there's more to life than this

D. and I went to R.'s birthday party last night -- a house full of kids, screaming and yelling and generally having a good time. J. led a bluesy jam session -- complete with the trumpet recently purchased by D.'s brother. It was a real improv moment.

I came home to a message from N. (and 2 messages I missed on my cell phone due to the jam session din) from the station. There was a mix-up with the live bands keys that A. gave him, but everything worked out ok.

Last night's (this morning's?) dreams included several spiders, from the very large and colorful to small and black. The small and black one was mistaken for a black widow at first, but then I noticed that a skull had been painted on the topside of its body in white paint. I recognized it as one that someone else in the dream had painted earlier and pointed it out as such: "Look, there's the spider you painted that one time...". I looked down at my hands and they had spider webs on them -- my left hand had an old (dust had collected on the strands of webbing) but nearly complete web on it. At another point in a dream I was talking to Merv Griffin about his wife -- he needed to sell his house and move into something else because his wife had lost her memory (Alzheimer's possibly) and needed more supervision. I don't know what Merv Griffin has to do with my life at all, but there you have it. Just before I woke up my cat, The Boops (pictured at the top of this diary page) was suspended in air within a spider web -- she was meowing and her fur was wet in spots, some of it wet with blood.

I don't know what to make of having another bloody dream -- but it may also just be that the bloody parts are more memorable. I know that there was a lot more going on in all the dreaming I did last night(something about an iced-over pond) but nothing else clear enough to really remember. One of the spiders was just amazing, with a bright red (I think) and yellow and blue body. It was about as big as a large tarantula but had very long, slender and unhairy legs (and body).

This morning my body gave in a little more to Ardha Chandrasana; unfortunately, because of something my teacher once said in class this asana is for me associated with fear, as if the only reason you (I) were unable to get into the posture was fear, not poor balance or a weak standing leg. I think it may be a combination of all these things.

I'll just be content to be able to quiet the monkey mind for even just one breath.

"Just as one must sometimes be silent in order to hear what others have to say, so thought itself must be silent if it is to think about anything other than itself." - Alan Watts