Acoustical

Re-tuned the acoustic to 432 Hz approximate in the NST tuning again and revisting earlier versions of "Moon", "Guitar Craft Theme", "Burwood" and Landscape. Sounds so good to these ears. Want to work on some more spiritual stuff lately; this is what is calling me. Ahhhh-bwoooon

Wonderful zen afternoon re-reading sections from William Segal's "A Voice at the Borders of Silence"; references to Vaysse, Paul Reps,Soen Nakagawa and, of course Madame de Salzmann and Dr. de Salzmann, as well as James George. Such a rich inter-mingling of interesting ideas, peoples, currents and seeking! I've pulled down my ancient paperback copy of Paul Reps "Zen Flesh, Zen Bones" from my bookshelf (so old it doesn't even have any copywrite or publishing info in it!!) and Soen Nakagawa's "Endless Vow". Zen and the Work are very different in many ways, but there are also many similarities. In the taste, touch and feel of things, however, no difference. Mind makes distinctions. Life does not.

All is One in God.

Went out to the studio today to work on videos for Will to learn tunes; instead spent an hour working out additional parts/arrangements for Elelphant Talk. No one seems to get where I'm going with this tune, but I've got about three parts worked out now, some interconnected bits, and it seems to be taking on a life of it's own! This is playable and will be totally awesome I swear if we can do it with me, Will, Daryl and a third guitarist... oh, Johnny, such an enigma...

The Santage guitar is coming home! This Les Paul copy from the late seventies is the "Entropics" guitar I play circa 1982 with Will, Scott and Dan; in the early 80s I had a spiritual awakening (e.g., nervous breakdown) and gave away all of my possessions, including apparently, this guitar. Turns out Fabian in San Fran has kept it and maintained it all these many years and is sending it to me so that we can be re-united! I'm stunned. I'm really excited about seeing her again! The guitar from my first real band! Imagine that! Just speechless!

habitual grace

Nice weekend revisiting the Gilliam Section CD on the Habitual Grace bandcamp (https://habitualgrace.bandcamp.com/album/the-gilliam-section); shared my story on the Promotion with Integrity Facebook group and got some nice feedback and the following note from Beth, the moderator: "thank you for giving us a link to your work! I like that I can listen to any track on the CD. They are quite quite beautiful. I wonder if this is how the Group can be useful to you--helping you return to promoting this "smarter not harder" (and without vomiting, per our mission statement)? Or is there new work emerging?" Also we sold a copy (thank you, Barbara June!)! Listening to this music, in particular Luna's Jacal, Om Shanti Om, and Secret Sacred certainly make me want to make more with Will in this vein. I would love to do a "spiritual" music for yoga and prayer type CD, even partner with David Nichtern on some promoting ideas for a broader distribution. As usual, this comes out of far left field for Will given our current trajectory to play power pop stuff, but that is why Johnny remains an enigma.

Snuggly puppies

Depression and Allergy

Barely a week goes by without a celebrity “opening up” about their “battle with depression”. This, apparently, is a brave thing to do because, despite all efforts to get rid of the stigma around depression, it is still seen as some kind of mental and emotional weakness. But what if was nothing of the sort? What if it was a physical illness that just happens to make people feel pretty lousy? Would that make it less of a big deal to admit to? Could it even put a final nail in the coffin of the idea that depression is all in the mind? According to a growing number of scientists, this is exactly how we should be thinking about the condition. George Slavich, a clinical psychologist at the University of California in Los Angeles, has spent years studying depression, and has come to the conclusion that it has as much to do with the body as the mind. “I don’t even talk about it as a psychiatric condition any more,” he says. “It does involve psychology, but it also involves equal parts of biology and physical health.” The basis of this new view is blindingly obvious once it is pointed out: everyone feels miserable when they are ill. That feeling of being too tired, bored and fed up to move off the sofa and get on with life is known among psychologists as sickness behaviour. It happens for a good reason, helping us avoid doing more damage or spreading an infection any further. It also looks a lot like depression. So if people with depression show classic sickness behaviour and sick people feel a lot like people with depression – might there be a common cause that accounts for both? The answer to that seems to be yes, and the best candidate so far is inflammation – a part of the immune system that acts as a burglar alarm to close wounds and call other parts of the immune system into action. A family of proteins called cytokines sets off inflammation in the body, and switches the brain into sickness mode. Both cytokines and inflammation have been shown to rocket during depressive episodes, and – in people with bipolar – to drop off in periods of remission. Healthy people can also be temporarily put into a depressed, anxious state when given a vaccine that causes a spike in inflammation. Brain imaging studies of people injected with a typhoid vaccine found that this might be down to changes in the parts of the brain that process reward and punishment. Advertisement There are other clues, too: people with inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis tend to suffer more than average with depression; cancer patients given a drug called interferon alpha, which boosts their inflammatory response to help fight the cancer, often become depressed as a side-effect. As evidence like this continues to stack up, it’s not surprising that some people have shifted their attention to what might be causing the inflammation in the first place. Turhan Canli of Stony Brook University in New York thinks infections are the most likely culprit, and even goes as far as to say that we should rebrand depression as an infectious – but not contagious – disease. Others aren’t willing to go that far, not least because infection is not the only way to set off inflammation. A diet rich in trans fats and sugar has been shown to promote inflammation, while a healthy one full of fruit, veg and oily fish helps keep it at bay. Obesity is another risk factor, probably because body fat, particularly around the belly, stores large quantities of cytokines. Add this to the fact that stress, particularly the kind that follows social rejection or loneliness, also causes inflammation, and it starts to look as if depression is a kind of allergy to modern life – which might explain its spiralling prevalence all over the world as we increasingly eat, sloth and isolate ourselves into a state of chronic inflammation. If that’s the case, prevention is probably the place to start. It’s not a great idea to turn off inflammation entirely, because we need it to fend off infections, says Slavich, but “lowering levels of systemic inflammation to manageable levels is a good goal to have”. The good news is that the few clinical trials done so far have found that adding anti-inflammatory medicines to antidepressants not only improves symptoms, it also increases the proportion of people who respond to treatment, although more trials will be needed to confirm this. There is also some evidence that omega 3 and curcumin, an extract of the spice turmeric, might have similar effects. Both are available over the counter and might be worth a try, although as an add-on to any prescribed treatment – there’s definitely not enough evidence to use them as a replacement. In between five to 10 years, says Carmine Pariante, a psychiatrist at Kings College London, there may be a blood test that can measure inflammation in people with depression so that they can be treated accordingly. Researchers have already come up with a simple finger-prick test that reliably measures inflammation markers in a single drop of blood. And as for the stigma – could it really be killed off by shifting the blame from the mind to the body? Time will tell. This is not the first time that depression has been linked to a physical phenomenon, after all. A recent survey found that despite wider awareness of the theory that “chemical imbalances” in the brain cause depression, this has done nothing to reduce stigma; in fact, it seemed to make matters worse. This time, though, the target is not any kind of brain or mind-based weakness but a basic feature of everyone’s body that could strike anyone down given the right – or wrong – turn of events. And if that doesn’t inspire a greater sympathy and understanding, then nothing will. • This article was amended on 4 January 2015. It originally stated that curcumin was an extract of cumin. This has now been corrected.

Value

“We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” ~ E.E. Cummings

Awe

“Awe affects the brain in surprising ways. Stopping to wonder, our minds are changed cognitively. In this awe-opened space, new meanings, perceptions, capacities, dreams, possibilities, powers, and insights are born in us. We discover that we are able to draw new mental maps of the world and imagine new ways forward in our lives. Indeed, our most ordinary moments become qualitatively different. That's why James Joyce defines epiphany in his novel Stephen Hero as the “sudden recognition of the significance of trivial things.” When our perception changes so does the world around us.” From “The Purpose of Wonder” (A Seekers Forum talk) ~ Mark Matousek

Letting Go

The goals of letting go are far beyond those of psychotherapy. The ultimate aim of letting go and surrendering is total freedom. The goal of therapy is readjustment of the ego to a more healthy balance. The two systems are based on different paradigms of reality. The objective of psychotherapy is to replace unsatisfactory mental programs with more satisfactory ones. In contrast, the objective of letting go is the elimination of limiting mental and emotional programs. It is the attainment of an unconditioned mind and, ultimately, transcendence of the mind itself to higher states of consciousness of love and peace. In therapy, there is dependence on therapists and their training and techniques, and there is also reliance on a psychological theory to which the therapist and the patient both subscribe. Scientific research reveals that the results of therapy are not related to the therapist’s school of psychotherapy, training or technique; instead, the results are related to the interaction between them and the degree of the patient’s desire to improve, as well as the patient’s faith and confidence in the therapist. Therefore, psychic factors are operating of which psychotherapy is unaware. Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender (Kindle Locations 3694-3702).

Holiday meetup at Sean Patrick's (San Marcos)

Meditations

Leave no trace of self. Leave nothing behind. Leave no mark on the world. This is the ultimate success. It is in non-doing that we find being. It is in stillness that we find the face of God.

Big Z's Burger Joint

Played a great show Saturday at Big Z's Burger Joint with Daryl and Karl; Houston sat in on a few tunes on sax and Isaac got to sing one tune with us.