The here and now... and what and why

Complacency is a trap. At least that’s what I was thinking when I up and left the comfort of a Yankee prep school gig, where I taught music, amongst other things, for 28 years. There was also that life long career as a composer, musician and artist.

First, it was a year in St. Thomas, USVI, working as a reporter and shooting photography and then, a year in San Agustin Etla, Oaxaca, Mexico.
Time passed.
More time passed and a year back in the Athens of America followed by a hasty return to Oaxaca where it is all happening.
A couple of years in San Sebastian Etla and now, just down the road in San Pablo Etla. Life is good.

Click on an image to see it larger.
For additional photography please visit my flickr page.
You can find my music on Jango (World & latin - Worldbeat) and at iTunes and most online stores.
¡Soy consciente de todas las tradiciones del Internet!
If you are coming to Oaxaca, please contact me for tours or advice.

Santo Domingo

Santo Domingo
The view from Corazon del Pueblo

The hereafter re me

My photo
Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico
Musician, photographer, videographer, reporter, ex-officio teacher, now attempting to be a world traveler

Friday, March 20, 2009

Equinoccio Vernal

Its the vernal equinox. Chichen Itza is crowded, awaiting the glowing serpents. Actually, the equinox is totally dependent on exactly where you are. True equality between day and night could have been yesterday. It all depends on you.

Longer days for us means shorter days for someone else, which brings to mind a concept I enjoy working on, thinking about. It comes from a small book given to me by the parents of one of my Korean students. The book, called The Open Eye, is by a Chogye Zen master, Ven. SongChoi, who sounds like he was one tough teacher. I like to think of him like Pi Mei in "Kill Bill" without all the martial arts, but just that mean and irascible with a really wry sense of humor.
His writings are short and to the point.
The world today is based on the principle of relative dualities: good and evil, right and wrong, existence and non-existence, joy and anguish. That's just the nature of conventional reality. And as a result, this gives rise to contradictions and conflicts, which in turn result in misery. If you wish to go beyond all of this and avoid conflicts, you have to rid yourself of all contradictions by transcending relative dualities.
Or there is this one.
Let's not spend our lives fighting over trivia. To do so reduces us to a state of being even more worthless than spray on a vast ocean. Let's concentrate on the ocean rather than fixating on foam.

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