Saturday, September 10, 2011

free ride on space ship earth


Camtrac from Dan Eckert on Vimeo.


Having found both of these pieces earlier in the week I thought they'd make a nice set. There have been and continue to be some people in the world whose vision is exquisitely clear. I continue to hope a little will rub off on me.

A Letter from Jack Kerouac to his Ex-Wife:

I have lots of things to teach you now,
in case we ever meet,
concerning the message that was transmitted to me
under a pine tree in North Carolina
on a cold winter moonlit night.

It said that Nothing Ever Happened, so don’t worry.
It’s all like a dream.
Everything is ecstasy, inside.
We just don’t know it because of our thinking-minds.
But in our true blissful essence of mind is known
that everything is alright forever and forever and forever.

Close your eyes,
let your hands and nerve-ends drop,
stop breathing for 3 seconds,
listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world,
and you will remember the lesson you forgot,
which was taught in immense milky ways
of cloudy innumerable worlds
long ago and not even at all.
It is all one vast awakened thing.
I call it the golden eternity.
It is perfect.

We were never really born,
we will never really die.
It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea
of a personal self,
other selves,
many selves everywhere,
or one universal self.

Self is only an idea, a mortal idea.
That which passes through everything, is one thing.
It’s a dream already ended.
There’s nothing from staring at mountains months on end.
They never show any expression,
they are like empty space.
Do you think the emptiness of space will ever crumble away.
Mountains will crumble, but the emptiness of space,
which is the one universal essence of mind,
the one vast awakened-hood,
empty and awake,
will never crumble away because it was never born.

The world you see is just a movie in your mind.



If this is true I wonder why I tend to be tuned in to the wrong channel most of the time?
It must be the fault of gravity.

12 comments:

  1. You win again, gravity! Or you can do what I do and pass the buck, blaming the drunken projectionist.

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  2. Much more than just a letter; a poem really. I enjoyed it. By the third time I read it, I began to believe it for a moment. :-)

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  3. randal - Gravity most definitely has a lot to answer for.

    jams - I'm glad you enjoyed it.

    gina - I'm not generally a fan of Kerouac but this was remarkable. It's funny how we can understand a universal truth for a split second and then must move away.

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  4. this, in a few words, blew me away....completely...so i am now sitting here pondering all it is, we are, what is....and the video is wonderful, as they all are-it is yours that led me there instead of youtube for mine today....with gratitude and yes, for me it must be gravity and for you, well... you are lighter than air and in disguise....am i the only one who sees you? ;)
    xoxoxlinda

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  5. linda - I'm so glad you liked the combination of the video and the Kerouac poem I enjoyed so much. Sometimes found things say just the right thing at the right moment.
    Much love to you, my friend.
    xoxo

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  6. i had to look Kerouac up..... French Canadian parents eh? the small exposure i had, in my sheltered northern canada town, to members of the beat generation left me a bit afraid of them. they seemed to smoke too much, drink too much and have a very abrasive inner core... like those cables embedded with carbide or diamond chips that are made into 'blades' for cutting ceramic tile.

    but the words of the poem look from the inside out... a rare thing

    and the video clip made me feel like i might be a tree or a mountain, watching the landscape age and change its shape around me.

    i got a very lovely package in the mail on Friday, the contents of which are held gently on my fridge by a couple of magnets, feeding my soul every time my body goes looking for provender. i see a frame and a lovely matt in my future.

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  7. They not only made a "nice set," but one of the most perfect posts I have ever seen, susan! Thank you so much.

    The video is expansive and sets my mind free. And Kerouac's poem is free and expands my mind. (Makes me curious about his personal life in ways I have never wondered and ways I will never research because I have much to attend to in my own personal life. :)

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  8. if we're in a movie, who hired this shitty cast? (present company excluded. of course ;)

    and the script?

    off with their fucking heads!

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  9. Cool video. Love the fast and slow treatments, especially of the night sky. Once, a shooting star came right towards me. I didn't see a line across, but a bright explosion. I swear it would have hit me if it didn't burn up when it hit the earth's atmosphere.
    Ole Jack. As soon as you said it was written to his ex-wife, I felt the love he had for her. But beyond that, I believe what he says, it is a dream, and like Stephan Hawkings believes, when we die, we're dead and that's the end of it. End of the dream then, eh? What I wonder is, "Do we wake up?"
    Still down in the Southwest, I'll be here for another 10 days or so. Hope all is good in your neck of the woods.

    Peace dear friend

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  10. My battle with gravity is less existential and more vanity. Stupid Newton.

    Thank you for this Kerouac poem. I might have just found something in there I was looking for.

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  11. gfid - The beat generation was pretty hard edged. Bohemians were the intellectual forerunners of the hippies but were in absolute black and white compared to the flower power generation. They had a lot of influence and even though bebop poetry seems pretty stilted nowadays their response to the post war contemporary culture was clear. I liked Alan Ginsberg better than Kerouac so was very surprised to find this one. I''m glad you liked it and the other thing too.

    lydia - I'm glad you enjoyed them both. I know what you mean about not being able to follow every fascinating thread. Me too.

    fairlane - Yeah, shitty cast and very bad writers too. I think you should have a word with the producer.

    spadoman - That must have been a very thrilling and scary experience. I know Stephen Hawking is an amazing intellect but he's not the person I'd choose to offer spiritual advice. I rather hope we wake up but the only way of knowing is through a one way door.

    lisa - Sometimes I just feel weighted down. I wonder if gravity didn't exist before Newton mentioned it?

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