Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
Not cholera. Typhoid. I’m here for another two weeks, they say. The fever is down but there are various reasons why they have to keep my here. I have only grasped the bare minimum. They don’t talk to me much. Maybe I’m contagious, still?
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
A month since I last wrote. A month.
I can explain. The problem with lies is that they can become the truth. This happens to me often, and always has. I would lie to stay out of school, for example, tricking my mother into thinking I had a fever by sipping her coffee when she wasn’t looking and then putting a thermometer into my mouth. At least once, the next morning, I woke up with a real fever and then was out for a week with the flu. Did I bring it on myself? Or had I somehow known I was getting sick and that was why I wanted to stay home in the first place?
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
It’s no good. I can’t meditate, can’t sing, can’t even sit still. I’ve tried to call twice more. Two more times, “She’s asleep.”
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
Tried to call my mother again today. Different time of day, different person, same answer: she’s asleep. I tried to impress upon them that I’m calling from very far away. They tried to impress upon me that she’s very hard to wake.
I worry. This worries me. Is she asleep or unconscious?
Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
And today I have the hangover. Headache. I feel awful. From two ounces of alcohol. Well, I’m no longer used to it. I suppose I was asking for it.
Maybe it was trying to make that Christmas phone call that brought me to my latest realization. I chant and my mind opens and I see the universe and I feel the ecstatic joy that is to be alive. But then I realize that to remain in that state of grace I have to leave behind all that I know. All that I am. Not merely ego, not merely sin. All. ALL.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
The Christmas spirit caught up with a couple more of the musicians from western countries today. So I guess yesterday was Christmas eve. The result was… a bunch of us had a party? Is that what I should call it? We went out, anyway, and had food and rotgut alcohol at a place I hesitate to call a restaurant–more like an alley that had been commandeered to serve food in. But we drank and sang Christmas carols until they literally threw us out. I drank only a tiny bit–it was terrible–but after nothing for so many months it went straight to my head.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
While collecting alms in the street today I overheard one tourist tell another “Merry Christmas.” At first I thought “what an absurd idiosyncrasy for two grown men to have in their manner of addressing one another.”
Then I realized, no, wait, it must be Christmas. This doesn’t seem possible, and yet it is.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
Ecstasy is seductive. Like drugs except without the bad side effects. It’s blinding in its way, too. I’ve been through every kind of emotion while singing here. Sometimes the entire group will float upward in joy. Sometimes we’ll mysteriously all cry. This spiritual cleansing and energizing is very seductive–of course it is. It feels good beyond all meaning of the word “good.”
But as my awareness grows, and it has taken time for that awareness to develop, I realize that the white light that fills me has a shadow deep within. The scar, the blockage, the dark space into which no light seeps, is the damage I did to myself by turning my love into a weapon and his love into a bunker.
I did that. I am responsible.
Can god absolve me of that?
Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
(Whoops, sorry folks, formatting error had appended this entry to the end of the previous. Fixed now…? We’re about two-thirds of the way through Ziggy’s diary. -ctan)
I didn’t realize how many days have passed since I last wrote. In fact I don’t know how many, but a lot. I’m at an ashram now that’s maybe more of a collective than the previous ones? Because it’s all full of musicians. I mean, there’s a head guy, but he’s not always the one who leads. Whatever. The details don’t matter. It’s the singing that matters.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
They sing the names of god.
Gods.
All of them.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
I am back at the hostel that I started in when I first left Swami Veddy’s ashram. The one by the train station. Been here a few days, talking to people, hanging around, waiting to figure out what my next direction to go in will be. This one gets some foreign backpackers so I’ve been able to practice my Spanish, my French, and even fake my way through some Portuguese. They think I’m a native because they can’t tell my fake Indian-English from real Indian-English. I give them advice about where to go in town. I tell them to go see the cave temple. I pepper them with questions about the outside world. Today I saw an English language newspaper for the first time in months. I am surprised to say it’s November. Since the weather here never changes I feel like time hasn’t been passing. But it has.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
Haven’t written in a couple of weeks. It isn’t that I haven’t meant to, but it’s felt like what’s going on in my mind is so unprocessed, it’s not ready to be nailed onto paper.
But one thing happened today that I felt I needed to write down, even if I can’t figure it out. Maybe writing it down will help me untangle it.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
It’s been a while since I wrote. But I wanted to make sure I wrote about this. I had a vision today. Is vision the right word? I didn’t see anything. I felt it. Hallucination, then, in the tactile realm.
He was standing behind me. And I felt his hand on my shoulder. And I wept. But because we were chanting, I didn’t break down and sob. I kept chanting, but tears ran down my face.
I wasn’t overcome with a feeling of acceptance or any bullshit like that. I was crying because I knew all this meant was that I am so desperate that my mind hallucinates he’s here when he’s not.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
You know how I keep saying I have to let go of the fact I’m so stupid? But here’s how stupid I am. How obvious is this? There’s a form of meditation that involves singing. That involves voice. In fact, there are probably many of them! Duh! And the thing is, if I stopped and asked myself before I came to India what was the one thing I thought of when I thought of meditation, what I would have answered was “Om.”
Right?
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
Last wrote a week ago. Threw book across room as I came to realize something. Painful realization. Holy fuck that’s exactly what was happening with me and him. I’m so stupid. I was too impatient. Too needy. Too drug-eroded. Too destroyed in my own inner life to see that each fight with him was an opportunity to close the gap between us, not widen the breach.
We were getting closer. We were.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
New ashram. New revelation. This one uses mandalas. Having something to look at changes the experience completely for me. My mind still wanders but it wanders more into the realm of fantasy than my earthly problems, blames, etc and a little bit into philosophy but only a little. And this guru told me the wandering is part of the experience.
It’s a kind of gift, he said, that each time your mind wanders you have the opportunity to return to meditation. And the more times you return to meditation the easier it will be to return again in the future. Interesting way to think about it but even better a good way to quit beating myself up about failure.
Part of me wants to immediately apply this trick to the rest of my life. Like if only each fight with Daron were a gift from the universe to allow us to get back together, making coming together easier and easier over tim
.
Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
Tried to send a fax to Carynne today to say I’m okay, but it didn’t go through. I was trying from one of these communications offices in a train station where they’ll fax you a page for a fee. But it would not go. It was very nice of them to give me my money back, I suppose.
I got the idea to fax her just in case Jenn had a freakout and called the embassy or The Hollywood Reporter or who knows what. In case news reached the states that I had gone missing from my already being missing, haha.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
Dear Diary, apologies for shaky handwriting. I’m safe and calm now but my hand is still nervy.
I almost undertook a new experiment in disassociation tonight. Almost.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
Was it Veddy or Jenn who took up the sword of Shiva to castrate me today? Guess what! It doesn’t matter! Because I don’t care! Veddy and Jenn are fucking and I don’t care. Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care.
No, seriously, I feel nothing. My dick doesn’t even stir the slightest bit when I hear them. I take that as a sign that my lustful ego is dormant if not dead. Finally.
( Read the rest of this entry » )Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
Ugh. Was afraid this would happen. Jenn’s little flipout about me not talking made everyone else realize that A) they had missed the whole fact that I wasn’t talking, and B) that now I’m teacher’s pet. So they all hate me, basically. I thought it would blow over but a week has gone by and ugh.
This is what’s wrong with people. They all want me to give a fuck what they think. Are they insane? Isn’t the point of a spiritual retreat to get away from bullshit like worrying about what other people think?
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