The Adventures of the INCREDIBLE Napman

War & Peace

2007-03-28T13:29:00.000+02:00

so it is my intention to write a little about the book War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy which i just finished a week or so ago, but first i want to give an update on the last post.

first of all, i must say that i am a bit disappointed with the fact that i got only one response. i figured with the scandalous topic i brought up, and the fact that about half the people i alert about this blog about are in what would be considered 'adult' age range, i would get alot more controvercy. perhaps people done know about the 'comment' feature at the end of each post. if so, its not to late to put in your two sense (or is it two cents?). i am just shocked that not a single person objected to what i said. is it that everyone wholly agrees with me, or that they dont think im worth the trouble to convince me otherwise (how dramatic)? i suspect that mostly it was from a sort of apathy. perhaps you were thinking: 'there goes that crazy kid again, i hope he gets his head screwed on strait at some point', or 'at this rate, hes a lost cause' (very dramatic, i know). but yea, i would greatly appreciate if you could take them time to say something about it, and i really think that just about all of you must have something to say.

so anyway, its been like 10 days since the festival, my sister has come and gone, and i must say that i have been experiencing what i would consider a high-hangover. its a week after the equinox, and the sun is already setting at 830 at night, the weather is fantastic and i just dont seem to have the motivation to do 'unpleasant' things as much as i have all year. ive just been getting the urge to go out and enjoy the sunsets, smoke a joint, and just tune in (or tune out some might say) to the 'zone'. i have smoked 5 days or the 10 since the trip, and while that pales in comaprison to my earlier 'habbit', it certainly is alot for my most recent state of mind. ive just been wanting to sit back and smell the roses, and havnt had much appreciation for the self discipline that i was so proud of before. today is in fact an effort in getting shit done, i have my to do list action packed and time stamped. i am not giving myself any time for zoneing, although i may go watch the sunset, its just so perrty. i find it funny how quickly the nice weather and all can do away with notions of hard work and sacrifice. it pains me to admit this defeat of sorts, but i guess i would by lying to you, but mostly to myself if i did not admit it, and its always best to do this kind of thing publicly. so there it is.

and now for the War and Peace bit which i have been putting off for a while because of my recent spurt of chilling.

first off let me say taht this book is fantastic, secondly let me say that it is MADDDDD long. ive been reading this book for a good 2 months (ive read a bonch of othors in between) and after page 30 there wasnt a dull moment in it. i think that what makes this book so special is that it has it ALL. the characters encompass the bredth of the human soul (although perhaps it is very presumptuous and naive for me to say that). there is a complete abcense of black and white, there are no ultimatley good or bad characters, it is just a bunch of people swimming around in the chaos of life, each living in their own little world, trying to live out their hopes and dreams, mostly obliviious of how they fit into the grand scheme of things. i think that this has been tolstoys triumph, the novel is epic without being epic, there are no superheroes and supervillains, no orcs and elves, just normal people, trying to do what they can to be fulfill themselves and between them is laced the web of history. epic events happening completely out of the control of all of those who participate in them (despite what they may think) molding the fate of peoples and nations. tolstoy says a great deal about this, the novel is interlaced with essays regarding his theories of history.

he thinks taht history is basically what happens while we are busy making other plans. that despite all the hopes and intentions that we may have, what happens only correlates with the few wishes that happen to coincide with events. that despite the will and decrees of monarchs and generals, war and peace follows in a way taht can only be understood as the product of all the the wills or all the people that participate in any given event. he looks back at history and does not ascribe it to any particular thing, but rather states that it is the only thing that could have possibly happened, that it is impossible to think of how it could have turned out differently. i particularly agree with this notion, although as i am presenting it it seems a bit simple, but i think that there is alot of wisdom to it. it is impossible to speculate about what would be different if any particular event were to change. i like to think of it like this: you dont know how many times you have dodged death thus far, you dont know how many times you havnt beeen in a car accident. you dont know how many times that an event that you percieved (and may still percieve) as negative actually saved your life. your parents grounding you and not letting you go out where u may have been killed by a drunk driver. my example may seem a bit extreme, but the fact that it is a perfectly plausable possibility, and that there are in fact an infinite amount of them, from getting hit by a meteorite to contracting west nile virus, to winning the lottery, make it impossible, and pointless to speculate about what if. because the answer will always be, who knows u could be dead. and i dont say this in a morbid and fatalistic way, but simply acknowledging the inherant unpredictableness of life. so in this point i agree with tolstoy. whenever we look back on our life we are able to see how the events that we did not understand or were not able to put into the jigsaw puzzle were essential to our being here today. and it is this understanding that gives us the power to accept all the things that we do not understand, to accept all the 'bad' things that happen to us, because it is what happened, and it could not have turned out any other way. and if we can understand this, when we can accept all the cards we were dealt and how they played out, then i think that we are much closer to true happiness (or suicide if the inevitable present is unbearable).

another point of tolstoys is that people who appear to be in power have no real control over how things play out. that they have their intentions and those have their place in the web of fate, but that they have no more influence than anyone else. i am more inclined to disagree with him hear, or perhaps i have misinterpreted him here. i think that people who have 'power' (and the definition of power would make for another blog entry in itself) have more influence than those who dont. i think that he would say despite what truman might have wanted, the atomib bomb would have inevitably been dropped, but i dont think that you can deny that he made a decision to drop it. i think that it is unfair to humanity to rid them of the power to bring things into existence. heres what i mean, everything we see seems to be a product of another cause, it is an effect world we live in, as everything has a cause external to it. i think that the exception to this is our thoughts. i think that most of the time even our minds are governed by the laws of cause and effect, but we have the possibility to insert our own creations into that (i may be wrong, and perhaps what i see as original creations are in fact nothing more than a more complex effect, but i htink that the fact that a child essentially comes in with no causes working on his mind, despite what may be added on afterwards, there is still hope for originality.

connected with this is tolstoys notion that history as we learn it and know it is completely unrelated to the truth of events. history is written by the winners and they also make it alot more epic than it was at the time. events can only be epic in hindsight, when they happen they are just a blur, that we can neither see nor comprehend. yet when we read history, events are always portrayed as if they were directly intended to lead to those that followed, when in reality it is an inexaustable stream of intentions mixing together and giving rise to what happens.

the beauty of this book is how it is able to illustrate all of these theories/realities/aspects of life, while making a story about real people in real places and real time. there is the epic large scale 'war' aspects of life, and interwoven in them is the moment to moment 'peace' aspects that make it all up. and when we look at these together, the little things building on one another making up the lives of people and nations, we have the reality of life as we know it. and this is captured oh so beautifully by leo (yes were on first name basis).

perhaps we can see this in our own lives, i am certain we can if we really try. we are constantly hoping for things to happen, and sometimes they work out like we planned, somtimes partially, and somtimes completely different, so how much did our intentions have to do with it? we can always look back and see a complete life (relatively complete, depending on how old you are) and everything that has happened fits perfectly into that, but i dont think anyone could have predicted that theyed be where they are. perhaps you have the job you always thought u would, or u married the girl u grew up with next door, but there is now way that you could have seen the inside of your brain as it is now, you could not have predicted your reaction to unforseeen circumstances and how that makes you who u are today. this seems to be a feature of our existence, so it seems to me that it is best not to fall in love with our hopes and dreams, or at least leave them open to adjustment and adaptation to reality, or better yet, it is best to wish for what we already have, that is a foolproof method to have everything we want.

i think that the main characters in the novel are worth mentioning as they are so important to the development of the moral of the story. i think that they all epitimize some aspect of our selves, yet it is quite remarkable how human they all are, there is no 'hero' or villain. no one does things that are out of character (painfully frustrating at times). there is none of that otherworldy good or evil present in them, they are simply living, loving, and trying to be happy, jsut like the rest of us:

DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT AND INTEND ON READING THIS BOOK AS THERE MAY BE SOME PLOT SPOILERS. IT WOULD BE A SHAME TO READ THAT BEHEMOTH OF A BOOK ONLY TO ALREADY KNOW WHAT HAPPENS

Pierre Bezuhov- this is what i suppose would be considered the main character of the story, although it is hard to tell when there are hundreds and hudreds of pages where he does not appear at all, but nonetheless his life is central to the message that tolstoy conveys. pierre is the ilegitimate son of a count who inherits a fortune when his father dies. pierre is constantly plagued by a sense of hollowness, that his life is pointless. he is trying to find his way through temptation. he suffers the fate of trying to be a good person, tries do be as perfect as he can, in a tragically imperfect world. i think that this character would most closely resemble tolstoy himself, from what i know of him. a person who happens to be extremely wealthy, and understands that he is not special in any way, but taht he has inexplicably befallen his fate. he joins the masons in an attempt to find help in fulfilling his ideals, only to be let down when he realizes that most of the people are there for the high class connection and dont particularly beleive in the ideals of the brotherhood. he has a high regard for humanity, in a rather naive way. he thinks that people are fundamentally altruistic and he is often seen as a good hearted bafoon. in the end he is able to 'let go' in a way that i cannot describe, but tolstoy conveys to perfection. he is finally able to be the man he has always dreamed and it is by letting go of all his illusions of grandeur. i must say that i quite identify with pierre in many ways. he is a dreamer and an idealist, who has trouble turning thoughts into actions and manifesting the things that dwell inside him.

Prince Andrey- he is Pierre's best friend and he serves as a foil to him. he is much more sceptical about people and life in general, but he has much more ease in acting in a way that is consistent with his beliefs. all the things that pierre talks and dreams about doing andrey is able to do without much fuss. if pierre is a thinker, then andrey is much more of a doer. i think that he is somewhat similar to my sister in this regard. andrey is able to see into the heart of many issues without much trouble. he is not so naive as to beleive that men are so good, although he does the best he can. he does not expect much from other people and as with any good self fulfilling prophecy he is seldom disapointed. i would characterize him as a bit of a 'cold' person who has not seen much of the sweetness of life. his one hope for happiness, his engagement to natasha, blows up in his face when she breaks it off. this leads to a profound disdain for love and he gives up hopes for personal happiness. it is only on his deathbed that he is finally able to find peace, when is able to let himself love natasha again.

Natasha Rostov- natasha is the main female character in the story. for most of the book the was the epitome of youth and impulsiveness. she is an extremely passionate person who goes all out into whatever catches her attention. she is completely at the mercy of these impulses and one of them, the decision to break off her engament with andrey in order to mary anatole, who proposed to her practically as a joke, essentially leaves her on the verge of death and takes the passion out of her. she is finally able to find happiness by marrying pierre, settleing down, and starting a family. finding something larger than herself to take up her time allowed her the peace of mind she needed.

Elena Kuragin- helene is pierres first wife. he is seduced by her and compelled by her father to marry her, much to his regret. elena epitomizes sex appeal. she is considered one of the smartest and most charming women in russia despite the fact taht she is not especially intelligent. her presense is the most desired, her parties the most prestigious. she dominates russian 'society' mostly on account of her looks and seductive power over men.

Anatole Kuragin- Elenas brother. if there were any villains in the story it would be him, followed by his sister. despite taht they are not bad people, they are simply quite egotistical. anatole is the personification of hedonism and egoism run amok. he spends his time seducing women (ideally married women) and living off other people. he is portrayed as a fool, but extremely confident and his confidence (along with his good looks) go a long way in impressing people. he has no notion for how his actions affect other people, or even himself in the long run. hey, at least hes living in the moment. hes most impactful action is when he quickly seduces and proposes to natasha under the pretense that he is in love with her (despite the fact taht he has a secret wife in poland) while she was engaged to prince andrey. they are discovered and she is nearly ruined, although he still considers it a victory to have gotten her to ascent.

Nikolay Rostov- Natashas older brother. he is a man of honor, and he decides to join the army in the low ranks rather than use his noble birth to obtain a high status, low risk, position. throughout the story he is constantly torn between marrying his cousin sonya who he truly loves, or marrying a wealthy heiress in order to save his familys ruined fortunes. he considers it to be truly cowardly, although in the end he is able to find a wealthy heiress and truly fall in love with her and save his family in the process. he is the opposite of his father, who squandered the family fortune by being overly generous and not keeping an eye on finances.

Sonya- Nikolays beloved. she was orphaned at a young age and grew up almost as a sister to natasha in the rostov household. she feels an extreme debt to her benefactors and she is in a difficult position because the countess wants nikolay to marry a wealty heiress despite the fact taht they love eachother. she finds meaning in her life through sacrifice, mostly for the rostovs. she has a secret motive however, through her sacrifice she maintains a secret hope of making herself more and more worthy of nikolays love. when she is asked to sacrifice his engagement to her it is almost impossible for her to do, although in the end she is able to rise above.

Princess Marya- Prince Andreys sister. she has lives with her father until he dies. she is constantly psychologically and emotionally abused by him. she finds the meaning of her life in this suffering. she is able to ennoble it and glorify it. she revolves her whole life around sufferig and the notion of her being happy totally scares her, and she feels she is very undeserving. she is a genuinly good woman, who finally finds happiness in her marriage to Nikolay.

i hope that you enjoyed this, and that it wasnt too boring for those of you that read the whole thing. i hope that you all find a few months in your life to read this book. its not considered one of the best books in history for nothing.
peace
E

Revelation

2007-03-20T23:25:00.000+01:00

so here i am my friends, writing for the first time in a little while, and moreso, this will not just be another entry about the pimping things ive been doing (only a little). there will be some constructive thoughts i hope.

so first of all, my sister has come to visit again, she arrived the 12 and she leaves in a few days. it has been great as always to have her around. her visit has coincided with a vacation in my arabic classes so we have been able to hang out alot while she was here. she came to visit with a few friends and my friend owen was supposed to come visit, but my man didnt check his passport till the checked his bags, only to find out it had expired. i can tell you dont travel much OG, common. so yea, my sister was here with her friends and weve been doing tha do. tomorrow we are going to go to the beach, although its going to be COLD, but it should be madd fun. were going to do some hammock camping.

on the ithaca front, it seems that me nate and shane have found a house, i wont elaborate too much, since we have not signed a lease yet, although we do have a verbal agreement. it is a nice, WELL MAINTAINED house overlooking the lake, on a nice piece of property, yet still close enough to get to and from school.

so the now that the chit chat is out of the way, i will get to the heart of my story. this last weekend there was a festival, it is called El Festival del Dragon. originally it was started in the 70's by a few english families as a celebration of the coming of spring. it has evolved alot from its early beginings, now it consists of a 3 week festival in the mountains outside granada. the beauty of this festival is that it is completely guerrilla, there is not charge to get it, very little central organization, and no one really making any money off it. people bring their tents and set up little food stands, music tents, a few concerts, etc. you just walk around and there are tents everywhere, and people just chilling out without any method to the mayhem. it is quite remarkable when i compare this to the Grassroots Festival in Ithaca this summer, where it costs like $75 to go in for the weekend and you had an assigned plot and food was madd expensive. compare that to the dragon where everyone was just throwing up their tents where ever they could (for some reason people were pitching them strait up on rocks). the food was remarkably cheap considering where we were. there were people selling jewlery in stands, beer out of buckets of ice, people just waving around huge nuggets of marijuana, it was the ill spring festival. on the other hand, the festival does have its negative aspects, i feel bad for the people who live in the area who have to listen to hardcore drum and bass from like 9pm to 9am for at least 2 weeks, it can be heard a good distance away. there is also the matter of garbage and feces littering the area. part of the lack of organization is the lack of appropriate waste facilities, there were very few trash cans, and they were FULL in no time, and there were a few latrines, but in general it was just a free for all. from what i understand, the organizers pay the govt to clean up afterwards, presumably from their profits from concessions, but the river definetly looked a little mangy afterwords.

so anyway, this has all been a bit of a long wind up for me to tell you about my own experience with my sister and her two friends (although we met up with some other cats while we were there). the main night of the whole festival when everyone comes and it is just crazy was friday night. this is the night that we planned on attending. we arrived on saturday afternoon at around 6 and walked around the grounds, saw the sights and got our bearings, as it is quite unlikely that we would be able to see anything at night. so from the moment we arrived people just started piling into it. by like 9 it was a complete grid lock as the whole festival grounds only had one enterance, and at a certain point the max capacity was reached but cars kept piling in, it was quite satisfying to be there and parked and chilling.

so let me cut to the chase. the thing that makes this festival most remarkable is that you will never be in a place with so many people doing so many drugs at the same time. it is insane, i think that 100% were doing drugs of some sort including alchohol and marijuana, but furthermore, at least 95% were doing 'harder' drugs. you could literally see a food stand that said: WINE 1 euro, BEER 1 euro, SHOTS 2 euros, ACID 10 euros, SPEED 20 euros, etc. me and cas and one of her friends decided that we were going to do some MDMA, the active ingredient in exstacy, although i felt it was safer as it didnt have all the other things they throw in it, and we got it from a friend.

so i realize at this point im going out there, i am well aware of all the people i send this blog to, and i am even more aware of the impressions that they may be making of me as they read this. i would beg you all to read with an open mind and not judge too hastily as there is much more to this than the recreational use of drugs (which i think has some merit in its own right, when not abused, as with all things).

so basically we started taking it around 9 pm and started feeling it at like 10, we spent the next 7-8 hours dancing like maniacs to the heartbeat of drum and bass. this is both the first time that i have done MDMA and the first time that i have consumed 'hard' drugs in a rave setting. how can i describe the feeling that you get when you are packed into a room just being swayed back and forth by the DJ. you can feel the energy in the room swaying back and forth, like an entity of its own. acording to Aldous Huxley, the primary function of the mind is to reduce the amount of sensory input we recieve down to what is necessary to our survival as an animal. a reducing valve, he calls it, functioning as a survival mechanism. so essentially the brain is capable of recieving a great deal more input, which is mostly useless for our survival as a species. so when we take drugs, the brain is no longer functioning as a reducing valve and is opened to new sensorum. in other words, i think that the sensations/halucinations/connections we feel while we are on drugs, are not made up in our mind, we simply cannot percieve them in our normal state of conciousness. its not so much that we are imagining things is that we are percieving other sensory mediums. like in the crowd, you could feel yourself connected to everyone else. this is similar to the experience of sitting in a drum circle (without drugs) when you start to feel the rhythm and everyone is syncing and you just stop thinking and feel the connection. i think that religious ceremonies (if the people are true beleivers) are able to generate this collective thing that everyone plugs their mind into. in a book i read about witches it refered to this as everyones aura vibrating at the same frequency, and what better to do this than music. in fact i think that it is the most effective unifier of minds. i used to think that when all the druggies would get together and just listen to crazy techno music on madd drugs that it was no good, but now i can see the reason that they do it. and while, there were many people there who i think were over doing it on the drug consumption because they were REALLY out of it, it was amazing to feel that connection with such a large number of souls. you could almost feel it breathe in and out. you could feel the crowd waiting as if on the edge of a precipice for the climax in the music. quite remarkable and enlightening really.
so i spent the whole night mostly with my sister and her friends and we were having a jolly good time. for those of you who know me well, you know that my sister is my best friend and that we are extremely close. i cannot tell you the joy of taking drugs with her. i always felt so remarkably close to her. when we would come in contact it was crazy, it was like i could feel madd quantities of electricity passing through us. i am quite certain that this was a manifestation of love that we cannot percieve in our everyday state. i felt so safe. oh how limited these silly words are in all of this. if there were more degrees of love i would say i was definetly feeling level 10 love (out of 10). this is not the only time i have been on level 10 (and the others have not been on drugs). the difference that feeling these other manifestations of love, it was just so much more gratifying to feel love.

at some point, maybe like 4, the one of my sisters friends who did not trip with us went back to the car to get a few hours of shut eye.

the rest of us kept dancing and dancing and dancing (and eating clementines) until the sun began to rise around 7.

at this point i went to the assigne meeting place to see if my sisters friend had come for any reason. on the walk there i started reflecting on the night and how good it was to be here with my sister and all the other people sharing this remarkable experience. i was out in the middle of the woods having the craziest tribal experience of my life. i could feel the love gushing out of my veins and i was oh so happy to be alive. ::u may think: isnt it bad to need drugs to have all of this, it surely will lead to addiction.:: well i suppose that that is a good point, but i think that i am well aware of the fact that drugs only offer you a glimpse of what is available through hard work and dedication. i think that all of the extatic sensations i was having can be had in a longer and more permanent way through meditation and spiritual practice, but here lies the power and benefit of drugs. thy can offer you a glimpse at what is available. they can give you the temporary insight you need to move foward with ur life. let us take my opinion as an assumption for the sake of argument: that through drugs you can take a small look at God, the infinite, enlightenment, whatever you want to call it, etc. i think that it is definetly worth looking than not looking, while keeping the perspective clear. i know, believe me i know there are dangers in taking drugs, the most imminent being addiction. BUT, but if they are done carfully, in the proper state of mind, with the right people, than they can offer a momentary glimpse of what the universe is really like. and honestly, i think that for most people, those few glimpses throughout their lives would be enough. i think that most people spend alot of their lives lacking the humility and perspective that is gained by an awe inspiring encounter with the infinite, but i will continue this latter, let me get back to my story.

so im walking to the meeting spot, overwhelmed by love and a feeling of understanding, and i got the notion to go all the way to the car, which was a little ways away, to wake her up if she wasnt at the meeting spot. the sun was about to come out and we were going to go down to the river and enjoy the day after the night, and i didnt think she would want to miss that. so i was feeling lots of love for my sister, and lots of love for her friend, and i was happily strolling towards her. AND THEN

like a flash it hit me, a moment of inspiration, a revelation of sorts. i attribute it to being in an enlightened/loving (they are one and the same as far as i can tell) state of mind, where the mind is at its most powerful, and the future and the past become apparant. and so i got a flash into the future and i saw my life play out in front of me. for some time i have been unclear as to the direction that my life will take. i have been in debate about wheter i want to be a scholar or a wanderer or god knows what. i love school, but i also love freedom. i dont know, it was a hot mess in my brain. and then the flash hit and it was clear as to what i am going to do. i have decided to go to graduate school in egypt when i finish up ithaca. i will study islamic studies or somehting of that nature, and i will be able to master my arabic, which is the one thing that i was sure of. i want to lead the life of a scholar and family man. my head has always been happy when buried in a book, and i am now clear that it would be foolish to abandon this path. espially when i seem so well suited for it. i know this may not seem like a surprise to some of you, but it certainly was to me: i saw myself at the center of a large family of my own, completee with wife children nieces nephews godsons and god daughers. i saw myself not unlike my father, happily sitting at the head of a long table with all my beloved people. there is certainly a relativly long span of time between now and then, but it is good to know where you are goin.

so anyway i continued towards the car and woke up the poor girl from her unconfortable nap. despite her grogginess i started chattering away at her the thing i had discovered. we talked and talked and talked and talked until we finally ran into the rest of the gang, at which point we found a quiet spot in the woods by the river where we spent the whole day just talking and chilling and smoking joints.

so i would like to continue the discusion on the power and use of drugs. i was just saying that i think that getting a few glimpses of the divine throughout ones life is enough to generate the humility and submission that i find to be essential to a happy life. (let me just say here on a side note, that in my limited experience i find that not all drugs serve this purpose. in cigarets for example i have found no trancendant value. it seems that psychadelics/halucinogens are the best for the purpose of opening the reducing valve). i think that we all have the desire to transecend our ordinary existance, which is why religion has been the center our lives up until the very recent past. we all want some sort of indication that this isnt it, that there is something more to the ordinary ups and downs of life. this is the reason taht we use drugs, and im not talking about 'hard' drugs, im talking about alcohol, and ganga, and hashish, and mushrooms, and peyotes and everything else. we just want, even for just one night to be in a different state of mind, to be rid of the triffles that hold us down. one of the problems, id say, is taht we are usually unaware of our own desire to transcend so that we do not do it properly. we smoke every day, or we drink ourselves into oblivion, or we do so many drugs that we dont know what hit us. it is impossible to reach the ultimate enlightenment through drugs, only to to open small windowns temporarily, and if we abuse them, the windows get smaller and smaller until eventually they dont even open up and we are left with only frustration. another problem with drugs, is that they have a negative effect on our mind as a survival mechanism, the mechanism basically doesnt work for a while. it is hard to imagine looking for food and shelter in the state of mind i was in, in fact it seemed the only thing possible was blissful contemplation of the beauty of life. this is great once in a while, but if done regularly, it is easy to see why drug addicts have such a low life expectancy.

there is really so much more that i could say about this matter, but that is the subject of books, not blogs, i think, although i am expecting some responses. this is certainly a subject that everyone must have some sort of opinion on, one way or the other. so i look foward to hearing from you. and i just want to reassure you that i have a sound head on my shoulders and that i dont forsee myself slipping into any of the pitfalls of drugs anytime soon.

many of you might be asking why i would write something like this, as it can only make people think less of me. first of all you may not be thiknking that at all, but if you are i would like to tell you my reasons. first of all i wanted to lay it all on the line so to speak, to share my thoughts and experiences with the people i love. i am neither ashamed of myself, nor do i think i have done anything wrong. secondly i would like to present another image of drugs. i wish that we could get over the whole D.A.R.E. attitude about drugs and have some real discussions. for example, i cannot remember the last (or first) time that an authority type figure had a conversation with me explaining the positive aspects of drugs. i cant remember the last time that sombody talked to me about the fact that people have been using drugs for religious and ceremonial purposes since the begining of time. nobody ever told me that drugs arnt bad, but abusing them is. i can find an analagous situation with the consumption of alcohol in the USA as compared to europe. in the US drinking is super taboo and its really not ok to drink if ur under 21, and as a concequence everyone drinks themselves retarded, from a very young age. being so taboo, drinking itself becomes an event. in europe on the contrary, drinking is very acceptable even from a young age. the drinking age is technically 18, but in reality there is very little regulation, i can send my 13 year old brother to buy beer for me (not that i would EVER do that ;), or would i?) children learn to drink in their homes and as a concequence when they drink socially it is much more under control and less extreme. drinking is just something you do while socializing, its not the whole point of a night. so perhaps if we educated our youngsters about the real nature of drugs, instead of painting a comically simplified and highly distorted picture of it, we would not have people using drugs in such reckless manners. perhaps we could ever learn to use them in a more profitable way, generating love, happiness and community. i know that i will certainly be one to try in that envisioned time when i got some childrens of my own.

finally i would like to recomend two essays by Aldous Huxley on the relationships between drugs, spirituality, and other such things. they usually come together, they are called The Doors of Perception & Heavan and Hell.

peace and love
emi

Morroco

2007-03-15T10:29:00.000+01:00

so me and antonio took a quick weekend trip to morroco. when i first came to spain i was looking foward to visiting morroco a great many times to work on my arabic. as things have panned out, my arabic is going a little slower than i anticipated so i have not been able to take advantage of it as i would have liked to. plus it seemed like everyone where we went spoke spanish anyway. we went to a town called chawen. this is a picturesc little town tucked under a large rocky mountain. i wish i had some pictures to show you, but the whole town is painted light blue. the streets, the walls, the inside of peoples houses, everything, which givees it the effect of being in a cloud or something. the town is a bit of a tourist attraction because of its many skilled craftsmen, its beautiful appearance reminicint of the good ol days, the natural beauty of the surrounding areas. this is most directly felt by every single male, aged 12 and above asks you if you want to be hash. and i mean every male, its quite absurd, i dont know how they all make a living doing so because first they are trying to rip you off, and even if they riped off every tourist, they would only get ripped off once, and i dont know what the other 500 'vendors' would do.

the natural beauty of this place is breathtaking, i really wish i had some pictures. as i said, the town is on the skirts of a mountain, and the surrounding areas are filled with the farms and pastureland, etc, required to maintain thee town. there is a natrual spring ocming out of the mountain so the water there is extremely pure. there is also a crystal lake in the mountains. it is a relatively short walk to get there and it is an enlivening sight.

we spent the weekend hanging out in town and living the good life so to speak. 3 fat meals a day, plenty of sleep and no real partying makes chawen a great place to go to rcuperate ones strength. i bought a bunch of stuff for my house in ithaca next year, a few rugs and tapestries and such.

sorry its so brief, but i got to run
more to come
peace

Sierra Nevada

2007-02-28T17:20:00.000+01:00

hello everyone i hope all is going well out there.

so one of the sweetest features about being heavan, i mean granada, is that you can go skiing and swing in the mediteranean in the same day. there is a sick ski resort less than an hour away. its pretty amazing when you consider the fact that it was well over 65 degrees today and i was dying of heat. so on monday silvio cut school and we decided to go up to the ski spot. this is the second time we were going. the first time we went it was snowing pretty much the whole day and it was cloudy and relatively cold, although the fresh snow was rather lovely. this time was just the opposite, i discoevered what sierra nevada is so famous for. it was blazing sunshine the entire day. it was quite a new experience for me to be snowboarding and not be at least sort of cold. on monday i was soo hot. i was wearing a long sleeve shirt, a vest, and a shell and i had to keep opening up my jacket.

there was surprisingly large amount of people considering that we went on a monday, but since we're the only ski resort within like 300 miles it is not difficult to understand that there would be alot of people. on the last run down that shit was INSANE, everyone was going home and it was almost as crowded as the NYC subway leaving a yankee game. i was basically scared to move because you didnt know what was going to happen below you, and you never knew when some psycho snowboarder (although i am a snowboarder i generally dislike any other snowboarders. they just ride like [explicit] maniacs) is going to come flying down and impale you.

me and silvio spent most of the day in the upper slopes of the mountain where it is a little colder and there are alot less people. it was really fun, we found some spots that werent so crowded and were able to dick around. silvio convinced me to hit up the terrain park with him which was cool, since i didnt really fall, i was able to throw up some indy grabs (basically i would just slap my hand on the board and call it a grab). i must say that US snowboarders shit on spanish ones when it comes to tricks, i didnt see anyone to anything better than a 360, which silvio can do, soo.

the highlight of the day for me came fairly early on. it was probably our third ride down and my confidence was starting to climb. i hadnt fallen on the first time we went, so the last fall on a snowboard came when i busted my knee two years ago. so i was starting to feel good, and i was heading down a familiar slope pretty fast. i was cutting back and forth, and on one toe-edge cut, where im leaning foward with my board mostly perpendicular to the slope, i then hit a slight bump and lost my balance at which point my edge hit, got stuck, and i started levitating into the air. as i floating face up through the air, i got such a lovely view of the sun and the perfectly clear sky, it was so beautiful. this was immediatly before i came plumeting down directly onto my lower back about 8 or 9 feet down the slope. the first sound i heard was "AHH, joder tio, que ostia te has puesto" (ahh, damn son, you busted your ass). apparently i was below the skylift which prompted me to attempt to laugh it off, which wasnt so hard, as it was one of those blows that manifests itself through laughter. concious of the fact that i was liable to get trampeled by some psycho or novice, i attempted, rather poorly to get up. i was able to drag myself off the the side where i had to chill for a while. in the end i was able to enjoy the rest of the day, be that with a mortal fear of falling and reagravating my tender coccyx (which i inevitably did). so now i sit at home with my ass area (mostly my lower back) in a pretty bad state, but with a great story to tell, a worthy tradeoff.

the website for the ski spot said that it would be springtime conditions on the slopes, and i didnt quite understand what this meant until after lunch. at this point it was so hot that the snow had melted past the point of icyness, and on to the point of slushiness. behind fresh powder, this is arguably the best snow for skiing on as it gives into the edges with absolute ease. the major drawback is that you CANNOT fall for risk of getting completely soaked by the slush.

chitty chitty bang bang.
peace out

CARNAVAL

2007-02-20T19:32:00.000+01:00

so this weekend was the carnaval in cadiz. cadiz is the only city in continental spain that has a carnaval (the other being tenerife in the canary islands which is supposed to be second only to rios) so everyone from all over the country makes their way there every year. i know for a fact that there were over 40 buses from malaga so i can only imagine how many people came total. the cadiz carnaval is famous for its comic chirigotas (groups of men that tell a story in song, usually a funny one), so every year there is a contest that lasts for a month to select the best ones, and the friday before carnaval the winners are chosen. we arrived on friday around sunset and we had some dinner and went out about the city. we walked around a few times saw the hoards of people starting the party a night early. at around 2 we made our way home (home being the car) and tried to make ourselves confortable, no easy task, but we managed a few hours with the help of a couple shots of rum and a duby snack. the next day, saturday was the motherload, the legendary carnaval. from the moment i awoke i saw people pass by the 'house' in full costume aparel. we spent the day laying around in the lovely sun resting up for what was sure to be a long night. after eating a few delicious sandwiches for dinner we went to start to get ready for a memorable evening. i was dressed up as two things. on my body i was wearing all black and my black cloak over it, and on my head i had my hair in the pigtails. when you put the two together you have my costume. thats right you guessed it, a gay vampire. so we went into the city and in a nutshell it was fucking insane. i would have taken some pictures but i didnt thiink i would be in any state to be responsible for myself, let alone an expensive camera. i was right. it seemed like the motto of the multitude was lets see how much alcohol we can pound in one night. and i combined that to my personal motto: when in rome. so a+b= me drinking alot. i did not however make an ass of myself which i am proud to say. after starting the party between 9-10 at about 4 or 5 in the morning i was starting to be in bad shape. i decided to make for the crib and i got half way there before i decided that i could no longer walk strait and that i had to sit down. i promptly sat my ass down and called in reinforcements. my friend betsy was kind enough to come fetch me and lead me off the the car where i passed out before hitting the bottom of the trunk. i woke up the next morning with proverbial ax in the back of my head. i had a wicked hangover that thankfully for me and all the people i was suppsed to drive home wore off after a hardy breakfast, several liters of water, and a duby snack. we sat in the sun a few hours charging up tha bateries and then we undertook the 3.5 hour drive home. a productive weekend in general.

Barcelona Round II

2007-02-15T15:13:00.000+01:00

this last weekend i went to barcelona for the second time. i again stayed with my terrific new friends lucas and hilaria, who were more than gracious in letting me kick it at their crib for a few days. on the surface it seemed as though this may not have been the best planned trip, i decided on it in the last minute, and im not exactly a plan ahead kind of guy either. so, when i get to barcelona i find out that, first, lucas and hilaria are studying for exams, my friend anastacia is going to berlin for the weekend, my other friend santi is going to granada for the weekend, and the last, ima, who i havnt met yet, never returned my email, so i was basically in barcelona on my own in a sense, although i was well cared for by my friends. on the surface this may seem like an ill omened trip, but in reality, it was a resounding success. i felt like less of a tourist, and i wasnt so rushed to see the sights. i spent alot my days reading and cooking for my busy hosts in an effort to make my visit a help more than a burden. i whipped up some recipes that i had been meaning to utilize, moms typical fideo soup, as well as a stuffed tomoatoes and peppers recipes that i havnt been able to try for our lack of an oven in granada.

aside from cooking i did my share of walking around and such, i saw two good movies, coincidentally both with gael garcia bernal in them, BABEL and LA CIENCIA DE LOS SUEñOS. babel is really a good an interesting movie, emotionally touching, as well as morally and spiritually stimulating. ciencia de los sueños is more of a trippy kind of movie, i guess it would be more aptly described as a 'film'. in general i enjoyed them both.

basically the reason that i went to barcelona was to watch the FC Barcelona soccer game on sunday. now this is probably more relevant to those of you who either like soccer or even better are barça aficionados. so basically it went like this, the game was at 7 so at like 530 i started to make my way to the legendary Camp Nou (New Field in Catalan). i didnt have tickets but my friend assured me that i could probably find cheaper than regulation tickets once i got there. so i got off the subway along with the initial hoards that like to get there early. i was in front of the stadium at 6 and in my antsineess to get inside, i bought the first ticket i could get my hands on. i definetly could have gotten a better price, but this was quite irrelivant to me at the moment. the whole time i had basically been alternating between shivering with emotion and just grinning or laughing out loud. my ticket was in the upper tier in the corner. so i initially went to that section to and from there i went directly to midfield and i went to the highest point of the stadium, the proverbial 'nose bleed' section. i basically stood up there and just savored the sweet smell of the air in the Camp Nou. it is a sensation i have dreamed of for years. and the dreams really cannot compare to the actuality of watching the sunset over the mountains beyond the stadium, of watching the 120,000 (thats max capacity, there were probably more like 70-80 at this game) loving fans file in. as the game was about to start i moved down a few rows so i was sitting at midfield in the lower half of the upper tier. soccer is defiently a sport where having a good perspective makes a big difference, you wouldnt for example want to sit behind a goal because you cant see shit, you also dont really want to sit in the first row. i think the ideal is the middle tier, but the upper tier is by no means bad. the game started and i really cant describe the emotions that were taking place in my heart at that time. it is the satisfaction of crossing something of your lifes to do list, only problem is i added at least a dozen other visits to it as a consequence. as for the game itself, there is no way to describe how well the team played so u will just have to see for yourself. these are the highlights fromt he game and i just watched them again and they are sick, CLICK HERE.
after the game i made my way out of the stadium and joined the hoard of people that were just walking down the middle of the street stopping traffic in all directions. i eventually made my way into the subway station and along with many many other people waited for the train to come. apparently there were some people that thought they were slick dodo and went to the precious train stop so when the train arrived it was completely packed. their plan backfired on them when nobody considered the fact that the train was full as a good enough reason not to get on it, so joining in the mob mentality we redoubled the density of people in the train, and all those poeple who though they were smart were suddenly crushed into the back of the train. haha. that was probably one of the best nights of my life, one i will certainly never forget. the thrill and glory of watching your team tear it up like that. from there i went to the movies to watch babel. in general a memeorable evening.

well my friends, the time has come to bounce up outa here. so i will leave you . peace.

Arabic 101

2007-02-06T19:17:00.000+01:00

the truth is that i am writing about this because i am trying to write another entry that i think is better, but its not flowing at the moment, so i figured id give you a bit of an update on my life, so if you dont care stop reading here.

thank you to those still reading, i appreciate it.

so my arabic classes are finally starting to take off, and its a bit of a whirlwind. man oh man am i in for a trip. as some of you may know, my current goal in life, aside from those permanent goals such as living a good, happy, and meaningful life, is to learn arabic and french before i am 25. as i am 20 know going on 21 i think that i am in a good position. i have recently had a great stroke of good luck, what do you know, because arabic is now being taught at ithaca college, so that i will be able to continue studying for the next two years while i finish up school. so my plan is to take one arabic and one french class per semester for the remainder of my stay at ithaca. i think this will be enough to get me in position for the next move which is moving to an arabic speaking country for at least a year or as long as it takes to get it down pat. i am optimistic. initially i was thinking of morrocco or egypt. then i was informed that these countries have very strong dialects, which is not ideal for the learning of classical arabic. so i figured that i would end up going to syria lebanon or jordan. and then the other day i met this dude who is also studying arabic and he went to cairo last year and he said that the dialect is definetly managable and that it is a really good place to go. i have more of an impulse to go to egypt than any of the aforementioned countries so i found this to be good news. if anyone has any thoughts, opinions, information on the subject this would be the place to say something. so now all i need to do is make that happen, prospects are looking good as always.

on the home front, it looks like im going to barcelona this weekend, hopefully ill be able to watch the first game of ronaldinho, eto'o, and messi are all back and playing together. it would be a momentous occasion. i am quite looking foward to going to barcelona, i have a few friends there, from new ones to old childhood ones, and like i said earlier, it is a happenin city.

my friend KelLee from ithaca has taken a semester aborad here and i have been able to hang out with her and a few friends from her program, so rest assured folks, i wont be forgeting my english. in truth it is good see her, and it makes me look foward even more to returning to ithaca, while at the same time im looking foward to spending every second i can here. life is good. i have also made a new friend from scotland, and his name is Scot, no trouble remembering that name. he is quite a well traveled individual, as his dad works for chevron so we have accidentally developed in a similar way.

long story short: Im OUT.
peace folks good talk

Feeling Down and Out?

2007-01-29T18:22:00.000+01:00

this came to me as i was about to fall asleep last night, in that twilight of consiousness where you are more receptive to the messages that the universe sends. i wanted to write about it then, but as i didnt have a pen at hand, i went to bed, and now i can only hope to recapture the epiphone i had and recreate the wisdom that dawned upon me.

i think that there comes a time in the life of a human being where his temporal self sabotages his immortal self. now what exactly am i talking about. good question, im not quite sure myself, but lets see. let us asume that our imortal self consists of our soul, our temporal self of our body, the tool with which we can make something unreal real, in which we can turn a thought into an action which affects the physical world; and our mind can slip back and forth depending on what it is focused on. so our imortal self is what compels us to be good people, to do things that we know are right, and prevents us from doing bad things. our conscience while manifested in the mind, originates in our soul. the temporal self is essentially free to do whatever in this transient life, and is only directed by the mind. now the mind is really the key character in this play, because the mind is the bridge between this world and the next, and it can either be functioning or not, depending on how we choose to use it. i figure that all internal battles take place in the mind as it decides in which direction to go, and in the end it can only emerge victorious (and by victorious i mean as manifested in happiness and satisfaction with ones life) when we follow the guidance of our conscience and our heart (read: soul). i should note that while i speak in an abstract 'you' or 'we' or 'our' in reality i am speaking of my personal experience, dont ask me why i dont just use 'i' but i make a policy of not looking back too much so i just keep writing.

so the whole point of this if i can wrap my mental fingers around it is that while i genuinly believe that in the bottom all people are good, and kind and have the potential to be loving, they all have the capacity to fulfill theyre wildest dreams. sometimes our ego (temporal self) prevents the body from acting in a way that is consistent with the goals of our immortal self, which are essentially manifesting all the virtues that are innate to our humanity. basically im trying to say that there are times when you strait up dont feel like you are acting in the right way (there is no absolute right in practice, only in principle. in different cases the same right principles can lead you to act in diametrically opposite ways, but that is the nature of the beast) but you just cant seem to get out of the funk youre in, you energy level is low, and you just not that hyped on life. you can go through the days in a sort of daze without taking the time to stop and smell the roses. i think that essentially there is only one cause for all of this, that is not living in the present moment. now i dont that its not ok to plan ahead or think of the past, but the key is once again as my anonymous comentator said, 'to rise to the moment at every moment.' now this is easy when we are in a state of grace, where we are exited about life and things seem to be going our way. but then things turn around a little bit, and there is a subtle change in our way of being. it usually seems imperceptable at first, but next thing you know, you not making the most out of your days, your sort of going through the motions, etc.

in my case, i dont quite know what happened, but i know that i sort of slowed down, i wasnt doing as much in a day as i could have. i think alot of it has to do with the fact that im on my own in a way that i never have been before. the only thing between me and a lump of dirt is my self determination, i have to classes to attend, no 9-5 job, no hunger pangs, no kids to support. i basically have no outside source of motivation, and slowly, gradually, almost imperceptably i started to slow down, to dick around on the internet more, to watch a little tv, to go out for lunch, play soccer less, check my fantasy NBA team too often, to get a little lax on my study habbits. and then suddenly i didnt know why i wasnt feeling so satisfied with my self. its like i got a little lazier without even realizing it. its one of those changes that can only be appreciated over a large span of time, because day to day its imperceptable. in the end it comes down to self discipline on a moment to moment basis, about maximizing your breathing moments. i have never been submitted to a rigorous sort of discipline, but at the same time i have never been without outside timekeepers. and it is our self discipline that can set us free, if we cannot do the things we say we want to do then we are slaves to our own apathy, to our own sloth. and so i was, stuck in a place i didnt want to be, with my body having developed habits that my heart and soul didnt agree with.

so what do we do to get out of this. i think that as i just said, self discipline can set us free. it all comes down to personal integrity, doing what we said we were going to do. and not just in a vast metephorical metaphysical sense, but also in a minute day to day, hour to hour, sense. its like when you break a drug addiction, you dont think about how hard it is going to be to quit for 30 years, you think about it on a day to day basis. and if that is too hard, on a hour to hour, minute to minute scale. and so our discipline will set us free, and our word will be the guide. think and talk (to yourself is fine) about what you want to do, and then figure out what needs to happen on a minite to minute basis, and then figure out what you need to stop doing that you were doing while you were wasting time. i mean, even when i wasnt doing the things i wanted to do i was still wasting time doing something, and i have to stop doing that something, or do it quicker, or less often in order to make time for the things i do want to do. in a nutshell, make a daily to-do list, and make it as detailed and strict as you need until you can break the bad habits that you seem to be stuck in. youd be amazed at the things you can acomplish when you dont give yourself time to be lazy. its highly unlikely that you are going to collapse from fatigue, but if you do, then you need to tone it down a little, until you get used to the rhythm. i would also be sure structure this around a healthy lifestyle because nothing is more unpleasant than having to deal with you suffering body.

may dad always used to tell me when i had homeword to do, or mow the lawn, or any other thing that i thought i was forced to do: 'you can either do it or you can suffer'. and the older i get the more i see the wisdom in this. whenever you have something that you 'have' to do, it makes it alot better (your life will be more pleasant, you will be happier and you will have more time) if you choose to do it, rather than be forced with it. procrastination sucks, there is nothing worse (i suppose there are some things that are worse) than having that unique nagging sensation that burns in the back of your mind which arises from the knowledge that you should be doing something else. on the other hand there is nothing better (are there things that are better?) than that sensation of knowing that you are on top of everything and that you are in control of your life.

am i crazy? what do u think? please let me know
peace and love friends family and beyond
emiliano

Cas Came to Visit, and I Passed Out

2007-01-24T18:38:00.000+01:00

As many of you may know my sister (Maya) Casilda came to visit when i got back from Barcelona. it was really good to see her (you in her case). but anyway, just go give note to the events that happened while she was here. first of all we had a sweet party. for those of you who have facebook you can see pictures of it on her profile. there was live music dancing drinking and all sorts of merrymaking. unfortunetly we eventually had to stop when the neighbors came to complain at 3 am. we tried to invite them but they wouldnt listen. so yea generally great evening.
other than that we just did alot of chilling and stuff. whenever she comes to visit everyone seems to come around alot more, which is quite nice. so there was alot more social life in the house than there has been lately. it did conflict a bit with my attempts to get back in a routine of studying and not vacationing in general.

well just to share a personal comical story. friday was 'el dia de San Canuto' which is the spanish equivalent of 420 and for those of you who dont know what that is, it is essentially the national marijuana smoking holiday. so i was invited to a concert/celebration in Malaga by the woman with whom i intern (see Cannabainternship). i should note that i hadnt smoked in a few weeks so my tolerance was reduced to nil. i should also remind you all of the potency of the cannabis in the region. so me and carlitos made our way there and to as we appoached we smoked a joint (in reality i took one hit but it was more than enough). sure enough it took us like 90 minutes to find a parking spot. so we parked and within two blocks or walding we had already lost the car, so we had to head back find it mark it on the map and set out again. we got to the destination just in time for the juggeling act to start. it was quite a gathering, from the sky it must have looked like a regular forest fire. we proceeded to watch the show and i took a few hits of joints that were passed to me. knowing my currents state of intolerance i did my best (relatively speaking) to keep my consumption down to a minimum. after the juggeling we went to get some food as i felt my blood sugar droping. we walked around the same block for half an hour before finally settling on a bar. upon returning there was a concert about to start, quite a good percussion group i might add. at this point i smoked some of another joint and tried to settle into the mood. within a few minutes i was starting to feel little dizzy. i went to lean against a palm tree. i remember a strong vibration from the gas generator next to the palm tree that was powering the whole shibaz.

and then i woke up. i opened my eyes to see a large group of people standing around me asking me if i was OK. i looked over to see i was about 20 feet from the palm tree and i had no idea how i had gotten there. from what was told to me i stumbled there as i feinted. its not over either. after i had layed there a little while i sat up and took my time to recover. after an hour of so we started to make our way home. we judged it would be a good idea to stop somewhere to get some coffee. keeping with the trend of the night we stopped at 3 rest stops without finding anything and at the third there was a police man waving some flags in there air. i figured ' damn, a detour, this is really going to slow us down, and i folowed the direction i though he was indicating' at his point carlitos mumbled something which i didnt understand. within a few moments there were sirens blaring behind me and the police pulled me over. apparently the 'detour' was in fact an alcohol checkpoint which i so casually drove away from. needless to say my behavior was suspicious. as i had wisely not drank anything that night, for fear of creating a symbiotic intoxication with the marijuana, i passed the breathalizer test with flying colors. i was still searched and they confiscated all the wonderful chronic i had been given at the celebration, some real once in a lifetime jewels. but in the end i was glad they let me go. we finally arrived about 4 hours later than we planned to sleep with great satisfaction.

now, many of the people who read this, probably over the age of 30 may be saying to themselves, 'what is up with this kid, one day hes all spiritual and shit, the next hes passing out from drug overdoses.' and to you i say, you have a very good point, but i assure you that i did not smoke very much on the relative scale, and that i only reccount the story to you for its comic value. i would venture to say that those who know me well would be impressed on the other hand by my current lifestyle despite how many drugs and other hedonist recreational activities i have available to me, with nothing but self discipline to deterr me.

just to give you an update as far as what ive been doing lately. i started yoga classes last week and i have already payed for 3 months in advance as a way of ensuring my commitment.i have now settled into an athletic schedule that suits me quite well, 3 days of soccer per week complimented by two days of yoga and two days of rest, in order to keep all the articulations operating at optimal levels. arabic classes start back up this week, finally. it has been a long recess and i am quite anxious to start back up. i am happy to say that i have purchased my tickets to india this summer and i will be there from may 29 until july 4. i have read several books lately, some of them extremely thought provoking and i wonder if you have read any of them.

The Perennial Philosophy by Aldoux Huxley- this book is basically an anthology of all the great mystics from most religious traditions. huxley has attmpted to compile his notion of what the core of these religions are, which are shared by all spiritual practices. honestly i found this book to be phenomenal, although its a bit heavy reading. it is certainly written from a european perspective, but with great admiration and understanding of the eastern spiritual traditions. as i have lately been in search of spiritual teachings i must say that aldous has served as an excellent teacher and i was more than happy to learn from him. i recommend to all who feel that all religions are essentially different fingers pointing at the same object, and who seek personal spiritual guidance.

Brida by Paulo Coehlo- another terrific book by the almost mythical author of 'the alchemist'. apparantly this is a true story which adds quite a bit of allure to it. this one chronicals Brida O'Fern's quest in becoming a witch and finding true love. as with all coehlo's books (at least the ones i have read) this book provides useful and practical moral and spiritual advice. his writing style is simple and easy to read. the thing i like most about his books are that they really make me dream of what is possible, and believe taht it can come true, and better yet that it is in my hands.

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl- this is a psychological analysis of the life inside a prison camp seamlessly woven into the authors account of his own experiences in the Nazi concentration camps. the narrative is both heart breaking and inspiring, devastating and hopeful. he essentially tries to find what it is that allows some people to live and others to die while in these camps and how it is that one can find a point to keep living when life all around appears to be worthless. he also includes an introduction into his own school of psychotherapy, logotherapy, or meaning therapy. his theory, and a damn good one at that, is taht what makes our lives worth living is finding a meaning in it. we can make up any meaning we like, but if we have one and we beleive in it we can survive even the harshest torture. his own experiences are the stronges validation for his ideas.

Muhammad: Biography of the Prophet by Karen Armstrong- this is obviously a biography of muhammads life. i find it to be quite enlightening as she treats him fairly and objectively without the spite that usually taints westerners perspective or the adoration taht taints muslims. she gives him credit as a prophet, and leader, statesman, and essentially and admirable and good man. she goes to great effort to make us understand him within his cultural and historical framework without falling back on our own moral absolutism. she also makes a point of comparing the muslim and chirstian worlds on a level playing field. this is must read for those who are interested in islam, but especially for those who have a negative idea of the religion and its prophet. it should correct many of the notions we may have ingrained in us by centuries of ingorance and bad publicity.

at the moment i am reading two very good books which i also highly recomment. first of all War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. they dont call it one of the greatest books ever for nothing, im about a quarter of the way into it and it just keeps getting better. you should however set aside about a month to read this book as it is ginormous. the other book is A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. i find this book to be quite interesting but i have always had an affinity for mathematics and the natural sciences. it is an excellent choice for those who are interested in modern physics, but dont have time to become a physicist. he makes abstact mathematical concepts readily available in laymans terms and there is actually a fair amount of humor in it believe it or not.

well thats all for now.
goodluck and godspeed mateys
love
em

Cordoba and Barcelona

2007-01-21T16:08:00.000+01:00

its been a long absence. the last month has been a bit of a whirlwind and i've been stuck in a bit of a doldrum. ive been meaning to write for a while, but lo and behold, i havnt. this is a way of me to get back into the swing of things, get my motivation back, and with it my sense of purpose without which life becomes meaningless. sounds a little dramatic, but its really not, just a matter of post holiday hangover so to speak. but the long and short of it is im back until im gone again, which hopefully wont be anytime soon.

so i finally did a little traveling around spain. in andalucia i visited malaga (which is pretty wack, it is way too touristy and developed and has lost any magic that it may have had) and i also visited cordoba which was a much more pleasant experience. the central attraction in cordoba is the mosque/cathedral (originally a mosque and converteted, like the vast majority of the mosques in spain). this building is quite phenomenal in its architecture and its magic which i must say it preserves quite well.

and now for some pictures
this is the mosque from the outside. it is huge, as all the mosques and cathedrals are here in spain.

this is the inside. the whole thing , which must be a few acres at least is completely adorned with these double arches. it just keeps going and going and going. it is quite a magical effect taht really cant be captured in a picture. the sensation of..of.. i guess i dont quite know how to describe it, but is something like awe and admiration for the mathematical genious of the architecture. the alternating red and white are not painted on either they are actually alternating bricks and stone which adds to the awe i think, when you consider the amount of arches that had to be made (probably close to a thousand)

here is another picture of the mosque with a statue of jesus to christianize it.

aside from the mosque cordoba still retains alot of its character from its andalusian days. the city was famous for being perhaps the most advanced center of culture and learning (not to mention religious tolerance) in its day. some well known scholars are the muslim averoes and the jewish maimonides (as well as the roman seneca, although his day was long before it was a muslim capital)

these are statues of maimonides and seneca

aside form andalucia, i also visited barcelona. now barcelona is a happening city. i mean this place is a very cosmopolitan place with people form the four corners of the globe, but at the same time it doesnt have that overwhelming sensation you get in new york or mexico or any other 'big' city. it has a population of about 1.5 million and doesnt really have too many tall buildings. the city itself is extremely beautiful it is full of gothic and modernist archtecture, which im sure i would appreciate alot more if i knew anything about archtecture, but nonthe less it was a great visit and i look foward to going back to watch Barcelona (the soccer team) play. i stayed with a friend from granada who had an appartment right in the center of the city and we were able to walk everywhere. i would say the coolest part of the short trip was visiting the 'Temple de la Sagrada Familia' this is a very very large church which is still in the process of being built. it was designed by the modernist master antoni gaudi. the city itself is in a way gaudi's showroom and his influence is felt far beyond the reaches of architecture. the church is quite simply magnificent. i mean i dont knwo how to describe it, its just so freiking kool looking. it almost looks like a drip sand castle. i guess the pictures will speak more thant he words.

here is a picture as i approached it on the street.

this is a picture of the facade of 'the passion'

this is the nativity front.

i few pictures of the sculptures on the outside.

these are a few pictures of the inside of the church.

like i said the church is not finished. currently their are 8 towers built. and supposedly they are going to add a bunch more and one of them is supposedly almost double the size. the inside is going to be inlaid with colors and all the wondows will have stained glass. in short i think it will be truly breathtaking when it is finally finished, i only hope that i am alive to see it.

here is a picture i found on the internet of what its going to look like when its done. ont he left is the current state of the building and ont he right is what its supposed to look lioke when its finished. needless to say they still have a long way to go, but so far so good.

good to talk to you again. ill be around

Stars Falling From the Sky

2006-12-14T21:32:00.000+01:00

last night was the annual Geminid meteor shower. this is the first meteor shower that i have ever seen and i must say that if you ever have a chance to see a meteor shower, drop absolutely everything to do it. it was perhaps the most breathtaking thing i have ever seen. i saw more shooting stars in the first 20 minutes than i had seen in my entire life. i went to a hill above granada, that also happens to have a breathtaking view (although not of the same magnitude) of the alhambra and the city of granada. last night i felt as though i was in the most priviledged position in the world. i was laying on a blanket staring up at the starts watching a galactic 4th of july, and if i looked down a little i had the best view ever of the alhambra by night with those spectacular night lights giving it the impression of a floating castle, a little to the left and there was the entire city of granada layed out. that view is really strait out of some painting or something, its just too good to be true. it was like what van gogh was trying to capture in starry night, the interplay between the natural lights and the artificial ones, that seem to merge together into a coherant dream. so i lay there from like 11 till like 2 in the morning with my jaw dropped and my tongue hanging out (except for the ocasional shivers, it was pretty damn cold) directly under orions belt with my body perfectly lined up with polaris just watching the sky roll past me. the stars were just falling left and right, it was at least one per minute, and sometimes they would come in bursts, left and right, up and down. it was one of those moments when youre so amazed that you forget to think and you can really just relish the moment, and it doesnt even require years of meditation or practice, you can just sit there like a baby, completely absorbed in the world around you. and it was in this state of mind that the most amazing thing i have ever seen happened: a huge shooting star, but i mean huge. i was laying there and when i saw it i jumped up and yelled in utter amazement. it was so big and burned for so long, i honestly thought it was going to land dead smack in the center of granada, it was like the scene out of some alien movie where the kid sees the space ship land or something. if the sky we see is 180 degrees, and most of the meteorites travel like 5 or 10, this star traveled at least like 30 or 40 across my line of sight. it was so big to, it was much bigger than any star in the sky, or any other celestial object other thant he sun and the moon. truly a special experience. i can only wonder if anyone else saw it. i was surprised to see that no one else had come to the spot where i was at, i guess not many people knew about it, i only found out earlier that night because my dad told me. they should really make this sort of information more available, i mean soemthing like that has to be one of the most amazing experiences a person can have in their lives, and i saw nothing about in the news, granted im not exactly a CNN fiend. i wonder how many people around the world were looking up at the stars at the same time i was, i wonder how many people saw that beautiful star fly through the sky. its almost as if i feel somehow connected to them through that shared experience. these are the sort of things that make you feel so very small, but at the same time like you are part of something so very big, its not a daunting feeling, but rather one of grand artistry. being a man with a relatively sophisticated knowledge of the starts galaxies and the universe (compared to my distant ancestors), and perfectly aware of the physical nature of the phenomenon i was experiencing i must say that i still felt extremely humbled and awed by the power of the divine and cosmic forces that operate outside of our sphere of understanding. i can only imagine the impression something like that would have on someone who had never seen the stars with anything other than their own eyes. i think that it would make you feel as though there were something up there, something really really big up there. i think that there is a certain comfort in feeling small compared to something like that, it makes you feel as though all your worldly concerns just arnt as important as you thought they were. a truly humbling and awe inspiring experience.

so this is a picture taken from the alhambra. if you look at the hills above the houses there is one to the left with the old wall on it, and another one to the right of it, not the one with the green on it and the radio tower, below that. on that hill is where i was laying watching the stars.

peace and love,
em

ps. did anyone else see this meteor shower last night?

Querer Querer

2006-12-12T13:09:00.000+01:00

ahoy
so ive been thinking and i want to see what you think. i read that languages are often much wiser not only than the most vulgar that use them, but also than the wisest. it is with this in mind that i started thinking about the spanish verb 'querer'. this word has two meanings: the first is to want, and the second is to love. it has been my intention to explore the relationship between wanting and loving. in spanish their are two words commonly used for love. the first, 'amar', is a passionate, romantic love. this word is used, or i should say i would use it, to describe the intense and mind numbing emotions associated with women that drive me crazy and FC Barcelona (thats right, the soccer team). like i said this love is extremely powerful, and it is often irrational, and always highly addictive, although i would argue that it is never quite satisfying. this is the kind of love that sent the greeks to troy, that makes men fight over women, that incites violence is sports fans, that makes people kill eachother over the fictiotious lines they call countries. i should also say that this love is not negative in itself, and that it is also responsible for love songs aplenty, some of the greatest, and most touching poetry (i say this in a rather detached way, as i have never been one for poetry), and other such romeo and juliet type things. this love can make a person forget themselves (which is a good thing [sometimes]) and do things that they never thought they were capable of. the point is, this kind of love is highly emotional, and when not satisfied can turn to equally potent, much more negative emotions, ie hate, jealousy and misery.
the second word for love in spanish is, as i have already noted, querer. now as i percieve it this word denotes a very different kind of love. it is a much more unconditional love, not dependant upon favorable circumstances. if amar comes from the heart, then querer comes from the soul. this is the equivalent of the greek agape that martin luther king wrote so much about. it is the love of a mother for her child, of a good man for his brother. if amar is a human love, than querer is a godly love. this love, if it is true, will withstand any trial, it cannot be broken and it does not have a negative counter part. in its infinite wisdom the spanish language has irrevocably tied the essense of the divine spirit with the the seemingly transient desires of the human will. could it be that while we struggle our whole lives trying to figure out what we want, that it has we have been saying it all along (for those of us who speak spanish that is. for the rest of you, the lesson is one and the same, and maybe you will want to learn spanish now, and if you live in the US you really should, i mean we are surrounded by spanish speaking peoples, of which there are already 50 million within out boarders). what we really want, although we may not know it, is to love, but not in a emotional up and down kind of way, but rather in the serene peaceful kind of way. in the way that reassures you that the world is in fact good, that god does if fact exist, and that you were in fact meant to be here. could it be that all of our selfish wants and desires, our constant search to find that 'thing' which makes us happy are meant to give way to the no-thing that actually can. if we are possesed by the godlove perhaps we will see that all of those selfish wants and desires are really what is keeping us from being happy, by making us think that there is something outside ourselves that can create true happiness, when if fact true happiness lies in forgetting about ourselves and doing this for the good of others. if you want to love then you will find yourself happy without having to look for it. you will see that god made you happy to begin with and that you have fallen from this by falling passionatly in love with your self. so i tell you as i tell my self, let us love as we want to love, from the bottom of the infinite well that is our soul. if we stop trying to make ourselves happy, and simply do what we know is right at every moment (as my anonymous teacher so wisely put it: rise to the moment at every moment), then we will be happier than we ever thought possible, and we wont poison it by trying not to lose it. and not only that but we will also be blessed with the greatest gift of all, the knowledge that you are an asset to humanity and that you are fulfilling your divine purpose.

well i didnt think that would come out like that when i started, but i like it. sorry for any typos
peace through love
emi

The Cannabis Cup, Andalucia Style

2006-12-08T15:22:00.000+01:00

Its been a while hasnt it. the reason i havnt written in a while is because i didnt have anything to write about during the last couple weeks. i guess thats not wholly true, but i there was nothing that i felt compelled to write about, until now. during those two weeks i was working almost everyday during the morning at my moms friends house, i think i mentioned it. i came home and played soccer during the afternoons. needless to say i was pretty worn out and not doing many 'noteworthy things'. but the good news is that i made a few hundred bucks to keep me from depleting my travel fund, i got some good exercise and i shook up my routine a little. in that time i only read two book and i didnt feel as though i could really write about them, they didnt stimulate my oratory. but i think there is going to be a burst soon because some exiting things have happened, some more are projected, and im reading a book that has got by mind banging on all cylinders. man i feel a little rusty writing right now, i guess my fingers are a little atrofied.
sorry for the pointless introduction

so anyway, the chase that im cutting to: as you all know i have been 'interning' at my mothers friends house, helping her out with this years cannabis crop. as i told you, she is or was the president of the local cannabis cultivation and consumption association known as ARSECA (arseca.org). this past weekend december 1,2,3, was their annual harvest festival and competition (i didnt write until know because it has taken me a while to clear my mind). so i was asked to help out with the collection of samples, and being relatively computer proficient i was responsible for cataloguing all the samples and then tabulating the scores. i should note that my recollection is a bit hazy from all the sampling, but in general i remember everything. i arrived friday night and got right to work designing the score cards and such, and as the first samples started rolling in, i couldnt help but get exited, i mean it was REDICULOUS. i think that many of you readers may not necessarily be cannabis enthusists, but for those of you that are, this was the stoners paridise. i mean im from NY of whatever and there is supposed to be good weed there, but of the 35 total samples, at least 30 were way better than any weed i have seen in nyack, NY, or ithaca, including all the hazes, shmaizes, diesels, weasels, and everything in between. the real festivities started on saturday, although until like 6 we were just sorting out all the samples and dividing them up into anonymous samples. honestly i was way out of my league, i mean, i started smoking 3 days before in order to build up some tolerance, but i didnt stand a chance, i was knocked the fuck out in no time. that night a famous singer called Amparanoia came to perform. it was pretty sick from what i remember, i spent the second half of the concert passed out upstairs. the problem was that this dude made these brownies that were frieking delicious, but didnt hold a match the the cannacarrot cake he made. i mean i tried to restrain myself because with the munchies i had i knew that if i didnt i was going to OD. in fact im still fiending for some carrot cake to this day to satisfy the craving i had to subdue. despite my restraint i think i still ate a little to much, and long story short, i woke up sunday morning in the front seat of my car in quite a daze. it was awesome. haha. since i passed out relatively early i woke up at 8 am, and the club was closed, having nothing to do i spent the morning sitting in any sunny spot i could find, its pretty cold around here these days, but it is divine if ur in the sun. i was able to find some breakfast and i just chilled till about 1 when people started showing up. sudnay was more of the same, the winners were awarded, and the remaining samples were handed out, of which i took home at least a dozen, in case anyone wants to come try them out. i am happy to say that i made it home safe and sound sunday night, despite being more than legally high.

the place where all of this took place is really kool. it is basically a private bar, mostly for memebers, where you can go and drink not overpriced beer, and smoke a joint in a social atmosphere. i think that we need places like this all over. yea right, who doesnt. but seriously, people shouldnt have to hide in fear because they smoke weed, and there should be a place in any major city where they can gather.
thats all for now,
good to be back, and theres more coming
peace
salaam
shalom
salem
love
eM

Robin Hood vs Robbin' Tha Hood: The Lost Art of the Ethical Hustler

2006-11-20T23:18:00.000+01:00

so this post has essentially been born from the title. at this moment i have no idea what i am going to write, but i have been thinking about the title for a few days and i know that it will inspire me.
so what exactly is a hustler. the most common definition seems to be that it is someone who makes money by doing some thing illegal, be that selling drugs, pimping hoes, ripping people off in their store by fixing the scales, scalping tickets, selling bootleg CDs, or something else of that nature. now all of these activities have a highly negative connotation, at least in our (american) culture. it seems that people think that doing something that is agaisnt the law is wrong. this is where i start to diverge from the populace. the fact that some activity is prohibited by the law does not mean anything to me in terms of determining its rightness or wrongness, its moral value, if you will. that is not to say that i think that selling crack and pimping hoes is right, because those activities do score negatively on my goodness scale. i think that more than legality, how it affects people should be more important. for example, selling bootleg CDs. i dont think that it is especially despicalble (and i dont think most people want bootleggers jailed or anything like that.) the truth is that it really doesnt hurt anyone, the recording artist and the record label will make a little less money (the label loosing more than the artest, who gets robbed in a more wrong way [in my opinion i suppose (i dont have any stats on this)] by the record label than by bootleggers) but at the point where bootlegging amounts to any significant quantity the artist is more than conforably wealthy, so the lost money does not traslate into physical suffering, as the loss of the bootlegging might result to the bootlegger and his family. he should get another job you say, one thats legal. well that is a point, but the fact is that good (as in ones that support you and your family, but dont enslave you) jobs are few and far between, and i think that the exitment of the hustle make up for the risks.
a distinction i think i should make is the difference between selling weed and selling crack. it is very important to look at who is getting hurt in these cases. in most cases weed sold in the northeastern united states is grown in canada or locally by voluntary growers who are doing very well for themselves, and while at times it is retailed by organized criminals, i think the vast majority are small time dealers (not to deny the fact that there are some big timers making money on big deals, these guys carry guns and would not be afraid to kill someone.) people who smoke weed are not going to die, their lives are not going to be ruined, they are not going to lose everything. this is not true int he case of crack. cocaine is produced mostly (if not entirely) in south america, by farmers who are often compelled to grow coca. despite the astronomical prices that cocaine gets in the united states, these growers live meager lives, barely better, if at all, than any other peasant farmer in latin america, plus the risk of being at the mercy of drug lords, the DEA and corrupt governments. in america, cocaine and crack are moved almost exclusively by gangs and organized crime, and it is almost always surrounded by violence. the user of crack or even cocaine is taking a SERIOUS risk on their lives, guaranteedly shortening them, if not losing them during consumption. the point is, when you sell crack you're almost directly leading to peoples lives getting ruined, both in the US and abroad, whereas if your selling weed, your usually supporting nonviolent resistance to the man (joke), usually the worse case scenario is a decrease in productivity of the users, and no serious damage, not to mention the medical and psychological benefits (yes i think there are benefits in some cases, not all, or even most, but some). you are essentially doing no more harm than the local liquor store.
essentially the reason that im writing this entry is because i think that husteling is not necessarily wrong and i think that there should be a code of conduct that guides the actions of any respectable hustler. although i think stealing is wrong for example, i think that there is an ethical way to go about it. stealing brings upon negative karma, but some kinds of stealing affect you much more negatively than others. for example i think it is wrong to steal from people that will feel the loss. mugging somone, pickpocketing, and other such personal assualts i find to be despicable because you are directly hurting another human being. another case altogether is that of stealing from a department store for example, or a credit card company. i think that it is much better to steal from someone like that. when you steal from a supermarket no one gets hurt. the employees have no stake in the profits the store turns, in fact i think they are being hustled even worse in a way, because they have to work so many hours to etch out such a meager living. and this is despite the fact that the company is making a killing. they make such a killing in fact that they wont even feel the loss. it is also better to steal from necessity than from cleptomania.
i think an example of morally defensable husteling is ticket scalping for example. in this case no one gets hurt. the ticket sellers still get the money they asked for, and the ticket scalpers take a risk. if the event doesnt sell out the scalpers will have to sell the tickets at a loss, if at all. when they do make money, its not that they are robbing the buyer, in most cases they could have got the ticket at face value if they had been more alert, but since there is a high demand, they should not object to paying a higher price.
i think that part of the husteling code should be to give back some of the money that is made. for example, if you make a killing scalping tickets, then you should take a few and give them to your friends or something, or better yet give them to someone you dont know. i think this goes along with the notion of flow. i was always told that when the river flows it nourishes, but when it stagnates it poisons. if you try to hoard things it will poison you. if you are successful at the time, be generous with people who are not, because there will come a time when the tables will be turned and you will be glad to recieve a helping hand. this is actually a manifestation of the law of karma. thats why i always stand up on the bus, because when the day comes that i am very tired and want to sit down, i have faith that there will be a place for me to sit. perhaps a random analogy, but i was riding the bus today, sooo.
my mother always told me, when you're doing something wrong, do it right. i think that if you are going to participate in illegal activities, they require an even higher level of integrity in order to be successful. the only way for things not to deteriorate for violence is for all parties to be very upfront and honest. this is true in life in general, but especially in the case of the underground.
i think that in the end it comes down to this: pimp the system, not the people. it is better to scalp tickets than sell crack; bootleg cds than mugg people; commit credit card fraud than rob a house.

i also want to say that i think that alot of 'legal' money making schemes seem like a more despicable hustle than some of the illegal ones. shit like enron for example, or the way that the government feeds the peoples money into their favorite corporations. that seems like the most despicable kind of hustle to me. not only do they directly hurt people (the people jyped by unethical spending, and the people paying for the spending) but they hurt them by the millions. i also think its wrong for a CEO to make so much money when someone working in this company might make minimum wage, and i bet that broke cat works alot harder, in terms of hours, sweat, and tears, too. i should also note that husteling isnt free money either. selling bootleg dvds for example is a GRIND. i see all these african imigrants here who work all day for, at best, 150 euros. and they are constantly getting all their merchandise taken by the cops.

life is good here in spain. ive been working at my moms friends house, landscaping odly enough. not all that exiting, which is why i havnt really written about it, and it takes a good amount of time, which is why i havnt written about much else.
peace my friends.

im not sure how this came out. i wrote it over a few days so it might seem a bit disconnected, and maybe i forgot some things i wanted to say. it was an idea. i hope you like it.

Alhambra by Day

2006-11-13T23:01:00.000+01:00

so me and dad took the necessary trip to the alhambra on wednesday. i was very happy to finally go since ive been here. its really the most magnificent and special part of granada, in fact its what makes granada special. that towering palace looking down on the city, with the nightime lighting only enhancing its mystery. it is a work of art on the most massive scale. and the beautiful exterior doesnt hold a match to the exquisite mysteries hidden within.
now i dont really know how to go about this whole literary word game. i feel like im standing in the middle of the desert trying to talk about sand. or whatever thats supposed to mean. point is, i dont know how to do justice to something so unspeakably magical as the alhambra. there will be pictures at the end for when the thousand words come frustratingly short.
the extertior. it is the royal city on a hill. there is a wall running all the way around it, which in fact extended throughout the major neighborhoods of granada at the time of Al-Andaluz, as the time period is known, and from where Andalucia derives its name. there are some thirty odd towers that run along this wall, complete with all kinds of doorways, and tunnels, and such. there are several doors into the fortress all of which seemed pretty impenetrable to me when they were meant to be. fact has it that there are hidden tunnels that run all along the albayzin. legend has it that there are tunnels that run from the alhambra to the albayzin. now, my own judgement would lead me to beleive that it is quite likely that there are tunnels in the albayzin. it also seems likely that there are tunnels in the alhambra. now since there is a river that runs between the alhambra and the albayzin i sort of doubt that these crazy arabs would have been able to build such a diesel tunnel. now what i think was the case is that there were secret tunnels running to the edge of the river on either bank but that a stealthy individual would have to exit to cross the water. i guess its not that bad in the end. so basically the outside of this jump off is big and powerful but it is not as imposing as some of the behemoths left over from the christian era.
the inside. three words: palaces, pimping, palaces. the muslum palaces are so subtle from the outside, and when you get inside they are beyond exquisite. everything from the arquitecture to the detailed plasterwork on EVERY SINGLE inch of the palaces speaks of a sense of quality that no longer exists. imagine being the artist responsible for making the carvings that you will see below, and having to replicate it thousands of times, each identical to the original. the thought of it all painted is the stuff out of fantasy and halucination. the interior in its full splendor would be an acid junky's wet dream. every inch is covered in a beautiful geometric design, or in ornate caligraphy which repeats 'wa la galiba illa ala' Allah is the only victorious won. the most spectacular aspect of the alhambra however is the masterful control of the water. on top of a hill, the water was piped in acueducts from the mountain above. from there it flows through hundreds of little canals, fountains, gardens, pools, baths. the water never stops running. nowadays the old antique system has been refurbished with pumpes and gauges, but in the past the entirety of the water works were designed in, they could not be added later, it had to all be fitted into the master plan. and what a stunning master plan it is. there is nothing i can say, and no picture i can show you, that will bring you even close to understanding what i am talking about. in truth i hope to see you all in granada to visit what will hopefully soon be a wonder of the modern world (it seems its being voted on at the moment, i dont really know who votes on this kinds thing, they must have some sort of electoral college of scholars and other such wusses).
the gardens. the gardens are my favorite part of the alhambra. me and dad basically stopped and sat in most of the gardens we passed. this is the best way to see the alhambra, with like 6-8 hours to spare, just sort of waltzing around, chillin out in all the gardens. taking time to smell the roses if you know what i mean. but yea the gardens are fucking insane. it makes the new york botanical garden look like the parking lot at giants stadium. i mean its crazy. dad says that there are things that simply cannot be done in NY because of the winter, but they surely can be done here. huge walls covered in purple morning glories, huge sort of tunnel style hedges, pools lined wiht all kinds or rose bushes emmiting such a seductive aroma. each garden is accented by the gentle sound of running water soothing and lulling you into sitting down in each and every one.
finally the view. it is really the best view of the city, the albayzin, and the surrounding provinces. it sort of makes you feel like that prince(ss) from that time long long ago sitting in one of the gardens, orlooking out a window, or standing atop a mighty tower, and just looking out on the beaurtiful sights.
bla bla bla

love emi
"wa la galiba illa ala"
the alhambra from the albayzin
the albayzin from the alhambra

the view of Granada from the highest tower
the roof of a room. a star coming out of a square.
El Palacio de los Leones. supposedly the water came out of a different lions mouth every hour. twice a day. 12 lions. no machines. damn
the inside of the tallest room. completely covered in plasterwork.
some more caligraphy. i study arabic, and i dont really make out any letters, and certainly ccany read it
the inside of the palace. PIMP
some elaborate plasterwork
The wall of Morning Glories
some more pimp shit
and a little ol garden. not bad eh?
until next time my friends

as a side note. if the anonymous comentator from a while back would like to introduce himself pemiliano@gmail.com is where to find me. if not there is no problem. it was a pleasure.

Party and Bullshit

2006-11-07T17:54:00.000+01:00

so many things have happened since we last talked. dad came to visit on friday and we've been kicking it since. dad, mom, and i, along with some of moms friends all went out on saturday night, and i must say that it was one of the livliest ones that ive had in a while. the last two weeks or so ive been on that monk status, in the sense that ive been getting out of town on the weekends (to the plantation) and havent gone out. it is the only way to achieve my aim of not smoking or drinking, both of which i find to hamper my reading, soccer playing, and meditation. so anyway, it was nice to go out a little bit with the fam, and we ended up in an afterhours spot where me and dad left at like 530. thats right, my dad was out until 530, although his only excuse is that it was only 1130 NY time. so anyway, it was a great night, it was really nice to see mom and dad hanging out and just kickin it, i cant remember the last time i seen it.

after waking up appropraitely late for the time we got home, me and dad headed out to his friend david deans house. we got there at like 5 only to find that no one was home odly enough, so we headed to the nearest town for some beers and dinner. we ended up catching the real madrid game which was nice and when we finally went to the house it was only to find one hell of a party going on. well this man david dean is something like the czech protector. appartently his house is always full of people from the czech republic that he brings in to do work around his place. so anyway, we walked into the place to find some shit out of a movie. imagine a long rectangular room lit by candles with eastern european (i suppose czech to be precise) music BLASTING. we walked in pretty much sober to find everyone in a state of madness. im not quite sure what drugs were in use, but i later found out that they had been drinking whiskey for breakfast that morning, just to give u the tone. needless to say i was anxious to get the duby snacks rolled up and enter into the communal mayhem. these cats were fucking crazy, it was really out of a movie, i mean, they were just shaking up beers and spraying them on eachother, they were just pouring wine all over the place. one guy, andre, decided to start chucking glasses over his shoulder.

so i woke up the next morning only to discover where i was. this place is ill. it is a small village (and by small i mean small, as in 20 houses). the whole village is off the grid, they have their own water supply which is pumped up from the spring that is born about a km upstream from them using a hydrolic ram pump which appartently uses the weight of the water to pump itself up aabout 100m. it was quite impressive. (now i am speaking about davids house since i dont quite know whats good with the others) the electicity is supplied by an array of solar panels that line many of the houses, which a gas generator for rainey days. they have to bring in their own drinking water from a nearby mountain spring becasue the local one is full of gypsum and not very tasty at all. the negative aspect of all this, is that when david installed all of his solar panels and such it ended up costing him over 35000 euros, not exactly chump change. i am really interested in this living off the grid buisnes because i fear the day may come when this will be the only, or best, way to survive.
davids house itself is really magical and quite beautiful. one of the czechs that has stayed at his house, and mine for that matter, is my sisters friend myra. myra is a terrific painter, i mean really spectacular, his artwork is visible in the suns he painted in my house, but there are some truly exquisite pieces at davids, that i photographed for you.
thhis was painted in a small door in the house, the effect of seeing it for the first time is surreal. The Time Gate

and this is his other piece Queen Kaya III. both of them are spectacular, this one is like 4'x3'. being such a bad painter, i really appreciate a good painting, especially when its done on a large scale. any sort of mural type painting really dumbfounds me. i love it.
this and the following paintings were made by other people, but are still excellent. this is a mandala in the center of the living room. the quality is superb. it must be at least 5'x5'.
and me dad and david dean in front of it.
now this shit is huge, it must be like 15'x12'. it is absurdly beautiful and well made. these paintings are an example of the kind of talent people have who are almost totally unknown. i hope that i too will be able to take people in when i have a place of my own, be able to help them out, and have such beautiful tokens to remember them by.
and finally a picture of me hiking in the hills around davids house with dad.
peace and love
em

More on Meditation

2006-10-27T14:12:00.000+02:00

ahoy,
so i am writing in response to an annonymous comment left about the previous post. first off i want to thank the sender who i presume will read this as well. i am very happy to recieve feedback, and as you all can see, now i have something new to wrtie about. as always, comments, emails, and such, are highly solicited. it seems as if everyday im more and more out there, so its nice to hear that im not completely alone. (and thank you to all the people who have responded and emailed previously, your comments were much appreciated) with that said, here is the comment (in red, with my commentary in black):

interstig that a young person would be seeking truth over fitting in; that tells a story. about your mind and the extra noise in your head that meditation reduces: do you think you have control over this process or that this incredible search for truth chooses you as a pawn to express itself through you so that other's may here it? like a leave falling in the wind its movement and rattling noidy movements make the play between wind and gravity visible for us appreciate.

as for seeking truth over fitting in, i would not be so presumptuous to say that i have banished the social and societal 'protocol' that i have been born into. but i do feel that everyday my concerns are more and more geared towards the betterment of myself as a human being. as i see it we are spiritual beings in a human existence (i read that somewhere), and often lost in it. anyone who knows me knows that i am perhaps the most blessed person on the planet (which can be both a gift and a curse) and i feel as though thus far i have not done justice to my good luck. so i find that what actually makes me happy and feels right, is doing what i can to be the best that i can. and while i will slip into lazyness and apathy as i always have, it seems that everyday im able to snap out of it quicker. so im trying to lead a 'good' virtuous life, which means that i really have to figure out what that is. so far i have found many things that it is not, which is quite a step in the right direction, and so i push foward. as to whether i know what im doing or whether it just comes to me, i actually must say that it sort of just comes to me. its sort of like i pick up a book, and it turns out the be the perfect book at the perfect time. or like i look around and omens are all over theplace, but i have just now started to look for them. so know when people ask me the why's of my life, i simple respond that i just do what im told, not quite sure whos talking, but i listen. and while i dont think im a prophet (in fact i feel guilty even saying it) or especially admirable, i do hope that people get somethng out of what i say (and i have faith that they do, especially the poeple close to me, and hopefully anyone who talks to me or reads this). i mean, i write this so that you read it, and in writing it i make it real for myself. this is the first time in my life taht i have taken the time to record my thoughts, so they dont slip back into the darkness the next morning. it like things that i have always felt, now i am able to act on because i have written it down. i guess the reality we live in only exists in language.

medition is like a ray of sunshine it either reaches you or is block by something. somehow do to the people around you you have been expose to the search for truth. most kids are block from that kind of exposure. either negative or positive experiences have brought you to this abbys between reality and what may seem real.

meditation is indeed a ray of sunshine, well said. and it seems like such a small one at times. i am quite new to this meditation buisness, and while im sure im nowhere near where i want to be, i have unwaivering faith that i am exactly on the right path (part of my luckiest man in the world thing). some days are much bettter tahn others, i feel like my mind really rests and grows, and for the rest of the day i feel like im a super hero or something. and other days, it seems my mind is so cloudy that i cant even think strait, much less not think. as for how i got here, i must concede all credit to the wonderful people in my life. from my mother who is the most intuitivly spiritual person i know, who taught me that you cant think truth, you can only feel it; to my father who so subtly and dilligently planted the seeds in me, from the forum to shambala training to his living example on how one should live. i must acknowledge my wonderful brothers and sisters (and i include my homeboys and girls in that category) who are all on the same path as me, making meaning in the inherently meaningless, and finding the ˜√®ø¥ in all of us that is the true us. while im sure taht somepeople might look at my life and say that i have had some negative things happen to me, i beg to differ. when i look at my life, i cant find any negative aspects. things are what they are, but suddenly here i am, at the other end of all those 'things' and im happy and content and on the right path. all i know is that im so grateful for being where i am right now, surrounded by love on all sides.

perception is the biggest asset for coping with the infinite and paradoxal nature of the universe. the universe is always sending you an array of messages. perception is your deciphering pad to translates the infinite into the finite. your ability to write is a gift. do not take that for granted. like a good athlete alot of it is intuitive. facing failure and defeat cannot be thought. kicking a ball properly is an illsuion. there is no such thing as practice. the time is now and rising to the occasion at each moment is an inherret gift we all posses you either acknowledge it or not.

now i must say that i am not quite sure what to say at the moment. im glad you appreciate my writing, and yes it is quite intuitive, perhaps a little to much at times, i should really at least read these thinngs before i post them. "the time is now and rising to the occasion at each moment is an inherret gift we all posses you either acknowledge it or not". now that is good stuff, and i must say that i was not aware of this, but now that i read it it is suddenly real. this is exactly what i want to do, rise to the occasion at each moment, its that simple, if we do it we're excellent, and any moment were not, than were cheating ourselves, and the rest of humanity. i guess you really have to 'be in the moment' to rise to the moment, which brings us back to meditation, the only way i see taht we can unlock the power of the present. our thinking mind is the only barrier between us and the eternal, so we must get our minds in check, there is no other way. i can only percieve what i can percieve at the moment, and everyday my perception is sharper and sharper i think (and i hope). i dont claim to know 'the truth' or the true nature of anything or just anything in general, but i know i dont know, and i think that is the biggest step you can take. first you are in the dark, then you find out your in a long tunnel, and now all i need is the light to lead the way, and i think that that light is meditation. blablabla

the noise is tremendous but is not going away and forever evaisive.

the noise is tremendous but is not going away and forever evasive.
i dont think i can say it better.

peace and love and keep those comments rolling
emiliUano

Why Meditate?

2006-10-26T10:09:00.000+02:00

lately i have been doing alot of thinking about meditation. this has arisen for a number of reasons i suppose. i started meditating after reading The Mayan Factor with the thought that i should do something to prepare my mind for any coming transformations. the more i explore and think about the realms of our existence outside of the political world we live in, the more i see meditation as an access key to higher dimensions. as we all know, the power of the mind is quite remarkable. i personally have become more concerned with whats possible, than whats actual, which leads me to broaden my scope of poissibilities through meditation. through meditation i see so many things that open up. the possibility for peace and quiet within our own skulls is something that we have become so far removed from that we dont even know that it is accessible to us. by training and molding our mind we expand our reasoning capabilities as well as all the other things that we use brain for. when we free ourselves of the clutter and discoursive thinking (essentially talking to yourself) that we spend most of our time and energy doing we have so much more of our mental faculty to dedicate to the problems we actually with to solve. more often than not our mind goes where its going we we just go along for the ride, with varying degrees of complacency in the matter. but we never really try to excell, to push our big ol brains to what theyre really capable of. which brings me back to meditation, it is the only way to begin to train and tame our mind. i should note that since i started meditating i read this book about meditiation, Turning the Mind Into an Ally. this book serves as an excellent instruction for meditation geared towards americans/westerners who have grown up quite removed from traditional buddhist teachings. this book has led me to beleive that there are many things i want in my life that i can achieve through a consistent meditation practice. i think that the path of meditation, as it leads directly into our own beings, is the way to lead a truly good and virtuous life. virtue produces more virtue. i deeply feel this to be true. how long can i ignore it. it is the only route to happiness. every day i feel as though my mind has more and more power that i have chosen to ignore. it seems the most direct route to true happiness is through the middle of our own unhappiness, caused by our wiley mind. this is one thing of which i am positive, namely that the source of unhappiness is the emotions and reactions created within our own mind to the circumstances that continue to change and cycle within our limited perception.
it seems that one of the most generous and good things that i can do is to take time out of my day to just quiet my mind, with the hope that i will be able to sharpen my mind to the point that i can focus it on generating positive energy for the happiness of other people and mankind in general. essentially transforming the structure of the universe, by creating waves that uproot the cycle of endless suffering (samsara) and generate positive energy fields throughout the earth. the more people that sit down on a daily basis and attempt to do this good deed will braoden the scope and impact of it. throughout the world, how many people are taking their time to generate positive thoughts. all i see around me is people wollowing in the negativity that surrounds us, rather than taking the time to create a new possibility.
more and more i feel the urge to just go out and be by myself. i feel like it is difficult to start something new and just be with yourself when the outside influences that shape you are still there.

in closing i just want to leave you a few quotes from the book i just read by Sakyong Mipham:
Our own mind is our worst enemy. We try to focus and our mind wanders off. We try to keep stress at bay, but anxiety keeps us awake at night... We can create an alliace thtat allows us to actually use our mind, rather that be used by it. This is a practice anyone can do.

If you want to be miserable, think of yourself. If you want to be happy, think of others.

i highly recommend this book for anyone who has some interest in meditation but wants to know more about the why and how. peace fam.
e

My CannabaInternship

2006-10-16T15:53:00.000+02:00

hello my friends,
i have just returned from my first weekend at my new internship. i am helping out at a medicinal marijuana plantation, yes, you read that correctly, i actually managed to hook that up. well mostly it got set up for me. as many of you know i have a bit of an interest in marijuana horticulture and because of the US's oppresive laws there is no opportunity for someone like me to learn anything. well, my mother being the crazy woman she is thought that this would be a great learning opportunity for me. and since hopefully one day it will be legal worldwide it might be good stuff to know. anyway, as the laws here in spain go, it is legal to smoke, or consume any other drug personally. this consumption is protected under personal freedoms. and since it is illgal to traffic drugs, and more specifically cannabis, the only way for patients who consume marijuana for medical purposes either smoke, or otherwise ingested, to obtain their medicine is from the woman i was helping out, who shall remain nameless just in case. she is the president of her local cannabis association and she consumes it for various medical reasons, not to deny the fact that she is quite an enthusiast herself. but who can blame her, how could anyone who has ever smoked not be facinated by the cannabis plant, so beautiful and useful, and at times so problematic. so anyway, the woman i was 'working' for has a small field that she plants the weed in, and what a remarkable field it is. simply put, that shit is crack, she grows the best marijuana i have ever seen, or smoked. she has developed some personal variaties throughout the years that are quite impressive.

but anyway, so the number one problem is the same as with any other marijuana plantation in spain, bandits. when i first met her on wendesday she had just had 8 plants stolen by some kids from around the town. because she is so famous for her anti drug law advocacy she has appeared on tv and such and the town knows what she is doing, essentially she has bought herself a card of legality since it has been proven that she does not trafic, but if fact uses it for herself and other sick people that are members of the association, all of them having been recomended by doctors. so i went out there on thursday and basically we spent the whole weekend on guard. she was glad for me to have come so she could finally leave the house to run some errands. basically she can never leave the house alone beause she will be robbed. during the weekend, the outer fence was broken twice, which i repared, but the dogs were able to prevent them from entering the plantation. there is nothing better than dogs when it comes to security, and she says she likes to keep bitches because when they have puppies (around this time of year) they are hyper protective. i basically just stayed over her house, which is such a pleasant place to be not just because of the weed, but becasue she has a vertable oasis, filled with olive, almond, and cyprus trees. she has at least 50 pots full of all different herbs and spices, palms and papaya trees, cactuses and chiles. it was so nice to get out of granada for the weekend and not party for once. to not go out, and go to bed early is a luxury i enjoy more and more every day. so i spent the days playing with my new favorite cat, Osiris, or manicuring the plants (fun at first, tedious for the remaining 90%), or repairing the fence, or somoking joints and just chilling out with her, learning about her art. she is what we would call an OG, she has been around the game for years, was the first person to ever win a lawsuit, she is friends with many of the big time growers in europe and america, intimate with some. she is even a friend of Jorge Cervantes, author of the Bible for those of you who know what that is. she has been given seeds by all of the big timers, which she grows and has blended to perfection, she has even been a judge in the cannabis cup, haha. next month shes going to speak at the european parliament. basically shes the godmother, the best person to learn from.
i learned about what medicinal marijuana is really about, not just an excuse for smoking. there are tinctues and ointments that she makes for herself and others, which require a huge amount of grass but dont get you high at all. so one person could easily utilize in one form or another the yield of 20 plants in one year, which even makes spains generous 3 plants per person policy seem oppresive.

allow me to show you some pictures no?
this is me harvesting one branch (not one plant, one branch) at our house before we got robbed

heres the view inside the plantation. there are many different plants and different stages of development. and theres one hammock with the most serene ambiance in the world

and here is a picture of me among the trees. "en la gloria" as they say around here. these plants are not only beautiful, but they are so well taken care of. not much to say

and here is my homeboy osiris. he is the first cat that i have ever really had any affinity for. hes a smart little guy whos a few months old. all of the animals at the house have quite a unique relationship, its like another small family, 2-4 dogs and 3 cats makes for quite a riot.

well i think thats all for now. im off to play soccer to make up for all the days of sitting around the plantation 'experimenting'. i felt it would be disrespectful to turn down a joing. as they say, when in rome, so since i havnt been smoking much, i was high as a kite all weekend.
peace fam
e

hmm Untitled

2006-10-10T12:12:00.000+02:00

so i finished reading the book i mentioned before, The Mayan Factor, by Jose Argüelles yesterday, and i have been thinking about it alot lately. for starters i have to say that as the author himself mentions in opening, this book requires a leap of faith, even if it is only during the reading of the book. so in the spirit of adventure and exploration i took that leap and i have tried to take everything i read as being true in order to extract as much as i could from it. allow me to sum up this book in a nutshell (not a substitute for reading it, or even close) to give you some context.

as many of us already know the ancient maya of the yucatan and northern central america were known for being extremely advanced in their astronomical readings and such. they had even predicted the eclipse in mexico city in 1986 and all of this with 'stone age' technology. despite all this we only consider the maya advanced in relation to their historical context, there is not consideration for the fact that they may have in fact known things that are quite alien to us today. in decifering the mayan sacred calender/harmonic module known as the tzolkin, arguelles claims to have unlocked the secrets of the ancient maya. the mayan calender, as is also widely known, measures a great cycle of 5125 years which began in 3113 bc, coincidentally roughly the exact time (oxymoron i know) that civilization began in ancient egypt. now the reason that the maya begin measuring there, and that civilization began at that time is because it is when the earth entered a beam of galactic syncronization. what this means is that the galaxy and the entire universe for that matter is actually a living, thinking organism of a magnitude, needless to say, far beyond our own. the center of this intelligence is the hunab ku, or the galactic core. in essence the galaxy is organized into smaller systems, like the solar system, that have not been created randomly, but actually quite intentionally, all of them opperating much like cells operate within our own bodies. all of them seemingly opperating independantly, but inexorably linked to the greater whole. now the universe has a natural tendency toward growth, a will to improve in other words, much like we feel. and in the way in which this happens is that more and more systems come into concious syncronization. so intelligence reached the point on earth that it was ready to begin is syncronization, near the begining of this age, the pyramids of egypt were created, exactly a mirror image of the orions belt anchoring the earth to this beam. all of this was brought to the earth by 'galactic travelers' if you will (i know what your thinking). basically these travelers are some sort of intelligence, not necessarily a physical being, that has already been synced up to the galactic resonance, so they can travel freely among the stars. anyway, the galactic syncronization beam is what has been responsible for the explosion of civilization during the last 500o years. it is as though we stopped evolving individually and began a evolution in civilization. apparantly their have been several messengers throughout the years that have carried us foward on the path toward syncronization: the buddha, christ, abraham, quetzalcoatl. and the pacal votan, the mayan 'king' whose tomb was discovered in palenque in 1952. the tomb remarkably similar to the tomb in the great pyramid, the only other one of its kind. pacal votan was also a galactic agent who was responsible for creating the mayan astronomical system that arguelles has decifered, the 'man' who brought us the key to understanding.

i just want to say that i really need people i know to read this book so that i can talk about it with them. badly

so essntially we are all sort of part of the larger plan that we have been serving unknowingly for millenia. we are now a whole planet united by telecomunications webs air travel. and so here we are, and the cycle ends in december of 2012. and it is supposed to be the begining of a new solar era where we reconnect with the galactic core through the solar mind and the planet mind. but here we are, still testing nuclear weapons, and still eating the earth alive. arguelles wrote the book in 87, nearly 20 years ago, i wonder what he thinks today.

to be quite honest, i know im crazy sort of, but this stuff makes alot of sense to me. first of all, there are alot more mathematics involved that i have omited, there seem to be more coincidences than i cant explain by any other 'rational means'. but really, is it so crazy to think that the planet has its own intelligence, i mean, what does a brain cell think? i doubt it has any grasp of the human mind, just like we dont think the planet lives because it doesnt speak english, but the planet functions as systematically as any living organism, with even more resilience and addaptive ability. from what i know of astronomy, stars are created by density waves which condense the intergalactic dust past a critical point, with no explenation of what those waves are, but couldnt they be a creative intelligent force that actually wants the stars to be created? wouldnt this be the god that we always talk about? it is directly responsible for our existence today, and so we are not the result of random variation. are we so stuck in our notion of rulers of the world, sole inhabitants of the universe, that we cannot concieve of intelligences in comparison to which we are an ameoba. how could it be that we are the pinnacle of creation if we have no concept of ourselves from outside of our egomaniacal brains. there have been select few in history, enlightened ones, who have been able to see past the illusion of grandeur, and we worship them, but why do we not emmulate them, try to see what they saw, act as they acted. think of what is available to us if we could reconnect with the planatary/solar/galactic mind, it is the trancendance of individual death, the greatest goal of most of humanity.

and so i cant help to look to 2012 in anticipation, and apprehention. i personally have become convinced that there is something to the Great Cycle taht ends in 2012, i dont know exactly what will happen or what to expect, but i know that something is going to happen. the maya beleived it was the end of time, and that is interpreted to mean the end of time as we create it, and a return to the timeless void, an end of materialism, of individuality, and a return to the days when it was mother earth and father sun, when we were staisfied with our roles of children.

there is so much more to say, but i dont even know where to go from here. ideally i would get some responses to this and start somesort of dialogue that will help me clarify my own thoughts and hopefully yours as well. that is what i like about the blog, that now, since i am far from the people that i have most of the 'deep' conversations with, i can have one with all of you at once, it serves as quite an outlet, but i would also like some input. so HOLLA BACK. peace

Futbol Granada

2006-10-03T21:15:00.000+02:00

hello friends and family. its been a week since you last heard from me and things have continued to improve with time. alot has happened in this last week. i have started to get into my routine, in the sense that i have figured out how to fill my days other than just reading, watching tv, and going out. my new theory is that everyday i try to exercise the mind body and soul, and then the special gland dedicated to having a good time. of course i dont get to all three every day, but its a theory that helps me focus my energies. thus far i was having some trouble finding a place to work out, mostly because it seems as though the soccer games here a re TOO organized, its impossible to find a pick up game where you can just play. so the good news is that i finally found a place to play soccer. its not a professional team or any team for that matter, but rather a consistent pick up game (halleluia). the university has a few indoor soccer courts (although they are outdoors) and ive been going down every to find some guys to play with. i really enjoy walking down even though it is a little far, like 20 minutes (only because i walk type a fast now, especially down hill) and i play for a few hours, do my stretching routine and take the bus up. since im not too attached anyone there the whole routine is a bit of a solitary meditation, it gives me time to get out of the house on my own and just think to myself without too much purpose. on another soccer note, i have now become an official Granada CF hooligan. one of the guys i play with invited me to come to the game last weekend with him, only to find out that he was a hardcore fan and we stood in the corner singing all the songs and saying some of the most profane things i have ever uttered to the opposing players and their relatives. it was awesome, exept that the team lost for the first time at home in a year and a half and to make matters worse the most hated player on the other team scored both of their goals, it was quite demoralizing. but yea, im gonna get a jersey, learn all the songs and all that jazz. i have always been a soccer fanatic, and now i can go to a game every other weekend and act like a maniac, instead of just yelling at the tv.

as far as the mind goes, i started my arabic classes today, and they went extremely well. im really exited about throwing myself into it, i know its going to take more effort than i have put into just about any other scholastic pursuit, but that exites me. its quite an undertaking, though, its like i need to grow another brain in order to learn it. despite the fact that its just another language, its so different than english and spanish. ive always heard that arabic is a poetic language, and after only one class i can start to understand what is meat by it. just the way it is written is so much more fluid, and im not talking about the shape of the letters either. ill describe it better later when i know more. but im really exited about it and im quite confident that by the end of this year i will be able to communicate in arabic. i think that the key will be to not try to compare it to english or spanish, but try to learn it like a baby, with a blank slate. the biggest stumbling block, as with most new things, will be to try and relate it to what i already know.

and as for the soul, i want to start sculpting. last year a took a sculpture class, and while i enjoyed it, i didnt really like the projects that we undertook. what i want to create are small 3D peices out of whatever, wood, wax, stone. i have always been atteracted to subtlety and i find that im no good at drawing so sculpting has been especially attractive to me. so i think i will start sculpting when i get a moment of inspiration.
the book i have been reading lately (The Mayan Factor) has been boggeling my mind body and soul. i really cant even get into it because i dont know what to say, other than that it is completely crazy, and i love it. it may not be the most accepted line of thought, but i think that i have become more and more attracted to that kind of thing as i get older and realize what accepted academia is really about. i want more about the science of magic, the expansion of the soul and consciousness, and galactic space travel. any suggestions? i highly recommend this book to people who want to challenge themselves and everything they have always though. ill say more about it when i finish it.

silvio and mom are doing very well. hes been horseback riding almost every day, and hes been hanging out with his friends and all the things thirteen yearolds do.

hasta pronto
-e

The Impending Crisis: Reflection on Collapse and Confessions of an Economic Hitman

2006-09-25T14:26:00.000+02:00

so i just finished reading these two books. the first, Collapse, by Jared Diamond, the author Guns, Germs, and Steel deals with the collapse of societies as triggered by their seemingly shortsighted destruction of their environments. this book took me about a month to finish. while this is defiently pretty dense reading, i must admit that mr diamond has a way of making textbooks flow with an essense of a fictional narrative.
the second book i read took me less than two days to finish. this of course is Cofessions of an Economic Hitman, as told by John Perkins, the hitman which the title refers to. this was a quite engaging read especially with my affinity for the conspiricy theory type of story. thats not to say that it is a conspiricy theory, but rather that the truth it reveals makes many conspiricy theories seem like government thinktank jargon. in essnce this book recounts the less than altruistic ways by which the united states has spread its global economic empire since the end of world war II. it makes quite clear the intimate relationship between big business (although i dont think this title really illustrates the nature of the beast, it is more like political entities that dont have any land and the only citizens to whom they owe allegiance are the ever more remote stock holder, who care for nothing other than increased profits. the system itself seems flawed, doesnt it, that the most powerful enteties in the world have no built in mechanism for morality. in a private business the owner presumably cares for how his company conducts business as it is his reputation that stands behind it, but i have never heard of anyone ashamed of how the stocks they owned were making them even more money.) and politicians all throughout the world, corporatocracy as perkins comes to term this seeming conflict of interests.

while i did not read these two books in succession for any particular reason, it seems somewhat providencial that i did. while one book talks about how societies have collapsed shortly after their peaks because the population and level of civilization that they reached was only sustainable by mining the their invironment in such a way that made it impossible for it to renew it self. these collapses were difficult to anticipate because of the seeming success of the society. the other book tells us how the first world has achieved its level of opulence only by exploiting the third world for its labor, land and natural resources. better yet, this was done a precise perception of what it would mean for both parties. every world bank loan that cannot be paid back signs over the rights for transnationals to exploit someone elses environment. if all the environmental damage that the united states requires for us to maintain our lifestyle were commited on our territory, our national forests would be barren and suffering from irreversible soil erosion. our fertile farmlands would be polluted with toxic wastes, and our groundwater would be even more polluted by the runoff of poisenous mines.

we cannot hold on forever either. there are several factors that will give in the next couple decades. all past societies operated in relative isolation compared to our contemporary global community so when one collased in america or the south pacific, there were others that were jsut begining their flourishing. but now there is no where else to go, if the united states collpses it will be because the global community is collapsing, we are irreversibly linked past the critical point with the rest of the world for any collapse throughout the world to affect us all. there is the increasing demand, plus the decreasing supply for oil and other fossil fuels, that will surely be felt before we fill the void with other sources of fuel. we will no longer be able to ship corn from new york to mexico, only to import corn from kansas, and pinapples from hawaii, and avocadoes from chile, etc. and then theirs not only the increasing global population that has been sustained to this point by mining our environment in ways that cannot be sustained. in rwanda, the size of a large farm is 2.4 acres, in the united states the size of a farm thought to support one family is 40 acres. so in rwanda they milk the soil for all its worth, to supply the 1600 daily calories thought to be the threshold of starvation. the soil is not allowed to recuperate so that every year it yields less and less while the population continues to grow, and we are left with the genocides that permeate our modern society. as if the growing population were not enough of a problem, every day more people acheive the "first world quality of life" complete with cars, tvs, meat, and all the rest. so not only are there more people in the world every day, but each person is using more of the precious resources we have. it seems ironic that while all of the global financial institutions, world bank, imf, asian development bank, etc, claim to help countries improve the quality of life of their citizens, to raise them to the standards of the first world, it is really impossible. if china alone reaches first world status, it would DOUBLE the global impact on the earth, DOUBLE, and that without any population growth. the only way for their lifestyle to climb is for ours to decrease. so it seems that the only way for us to maintain our status is for them to maintain theirs, and we go to great lengths to keep it that way. we install dictators throughout the world that remain friendly to us, despite the fact that they terrorize their own people. and when anyone tries to take a stand, se send in the assasins, and if that fails again, then we send in the big guns, the US army, like panama after they took the canal back, or iraq today. and we take iraqs oil money and supposedly rebuild the country, even though the companies that are benefiting from the rebuilding are not only american, but the vice president is the ex CEO (with a healthy severence package im sure) of one of them. this is old news though, no revelations. at least iraq has oil, otherwise they would have to take out a huge load, at the peoples expense so that us companies build infrastructure that benefits 'big business's' interests, be that american, or jsut the local elites, its all the same mafia. and then the country is in eternal debt, and wolfowitz running the world bank had nothing to do with it. i dont fucking know sometimes, how much richer can you really get. but those pesky stock holders demand profits, it is actually illegal for the CEO to do anything that does not maximize the profits for the stock holders. and so we turn every resourse that this planet can give us into an increased share price. see this is what worries me, i think these people think that getting rich will prevent them from starving when shit hits the fan, but in the end they will have hustled themselves the honor of being the last to starve, or maybe theyll be the first crusified when people start getting pissed bacause all the rivers are polluted and the farms have dried up and the forests are polluted. we have to start thinking about the long long term. whats gonna happen to their children, their going to have to face the same world as my children. terrorism is the war of the poor, and war (and economic manipulation) is the terrorism of the rich. you get life in prison for killing one person, but if your company is directly responsible for the displacement and subsequent starvation of thousands of indiginous people for a new hydroelectric dam to power the new oil platform, your get a promotion and fat bonus.

so i dont know if ive covered everything but i look at it this way, we are going to have some serious problems in the near future, ie, before someone born today dies (if not much much sooner). these problems are insurmountable only if we are too stuborn and selfish to really look at our lives in a way that takes into account the lives of our great great grandchildren. i know one thing for sure, the world in 2100 will be NOTHING like it is today. now, what that will look like can range the entire spectrum, from the aftermath of a nuclear war triggered by increasing poverty and desperation, to the flowering of a new era in global civilization, arrising from a willingness to think of ourselves as one people, inexorably linked economically, physically, and most importantly, spiritually.

i think the hardest thing will be the shift in values that are necessary for us to decrease our consumption of the planet. every logging and oil company will have to think not only of their stock holders, but of their responsibility to humanity, the planet, and the universe. our goal in life can no longer be to improve our own lives and those of our at whatever expense, but to operate within a framework that maintains a personal spititual link to the farthest reaches of the planet. individuality must be supplanted by communality, priviledge by humility, material wealth by spiritual satisfaction, and our feeling of masters of the universe must succumb to the reality that we are like a single blood cell serving our the purposes of a larger more beautiful organism. the good news is that i think we will be alot happier this way. i think that subconsiously we know that the way we live in this day and age detracts from the greater life of the planet and the universe. we suffer the psychological distress from the negative energy that permeates us as the destroyers of ourselves and the planet. i was once told that the only thing that makes us truly happy is doing things for other people, so i can only extrapollate that the only things that makes us truly unhappy is doing things that harm other people, the most extreme case being the destruction of the planet and all of humanity. so despite the fact that our material "quality of life" will necessarily decrease, so too will our sense of spiritual hollowness and our lack of greater purpose become extinct in the face of a new global community.

peace and love

anyone read any of those books, what did u think?

Cave Party

2006-09-24T18:03:00.000+02:00

last night, being saturday night, was quite a good night. there was a party at richards cave, and it was a blast. his cave is a truly special place. being devoid of electricity, and lit only by fire and candle light, the ambiance is quite magical. i should include a description of this cave because it is really not just a hole in the earth, this shit is pimping. first of all, its bigger than most houses, it has two stories, several chilling areas, a large fireplace. when i went earlier in the day, it was sort of creepy, as most of you know im not especially fond of dark places, especially when there could be critters around. but at night, by firelight, it is completely different, all the dark creepyness is converted by the warm light of the fire and the candles to a cozy den sort of feeling. so anyway, there was like 50 people and we collectively had 2 guitars, 4 drums, a xylophone, and a cajon. so basically people just took turns playing the insturments all night everyone else took turns warming themselves by the fire. we got that whole earthy sort of tribal thing going on. its so very different to party to the sound of live insturments in a candlelit cave, than listenting to electronic music in a club. there is something fundamental that arises in all of us, perhaps programmed into genes by the ages of precivilized humanity, from whaling on the drums by the firelight. we become entranced by the flames as a they dance and shake to the rhythm, we are bathed in the mesmorizing heat, until it starts to posess us and we cant help but close our eyes and throb to the beat of the communal heart. it is the sort of spiritual experience that transcends our ability to describe in words. there is no way to capture the sense of mental silence that envelopes you when you really let yourself feel the drums. your mind stops keeping track of the seconds and minutes as you are transported out of prison of time and space. and so i passed the night, alternating between the drums, the crisp night air, and the lulling hear of the fire until people started leaving and we realized that the sun had risen on our party. well, theres nothing like a good breakfast to top off a great night, and i headed over to the bakery to get some churros before i headed off to bed.

fyi, i am so impressed with the originality and creativity of the hair styles that i have seen since ive been here that i have decided to try and photographe and comment on all the different hair cuts i see around, so you should expect in the near future the first installments of the "I Can't Believe You Cut Your Hair Like That" series.

be well and be easy folks

Granada Life

2006-09-21T17:57:00.001+02:00

i find that my new life here in granada to be oh so different from the my life in the united states. duh. i dont quite know where im going with this one so ill just start and see where it ends up.

to start with i am living in a the biggest city i have ever lived in since i left joaquin's apartment when i was 1 year old. their are just so many more people that i walk by as a go along my way. the albayzin in particular has such a dense population, but not at the expense of still being beautiful and quaint. it is nice to see alot of people living in close proximity and not living in appartment buildings. its seems as though people just know how to get along, you can play loud music late at night and no one seems to complain. their arnt police breaking up parties and people smoke and drink on the street. when i like about living here is that people dont really have backyards. so that if you want to hang out with your friends you have to go out in the street. plus who would want to stay in their house when you can go to a plaza with a view like this.

it seems to me that in the us, nyack and ithaca to be precise, people stay on their own property as a way of avoiding the police, or just staying out of people's way. here it is so different. you go out at night only to find yourself sharing the street with what seems like the entire population between the ages of 16 and 60. all the bars are filled, but its not like home with each bar catering to a certian subcultural group and playing a certain type of music, etc. while bars do differ in many ways, it is not uncommon to go into one to find gothic punks, older generation proper spanish folk enjoying some wine, foreigners speaking all different languages, 16 year old locals fresh off the mopeds, dreadlocked hippes, and myself, all sharing the neighborhood bar, and all listening to good old flamenco music. i dont think that i have met anyone here who doesnt at least like flamenco. you cannot go out into most plazas at night without hearing someone on the guitar stumming the familiar chords and singing in that oh so characteriztic moan/rasp/wail. when i contrast the local steet singers here to the folk bluegrass music i hear people playing in the ithaca commons, i cannot help but laugh. yesterday their was an ensemble consisting of a couple guitarists, a man playing the cajon (the flamenco equivalent of a drum, it is a hollow box u sit on with a hole in the back that you drum between your legs, look it up online if you care to), a man playing the digiridoo (this i found most unique because i had never heard the digiridoo played along with other instruments), someone was playing the harmonica, along with several people clapping, and everyone taking turns singing a verse or two. now, not only was this concert free of charge, but the players had all come individually and just started playing together for fun. being as musically gifted as i am, or lack there of, i was flabergasted to see how well an impromptu jam session could play out. you would think they had been playing together for years, which may not be altogether untrue, since i presume that they are regulars at this particular plaza.

their is a certain magic being in granada that simply cannot be put into words. i should add at this point that when i refer to granada, i mostly mean the area where i live, the albaycin. this area was the majority of the city when it was the muslim capital. hence, it has the most history and the most life. the newer areas of granada range from sort of typical overblown catholic architecture to a modern western style of buildings. their are regular strait paved streets and appartments buildings, but the albaycin is so very different. the beautiful carmenes with their subtle exteriors yet typically spectacular interior gardens, the winding cobblestone alleys, the mountian spring water fountains (aljibes), the small cafes and taverns, as well as all the other necesities for human life all merge seamlessly into a magical maze where you never know quite where you are, yet always seem to get there. i take great joy everytime i walk down a new alley and discover where it dumps me out, especially when its somwhere near where i predicted it would be. its as though everytime you walk out into the streets the path you take is completely new. its as though walking around were the activity itself as opposed to simply a means to an end. i find myself walking slowly like i was drunk, looking to and fro, awed by the sublime architecture, the vines and flowers overflowing from the secret gardens hidden inside every wall only to be surprised that what i though was a house is actually a school, or a museum, or an internet cafe like the one i sit in right now. this city is so old i feel like im walking within an archological site. this city was made around the time that the aztecs were developing tenochtitlan, yet this is still a fully functional city, not a preserve i have to pay to visit. its as though i live with that same magic that people travel far to experience.

i hope you liked where my mind took us just now, and your comments are greatly appreciated.
peace and love

Week Two

2006-09-18T13:03:00.000+02:00

Hello everybody. here i am again, safe and sound, finally starting to get my bearings in granda. ive been here for like 5 days since the beach and i have fully recovered from the jetlag, nights out, days at the beach, etc. i am now at the point where i am getting my shit together for the year. i have started looking into my arabic classes. there is one about a block from my house, at the center for islamic studies that starts in october, which is quite conveniant, although its only 4 hours a week, and i was hoping to find something perhaps a little more intensive. but we shall see, i may have to add the intensity on my own time, which i am also prepared to do. the good news i suppose is that since the classes would only be either monday and wednesday or tuesday and thursday, i would always have four day weekends to embark on whatever adventures come my way. we´ll see how it turns out.
in order to fill the rest of my time i have several things planned. first of all im trying to find a team to play on, but i find that almost all the teams around here are profesional to some degree, which poses me some problems. to start with, they ahve all been in preseason for two months and the regular season started two weeks ago, so they are all in considerably better shape than im in, CONSIDERABLY. second of all, these teams (assuming i make the squad) would require me to sign a contract which is difficult because, A- im not and EU citizen, and B- i dotn know how much i want to commit to practicing or playing 6 days a week as well as all the sacrifices entailed in being a serious athlete (ie, alot less chilling time, and all that that entails). the truth of the matter is that i have just started really making friends and the past week has beel ALOT of fun. on the other hand, i love playing soccer, i think that im good enough to play on some of these teams, if i get in shape, and shit, being a professional soccer player isnt all that bad, at least i wont have to get a job. so since i have to choices if i dont try, im gonna tryout for some teams and take it from there. i might have to elaborate some of my credentials, chilling in ithaca for the last two years isnt the most compelling background for most soccer coaches. ill keep you posted.

well as far as filling my days go, i also plan on doing a substantial amount of reading on my own. i brought several books, and my dad is bringing more. ive also borrowed a few books already and tehres a library down the street. i love how everything is so close, especially now that i have gotten used to walking up and down the albaycin, and i think my legs have adjusted as well. in october all the universities start, and all other schools for that matter, so most of my friends will be thus occupied, granting me alot more free time in which to read. whatever
i also plan on getting a job of some sort. i have started to analyse my plans and my funds, with that mathimatical mind of mine, and im gonna need some suplemental income in order to ball out as i had planned. im not quite sure what im going to do, but im think that something having to do with speaking english would be my most advantageus opportunity. like i said, we shall see.

i am pleased to inform you that i am getting used to the schedules around here and this weekend i went out past 3 am three out of four days, once till 7. now if that isnt an accomplishment i dont know what is. dont worry folks, i havnt been drinking much, or smoking at all, i find that those factors are what keep me from staying up late, they dont call me the incredible napman for nothing.
well finally in closing i want to recount the akward moment that i experienced last night, and i will to my best to convey the nuance i the situation. so i met up with some friends around 8 in order to watch the sunset, after which we got a call from some dutch girls we jsut met to have a drink down town. so down we went, only to find that they were going home early because tehy had school in the morning. so there were 4 of us guys left with not a drop of estrogen amongst us. since it was only like 1115 and no one was too anxious to go home we got a litro and sat down in a plaza to bullshit for a while. after finishing the beer we decided to go and check out some bars, but since we were all pretty broke we were canniving up ways to get free beers. anything from robbing a drunk guy who was talking to himself, which we decied against since he was probably broke too; to selling ourselves out to fat girls for prostitution (not my idea, i swear, and i think they were joking) being 4 guys we (and i use we very loosly, i didnt do very much) started talking to the next fat girl that came by (we of course said nothing of our plan, being the pussies that we are), who told us that they wer giving out discounted drink tickets down the block, for the hip hop bar. i, missing my usual dossage of hip hop thought this was a good idea, especially since it was the most populated bar on a sunday night, probably due to the free drink tickets, because the music sucked ass, lots of 50 cent and reggeton. so we were in the bar, 4 guys jsut dancing around amongst ourselves partly in shyness, but mostly, at least in my own case, because i was scared of venturing out onto the dance floot because of this blond behemouth that was preying on any guy that came within a few feet of her. i was desperately trying to sort of go out and dance (dancing with 3 other guys in a circle jsut doesnt do it for me anymore), but at the same time avoid making eye contact with her which would surely result in agony. there were multiple ocasions werhe i made passing eye contact so i had to casually stroll out of the bar in order to avoid confrontation. i dont know why i was so opposed to dancing with her probably because i saw that she kept coming back again and again to the two moorish guys that did dance with her. this was not the akward moment i am trying to convey mind you. so finally, we ran out of discounted drink tickets, despite the fact that the guy giving them out had been so generous, so we decided to leave. this is where it gets good. throughout the night we had noticed a group of three girls eyeing us from the other side of the bar, basically unreachable due to the predator filling the gully in between. but on our way out richard was like "bye" at which point he got corrageus and turned back and was like hey, you want to come with us to this other bar (seems a little sketchy, no?), at which point manito chimed in and started telling then this and that. but for some reason the minute manito started talking richards face went completely blank in a way that reminds me of the times i have gotten a drop and in blood sugar and lost my vision temporarily, he did not have such a compelling excuse. he had no explenation for why after initiating conversation he was giving a "it doesnt matter, do whatever you want." needless to say that despite the fact taht the girls practically picked us up they got so bugged out that they decided to stay after practically grabbing all their stuff to come with us. so we left the bar in disgust with richard and had quite a riot outside laughing about it, and what makes matters worse or better for my loyal readers is that in a matter of minutes they actually came out, and so instead of talking to them and patching things up, we start walking away, about 15 yards ahead of them, down the same road. in the process we ran into manitos ex grilfriend who was handing out free beer tickets for a bar nearby, so we decided to head over there. oddly enough, we arrive there only to find that they had been lured there by another employee of the bar also handing out free beers. still we ddint say anything and jsut started drinking our beers and dancing a little bit, by ourselves again, about 10 feet away from them. thankfully they finally left, although i still feel the tension to this day. but to be quite honest, it had to be one of the funniest things thats happened to be since ive been here.

well, until next time, adieu

Blast Off

2006-09-14T17:08:00.000+02:00

so here i am attempting to start up a blog of my own. after reading nates i figure theres no better way to stay in touch with y´all. god knows i cant be writing emails to all of you, i have enough trouble answering my cell phone on a regular basis.
i will try to make it as entertaining as possible and not bore you with mundane occurances, but i dont know, the thought of nate, naked, getting massaged by two men is a tough act to follow, it makes everything seem mundane. i will certainly do my best. i will try to make everything as truthful as possible, with a little dramatic interpretation, just to enhance my own memory of it all.

so me and silvio arrived in sunny southern spain last thursday after a rather long 13 hour voyage. my first order of duty upon arrival was upgrading our cable package so that i now get every single soccer game on the planet basically. its rather absurd, on any given moment on the weekend there is a game on like 5 different channels. Arsenal on one, Chelsea on the other, Barca, Real Madrid, everything. i ffear it might spend alot of time watching tv. oh well.

after watching games all day saturday, i went out for my first night on the town. let me tell you, for those of us from the united states where an all nighter is a rare occurence, if you want to come party out here, you need to train beforehand. i left the house around 11 only to go to a friends house where we played playstation for an hour or two, as if it were a lazy sunday morning. only then did they deem it late enough to get in gear. we, being me and 7 other people, went to a concert that started at midnight. we got there around 1, but we didnt go in, no not yet, instead we lounged outsidefor another few hours drinking litros (a liter of beer, roughtly 1€), since it was so expensive inside. after sufficient inherbriating and chit chat, we actually went to the concernt around 4 am, which is appartently when the headline band was supposed to come out. negative, they did not come out until 445, and didnt finish playing until 6 am, a remarkable occurence for me coming from ithaca, where the wildest bars close at 1 am. needless to say, i was not propared for that kind of partying, it may take me a while to build up that kind of stamina. at that point i insisted on going home, much to the dismay of my collegues, who insisted on getting a few more litros and going to some park or plaza to chillout. i am sad to admit that i had to punk out and get some sleep, in preparation for the three day trip to the beach planned for the next day.

the following day i needless to say awoke rather late. around 5 pm i was scooped up by my friend richard, and his visiting collegue from germany christophe. we spent the first night at richards house (he also has a house in granada) in la alpujarra, which is a region in the sierra nevada a bit south of granada. the mountian air of la alpujarra was quite refereshing and i was glad to be in the country and get a good nights sleep. i awoke before everyone with my usual outpour of mucus from my facial orifices and stiff back, nothing a little stretching and some mountain pose wouldnt cure. it was quite a treat to enjoy that early morning in such a beautiful landscape. the alpujarra is divided into three sections: baja, media and alta, meaning lower middle and high. the higher you go, the more water their is and the more green it is. and coming from the lush northeastern united states, a little green is a welcome sight in a region characterized for being arid.

so we set off for the beaches of almeria, the only mediterranean coast in spain that is relatively undeveloped, and it is only 2 hours from granada on the high way. the region of almeria is basically a desert so the plan was that we would go to a beach that richard knew of and sleep in hammocks among the eucalptus trees that grew on the beach. being that it only rains about 4 days a year in almeria we figured we´d be in good shape. needless to say the beach and the region itself is spectacular. the sand is dark and soft, yet it doesnt get as hot as other dark beaches ive been to. in other words, you dont have to sprint from one shady spot to the next as ive had to do at most dark beaches. we arrived monday afternoon, just in time to buy some food, and head over to a beach near the one we were going to sleep at. the water was truly delicious with a light blue color and a warm temperature, it reminded me of my year in playa del carmen. it was my first real visit to the mediteranean and i must say, it lived up to the hype. the water is clean and refreshing and the flora and fauna flourishes among the rocky coves that lined the shore. as sunset approached we went to out home for the next couple days and hung the hammocks, layed out a blanket and sat down for dinner, which consisted of bread, cheese, ham, tomatoes, rum, and coke. darkness hit us before we could start eating, and we realized how ill prepared we were, not a single flashlight, typical guys, what can i say. we were only saved by the utility knife shanes parents wisely gave me which i forgot to take out of my backpack and the small, yet bright flash light that it carried. oh divine providence, with out that little flashlight we would have been in serious trouble. so we finished eating and turned to the liter of rum we had brought, we sat down by the water and richard broke out the guitar. he is quite good at the flamenco guitar and it is quite and experience to hear him. we all sat around and took turns singing (yes, even i sang. must be the rum) while me and christophe took turns whaling on our thighs to the beat. i must interject here to say a bit more about the water. we went into the sea at night only to discover that it was alive with photoplankton and every movement you made in the water made them light up all around you. it was truly one of the most special things i have ever seen. we were in the water for at least half an hour, despite the sharp drop in night time temperatures.

it turns out that even a remote beach does not escape spains vibrant night life. after dark several parties came out to camp on the beach and by the timed we had finished off our bottle of rum we were being passed another bottle around a raging bonfire that someone had started up. by 230 in the morning i was quite drunk and i deemed it was better to go to my hammock then to pass out on the beach. i slept quite soundly until what seemed like silvio in my bedroom trying to create a strobe light effect with my ceiling light, and for those of you who missed my metaphor, it was thundering like a muda, coupled with a few droplets of rain. before long we saw all the people we were chilling with, making their way to the parking lot, but we decided, upon my insistence of course, that it might not rain too hard and we should rough it out. we stayed this course for about 45 sleepless minutes until the wind started howling by us, and we realized that we better run for it. the minute we got out of the hamocks the gods started pissing all over us, we didnt have time to set up camp in anyway and by the time we got to the car, we and all our belongings were soaked to the bone. and so we sat in the car, freezing for about 3 hours while we enjoyed 25% of almerias rainey days. and it was quite a rain indeed, it can onyl be described as torrential. the rain finally stoped and i ran back to the campsite to get our wet belongings, food included, so we could have some breakfast to try to battle the combined hangover/lack of sleep. sure enought the sun didnt come out all morning and it rained two more times, so all the dry clothes we changed into were positively soaked. things were not looking good, we were cold as hell and all of our shit was soaked. the good news is a learned a few life lessons. first: im no meteorologist; second (not the first time ive learned this): better safe than sorry. thankfully the sun came up in the afternoon and we were able to dry our stuff and take a pleasant nap in the hammocks, although i think i caught a bit of a cold. the second night elapsed much like the first, minus the rum, and we built a shelter in case it rained again. this is true until we tried to go to sleep because it was FREEZING. i had all my clothes on, under my blanket, but i still woke up at least 7 times throughout the night only to find that the sun had not risen yet, when in finally did we slept a little more soundly, still with all of our clothes on. and then it was hot as hell, and i was so glad to be swaying in my hammock among the shady eucaliptus, i felt like a koala bear. that afternoon(wednesday) we headed back to granada and to the many conforts of civilization.

sorry if the first entry is a bit long, im sure they get more succinct with time, i hope you all enjoy my adventures as much as i do.