it is, hands down, one of the best - if not the best - Blu Ray discs I've ever seen.  I've seen this on the big screen (though I can't say it was in its original 70mm format or not...was kind of stoned at the time...) and have seen it on video and DVD.  But the Blu-Ray...don't wait and don't settle for a bootleg from the web.
Part1//Part2

Seattle, Kites and LSD

I keep coming back to 1994. Either I am elevating it to myth or it has been the center of gravity of the space in which I now occupy. It was only a year but so much came out of that year I am only now beginning to understand the fallout.

In revisiting my past, mostly through music, I stumbled across an article I had published in the Seattle Times on October 2, 1994. It was my first published piece. Here it is in full:

Soaring Spirits -- A Brief Lesson In Kite-Flying Offered Pure Cleansing Energy

I read the letters to the editor daily and find myself wondering where the good is in the world. But sometimes, amidst the muck and the mire of the daily grind, there bursts a ray of shimmering hope. Spending a cathartic Sunday afternoon at Magnuson Park, I sat watching in fascination as a colorful array of sport kites, poetry in motion if you've never really watched them, circled in the crystal clear blue sky above, Mount Rainier in full splendor dwarfing the background.

After following one particular kite for a while, the man controlling it so gracefully sensed my awe and said hello. I commented on his kite and before I knew it he was teaching me to fly it using his own kite, a child's excitement in his voice as he performed this completely unselfish act. The beauty lies in the bond formed with the kite and the wind. If I took my eyes off the kite for two seconds it came crashing to the ground. When my focus was on the kite, not only did it fly smoothly but all other things were washed from my mind, there was simply no room. An act as simple as flying a kite was pure cleansing energy; one could say it was spiritual.

This man also introduced me to several gentlemen from Prism, a local company that crafts these high-tech, high-quality kites. They had volunteered their time and kites to show a local church group how to fly them. To see the joy in their faces as they learned; to feel it in the enthusiasm of the man who taught me; and to feel it in the pride of the guys at Prism, their dream, a perfect union of man and nature, soaring above their heads, made me realize there is hope in the world. And it felt good.

Sometimes the big picture that so terrifies us just needs a little fine tuning. So, to Pack and the guys at Prism, a heartfelt thanks.

The funny thing about the story, the subtext if you will, was that I had just taken a hit of acid. 

I own a Prism stunt kite and have flown it a few times since then.  A friend of mine fixed me up on a blind date because she had asked her if she liked flying kites.  Tough to build a relationship on that (well, that and smoking pot).  I vaguely remember driving about an hour from my home to look at new kites.  Seemed like kite flying could have been a big thing but I live in Ohio and the kites were sold out of some guy's basement.  Guess it wasn't a big thing.  Maybe somewhere other than Ohio... 

My family thought I was bizarre when, in more recent memory, I brought it to the Outer Banks on a family vacation.  Loved the reaction from one of the guys in the beach shop when I showed him my now "vintage" kite.  There was a moment where I thought it was kinda cool.

It was a joy to fly it on the beach but for some reason it just never lived up to that brief, fleeting moment written about for all the world to see.

The stickiness of "the world"

Lately, it seems, I've transferred by addiction to something seemingly less harmful than alcohol, drugs or pornography. This isn't really the case, though, because any "addiction" is merely a cover for something internal, an projection outward of desires inward. My latest addiction is my other blog.

Why the need to do it? Why the need to share what I have been, over the past decade or so, hoarding? Attention? Love? Escape? Hope for a sponsor so I can be free of the drudgery of being slave to the wage?

I suppose I seek something transcendent in it, though those moments are few. Music, in my past, had always provided an escape, transcendence even. But I haven't found this since the late 90s. I believe music is merely the universal expression from the soul of its longing toward Truth. Artists, from death metal to gospel and the gamut in between, merely represents everyone's different point along that journey. Obviously, the continuum has expanded its boundaries.

So I find music that stirs me, that "moves" me in the sense that it expresses or taps into my emotional state. But transcendence? I get this on occasion through Christian music (though, for example, so too can the recitation of the Qur'an can elicit similar response). But often a Christian song that once stirred my soul will, years later, stir nothing at all but reminisce. Perhaps it is merely a trigger, as all music is, a memory machine of where we have been.

I find that rather than the longing for that surge of a rush, those moments I most appreciate are moments of peace, stillness, calm. I have found that it is this that I find in Christian music, mostly because it stirs up in my soul what has been deposited there through the Word.

I can find stillness of another kind through secular music though this seems to be fleeting; my expectations of what music should do limits the experience. But it does happen, often in strange ways. Most recently, I have stumbled onto what has been tagged "post rock". Perhaps it hearkens back to my days of "hair metal" and the euphoria associated with such loudness but for some reason the mood created by some of these bands actually moves me, though it's certainly an emotional response more than a spiritual one.

Eluvium's epic "Zerthis Was a Shivering Human Image" carried me through a difficult state of mind not too long ago. With it's basic structure of guitar washed in distortion channeling back and forth for fifteen minutes doesn't seem like much for relaxing the mind, it would seem that the noise and my thoughts collapsed the wave function, so to speak, and I achieved a state of stillness.

But I long for that escape. I want to run (knowing of course, wherever I go I am still there...), to fly away, to wander and roam. In the end, however, I do realize that no matter the means, I still remain in the "stickiness" of the world and until I can embrace it, see through it, allow it to be resurrected, my longing to "escape" through music and give it all away, seeking connection in the comments, will be but a fleeting journey.

Unless, of course, I figure out a way to make money at it.

1994 Into The Wild

Y'know how we often talk about getting out, going, just being free?

It's a regular conversation in small towns, suburban towns, where culture is, well, isn't. I vowed to get out. I didn't know what that meant. All I knew was the small town thing, the high school clique thing, the pursuit of the traditional career path thing wasn't my thing.

Never did prom. Did two Sadie's Hawkins dance (what the hell is that anyhow?) and one homecoming dance. It was pretty stupid. I suppose being drunk or stealing street signs instead of participating in anything else in high school wasn't very bright either.

All I knew was I hated it. It seemed stupid, pointless, stale, cliche. So I couldn't wait to leave. By the time I was 25 I had a fat bank account, was a recovering alcoholic (though was in reality simply trading alcohol for the mellower haze of being a pothead) and was running headlong into madness. Ah, the good ol' days.

So I left. I had a semi-plan, a list of friends to visit in a circuit throughout the southern route to the West. I really did have a good time. The freedom was intoxicating, invigorating. What I remember - and had difficulty handling - was the total and complete freedom to make my own choices. Driven by the demons of abuse, addiction and obligation, this freedom was a struggle. I felt as if I had to get somewhere, do something, gain approval from someone. In other words, I wasn't free.

But I left. I cut the ties. I quit the job and left. The photo above shows some of the remnants. One of the best moves was becoming a member of Hosteling International. To stay in the heart of San Francisco for under $20. In the red light district of San Fransisco, anyhow. Maybe I do have a prostitute story. Sort of...

I had met a guy (can't remember his name...we were sick of each other by this time anyhow...) in a Hostel in Portland, Oregon and he needed a ride to San Fransisco. I was headed south anyhow...camped out overnight in the dunes on the coast of Oregon...couldn't find weed in Acadia, California and ended up sleeping on the side of the road somewhere...got to drive the entire stretch of Highway 101 along the coast...convenient company I suppose...but no pictures.

So out the door of the Hostel is, quite literally, hooker alley. I had never seen so many prostitutes congregated in one place with car after car driving up, girl getting in, car driving off. And these girls were stunning...in a done up, plastic kind of way. These were not the crack cocaine kind I was familiar with in Youngstown. So we sat out on the street for hours, just watching. It was at once fascinating and sad, on so many levels. No conversation with the prostitutes, just observations. Not much of a story, but...

So the photo above is what's left of my journey. A couple of receipts and the Stamp Book from Hosteling International (with several other hostel destinations stamped inside, all of which are no longer in existence) and my journal.

The journal is a weird thing and says a lot. There is very little personal information, very little details on what I was doing. It is mostly musing, bad poetry and the ramblings of someone who is smoking way too much dope. There are little snippets here and again which are intriguing but they require more analysis. But there is much detachment, very little personal detail.

I do have Gilligan and The Professor's autographs, though. What a weird thing that was. At some beach festival on Pike Street where I worked there was a bunch of sand and Gilligan and The Professor sitting there signing autographs. It was a truly sad thing, these two old guys living off of a show thirty years in syndication, Bob Denver telling the promoter he was hungry and wanted something to eat. Just plain bizarre. Even then I sought irony...

...which explains the L.A. Coroner's receipt for two t-shirts. They were selling souvenirs. I met the woman who had started it up and she had informed me that it started as something of a fund raiser and it took off. They had mugs, towels, t-shirts and an assortment of stuff that people could buy.

I did find the impressions of my first, and only, Dead show in the journal and my first, though not last, time on acid. But that's another story...

Christopher McCandless and the bus...

In 1994, I was roaming the West, bogged down with way too much stuff and too much existential baggage. A friend of my father's, who was living in Seattle, had some property outside of Flathead Lake in Montana. He offered up his place prior to my visit to Seattle where I would stay with him for a few days. It's hard going back, so much has been forgotten in the haze of fifteen years gone by.

A pivotal period of time in my life yet so little has been recorded. It is a mystery I have yet to penetrate. Like Chris McCandless I so wanted freedom and space yet at the same time was desperately seeking love, not so much of others, though that was present, but love of self and, ultimately, peace with God, though at the time a notion of a 'personal' God was the God of wrath, punishing me for every sin. I sought freedom from the burden of God as well.

Pictures will follow (when I find them) but the 'home' on the property, of which a foundation had been built, was a school bus. Yep. A school bus. Cliche, perhaps. The property around the bus was littered with (bad) sculptures that looked like either a bunch of hippies on too much of something had built them, scratching their heads in the morning at what had been created, or the kind of things you would find at the home of a serial killer. Freaky either way.

I would stay there for three days. I rode my bike into town (not sure which town it was...Elmo I believe), sat by the lake during sunset (although I may be imagining this based off of a picture I've seen), and basically hung out. No earth shattering revelations came, nothing profound. I do remember the utter darkness and silence inside the bus.

I would venture that Chris had had his fill at some point. Being still, settling in one place, was difficult, especially when not in a state of constant motion "doing" something, anything.

Into the Wild Christopher McCandless

In 1992, my addictions and subsequent wanderlust were beginning to manifest. Big time. I was making good money at a job I swore I'd never do and was living on the cheap and socking the excess money away (what was left after drinking anyhow...). It was during this time I began journeying West frequently. I'd been to Colorado in high school to ski with the family so had a taste of it and was drawn to the idea of space. Lots of it.

A drive from Ohio to Bozeman, Montana; a one-week tour of the four corners in a rented convertible Mustang; a job interview in Brooking, South Dakota. The itch was there.

The photo above shows actual copies of two Times articles where I first learned of his story. I've laminated them in order to preserve them. The first article appeared on September 12, 1992.

The header of Chapter 10, page 98, in Jon Krakaeur's Into The Wild contains the text of the column (if you click on the photo above you can read both articles). I remember the day it hit. It took hold of my soul and never let go.

A week later, the second article, the one above with the photo, appeared.

I have a day planner from 1992 (I was selling cell phones then...remember the bag phones?). On September 18 I have "Vacation" written (with a big arrow pointing through to September 27th).

On September 19th his body was identified.

This was my trip with girlfriend in tow driving to a bed and breakfast in Bozeman, Montana. Even then distance was a magnet. We went through South Dakota, visiting some roadside museum tribute showing where Dances With Wolves was filmed (another serendipitous moment), yes, Wall Drug, the Black Hills and making our way to Bozeman. I think it was this trip where I really became hooked on the open space via automobile.

Somewhere along this path I picked up the Sunday Times (probably outside of Chicago where we were staying with friends on the way) which contained the article on the identification of his body. That photo, which I've never seen anywhere else, is the image I have and will always have of Christopher McCandless.

I picked up a copy of the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where we had stayed for a night that week, and found an article about Wayne Westerberg's assistance in identifying the body. Carthage, where Christoper spent time, was just north of the Interstate on which we were traveling to Montana. I was traveling along the same terrain, unknowingly, following in his footsteps as I would do Robert Pirsig's several years later. Below is the original copy of the South Dakota paper, preserved and guarded for seventeen years. The story resonated deep.

Snippets from his diary were published in the Times and then the details soon followed. It was gripping. Horrifying. But I was captivated. Immediately. He went where I was longing to go. For years his story would haunt me. In my travels, he acted as cautionary tale. But he was not a hero. There was no glorifying his tale. He simply lived out where I was headed.

He was, quite simply, me. I think on some level he is a mirror for many who have dreams of going, getting out, wandering into the wild. What I was dabbling in, he acted out in full force. I understand where he was coming from; I understand the drive; I understand the longing for alone and for solitude and for Truth. We all struggle with this, some more overtly than others.

It was to my shock when Jon Krakauer's book was first published. And an even greater shock when the movie came out. Here was a private muse of mine, now made public, myth, legend. For those who know or knew me, to read the book was to read my story. No one could really figure out what it was that was driving me, why I couldn't find peace, why the longing to run, or numb myself. While the questions are never really answers in the case of Christopher McCandless, I, from what I have come to know, get it.

Both he and I graduated from high school and college in the same years. Like him, I too was, and still am, content to drive old cars with high miles. Like him, I too was becoming more and more disgusted with materialism and the "American" dream. I wanted out. As with him, it is perhaps ironic as both of us, though perhaps emotionally lacking, were, for all intensive purposes, well provided for materially. In other words, one might argue, we were both spoiled. Obviously we learned that the answers to life's bigger questions were not to be found in the world of 'stuff' but at least we had the 'stuff' we needed to survive.

It took me years before I was able to read the book and months to muster up the courage to watch the movie. There was something private about his story and I was afraid to relive this period of my life. I wasn't ready to heal as this part of my life had become, in my mind, quite mythical. The reality I wasn't ready to face was that I was just scared, emotionally scarred, a boyish man who wanted to hide from the fear.

Though there were genuine and sincere longings for truth, I don't know that I was running to anything as much as I was being driven by something, running from something.

By the time I left home in 1994, I had a much larger cushion than the one he had. I had a pretty sizeable savings account, a car and, as I would later learn (one of the best lessons I learned being on the road for almost a year), way too much stuff.

I have a soft spot for Christopher McCandless. Without being too sentimental, I can honestly say he may have saved my life. I was the typical suburban dreamer, longing of living in the mountains, or moving to Tibet, being free and on the road. As Christopher McCandless learned, too late, it is hard. And, in the end, what really matters is not being self-sufficient but being interdependent upon others.

For my year on the road I took four rolls of film. That's it. Of all the people I met, I am not in touch with any of them. This is perhaps one of the saddest reminisces of all. I met some amazing people, brilliant, beautiful, adventurous, yet made no connection with any of them. I got close to a few people but couldn't handle it and left. Longing for identity, I ran with a diverse crowd and experienced things I would never have otherwise experienced. But, in the end, all these experiences were mine. They were not shared with anyone.

The road of relationship is much more difficult, and rewarding, than that of the loner which, in the end, is a death sentence. We all die alone, certainly, but what matters is what we have deposited in those who remain when we die.

Christopher McCandless' story is bittersweet. Had he lived, it is likely no book would have been made about him as many have adventured much in the same way he did. It was his horrifying death, capturing a fear many - especially many a traveler - hold, that of dying alone, starving, in the middle of nowhere.

The book is a great read (though it is as much about the author as it is about McCandless) and the movie is stunning. I cried several times during the film, something quite rare, though it had more to do with my process of healing, film as mirror, than it did a concern for the character in the film. It comes highly recommended.

My only concern is that it tends to idolize him and his adventure. After all, he basically abandoned his family. It seems he realized this too late. And, as some have posited, perhaps he was more than just a little bit crazy, his disconnect and need for isolation signs of those who have mental illness.

As an aside note, the song "Big Hard Sun" performed by Eddie Vedder is a remake of an original by Indio whose CD containing the song is was out of print. It was karmic. I heard this song once on some independent channel in my hometown and was mesmerized and bought the CD new back then. 

I still have it (love Vedder but the original is much better than the remake...). Here it is twenty years later and it's come full circle.

Here's the original from Indio's Big Harvest album:

As if these connections are not enough, L. Subramaniam play violin on this track. For those who aren't familiar with his work, his track 'Wandering Saint' appears on the Baraka soundtrack which, for those who may be interested, has a strong significance in my life as well.

I have always been led by signs, between points in time that confirm that I am where I am supposed to be. When these signs come I know that what has happened between those two points in time is complete and I can lay it behind me and move on. There have been several of them in my life, confirmations that speak "my" language and are too serendipitous to ignore. This was one of them.

Though I don't consider him to be a saint or hero, Christopher McCandless' life, though tragic in the end, was not in vain.

Seattle 1994 Baraka and the World of Illusion

I am listening to the soundtrack for the film Baraka as ripped from the DVD (seems this is heading for obsolence as the Blu-Ray is said to be astonishing...).

In 1994 I was living in Seattle, having found myself there after several months on the road after quitting a "real" job and hitting the road (fueled by confusion, madness and drug use...). It was quite an experience.

One of the memorable moments in the drug-fueled period of my life was the opportunity to see the film Baraka in all it glory on the big screen. I doubt it was in the original 70 mm Todd-AO format though it may have been. All I know is that I was stoned when I went to see it and was mesmerized. In the midst of a spiritual crisis/catharis, the subject matter of the film was right on point. It was where I was at the time; it was also where I wanted to be. I sat in a stupor for about an hour and a half as I asborbed the images and sounds of the film. If you've never see it, you must see it at least once.

One of the pivotal moments, at the height of my buzz no less, was a scene in a trash dump in India where people are rummaging through the trash while Dead Can Dance's "Host of Seraphim" is playing. I was frozen in time. Never had I been so moved during a film; never had I felt a song so powerfully. It was, for that moment, transcendent. Even now as I listen to the song, it takes me there, a perfect memory capsule of a moment frozen in song.

Now, fifteen years later and a bit more worldly wise, I have found that many of the images in the film are based in settings that would be considered the tourist variety and the film itself is structured to "sell" a point. Though profound and moving it is now fairly obvious. Perhaps maturity and experience has shattered the illusion but it doesn't take away from the original experience for which this was a pivotal moment. This is a risk as we age, that we condemn and become cynical about those things that profoundly altered our worldview. But this film educated me and was instrumental in my desire to see the world in context.

One of the scenes which freaked me out at first was early in the film when a group of men, all seated, perform some kind of a dance in the jungle, all led by an older "shamanic" figure, eyes glazed over in a hypnotic trance, arms in unison as the bodies sway back and forth to the rhythm of the chant. A striking visual.

Years later I would learn that this is a staged performance called Kecak, or Ramayana Monkey Chant, a musical drama performed in Bali that celebrates an ancient Sanskrit epic. While it has its roots in sanghyang, a trance-inducing exorcism dance, it has become a "Westernized" version of the original.

A German painter and musician, Walter Spies, became interested in it during the 1930s and transformed it into a performance piece. Spies worked with Wayan Limbak, a Balinese dancer, and Limbak popularized the dance by traveling throughout the world with Balinese performance groups. These travels helped to make the Kecak known throughout the world.

This transformation is an example of what James Clifford describes as part of the "modern art-culture system" in which, "the West or the central power adopts, transforms, and consumes non-Western or peripheral cultural elements, while making 'art' which was once embedded in the culture as a while, into a separate entity."

Here is a more telling photo:

Sounds familiar...

Americanization

To what extent is education exploitation? Too cynical? Is my desire to keep such cultural elements confined to their historical roots a sign of the same "spirit" of Westernization, an elitist version of creating an exotic "other" for voyeuristic purpose?

Speaking of exploitation, tourism and Sufism, this all reminds me of an article from Hakim Bey, one of my favorite anarchist writers, about Overcoming Tourism...

This film was my first exposure to the music of Dead Can Dance and I would, over time, absorb anything related to their music, discovering many artists on the legendary 4AD label. Even today, it is still some of my favorite music.

However, much of this had to do with the mystique I created around their music. I envisioned some mysterious, mystical, exotic group whose music was angelic, ethereal, transcendent. That wasn't the case but the music of Lisa Gerrard, vocalist for Dead Can Dance, is truly amazing. She is perhaps most known for her work in the film score for Gladiator. Like much of my early spirituality, I chose to believe in a myth of my own making, a self-idealized projection that led to living in a world of illusion I created.

Time, age and maturity can often dampen the original joy of an event but this film changed my worldview and instilled a deeper desire for exploring the religious life. With music from around the world buoyed by a score from Michael Stearn (a favorite of Hearts of Space), it's a gem. The music is incredible though I think the weed enhanced the music to an extent I haven't experienced since.

Actually, the last time I watched the film itself I was tripping on LSD and in one of the early scenes of a mountain, I saw the face of Jesus being molded, melting, out of the mountains, a liquid face morphing and changing but still clearly Jesus.

I don't expect you to see Jesus there but I did, plain as could be. It was a charcoal etched vision of him in Fritz Eichenberg or Gustav Dore style (no halo, though) but it was unmistakable. I wanted to stay in that moment forever. Sadly, the crew I was with wanted to trip to something else and ejected the video.

A soundbyte from this film can be found in Jonathan Lisle's incredible Original OS.0_2 mix on John Digweed's Bedrock label and if you watch closely you'll see stills of the film in The Matrix Reloaded when Neo speaks with The Architect.

It's amazing the things that frame our worldview. Because this film so impacted my life (and, obviously, the lives of others) it has become a way of framing my perception of the world and is thus instantly recognizable when placed in various cultural media, a signpost, common ground among a larger tribe, all on the same journey, like product placement (is that irony or cynicism?).

The CD version of the film was too short and left out a lot of the subtle musical gems from the film as was the case with both Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi. Certainly these will be on Blu-Ray soon. What a peculiar twist having paid $75 for a used VHS version of this movie off of ebay after it was pulled from the shelves of Blockbuster when it went out of print. I can't help but think that there is something ugly and sinister about the material product of media proliferation.

It looks as if an "upgrade" to the soundtrack to Koyaanisqatsi is forthcoming as well.

My wife and I saw Koyaanisqatsi performed live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with Philip Glass leading his orchestra as part of an effort to fund the finishing touches on the third piece of the trilogy, Naqoyqatsi (or, as my wife calls it, quite prophetically, Not Quite Qatsi). Having heard this live with the film playing on a movie screen in the background was comparable to my viewing of Baraka, though I was sober this time.

Life without drugs and addictions. Being grateful. No regrets. Enjoying the now. To live without illusion. It really is possible.

WALSTIB...

Poems...

Not saying they are good poems or even poems at all but dug them up out of some old writings and found them interesting, even if only as expressions stamping times and places of my life.

Creativity (3/94 Missoula)

No substance
Being
The end.

To the Man on the 9th Floor (4/1/94 Portland)

Seeing
Not hearing
A transparent barrier
Not experiencing.

Listening
Not hearing
A transparent barrier
Not caring.

Two worlds
Lost in between.

Suicide

Why go on?

Exactly.

Four Months Ago (6/12/94 Youngstown)

I’ve gone to hell and back to get where I am right now.
I’m leaving on the first flight back tomorrow.

Serving You Since 1992 (Seattle, Safeway. 1994)

You serve me at the grocery store
But you never acknowledge me
As more than a customer.

Never once gave me a smile
Never once gave me a moment
To know how I feel
About you.

The Elf (1994 Seattle)

She’s tiny
And small
And smells
And crawls around the block
So fragile as to drift with the wind
Purity in another form.

A scavenger
For food to feed the insatiable hunger
That drives her that drove her that consumed her
And left her
Here.
Starving.

She walks below
And she walks
Beneath us
Protecting us from the coming monsoon.

She slides each napkin
Each Twinkie wrapper
Each cigarette butt
With her right foot
The pain causing her to grit her crystal teeth
Her powdery bones brittle
Her left foot providing the force
The trash providing the glide across the pavement
Enabling her to move to the can
(please put litter in its place)
Where no one (...chooses to...) will notice.

"I can’t bend down, my broken hip," she says
To no one in particular
Perhaps to God
Who doesn’t hear her cry
But still she believes.

As I bend effortlessly
To lend a hand
She gives me a look, a wink, a smile
She knows I know
We understand.
And she quietly
So quietly
Cleans up the trash
Left by the tie
The very tie that binds

The fear
Fear that she (we) is (are) one with us (her)
Is all that separates
Desperation from security.

Pushing a Broom (Youngstown, 8/10/05)

My soul fell out
Gone
Nowhere left to fall
Nothing left to fall
Naked as Adam
At the very moment
Where he tasted
For the first time
Felt
Sensed
Awakened
His soul emptied
Overwhelmed
By awareness
I was there
And there was nothing

Tremendous
Horrifying
Rushing
For a moment
Just a moment
Removed
Hovering
Suspended
Raw
With nothing
But a hollowness
My heart
A gaping hole
Never have I felt
So alone
Beyond alone
Only

My cover blown
Floating
I return
And feel the weight
Of the world
Now knowing
Protection
By its absence
So afraid
So alive

All I know
Is
I never
Want to feel
That
Way
Again.

A Youth Hostel and the Dao De Jing...

It's the middle of 1993. Working in the cell phone industry which was just becoming huge, I was a top sales rep, making top commission, having just won top prize in a three month sales contest. I was in tight with the Vice President and played the part. All the bills were paid, I traveled on a regular basis, was in great shape and had no problem with the ladies. I had it all.

Yet my soul was restless. I was miserable. Having recently quit drinking, I had taken up smoking weed. Lots of it. Loved it. Calmed the nerves, mellowed me out. It may have had a lot to do with my decision later that year to quit my job cold turkey with no real plan other than to go. I'm not sure it was the factor or if smoking the weed put me in a frame of mind where I was no longer afraid to do what I had already planned on doing. But I announced it in late 1993.

I can almost guarantee that more than a few folks thought I was a bit insane.

In short, I packed up my car full of way too much stuff and hit the road. I had plenty of money saved and enough weed to last me a while.

Leaving out more than a few details (which will hopefully come back as I continue digging...), in early 1994, I had made my way to a youth hostel in Kellogg, Idaho. Even back then I was exploring abandoned buildings having spent quite a bit of time looking through an abandoned school and abandoned hospital next door to each other. Sadly, I took no pictures. In fact, of my whole year on the road, I have about four rolls of film, very few of them of people. I had some serious, serious issues with relationships.

Anyhow, I spent a night or two at the youth hostel, venturing up to Sun Valley to see about skiing (which I can't remember whether or not I did...).

One of the evenings, I was sitting on rocking chair on the balcony of the second floor reading a copy of Tom Cleary's translation of the Tao Te Ching, looking down a long with a granarie on the left and nothing but empty road beyond it. The sun was setting and it cast a rather peaceful glow on a quiet evening in a small town in Idaho.

I had picked up this book several months prior, prompted by I know nowt what but I was compelled to buy it. Might have been because I had found the Yin Yang symbol to be quite cool and was attracted to the philosophy behind. Might've been because it was exotic, somehow 'other' than what I knew. Could be that the drugs had been expanding my mind in that bent, gravitating toward the 'eastern' worldview, the exotica, the off the wall films and music that permeate drug culture.

I had left the heavy/hair metal music behind me and was drawn to such bands as Mazzy Star and Morphine, branching well beyond the usual fluff that makes its way into small town Midwest America.

So I have this book that I've been reading and it really doesn't make much sense but I try it and keep revisiting it periodically. I'm exhausted, having been on the road non-stop for months at a time, staying with friends, youth hostels, rest areas or camping. And I'm reading, rocking, staring off into the sunset, and all of a sudden I get it. Insight. The book makes complete sense. The entire thing. At once.

It was as if my entire soul just opened up and I stepped outside of myself and could see clearly what the book meant. It was the openness that enable me to grasp it. Once I was back inside myself and sought to understand it, the moment was gone. I was able to make sense of it now, the seed had been planted, but it was not the awe inspiring awareness of the totality of it that had come for those few moments while rocking in the chair in the sunset.

It was a pivotal moment. Something had changed in that instant. Having always been a "deep" thinker, I had never really been spiritual/religious, somewhat repulsed by the whole charade with the hucksters and jokers that inhabited the media landscape. But here I was, drawn to this little book, and my entire world changed.

But, as with many things in the spiritual walk, life did not get better from this point. We are often deluded into believing that somehow when we get 'religion' our lives will suddenly become betters, like waving a magic wand to remove all the troubles.

No, sometimes when we get such insight our troubles really begin because we see clearly. The openness leaves us vulnerable to change. We can no longer hide as we once did; we are no longer so innocent. We are now responsible. And we must face what it is from what we once hid.

But this is hindsight. It would be more than a few years until I would really "get it" and take the necessary steps to begin to change my life. But that moment was one that provided fuel and strength in order to do it. It was something of a "born again" or "new is creation" moment in the sense that I suddenly had a differnt lens through which to filter information and thus see and interpret the world.

At the time, it was sheer joy, total and complete bliss. And I was sober.

There is hope...

In looking back at the distorted filter through which I perceived my life, I realize that there was a moment where hope burst through. It had always been there; I couldn't see it. I was not abused at home. I came from a very loving home, well protected, solid roots. But I was unable to receive nor give love except out of lack. I created a persona that was real on some level but there was a soul sucking force beneath me that bled this persona, a constant battle waging in my soul, depression, sarcasm, cynicism all protective barriers, ammunition against anyone seeking to get in.

Yet there is hope. I entered the stream, to use Buddhist parlance, in early 1994 at a Youth Hostel in Kellogg, Idaho, light bursting through my soul at the top of Yosemite Falls in Yosemite National Park. It fell upon deep, dark soil. However, the thorns and the weeds surrounding this seed was choking the life out of me, trying to prevent the seed from growing.

But it took root. I now had a new frame of reference, an experience to which I could refer that was positive, uplifting, ultimate, blissful even. It was a pivotal moment.

Seattle...1994...

I can't believe that 15 years have passed. In February of 1994 I left the comfort and familiarity of home for the open road. Having always done what (I thought) was expected of me, I had done just enough to get by, always longing for some form of escape (usually chemical in nature).

Somehow I had managed to graduate from college with decent, certainly not stellar, grades and had landed a sales job in the burgeoning cellular telephone industry. Somehow I managed to do quite well for a twentysomething and made quite a bit of money. In hindsight, it wasn't a lot of money but considering material things never mattered much I stockpiled money.

It was during this time that my issues began to blossom. I reached full blown alchoholic status during this time. It seemed the more successful I became the further away my sense of self appeared from "above" and thus the farther to fall. I ran headlong into the insanities of the bottle. To make matters worse I lived about a block away from my local bar where I hung with my drinking buddy and I was, uh, close to the bartender and drank for free. Cliff and Norm were we. We'd give a $10 bill to pay for the liquor and get a $5 and 5 $1 bills in return. At the end of the night it was nothing to leave a pile of money on the counter for a tip. Jack Daniel shots were lined up and I'd knock 'em down one after the other.

It was during this time that the blackouts began, waking up in the morning and not remembering getting home, ending up in strange apartments, finding strange people in my apartment, doing really strange things. I began sleeping in 'til late morning, showing up at work to make an appearance and going back home to bed to do it all again. It wasn't until I almost lost my job that I quit drinking. I quit cold turkey. But not really.

It was also at this time that the shift from alcohol to drugs began. I don't remember exactly how but I soon learned of other employees who smoked weed on a regular basis. Looking for another distraction and really not caring I decided to give it a whirl. A new love affair had begun.

The Dao of distraction...

My first truly "spiritual" experience was framed within the context of the Dao. I had been studying the Dao De Jing for a few years, quite intensely for several months, when I had an epiphany at the top of Yosemite Falls. Never had I been so alone yet never had I felt so completely at one with in the universe, as hippy dippy as that sounds. It was my entry into the path.

As I have learned, post epiphany was downhill. Why? Because I was more in tune with a deeper reality and had to shed the superficiality in which I was living. I did not realize just how much of a hold this had on me. And I'm not just talking about "stuff". I have never placed much emphasis on "stuff". I drive cars until they fall apart, wear clothes until they fall of my body, and eat pretty much the same boring thing day after day. I'm not glamorizing this as if I'm all saintly. No, I've never really much cared a whole lot. As long as I had the freedom to come and go as I pleased, that was enough for me. But even this can be a superficial hold, a distraction from reality.

And it is distraction that has been my biggest hurdle in terms of a truly spiritual life.

Even intellectualism can be a distraction, the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge's sake nothing but distraction from dealing with life on life's terms.

So today I am distracted by my distractions. They have as of late cancelled each other out and I am left with empty space. I'm not used to the silence.