Antigua! I’m Coming Home!

Enroute to Guatemala. At last. Been a tough winter. My emotions are raw.

Gotta chill out! Calm myself, diffuse the anger. Maybe deal with little angers early before they deepen and embitter. I can be so damn prickly. Too quick, too impatient. Slovenliness and heavy-handedness irritate me. Live and let live! Speak with good purpose only. I’ve been experiencing roller-coaster emotions. Intense highs and happiness. Also, dark moods of irritability, impatience, and anger. Easy for me to get wrapped too tightly. Chill the F*** Out, Dude!

1. Keep that “quality of life” distinction alive and actively work to implement it.

2. Be simpler and more direct in asking for what I want and require. Say: NO!

3. Speak less. Listen to my silence. Its time to focus on SILENCE. Past time.

I’m coming full circle these days, in a lot of ways. returning to 48 years ago. Such as: 1. Rereading the works of Gurdjieff. 2. Remembering, reflecting upon, rekindling the whole “Mardan” issue. He was Guru Nanak’s close friend and confidant who played the rubab. 3. Huge de-emphasis on alcohol (I Love Wine!!). 4. I’ve got my Les Paul Custom 1967 back! 5. Gradually withdrawing from material life, pursuit of gigs, money-money-money preoccupations. 6. Gradually moving toward sanyasi status, perhaps with guitar in hand. Nothing else feels right at this point. Ties in with #2. 7. My meditations to be musical ones, suffused with SILENCE.

And a final note: last week’s shooting at Parkland High in Florida that left 17 dead and hundreds traumatized really hit me hard. I’m not exactly sure why, apart from the “normal” horror of yet another school shooting. Now, as I watch the surviving teens take the lead on the issue of out-of-control gun violence—-I feel a glimmer of hope. Actually, it WAS a glimmer; it is slowly igniting into a certainty, even a conviction. These brave PTSD teens are leading their parents, and all of us nattering adults towards….towards what? meaningful change? Progress? A bi-partisan dialogue in a time where liberals/progressives and conservatives/right-wingers have nothing but contempt, mistrust, even hatred for one another?

We have failed them. I believe in them. Yes, I do. And so: Guatemala. 5 weeks. La Busqueda. Reflections. Meditations. Walking.