Day 1 - Impermanence - Times like these - On and On (2003)

This song is especially important to me. I used to live in California, doing my PhD, married with my first husband, when Jack Johnson’s "On and On" album were playing on the radios, and I had no idea that Jack Johnson's songs existed yet.  This song is about the dark years during the war in the Middle East, and even though in 2001, I was flying from Miami to San Francisco and set to stay for three days in Oaklahoma during the September eleven  tragic morning, after that day, I tried to continue my life, was too busy doing my research, to pay attention to my surroundings or even buying new American music... but I was back to traditional Hawaiian dance, performing in San Francisco to keep me sane....

Then later in 2007, I was already back in Brazil, and alone after my wedding separation, without my best friends who stayed in the Bay Area or around the world, no kids, and no family around, oh poor me. Then a good friend gave me a copy of Times like These song, I could take some of the North Pacific coast songs with me, and I loved it, it all made sense to me. "Times like these and times like those... what will be will be so it goes..." 

Meditation and teachings today are about accepting impermanence and changes, and what we live in the present moment. 

Accepting that nothing will stay the same, and that we shall stop fighting against those waves of changes,

The combination of gestures of balance we shall have in this choreography of life is about not to be attached to the feelings and emotions, to the events, to people we love or hate, 

Not grasping the desire of keeping things as if they would not change because they will, and we shall try to choose the best way to react to those changes so when we encounter fear, doubt and anger we are calm inside of us. Finding that point of balanced energies, of inner peace, this is the first step. 

We are pulled and pushed by our flow of thoughts, the daily events, and the raise and fall of waves of emotions, although inside we shall remain calm and able to understand that all is samsara, illusion, but real and connected in some level, in some instance to the infinity of life.

The first meditation dance is about impermanence, add acceptance

I will prepare a short video or a set of photographs of this practice,  my gesture of balance for this blog later today.

"Times Like These"

in times like these
in times like those
what will be will be
and so it goes
and it always goes on and on…
and on and on it goes
and there’s always been laughing, crying, birth, and dying
boys and girls with hearts that take and give and break
and heal and grow and recreate and raise and nurture
but then hurt from time to times like these
and times like those
what will be will be
and so it goes
and there will always be stop and go and fast and slow
action, reaction, sticks and stones and broken bones
those for peace and those for war
and god bless these ones not those ones
but these ones made times like these
and times like those
what will be will be
and so it goes
and it always goes on and on…
and on and on it goes
but somehow i know it won’t be the same
somehow i know it’ll never be the same