Author: Peter

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Desire-less, 4

This is the one that got it all started. It’s taken me 4 days to face it…
I do not desire my world designed to my aesthetic.

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Desire-less, 3

I do not desire to be doing other things (e.g., meditating) when I have to do something else (e.g., walking the dog before off-leash hours end).

(click for full-size)

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Desire-less

I’ve decided to start a 40-day program of being aware of and sidestepping desires. Desires motivate, but also bring attachment to outcomes — a major cause of not being in the moment with what is. Steve Ross once said the reason we get such pleasure from satisfying a desire for some new thing is that for a moment we are in a state of desirelessness.
With that sentiment in mind and Kali to chop off the head of every desirous thought, here we go.

Day 1
I do not desire this car.

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Topless in Manhattan…

…or Another Example of what I Love about New York

Today I was walking up Broadway just past noon, when I noticed a young woman in tan jeans walking ahead of me. She had shoulder-length red hair and was carrying a handbag. It dawned on me that her back, which was bare–I presumed from a halter top — in fact did not show evidence of any ties or straps from a halter top. Was she, gulp, topless? It was impossible to tell from her unassuming demeanor, or from the expressions of people passing her from the opposite direction, so I deduced she was not topless. But I sped up to gain on her to make sure. A ricochet look into a storefront window gave me the confirmation: sunglasses, earrings, pants, swinging handbag, — she was dressed and accessorized like any young woman on the upper east side, but with no top.

I assume she was doing a performance art piece and had not had a wardrobe malfunction. I love that she could expect to take this stroll without incident, and even more that we would experience it with such nonchalance. I would have loved to include a photo of her with this post, but I felt so provincial when I reached for my phone, that I immediately abandoned the idea as obscene. Our paths coincided for a long block, then I left her standing on a corner waiting for the light to cross 14th Street to Union Square, where she would add a bit of excitement to occupy wall street’s new protest there.

I imagine she’s now at home enjoying a t-shirt in the privacy of her home. I feel grateful for everything that her action brought up for me: titillation, wonder, pride; and thoughts of women’s issues, performance, audience.

And the art of it endured; I was shocked at my initial reaction when a couple hours later, I saw a buff man without a shirt, sweaty from running, pass me. I thought, that guy’s topless, too! Oh, right he’s a guy.

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MLK applies in so many ways

I have made it an annual ritual to watch King’s 17-minute speech to honor his holiday and ponder the racial injustice that he so powerfully fought. I hope you will join me in this ritual and keep the holiday in its true spirit, which is so easily forgotten.

This year as I watched, I substituted the words 99% and 1% each time he said “Negro” and “white,” and it pretty much made sense as a prognostication of the history that is trending the majority of us into the 2nd rate citizen ranks that blacks in America have endured for 200+ years. — Yes, first only economically, but then who knows?

 

 

This speech is Art and Literature and Yoga all rolled into one. It is a call to greatness.

And to consider parallel the underlying issue with corporate influence on the nation leads me to share this second video in the same spirit. I have been stunned by the lack of a social conscience –or perhaps more accurately, an inability or unwillingness to do anything about the portrayal of women, and especially girls, in media. Rosario Dawson’s prediction here that our future leaders look like women and like people of color is a restatement of King’s great “dream.” The video below says it all with eloquence and purpose.