Deep into the well of the heart is the universal cosmos.
Many items on drafting Subway Hitchhikers, though I should note it was much larger in scope, including Daffodil and the other eventual Hippie novels … “a false tone in so much of my past writing: a thin line between that neo-Baroque artifact … invoking that jerk in the sky.”
Am now realizing: With Hitchhikers, I was hoping to make a change in the world at hand; instead, I should be seeing the characters as individuals whose lives are prayers upholding the goodness of the world and keeping it from falling into Trumpism and other darkness … preservationists against the evils of global capitalism etc.
2:III:73 / meditation makes the whole world seem new.
Contrasts ‘tween Nikki and Fay. “That Nikki! Gnawing, grasping, devouring, desperate and destructive hunger, insatiability …”
Sunday 4:III:73: “The Friends’ meetinghouse in Waynesville perhaps 150 years old (town settled 1797): white simple brick: porch and two doors (one men’s, one women’s?) Worship 10:45.” (At least I now knew where the Quaker site was.)
Little Miami River Valley: roads: Corwin, Feedwire, McBee, Upper Bellbrook, Oregonia, Ferry Church, Chenowith, Middle Run, Old Stage (Pittsburgh-Cincinnati), Indian Ripple, Stuttman, Alpha, Trebein, Darst, Carpenter. Past places where Fay and I necked or were chased … this time, I passed a baptism in the river …
Wednesday, off to Glen Helen in Yellow Springs: drafted the Eight-Fold Path poem.
Afterward, stopped at an English prof’s from my past. She was prompting me to “adopt” Eroica, a real sex bomb, flirt, flaunting it: needs other outlets.
To drive a new car. [Was that the Bug? Or Dad’s?]
My troubles began when I was born.
From a short story by John Bart Gerald, July ’71 Harper’s, on rich girls (one of the “horrors of the world”): She may well direct her energies to pleasing some older man, possibly her father. Life will be essentially a game … seeks total moral or sexual obliteration and continually manages to survive it … Rich girls shut horror out of their lives at any cost, and someone else will pick up the tab.”
Sunday (First-day), Quaker Meeting in Waynesville: my mind very dualistic: hard to sit the 45 minutes: the Dharma is further away.
“Do you as Quakers strive to make your homes a place of peace, joy, and contentment?” (asked once a year)
Was also reading Berry’s Hidden Wound …
Listen to animals and observe the water.
Overcome sleep and master the breath.
In letter to Barb: What’s Hitchhikers about? Reincarnation. Or life. Or both. Zany and surrealistic … actually, it’s a lot about my experiences in the past five years.
Has Bharti’s 2027 Walnut noted on last page …
~*~
On a slip of teletype paper: now back to practice
4 am arise and meditate, read clear thoughts
5 am exercise and shower, cool water
6 am prasad of worship
7-11 am work sesshin I
11 am brunch
Noon to 3 pm work sesshin II
3 pm pranayama
3:30 pm work sesshin III
5:30 pm dinner
7 pm work sesshin IV
Meditate at 8 and bed
Looks brutal, though sesshins covered writing or revision, calligraphy, job applications, violin, cooking, carpentry, cleaning, packing. Also, must have been short-term focus, reflecting Zen sesshins ….
~*~
From Spiralbound Flatland, with commentary from now.
Jnana's Red Barn 