Random babblings: Spring fever

Spring fever has begun creeping up on me yet again, with its usual symptoms of restlessness and agitation. I'm digging through cds and pulling out old music for a change of pace, having flashbacks in my mind's eye to summer bike rides and the scenery that accompanied them, and itching to hit the road for far away places. The winter's chilly grip is loosening, leaving me with a need to sweat. A hike in the woods or flowing yoga routine just won't cut it, I need to get out on my bike and really make my body work.

More compellingly, I want to get out on my bike, the first I've had that feeling in months. Knowing that the weather's oh-so-gradually warming up means it's time to get the bike cleaned and ready. I won't spring-clean my apartment, but I will give the bike a thorough going-over-- removing the chain and lovingly wiping down each link, polishing up the frame with a bottle of aptly-named Bike Lust, cleaning and adjusting the components to the best of my ability. This year, inspired by #4 of the How to Ride a Bike Forever manifesto, I've decided to remove the computer from the bike. I'll be doing this with a high level of trepidation. Despite riding statistic-less for the majority of my life, I quickly became addicted to entering those numbers on a log. None of them were particularly impressive by "serious" cyclist standards, but my left-brain was tickled pink by logging, reviewing, comparing, and analyzing. But I feel strongly that it's time to get back to right-brain riding for at least a while, so left-brain's just gonna have to handle its numbers withdrawal as best it can. Besides, getting all those wires out of the way will make cleaning the bike just that much easier.

On the subject of the increasingly run-down looking apartment that I hate to clean, it's becoming a major source of dukkha. After re-painting half of the place a few years ago and then having the bathroom somewhat professionally remodeled, I'd been planning to begin tackling other things in increments-- new dishwasher and refrigerator, then new flooring in the kitchen and sunroom, finally finishing the re-painting job... But $12,000 of veterinarian bills over the course of 2008 completely side-tracked those ambitions. Meanwhile, the list has continued to grow even as the money has shrunk. While I was in Vegas on a 10-day business trip last summer, the cats tore down a chunk of wallpaper in the kitchen, which means that room's just that much closer to needing a complete remodel. A crack in some small component of the furnace is being monitored at bi-annual maintenance checks, in the hopes that it won't necessitate a whole unit replacement for a few more years. And, more recently, I came home to find that some numb-skull left my storm door unlatched while distributing menus for a pizza place that I'll never call. The wind apparently then caught the door and blew it back against the wall of the building, yanking the retracting door closures out of the door frame and breaking the wood of the frame. I should be glad it didn't shatter the glass of the door, but as I picked screws, bolts, and other assorted parts off the ground, all I wanted to do was punch the un-thinking doofus in the face (for which I'll certainly spend another lifetime in samsara, if the whole Hindu/Buddhist reincarnation thing really holds water).

The houses we lived in when I was growing up always had the same hodge-podge, borderline decrepit feeling my place is beginning to take on. My father is a fairly competent, energetic handy-man, but he's also easily distracted, never fully completing any of the projects he begins. I'm in some sort of handy-person limbo, myself. I can swap out a door-knob or hang a curtain rod lickety-split, but was flummoxed in my attempts to remove and replace a worn-out kitchen faucet. And my only excuse for not getting back to re-painting the rest of the apartment is pure laziness. Painting's fun for about two hours, and then I can't take it anymore and want to just go play. I'm to the point that I feel like I need to begin sketching or writing poetry, just so I can absent-mindedly look around the place and shrug, using the excuse that I'm too busy being creative to worry about mundane things like the appearance of my home. It would be better than this feeling that I'm too broke and/or lazy to do anything about it.

Fuck it all, I'm outta here. It's flipping cold outside, but the woods are calling.

Spreading the sanity meme...

Got this from Jim over at Unholy Rouleur (who is smart, thoughtful, and funny, so go read his stuff):



What can you say to that? It just makes too much sense and should be required viewing by everyone. (To give credit where it's due, here's where Jim snagged his link.)

Recent readings: Chocolate-covered understanding

Zen... is nondoctrinal, concrete, existential, and seeks above all to come to grips with life itself, not with ideas about life, still less with party platforms in politics, religion, science or anything else.
(Thomas Merton, Zen and the Birds of Appetite)


Merton's description of Zen fairly well sums up the point of Brad Warner's latest book, Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate. Brad uses himself and the chaos of his life in 2007 as a visceral example of the ways in which Buddhism, Zen specifically, is misunderstood. Now, I should say off the bat that Warner's writing is not for everyone. Near the end of the book, Brad describes himself as "too shy and indirect." That may be so in person, but his writing is blatant and direct, sometime vulgar, and very often goofily funny. His books tend to hit you like a Three Stooges poke in the eyes. After you rub the shock away, you can't help but see things differently.

Now, for that misunderstanding. I'll admit, I immediately fell for the neat little myth that Buddhism brings an all-encompassing calm to one's life. I mean, heck, folks like the Dalai Lama and Pema Chodron are always shown with happy, almost impish, grins on their faces. That's how we're all supposed to end up after enough time on the cushion, right? Wrong, at least where Zen is concerned:

The Middle Way was not some kind of spiritual path designed to make us all holy with shiny pink halos on our noggins. It was a way to live a life that wasn't a piece of shit. It was a way to find happiness and stability in an unhappy and unstable world. That's really all any of us are looking for, when it comes down to it. The stability of the Middle Way comes in our practice of zazen [meditation], which is the actual physical and mental practice of stability and happiness. A bit of zazen... radiates throughout the rest of the day and night and makes everything better. That's all there is to it.

And yet:

You may be wondering why, with all my Zen training, I would still feel this kind of tension. If you are, I understand. When I first started all this meditation stuff I also believed that it would fix me so that I'd never feel a bad feeling ever, ever again. It doesn't work that way, I'm afraid.

The practice does make this kind of stuff easier. But no amount of enlightenment will eliminate all stress and tension from your life. We all have a certain amount of karma to get through, and nothing can change that... The best you can do is learn how to add as little new garbage to the pile as possible. But this in itself is a very significant thing.

Sound a tad contradictory and confusing? What it all comes down to is expectation. Ultimately, the source of all our dukkha, all our squirmy dissatisfactions and outright suffering, is that we expect the world and our lives to be a certain way. We expect to be happy, to never feel emotional anguish or physical pain, to never be divorced or lose a job, to never break a leg or get cancer, and for the sun to always come out tomorrow. But we never see that the problem is the expectation itself. We become so caught up in the contrast between what is and what we were hoping for that just dealing with the situation as it is becomes unbearable. We forget to "...on every occasion ask thyself, what is there in this which is intolerable and past bearing?" (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book VII, 36. Those Stoics sure had a lot in common with Buddhism.)

In ZWiKDiC, Warner clarified this for me succinctly, yet indirectly. In describing the questions he was asked during a sesshin dharma talk, he mentions that one participant asked how to avoid expectations in Zen practice. Brad's answer speaks specifically to all that crap I babbled about above:

...anyone doing this practice is going to have expectations. You expect to achieve peace of mind. You expect to deepen your understanding. You expect to get enlightenment.... There's no way to stop having expectations. The best you can do is understand that your expectations will never be realized... Just know that your expectations are only thoughts in your head, and keep on doing what you do.

Understand?

And speaking of chocolatey goodness, I need to find me some chocolate-covered Pop Rocks. Fizzy popping chocolate. Sounds like awesomeness.

Happy (belated) birthday, Eddie.

Today was the final day of the bicentennial edition of Baltimore's annual Edgar Allen Poe birthday celebration. I've attended a few times in years past, but had to go again to laud Eddie on his 200th year. The event took place, as always, at Westminster Hall, which was once Westminster Burial Ground, which is where Poe, his young wife/cousin and his mother-in-law/aunt are buried together. Unfortunately, photography was not allowed during the performances, so I'll have to try to sum it up in words.

The celebration began with the singing of "Annabel Lee" by a female soprano. I'm sure her voice would be considered lovely, but high-pitched female voices make me cringe so I could have done without. She was followed by a very cheesy, low-budget pantomime/puppet performance of Hop Frog, after which the event really got good. Third on the bill was local actor Tony Tsendeas in the role of the narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart. Tony's portrayal of this short story has been a recurring part of the annual Poe Halloween celebration at Westminster and this was probably the 5th or 6th time I've seen it. He still had me on the edge of my seat. I'd love to see him do a similar performance of Poe's The Black Cat.

After a short intermission, Jeff Jerome (curator of the nearby Poe House and Museum) introduced the night's special guest, John Astin. It's been several years since Astin's last appearance at the birthday event. When I saw him on that occasion, he was a dead-ringer (no pun intended) for Poe. Tonight, I almost didn't recognize him as he strode up the aisle to the stage. The years have altered him from Gomez Adddams into a bald-pated, white-bearded grandfather-ly figure. Still hearty and spry, though, and dashing in his tuxedo as he sat on the stage in a chair once used by Poe himself. Then, in the unmistakable voice of Gomez, he read some of Eddie's darkest works as if they were bed-time stories, relating each piece to the highs and lows, the few joys and many losses, of Poe's life. I didn't recognize the first piece as it was brief and over too quickly, but the rest of Mr. Astin's selections were:

- "Conqueror Worm"
- The Masque of the Red Death
- "To Helen"
- "A Dream Within a Dream"
- "Eulalie"
- A portion of a letter written by Poe, in which he describes the prolonged death of his beloved Virginia from tuberculosis, and his resultant "insanity"
- "The Raven" (can't leave that one out, especially in Baltimore)
- "To One in Paradise"
- Passages from the prose poem, Eureka, which apparently displays Poe's prescient predictions in cosomology.
- "For Annie"
- '"Annabel Lee" (Astin's reading was much preferable to the female vocalist earlier in the evening)
And finally,
- "Eldorado"

The evening concluded with the annual apple cider toast to Poe and more squirming from me as the female vocalist returned to wail Amazing Grace and Auld Lang Syne. I'd have been happy for things to have just ended with Poe's own words from an 1844 letter, as quoted in the toast:

"You speak of 'an estimate' of my life'-- and, from what I have already said, you will see that I have none to give. I have been too deeply conscious of the mutability and evanescence of temporal things, to give any continuous effort to anything-- to be consistent in anything. My life has been whim-- impulse-- passion-- a longing for solitude-- a scorn of all things present, in an earnest desire for the future."

I'm sure Eddie had no clue just how those of us in the future would come to regard him. I hope it would have brought him satisfaction and a measure of peace.

Memorabilia of the night


Westminster Hall


John Astin signing autographs. The guy would not sit still-

Recent readings: Living with the devil in the Maine woods

Living with the Devil, A Meditation on Good and Evil and Buddhism Without Beliefs, Stephen Batchelor:
I got into Batchelor's writing because I was attracted to the cover of Living With the Devil (human being, check it out). What I found inside was, as much as I hate to resort to cliche, a revelation. Like Brad Warner, Batchelor espouses a version of Zen Buddhism that doesn't so much strip away mysticism as make realism magical. In LWtD, he begins by explaining the importance of learning to "encounter the raw, unfiltered contingency of life itself":

...Contingency reveals a chaotic freedom at the heart of of causally ordered events. However tempting it is to invoke the hand of God, karma, or destiny to inject a hidden order into what seems random, embracing contingency requires a willingness to accept the inexplicable and unpredictable instead of reaching for the anesthetic comfort of metaphysics.

The opposite of "contingency" is "necessity." No matter how ephemeral and insignificant I recognize this human life of mine to be, I cannot shake off an intuitive conviction that, deep down, my existence is necessary in the scheme of things. By paying close and sustained attention to the contingent nature of experience, the practice of Buddhist meditation challenges the instinctive feeling that we are, in the words of Milton's Satan, "self-begot, self-raised / By our own quick'ning power." In eroding this sense of our own necessity, we come to see how the unprecedented and unrepeatable person we are emerges from a sublime matrix of myriad contingent events-- no one of which need have happened either. Insight into the emptiness of self is achieved not by eliminating self but by understanding it to be contingent rather than necessary.

In BWB, he takes this freedom from necessity further by applying it directly to Buddhism and stating that "the dharma is not something to believe in but something to do." The book begins with one of the most definitive of quotes from the Buddha's Kalama Sutta:

"Do not be satisfied with hearsay or with tradition or with legendary lore or with what has come down in scriptures or with conjecture or with logical inference or with weighing evidence or with liking for a view after pondering it over or with someone else's ability or with the thought 'The monk is our teacher.' When you know in yourselves: 'These things are wholesome, blameless, commended by the wise, and being adopted and put into effect they lead to welfare and happiness,' then you should practice and abide in them."

Both books encompass so much more than their titles suggest, and both have become manuals of a sort for me to use in navigating the pitfalls of both life and my own nature. Most concretely, Batchelor's meditation instruction was what it finally took for me to get my ass on the mat and begin a daily practice (well, almost daily. Let's say every other day). Settling my monkey-mind has been a serious challenge, as it is for so many others, and focusing on the breath has been more a distraction than a means to open into emptiness. The light bulb went off while reading LWtD, though, when Batchelor wrote:

The trick is to remain fully aware of the breath without awareness impeding its natural ebb and flow... One way to do this is to wait for the breath to happen. After each inhalation and exhalation, there follows a brief pause as the muscles change gear, as it were, before releasing the pent-up air or drawing a fresh breath. The self-consciousness of breathing is most pronounced at these two moments: suddenly it feels as though "I" must inhale or exhale. To dispel this sense of agency, during each pause remain a disinterested observer, curious to notice when and how the muscles will engage of their own accord to initiate the next inbreath or outbreath. Just wait for the next phase in the breathing to kick in: with no expectation as to when it should start, no preparation for it to be deep or shallow, no anticipation for it to be forceful or gentle.

I still often find the breath to be like Schrodinger's Cat-- being conscious of it does affect its nature, no matter how long I wait for that inhalation. But Batchelor's advice is something specific to practice, and that has made all the difference.

The change in my mood and equilibrium since finding these two books has been subtle yet profound. As Batchelor himself puts it, "life [has become] less of a defensive stance to preserve an immutable self and more of an ongoing task to complete an unfinished tale." And that's tremendously freeing.

(My impressions of Brad Warner's books can be found here, for anyone who's interested.)




A Year in the Maine Woods, Bernd Heinrich:
The linked review is an excellent summation of this book, but I disagree strongly with its criticisms. I just re-read AYitMW for about the fourth time, and the elements that so disturb the reviewer are exactly what I love about it. It's to the point that, like Inman in Cold Mountain, randomly opening up his copy of Bartram's Travels and finding peace within the pages, I can open Heinrich's book to any page and become immersed. I did this recently when I found myself between books and unsure of what I was in the mood for, beginning sometime mid-winter both in the book and in the real world outside. When I reached the last page at spring-time, I went back to the start and continued into the beginning of summer. And all the while that I read about the return of song-birds and blossoming of leaves on trees, it was bitterly cold outside my window (thought nowhere near the minus temperatures Heinrich experienced in the Maine winter). The fact that the narrative follows the seasons rather than a linear story-line gives the book a circular quality that easily allows it to be read in this way, and Heinrich's descriptions are so explicit that the reader is transported and doesn't even realize the amount of scientific information being digested and tucked away. Anyone looking for a deeper connection to the natural world would do well to pick this one up.

Funny coincidence

I knew something felt familiar about this photo that I shot in Fells Point almost a year ago:



It's been a while since I've randomly perused images at the A. Aubrey Bodine site, but voila!, what should come up but my photo's possibly apparently unconscious inspiration:



So, does this mean I'm derivative, influenced by, or just have a similar (though much less talented) eye?

Apropos of nothing

Just a few un-connected, rambling blurbs...

The state of the economy is beginning to hit home. It first affected me indirectly when my brother was laid off almost a year ago. But we don't see or speak with each other more than a handful of times a year, so it's something I've been aware of almost abstractly. I feel for him, certainly, but his situation is unfortunately not in my sphere of immediate awareness despite the fact that he's family. Impending lay-offs where I work are, though. We laid off three people last fall, but they were definitely un-productive employees whose positions weren't necessary to begin with. It was a sad thing for those people on a personal level, but it was difficult to refute the sense it made for the business. Last night, the boss confided to me about new lay-offs coming up, as they will have a direct impact on my own work load. We're closed today for the Inauguration, and the plan is apparently for upper management to meet with the unfortunately chosen on Wednesday and announce it to the rest of the store family in a meeting Thursday morning. I can't help but find irony in the timing of this. The day after our new President is sworn in, the President who has promised hope and change (albeit with struggle and sacrifice), four people I work with on a daily basis will face a demoralizing change in their lives.

Pertinent to my own recent career considerations, I recently found out that Shaharazade's was finally sold. The new owner is apparently a student at the local college who's working on a degree in physical therapy and who already has his own marketing business. His intention is to maintain the tea shop as it is, and he's kept on the previous owner's daughter as manager. He sounds quite the young entrepreneur and I hope the shop thrives under his direction. I felt a stab or two of remorse on learning this news, but the current situation (see link above and the economy in general) reassures me in my decision.

And, a fellow blogger who's writing I much admire seems to have turned off the comments feature at her site. So I'm going to sing the praises of some of human being's latest pieces here and hope that she sees this--

- Soliloquy

- Another Philoctetes...

- Blog

These each touch me deeply, as I've wondered before why the heck I maintain this blog. What is it that compels the spewing of my self-indulgent, self-obsessed babblings? It's apparently one part therapy, one part reaching out for connection and communication, and one part attempt at a marginally creative outlet. But, as human being makes so beautifully clear, I'm not alone in that wondering. It's apparently part and parcel of that state of being a blogger, whether being one makes you officially a 'writer' or just someone wishing/pretending to be one. The "disease" is a compulsion, an urge, to "[ooze] dubious words" and "inessential images" out into the "colossal cosmos". That's one of the double-edged beauties of the intarwebs-- a blog allows one to reach out and release, but to whom? Is there really any connection, if the connection remains anonymous and distant? Does it open us up to wider worlds, or fool us into believing such while shackling us more firmly into our "cozy corner"? Jodi, another fellow blogger, recently wrote along similar lines in regards to Facebook and I was reassured by her view. Of course all of this speculation will vary from person to person, depending on one's natural introverted or extroverted tendencies, but the intarwebs are what you make of them. I'm grateful for what they've led me into. If anything, the various social networks and message boards I frequent, and my own little cozy corner here, have helped me to understand the value of connection "irl". So I'll continue to babble, hopefully you'll continue to read, and together we'll weave a few more strands into that great big web that spreads so wide over the world.

Go click and help someone

The Small Things Challenge. Watch the video, read the FAQ, then click and fill in a captcha. Then go back and do it again.

Firing the pistol that shoots my holy pride

DRAWING FLIES

Sitting here like uninvited company
Wallowing in my own obscenities
I share a cigarette with negativity
Sitting here like wet ashes with X's in my eyes
And drawing flies

Bathed in perspiration drowned my enemies
Used my inspiration for a guillotine
I fire a loaded mental cannon to the page
Leaning on the pedestal that holds my self denial
Firing the pistol that shoots my holy pride
Sitting here like wet ashes with X's in my eyes
And drawing flies

Hey what you yellin' about
Conditions, permission, mirrored self-affliction
Hey what you yellin' about
Sadists' co-addiction, perfect analogies
Hey what you yellin' about
Conditions, permission, mirrored self-affliction

Leaning on the pedestal that holds my self denial
Firing the pistol that shoots my holy pride
Sitting here like wet ashes with X's in my eyes
And drawing flies

I'm sure that the young, 20-something Chris Cornell who wrote this song years ago had no clue as to its Zen-ness. To him, it was probably nothing more than an expression of existential angst. But, man, if that isn't the human condition in a nut-shell. From our denial of the reality of what we are to the afflictions we create for ourselves, and letting all that crap get in our own way because we forget that we're a pile of wet ashes dying with every breath we take.

Most of the rewards we get in life come to us obliquely.
(Bernd Heinrich, A Year in the Maine Woods)

I'm not talking about anything as ambitious as getting off yer duff and realizing your life's dream. It's just being aware, every day, seeing the world as greater than ourselves, noticing the little, oblique things and relishing them. It can make all the difference in helping us let go of that holy pride.

On the path, but left of the murder

The process of awakening is like walking on a footpath. When we find such a path after hours of struggling through the undergrowth, we know at last that we are heading somewhere. Moreover, we suddenly find that we can move freely without obstruction. We settle into a rhythmic and easy pace. At the same time we are reconnected to others: men, women, and animals who have walked here before us. The path is maintained as a path only because of the tread of feet. Just as others have created this path for us, so by walking on it we maintain it for those who will come after us.
(Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs)

As always, I read those words through the prism of my own experiences and mind-set, and used them as a springboard for self-analysis.

Paths are a common feature in my life, from the Buddhist path I've been attempting to follow to the literal paths I tromp through the woods. Along each of these sorts of paths, the greatest source of conflict for me has been that connection to others to which Batchelor refers. I've written before (ad naauuuuseaum) of how I go through periods of connection, when I find a handful or so of people with whom I can relate and try to develop friendships, and, at other times, through periods of solitude. Invariably, at some point, the periods of connection contain moments of inconvenience, annoyance, frustration, and/or anguish. It's often hard for me to balance all of that against the moments of fun, sharing, learning, and/or growth that are also part of connection. And the periods of solitude can be full of richness and contentment, yet at the same time feed my egoistic misanthropy.

In the woods, on those literal footpaths, I'm also frequently annoyed by the presence of others, and not just the noisy, oblivious folks who are so busy making sure they say "Hi!" that they scare away the deer I've been watching for five minutes... First, an example of that type: I recently headed up to a state park that allows hunting in season, hoping that would deter most other hikers. The trail I planned to hike is aptly named Old Misery. It's short, but ascends 500 feet or so within the first half-mile, through a series of switchbacks so rocky it's sometimes hard to follow where the trail's headed.



Beyond this, though, it levels out along the top of the ridge and passes through a dense fern sea.

Picture all of that orangey-red growth as lush green ferns in the summer-time...


It then skirts the edge of the ridge and at one point runs next to a talus slope that overlooks the spine of the mountains heading north.



That's where I was, relaxing in the crook of a low-growing tree limb and taking in the vista. From behind, I suddenly heard "Hey! Hey there!" I turned and traded the beautiful view for the sight of a yuppie doofus in what appeared to be ski tights, big-ass shin-high climbing boots, and a backpack. He stood in the middle of the trail and called down the hill to ask me what was ahead. We went back and forth for a while as I tried to orient him to the area in order to explain what his options were. Three times I asked which way he had come to get to the trail (i.e. along what road), and three times I was told that he had come from the Old Misery trailhead down by the lake. No duh, dude, that's only way you could have come on the trail considering the direction you were headed. The equally big-booted teen-aged boy with the guy (who at least wore his big-ass boots with plain old jeans) finally spoke up and I was able to describe to him what other trails they would meet and where those led. But I spent the rest of my hike wondering what someone like that guy was doing out in the woods. What could he get out of it? Laughably over-equipped, he didn't know where he had come from and was clueless where he was going. Being so incredibly oblivious, what sort of connection could he possibly have with his surroundings, what intimacy with nature, if any? That boggles my mind.

Even when physically absent, the implied presence of other people on the trail irks me. As the population in the mid-Atlantic has grown, attendance in local parks has increased along with it. The result is trails that were once the width of my two feet are now side-walk wide. And trail stewards in the parks suddenly feel obliged to mark these trails with painted blazes every hundred feet or so. I assume this helps limit their liability, as there's less chance of oblivious types wandering off and getting lost if they can always see at least five blazes away into the distance and follow them like beacons. But for those of us who are more comfortable in the woods, such thoroughly defined trails spoil much of the fun. The tread of others may maintain the trail, but also diminishes the sense of discovery. Early on, I picked up a habit of bush-whacking-- wandering off the established trail to follow animal paths, or just picking a break in the trees and plunging in. The occasional struggle through the undergrowth was a challenge that could exhilarate at the same time that it frustrated. And, more often than not, these solitary, off-the-beaten-path wanderings have led to fantastic discoveries-- a gorgeous overlook, a small cave, a bleached turtle shell or deer antler.

So, just what sort of metaphor is this for the figurative path I've been stumbling along? What does it mean that I prefer the unbeaten path, the road less taken, or even no trail at all? Can I find just as many treasures on my own as I would through personal connections? Or can I awaken only by following the paths trod by others? I'd like to think that there's a middle ground to the Middle Way, that I can spend time on both sorts of paths, that I can be both "out of the line and indivisible", and yet still find my way to some semblance of enlightenment.

A Crow Left of the Murder

Unlearn me.
Ditch what I read
Behind what I heard.

Look. Find. Free.
Yet! Do you get it yet?
Do you get it?!

From here on it's instinctual,
Even straight roads meander.
Every piece contains a map of it all!
It all!

Evidence
In the march of the ants,
Pulse of the sea.

Look. Find. Free.
Yet! Do you get it yet?
Do you get it?!

From here on it's instinctual,
Even straight roads meander.
Every piece contains a map of it all!
It all!

Out of the line and indivisible,
A crow left of the murder.
Every piece contains a map of it all!
It all!

Everything I wanted,
Wanted to know...
Everything I wanted,
Wanted to see.

Unlearn me...
Do you get it yet?
Look, find, free.
Do you get it yet?