Impermanence

Hello All,

I’m down at the Healing Tao Summer Retreats; been down here for about 4 weeks
already . . . 3 more to go. I just started my third retreat; retaking the
Lesser Kan and Li course. I’ve been having some amazing, bizarre, but wonderful responses from the practices.

I thought I’d share an unusual and amusing experience that I had today . . .

I was in class, and we had begun the steaming process, doing an intro level
water-and-fire coupling. As I was deep in meditation, and was really getting the
practice going, out of the blue I suddenly started “hearing” 80s music. I started
thinking, “where the heck is that coming from?”, and all the while trying to ignore it and just focus in on the practice. As the practice continued to take off, the music started becoming more “real”, and suddenly I was transported energetically back in time to when I was in middle school . . .

Back in middle school (in my era) the fun thing, or “cool” thing, to do was to
on the weekends “stay the night” at the Roller Rink. This was in the era *before* rollerblades, an indoor circular area where you skated in circles with the arena dimly lit, but with several mirror balls and colored lights. The place would be playing popular music of the time over the rink, something to skate by and energize you further. The borders of the rink were decorated with full size arcade games, such as “Zaxxon” and “Burgertime”. The end of the rink had a “snack bar”, where you would skate over to when you needed a break, to buy some pop, candy, or other sugar to get you ready to do more skating, and also so that you could flirt with the girls that were there. The place was chaperoned by the people running the rink, so that things didn’t get too out of hand . . . but to be honest, they usually kept out of sight, so if you “won over” a girl as the night wore on, you could maybe score some kissing–for a little bit anyway. Given that most everyone at the Roller Rink were pre-teen/teeny-boppers/young teenagers, the whole evening was highly sexually charged.

At any rate, I was instantly energetically transported back in time to the Roller Rink I frequented back in middle school with all my middle school friends. The weird thing was that it wasn’t just like a memory or a dream, but it felt like I was really there . . . all the time I could still feel the Kan-and-Li cauldron cooking, and somehow maintained a relative present awareness in the meditation. It was a very strange experience.

The meditation ended, and then the Kan-and-Li class ended for the evening. I instantly felt the need to go online and “locate” the 80’s song that first appeared in my head and then segued into the Roller Rink time warp . . . It wasn’t a song I knew the name of, or to be honest had heard in a long long time. After some searching, I found it, and have embedded it in this post.

The song itself, isn’t much of consequence, just music from the era. A Madonna song came over the speakers later, which I’ve attached as a link at the end of this post..

It was a very strange experience; in particular, it felt like I was there and everything felt so real and vivid, and at any rate, it is one that is still lingering with me a few hours later.

The one feeling that I seem to be left with–aside from the whole triggered
pre-teen/teen sexual atmosphere–is the IMPERMANENCE of life. How bittersweet and fleeting life is. It sort of makes me wish I had appreciated or noticed life
more than I did when I was younger, and makes me want to cherish each moment today
with even more zeal and zest, knowing that it too will become nothing more than a
ghost of past experience–never to be had again.

I guess I’m babbling now, but I wanted to share some of the intensity of the experience with you all. I’ve been having such a blast and been enjoying diving
into the mystery down here at the retreats so much; it’s been incredible really.

Thanks for listening,
Steven

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThHz9wlBeLU&feature=related