Hangin' with the Ps

My parents came up today (point of clarification: Everybody comes up to Ashland unless they're from Alaska or one of the vast minority of Canadians who live in the great white north instead of Toronto, Vancuver, or Montreal.) to help out with some work on the house before the kid comes. I've got 15 cords of nice fresh-cut, still-has-green-leaves-on-it, oak that I'm trying to get cut and split by Tuesday. So Dad and I are going to hit that like crazy and Mom and the wife are going to work on the house, get the nursury cleaned up, that sort of thing. We've got a whole heck of a lot of work to do on the house, and this is a chance for a little free labor. I think that's pretty awesome; thanks Mom and Dad!

Test link

I've been having trouble getting blogger to post on one of my other blogs today, so this message is a test to see if it'll post here. I hope it's kind of like spitting to see if gravity is still on.

Yea for low-tech!

My buddy, the Princess of Wist, says:

The coolest part of all is that with my decision to start this blog has come a renewed effort to continue the journaling on paper. Though it's a time-consuming task, I enjoy it. And, though this internet stuff is cool and all, I much prefer tape to a post button and a pen to a keyboard.

I'm right there, too, except that I never fill the journals. I just have about three thousand of them all going at the same time. I love the feel of paper under my hand, the scratch of the pen nib across the page. I love the smell of the leather journal cover my wife got me for Christmas a couple years ago. I also love the immediacy of blog, the sense of community that reading my friends' posts engenders. I think the main thing for me is to communicate, to write, to play. So shazaam.

Looking down a Way

I've been a seeker of enlightenment for a long time. For a while, I thought it'd be "neat" to be enlightened, whatever that meant. I figured I'd have a lot of answers about the world and maybe be *someone.* I moved slowly from that viewpoint toward where I think most people in the U.S. are: elightened-shmitened. Who has time for sitting on a little cusion when there's so much to do? For the last seven years, I've pretty much put that path behind me and concentrated on daily life. I've gone to work, hung out with friends, cut a lot of firewood, and occasionally walked the dogs. About this time last year, I started going to a Budo Taijutsu class one of my friends teaches. I figured it'd be a good way to get in shape a little and learn a martial art which is something I've always been interested in, though I'm not sure why. For almost a year, I've gone to class faithfully, practiced hitting and throwing a couple friends, and taking things seriously, but not really putting out a whole lot of extra effort to teach myself and learn and improve. I've just kind of let stuff come as it comes. In the last month, though, I've been doing some reading that suggests that this art form may be more accurately called "ninpo" which roughly means "the way of perseverance." Furthermore, some people, and especially Glen Morris, have written about esoteric eastern ways complementing, or in fact being an integral part of, ninpo. Morris writes about meditating for 90 days on his back porch to open his chakras and achieve enlightenment one summer. Maybe it's just me, but I figured it took more than 90 days to become "enlightened." Another interesting thing is that it seems a lot of folks who have done high level work with Dr. Masaaki Hatsumi have left the bujinkan to start their own school teaching fighting their own way. I suppose there is historical precedent for this, but it still seems a little odd. Then on the other hand, how does one become soke (the grandmaster) of a martial art, anyway? I've heard two things about how the bujinkan does it. One story is about how Hatsumi-sensi avoided two swsord cuts while he was meditating. He became soke after that. The other story is more about what's to come. Apparently Hatsumi-sensi is going to choose some young Japanese person to take his place and train him (sexism seems to be strong in some of the practices of the Bujinkan; non-existent in others) to take his place. At any rate, it seems that, once again, I'm looking down a path that becomes a Way in short order. It's exciting (hey, I could go get enlightened and stuff), a little confusing (just how do you go about sorting through 900 years of secret tradition from a completely different culture?), and some scary (what happens if I follow these guidelines? how will I change?) I guess it's time for a talk with my sensi.