people seem to think that the beings are laughable I don't know why this is exactly but their essence was regarded as laughable at first faint chuckling noises were dimly heard in the background followed by enormous waves of laughter that continue to reverberate to this day lessons lights and pseudo riddles sometimes became empty words melting themselves down into even emptier silences
although the terms and the times are amazingly clear there is massive fog rolling in from the east and what is so apparent in this moment will quickly become quite obscure well past tidy retrieval by even the most devoted practitioners language itself will simply collapse in a heap alongside the pier wringing its chapped and bony hands trying to conjure a simpler era from the few remaining shreds of western memory left to it
linear time pays a quick courtesy call on its old friend and neigbor cyclical time and they discover to their astonishment that they still have quite a few interests in common the four seasons for example as they might be studied under a microscope scientists whisper in back rooms about the warping of metaphor each combination of links vasts and potentials is uncanny in its working and sublime in its resting
people seem to think that the very teachings are laughable they attend comedy clinics both stand up verse based and improv and afterwards enjoy food and drink with their distinguished instructors there is a seafood themed bar and grill around the corner that I would recommend to anyone heartily they proudly fly a tattered jolly roger over the confusion of beings
(unedited excerpts from an eminent scientist's lab notes)
(there was no question about it- it was an unusual dance piece. it happened inside the apartment. there was circulation, digestion, kinetic energy, thyroid issues, etc. there was no question about it- a bizarre use of the body in conjunction with music. after it was over the people who were still left in the audience were too stunned to even initiate frank give-and-take style converse or mingling. no. they simply sat there, or laid there, or stood there, in silence. stillness, silence, and emptiness. those were bizarre concepts to inject at the tail end of a performance event. a full night of activity. people engaged at various and sometimes inappropriate levels. was it strange to me that they failed to initiate dialogue? strange and welcomed, indeed. nothing, absolutely nothing could have made me any happier.)
(it was also passing strange that I finally decided to visit her. why these things happen when they finally do, why certain other things happen so quickly... well, it's beyond our powers of reason. it's beyond our powers of instinct. it's beyond our powers of spirit. it's beyond our powers of combined force and energy. I wish this wasn't the case but it strikes me as one of the few remaining primordial truths. we engage in conversation, and then one day, simply cease. there are a few hours of utter silence, and then we resume conversation. what in god's name could be simpler? what in god's name is happening? fairly straightforward questions, I realize, opening out onto a wide field of even more straightforward answers. synchronicity is a term that people throw around far too casually. coincidental? not really. spasmodic? occasionally. the words are poured back and forth. the words pour themselves back and forth. the conversation, in progress, turns into something more or less laughable.)
(the studio, if that's even the appropriate term, was situated out east, in the back, near the water. a fairly small space, but our work was still small-scale back then. we had more than enough. we initiated a dialogue. strange of me I suppose to put all of my cards on the table like that, at a mere moment's notice- maybe I shoulda thought the thing thru for awhile. people, will you tell me if I ever appear to be jumping the gun? not that I would listen to you or heed your advice, but it might lead to information that could be incorporated into the next night of performance. will it happen? good question. is it already happening? will the studio space accommodate simultaneous movements? concentric circles of dancers, moving back and forth gracefully thru each other's orbits? well, we'll just have to make do, I guess. I'd like to say something a bit more definitive, but the rehearsal time is radically limited... we have to, in pema's phrasing, "begin somewhere here in the neighborhood.")
