finally and new year...

finally a real minnesota winter's daynight, with windchills in the negative digits and 30 below up north. i like to cook on days like today, to create a little extra heat in the house and stimulate my senses with smells and textures. I made a greek leek/spinach/feta pie, very lowfat except for the cheese, with only a dusting of cornmeal for the upper and lower "crusts." there's a lot of poetry in the world right now, streaming through the air like radio frequencies, sometimes you can catch it, especially when the cold air makes everything so super-crisp. Eric and Kelly, the Raintaxi folks, live kitty-corner across the back alley from me, and as i got out of my car after a nice session at the gym i heard their windchimes in the dark...an exquisite sound, it sounded like angels we have heard on high, or the music of the spheres; highpitched but sweet, piercing but blending harmoniously with all the other chimes... I've been living here for 2 and a half years or so and i never even noticed that sound. That's poetry for you. It reminds me of the month i spent in dathun at Karme Choling in Vermont, and walking the half-mile or so from the dormitory to the meditation hall in the early morning before dark, and hearing the telephone poles singing furiously in the cold silence. My practice is deepening...i never even understood what people meant when they said that, i would listen with envy and slight impatience, a bit of shame at my lack of diligence ... but that's the past. Now, for the last several weeks, I've had wonderful rushes of feeling/insight/trains of thought while sitting, and though i know better than to make a superbig deal out of each instance, i can't deny that it's rewarding and feels special during and after it happens. I've been having delightful workouts at the gym as well, this january break, a real gift to do these daily trips unworried and unhurried about time and pressing obligations. Last night enjoyed Uzbeki pizza in North Mpls with Mark Nowak and Lisa Arrastia, we laughed and yakked. We were just about the first folks in there at six, and they were inverting the chairs on the tables when we left. The guy who took our orders and served us was, i think the son of the owners, an Afghan and his Minnesotan wife, and he was reading Rumi. Very sweet. That's it for now. I've been blogging for a year now, off and on, mostly off, but it's been a soothing space where i can recommit to the expansion of spirit that writing accomplishes for me, unambitious writing in its way, ambitious in its other way as well.