D&D

Dungeons and Dragons and other tabletop roleplaying games continue to blow me away at the sheer amazingness that can happen.  Honestly, I can't MAKE UP the kind of garbage that happens in these worlds.  For instance:

Last night, we were in a Tomb of Horrors-esque dungeon designed by an awesome roommate.  There were 3 of us and it was taking our ALL just to survive-- and not even that.  She had created a cheap way for us to revive ourselves within the dungeon because she WANTS us to die horrible deaths over and over again.  The effect worked wonders on our character's psyches.  Our paladin after dying twice basically thought that her god betrayed her and through her actions lost her paladin powers, our rogue stopped giving half a shit about traps and just kind of ran in hoping the best as he couldn't detect half the traps anyway, and I ... well I'm pretty freaking neutral good, so I hung out with my pet squirrel and hoped for the best knowing that helping was all I can do.

As it was D&D, the normal derptasticness began happening quickly.  At one point in a fight with a Gibbering Mouther, our elf was confused and was sheathing/unsheathing his weapon over and over sensually, our paladin was blind and swinging wildly at a bedpost she thought was the enemy, and the two fearless halflings were throwing rocks (and rolling criticals) from afar at the foe who for no apparent reason was on top of a bunk bed.

The uniqueness began to happen when we found a magical deck of tarot cards.  At this point, we were at rock bottom.  We had been traveling nowhere but downward for over 4 days.  Each of us had either died or been at the brink of death multiple times and suffered random personality changes (our Paladin had to wear a tutu and bells by this point but was insulted if you mentioned them) and VAST material loss because of it.

This sense of hopelessness we lived in was just enough for 2 of our 3 members to draw cards from the deck their once alloted time.  Nick drew 4.  The first gave him a whopping ten THOUSAND experience, putting him a good 2 levels above me and Ashley.  The second summoned Death himself to have a duel with him.  If he lost, he was gone forever-- no resurrection spell of ANY power or even a greater wish could bring him back.  He carefully leveled himself, but he died within moments.  The third and fourth sprang forth magically from the deck.  The third summoned a lvl 4 fighter in the service of the drawer.  The fourth randomly shifting the alignment of the drawer.  Against all probability, this deck that took Nick's life instantly gave it back.  A Lawful Good Fighter of the 4th level suddenly appears, confused yet exceedingly willing to help and constantly searching the Earth for one whose soul is banished forever in the hands of death himself.

Our paladin, having lost hope in her god in favor of the foul magics of this place draws next.  She drew 3.  She drew 50,000 experience right off the bat and was high as a kite.  This would put her at the legendary status of lvl 11.  Her second card imprisoned her body hundreds of miles below the surface of the Earth in suspended animation.  And even after the most ridiculous shuffling I have ever seen, Death shows up again to coup de gras her.  ... I didn't fucking touch the deck after that, but I had an idea.  I tried to play a game with the dragon of the dungeon.  He was the only thing standing in my way as I could turn into a bird and fly out of here easily if he wasn't a faster flyer than me.  If there was one thing my character was good at, it was diplomacy and I managed to talk my way into a bargain with a dragon.  Our fighter would have a draw-off with the dragon.  If our fighter drew through SEVEN cards without dying, the dragon would have to do the same.  Seven cards later, we have a legendary fighter who is considered a king on the surface, with a magical weapon that we rolled so high on I don't think entire sovereign nations could afford to buy, with the supernatural ability to know exactly what to do in the next-and-only-the-next dire situation, another lvl 4 fighter squire (this time played by Ashley as she was now perma-dead), and the only bad thing that happened was a permanent unlucky -1 to all saving throws.

No one could believe this shit.  The dragon opened its mouth to incinerate us on the spot.  Nick asks, "does this count as a dire situation?  Ok then, I'm going to use my supernatural ability to run down these stairs before my body can react to what is going on."  I reflexed my way down the stairs barely.

So here we are in a lvl 8 dungeon with a lvl 8, a lvl 11, and a lvl 4-- a strangely balanced group of exactly the size we had before hopelessness drove us to make a pact with fate.  What took life, invariably gave it back.  What was lost was replaced.  In all the possible ways this could have unveiled, it worked out.  This is the magic of tabletop gaming.  There are no rules-- only guidelines.  There are no plots-- only dungeons, crafted with care and yet limited only by the imagination of the DM and the machinations of fate.  One can do anything and travel to the ends of every imaginable world.  The strangest part is that I am not creative enough to write a story where these things happen, yet it doesn't matter because they HAPPEN regardless of what the DM plans.  A supernatural life and a spirit beyond all of us weaves tales into these worlds we create and our imagination summons them into reality.  I continue to play because I continue to desire to see what will happen next.

...  Much is the same with life.  I feel that I have every reason to stop listening to these stories, yet there are things that keep me listening.  Stories that swell my heart, experiences that weigh on my soul, moments where I feel necessary, and laughter that paralyzes all else.  These things cause me to continue to play this game.  This life has emptied me out and that emptiness seems so unbearable at times.  Yet what is empty can be filled.  God.  If you are inside my heart, hear my prayer.  Grant me the serenity to see just one more adventure.  Always-- just one more.

One heart, one million voices

In my meditation, I met with a man who was fascinated with me.  His studies of the spirit had brought him to this playground beyond space where I had the pleasure to meet him.  His spiritual path started with the sacrum and worked upwards.  Steady and happy with who he was, he awoke and opened his heart and his throat to speak, and in communication, finally became able to see and let the world flow through him.  My path has been most the opposite.  Like most enlightened I have met, he poked and prodded, questioned and empathized.  But he did so not to question why, for at such a state, why is irrelevant-- in a way, irreverent.  He sought to become one with my pain to experience it, in a way to escape the confines of his own pain, but in truth to stay reverent to the truth that all experience and all pain is his.  He sought for his own wisdom, tucked away in the furthest corners of the universe, in the hearts and minds of others.  In the moment in which our paths crossed, he asked me, "how do you do that?" (Maybe one day I will tell you what he was talking about)  I told him:  "there are a million voices speaking in this world, but only one heart.  I do what I do by asking myself to listen to that one heart tells me to do first, and hear the rest only after."

My response was completely opposite of his path to here, so he entreated a response, "but there is infinite wisdom hidden in those million voices if you listen."

"Yes, but the infinite wisdom of the universe is carried in those finite million singular hearts just as impossibly as your own one heart can, nevertheless it can be found in a single grain of sand as well.  Our paths differ, but they cross and our goal is the same.  Your torus flows outward, mine inward.  Yet you know this sacred geometry better that I, we follow the same direction."

He completed my statement, our words penetrating the abyss together.  Two opposite voices as one: "In time we will hear all voices as one.  One heart.  Annihilating the boundaries of you and me."  He smiled and reality returned to me.  

We all start this road in different spots.  We all have different pains, different joys.  Together, we are the whole universe having experiences.  That reality may be impossibly beyond my ability to grasp, but the concept of that truth is enough for me to listen; to prod and to poke, to question and to empathize, to escape the confines of my own pain in order to realize that I am a part of something so much bigger than myself... And it is all contained in here.  

Age and Wisdom

So I am 25 now.  A quarter of a century.  The silver anniversary of being in a loving relationship with life.  Me and that asshole have our ups and downs, but I like him enough to stay with him I guess.  So I stick with my vows.  Til death do us part and all that shit, right?  

I like helping people.  As I get older, I find it easier and easier.  For the more experience I have to draw from, the easier it is to empathize and summon just the right quote or helpful bit of insight needed to make someone's day.  For this reason, I idolize age.  It yields experience, wisdom, and the ability to help more.  In a way, I idolize pain for this same reason, but that is not my purpose in speaking today.  

I am speaking today to talk about how our society does the opposite or revering age.  We dye our hair and use creams to make ourselves appear younger.  We speak of accomplishments and comment on how amazing it is when they are done at a younger age.  We taboo relationships with those older than us, instead seeking sanctuary in a homogenized peer group that all have the same problems and lack of experience to know how to solve them.  

I wish to see a world where my stylist will help give me a touch of grey so that I look like I am in my 40s  instead of approaching my 30s.  For age, to me, is a marker of wisdom.  We do not become useless when we are old as our society shoves down our throats.  We may lose the physical prowess of our youth, but we gain something so much more powerful, the ability to light the way for the lost and the confused.  

To all those older and wiser than me who have helped light my path to age and to wisdom, thank you.  I needed you more than I can say.  As I grow older, I only wish that I will be able to do for others what you have done for me.  The great cycle continues-- thanks to you.

Omens and the Alchemist

It has been said that every bird, rock, plant, and even person speaks the language of the universe and each sign can be interpreted to tell a listener what they need to know to do what they can't not do.  Many spiritual individuals try to seek the meanings hidden away in the metaphors beneath the physical form of reality.  However, this always seemed false to me.  I have started to listen and what I have found is that there is no manual or encyclopedia of omen, there is no primer or Rosetta Stone for the language of the universe.  All you can do is listen and feel.  

When I see two owls perched like sentinels exactly at the two corners if a building they have no reason to chill at, I do not seek to understand why this happened or what it means I am to do.  Instead, I simply listen.  These two birds instill in me an urge to write and an itch that must be scratched-- an itch that is unique to me at this exact moment, different in any other shell or at any other time.  Right or wrong, true or false, do or die, this urge to speak comes not from the omens themselves and more from what I feel when experiencing the world around me.

I have been feeling for the past few months that I wanted to start my yearly fast.  As the day of my birth approached, I began to feel signs.  Reading Rumi and just coincidentally hearing him speak of fasting filled my heart with joy on the subject, having a day of D&D with roommates involving copious amounts of sugar and the following day's energy level filled me with reminders of the heightened energy levels of my past cleanses, constant reminders of my own weight as well charge me to take sword in hand, the day of my birth begins feeling more poetic than ever as a day to start--  all of these signs lining up just could not be ignored any longer.  Today I begin day 1 as day 0 and -1 have come and passed with relative success.  

This is what I am talking about when I say signs, omens, and feelings.  It is not ravens and moons meaning auspicious foretellings, it is the universe pouring into me purpose-- leading me towards the path I know I must walk.  As Paulo Coelho said in The Alchemist, if you stop listening, the language of the world may also stop speaking through you.  Listen, and you may know love for all of your life.  And here is what Rumi told me this morning on the train to work:

"One kind of food gives you flatulence and diarrhea, a heaviness in the stomach.  The other keeps you light as you ride on the ocean.  Fast and see what arrives.  A materially full person is not alert for dishes that descend.  Don't always eat what's offered.  Be Lordy!  Refuse the first plate.  Wait and the host will send out better.  Lift your head like the tallest mountain that the dawn turns red, then gold."

Quoting myself for once

"I know all the homeless people in this part of the city.  They are the only ones who say 'hi' back."

My roommate and I were heading to Radio Shack when I said this.  She met me after work so we could go spoil ourselves.  We walked the streets and she noted how many people I was having conversations with.  And thus, today's quote.  

But again, I said this and I stopped.  I was stopped with wonder and paused to ask myself why.  Why is it that it is so much easier to talk to these homeless people I feed than it is to talk to half of the rich people I feed?  A simple answer screamed out to me.  They talk to you because they want something.  Bullshit.  So do the snooty shoppers in my store whose body language and demeanor deny all friendly interaction when they approach my register.  They also talk to me simply because they want something.  Yet there are plenty of customers who engage with my soul at the register as many of these homeless people do.  It has little to do with what they want, for we are all rich and poor with social interaction as we are with money and wealth.  Physical wealth is just easier to measure than social wealth.  

I couldn't shake this question all night.  So I took a page from Rumi's book and drank myself into oblivion.  

Winning, Losing, and being Lost in the game

Children go out to play.  They think up elaborate rules and use rocks as currency, sticks as elaborate holy blades.  They travel to the ends of every universe and back to slay foul demons or rescue fair maidens, have wondrous families and petty squabbles.  At the end of their adventures, they are rich with joy and the spoils of imaginary wars.  Yet when the dinner bell rings, they drop their vast wealth and return home, dirty and with only the clothes on their back (or sometimes not).  

Life is much like this.  At the end of the day, we are called home.  All we have gathered is forfeit, yet our hearts are overflowing with experience and growth.  Those are our only true possessions.  

One thing that bothers me is that this is being forgotten.  Nowadays when children play, the stakes have changed.  Sports must be won, yet there is always a loser.  Every experience has a cost, yet there are not enough imaginary stones to buy to buy a full bucket list.  The result is children and adults alike who are losing the ability to get lost in the moment.  I know I did.  When playing sports, I would constantly say I was sorry when I made a mistake, knowing that I was imparting a tax on others and taking away their purpose in playing, victory.  Even when we won, I felt bad that another underdog team was defeated by the mighty and overpowered Fireballs.  What I needed to do was simply enjoy myself and realize that mistakes are only there to teach us.  In order to do so, I needed to unlearn that if I messed up, it was bad.  

Yet that is the inane truth we are all taught.  This world seems so set on that value-- on value itself.  When we err, whether it be in communication or in work or on the field or in our judgements, we must remember that we are all learners and mistakes are part of life.  Otherwise, we begin seeing the emergence of people who lock themselves up in impenetrable towers-- not acting at all out of fear of making mistakes.  I saw this all too much as a teacher: "I'm no good at math, I don't even want to try."  I see this daily: "I am no good with words, that's why I remain quiet."  I cry when I hear this one: "I am just going to get hurt, I don't want to fall in love."  Falling in love is the greatest joy of this world!  Be it with what we do or who we are with, love is the great dinner bell that calls us all home.  Surrender to that love!  Start your own practice!  Travel!  Create your big project!  It doesn't matter how optimally we live and gain or lose and suffer, it is how much we love that matters most as we return home, covered in dirt and laughing as we recount our adventures.

Fall, the season of giving

Last night, I had a dream of another culture, another world maybe.  

In this world, it was autumn.  A celebration unfolded.  On the first day of fall, we all chose a tree to idolize and embody.  We didn't need to have separate trees, but we all chose a tree that we felt a particular connection with.  As the tree gave its leaves and its flowers and its seeds to the Earth, so did we.  Everything excess that we had created in our bountiful spring and fiery summer we shed in time with the leaves on our tree.  We gave to or volunteered out time to charities, we helped finance new Earthen hobbit-like homes or schools, we had bountiful feasts with friends, and we simply recycled our possessions to others.  

Many of the wealthiest individuals chose the great oak in the valley near the graveyard.  Such a choice was an honor and held in great esteem due to the vast gifts it gave to the ground to compost.  A grand giving mimicked by those with the capacity to choose this tree to mimic.  I chose a tree in a neighbor's yard.  It was not big, yet its leaves turned the most miraculous reds and yellows as it shed to reveal its curvy, elegant form that looked like a dancer with arms outstretched.  To honor it, I started a school in a warehouse gifted to me by a wealthy woman.  This school was designed to teach "the old ways."  I can't remember the specifics of this culture, but I recall teaching things like sun meditation and herbalism and yoga.  By the time fall had ended, I had a successor worthy enough and I gave the school to her as my "last leaf."  

At the start of winter, she began charging for lessons and I began working and creating again, already planning-- full of wonder at what I would do next year.  

...

What would our world look like if we did that today?  I'll tell you, there ain't a tree large enough on the planet to embody the belongings of our wealthiest.  Even the fabled tree of mana might not even be comparable.  That aside, if we all adopted this mindset, I guarantee we would see a new world in less than a decade.  I am reminded of the words of my favorite telepathic gorilla again, "Take what you need.  Leave the rest."  If you have no idea who this gorilla is, pick up the book Ishmael immediately.