living life

body reconnection & opening through butoh dance workshop

2005-07-06T13:16:00.000-05:00

I will be performing in the "WHAT TO FORGET" butoh dance events guided by Nicole LeGette and Erica Mott.

POSTCARD INFORMATION:

WHAT TO FORGET
"Through butoh, material-based performance and site-specific work, Nicole LeGette and Erica Mott devise an ensemble work exploring the intersection of three realms: the body, the synthetic, and the natural. Onlookers are invited to discover an unexpected sense of nature and to reflect upon what forgotten memories lie hidden within their own bodies."

Friday, July 8th, 2pm
Lurie Gardens in Millennium Park

Friday, July 15th, 6pm
Saturday, July 16th, 3pm
Sydney R. Gates Gallery, 4th Floor, Petah Coyne Exhibit
Chicago Cultural Center
78 E Washington Ave

All events are FREE.

For more information contact 773-470-6537
These performances are made possible in part by the Department of Cultural Affairs.

lego my ego yo

2004-12-05T13:15:00.000-06:00

I recently wrote the below excerpt to my brother Ted as a reply to an email he sent to me regarding contemplating the ego. He sent me an interesting link to Spiritual Teachings Glossary of Terms.

"What is powerful for me is to "believe" in what is real. Since the ego is a construction, even if it has been constructed for survival purposes, it is real only as a construction; it is real and not real at the same time. That is an example of a realistic belief. Aligning the mind with realistic understandings brings happiness due to less suffering from unrealistic beliefs. Unrealistic beliefs are confusing, cause struggle, and place great amounts of stress in our minds and lives. So, through developing pure mind consciousness, the thinking/feeling/ego mind (that we usually use) has the ability to change from the contingencies of enculturation toward realistic living in the now. This is what I embrace, cultivate, practice, and enjoy. Life, reality, experience, happiness, action, effort."

In the beginning...

2006-01-06T09:31:00.000-06:00

...there was love. For a baby, love is a necessity. But for adults too, love is what truly makes us feel alive and wonderful. The definition of love is about intending happiness. This is readily known and commonly experienced in romantic relationships to varying degrees as well as with family and friends. Mutual connections with people in our lives--the transference of positive energy, intention and attention, as one friend mentioned to me, "beneficial interaction."

Without a life partner, it is possible to love yourself with spiritual intention and attention to your life circumstances. In fact, this self love is also necessary to cultivate if you are in a relationship. Sometimes us humans get close to unconditional love, though mostly we have a myriad of thoughts and feelings connected to what we experience and give as love. These could be in the form of specific expectations or grandiose projections, either way, limitations and judgements arise from such non-awareness. And, it's easy to get carried away and act blindly when excitement and curiousity are high in a new relationship. Self-knowledge from a place of love and compassion assists us in being loving in simpler and more authentically profound ways with our family and friends, fellow humankind, animals and insects, things and life energy.

I need to thank all the wonderful people in my life who resonate with me in love: in the beginning, in the middle, and at the end. There is no end, there is now. I am practicing love.

Love, compassion, simplicity, patience, ease.
Intention, attention, awareness.

so much...

2005-11-16T10:56:00.000-06:00

Butoh workshop this weekend with Diego Pinon at the spareroom.

I finished my homemade, self-designed, cedar bed frame. Very low to the ground and infused with the intention of care and love. I should post a photo.

Concentrating, seeing, clarifying; there is so much to do that brings joy into my life and everyone around me. Nothing is exempt from this beauty. However, I must practice this way of being. So much to be unlearned and freshly experienced. Breaking free is a mental endeavor. Practicing is a reconnection to living my life, something I've desired for so long, and fortunately, now, I am doing. I am doing it. I am. ahhh.

Thank you Ed Brown, for the phrase "Easy in the beginning, easy in the middle, easy in the end." This is helpful for gently bringing my awareness back to consciousness, body, place, and moment. It feels like really saying "relax" but in a more thorough way.

creating conscious life connecting ritual

2005-11-03T09:35:00.000-06:00

For me to awaken and "get centered" in daily/momentary life, I am finding that new life-connecting, consciously-created ritualized actions are necessary. Psychologically breaking the old habits of unawareness and consciously connecting with reality is establishing a whole new realm of associations in my mind. I'm becoming comfortable with and excited to embrace freedom from conceptuality and realistic spaciousness.

Please read "Facing the Dragon: Confronting Personal and Spiritual Grandiosity" by Robert L. Moore for brilliant psychological guidance and an intense critique of contemporary society.

Gratitude, harmonic resonance/dissonance of energy, resting in the way things are, movement of the body is much more than just movement--and much less too.

Soul Rock, soon

2005-09-02T12:56:00.000-05:00

For a a couple years now, I've been saying to people who ask me about music that I's love to make some more music and get a new band going. Well, I would. A couple of opportunities sort of fell through. Off and on when we have the mutual convergence of free time, Ted and I have played together. I've done a little music making and exploring some new ways of making sounds. I'd like to take some lessons in guitar, drums, and/or voice. I need to begin writing lyrics.

Most interestingly, I want to make Soul Rock. I've never heard the term before. Nonetheless, what I mean by it is that I want to connect my life with my rock roots and step forward with music making creativity from emptiness and the way. I don't have a prescription or equation for this endeavor. I have influences like H.R., KRS-ONE, bad brains, nomeansno, the refused, fugazi, 7seconds, gang of four, sonic youth, tortoise, and the international noise conspiracy to name some good examples.

Make music from the heart, from positive intention, from emptiness, & with attention and it will resonate in the soul of all who play or hear it. That's the place from which I wish to make music.

Listen to H.R. or your favorite band that resonates in your soul and revitalizes you. Let me know if you are interested in creating Soul Rock music.

Vegan Cafe

2005-08-22T12:30:00.000-05:00

I let go of the idea of starting a Vegan Cafe in Chicago around the turn of 2004-05. I had personal life issues to address and deal with at the time. That seems like such a long time ago. I've certainly changed significantly over the course of this calendar year.

Now, I'm finding myself in the endeavor of further clarifying and simplifying my mind and personal life. I have been coming to terms with "my purpose" for quite some time. I've had numerous personal goals that I've done well with over the years: for instance, living life well, accepting feelings and thoughts, discontinuing talking about reality, coming to terms with knowing I don't know, and integrating my meditative practice into everyday life action. And, ALL THIS fits with my purpose. With this newer deeper experience of space and peace, I am living my purposeful life. THIS IS MY LIFE, all this and just this as it is. Now what do I do?

I'm responding well. I'm thinking freshly and creatively. I'm practicing centeredness and balance with a greater understanding of the way. I'm less and less bound by old habits, a lot of which are gone from my current existence, yet seem to reside in my mind as strong memories and still influence me. Thus, meditation is very good for me these days for clarifying my mind and bringing my intention, attention, and awareness into balance with my mind, body, and soul.

Balance, flow, presence. Simplicity, compassion, patience. Completeness ever-present in the way.

I've been particularly enjoying the sky lately. Skyscapes are one of Chicago's amazing qualities, in comparison to Seattle's forever undulating landscape. Beautiful cloud formations, expansive gradients of color, bright sunny days of summer and winter, and warm-colored majestic sunsets. Sigh. I think I am creating new nostalgia by focusing so fondly and attentively day after day. I'm continually filled with wonder and joy in this simple experience. It feels a lot like eating nourishing food for my soul. And, thus it fits with my life these days.

BACK to the Vegan Cafe idea. Chicago needs it. I've been to other cities (particulatly Salt Lake City & Seattle) that have wonderful vegan (or at least vegetarian) cafes and restaurants. More have been established in Chicago over the past few years, which I am very grateful for and happy about. However, I want to establish an independent, sustainable best practices, vegan(vegetarian), local, comfortable, contemporary, midwestern, arts/music/performance/spiritual living activities, LEED rated renovated building with super Feng Shui qualites and solar powered electricity and water heating. That's a big dream, but it encompasses what I know and believe should be integrated and done in the present.

Who's doing this kind of a thing? Isn't this a really good idea? It seems like it would thrive on the grandiosity of the principle alone, though the practice and economy aspects of the idea are present too. This is a practice based concept, that integrates contemporary (and historical) social memes from architecture, art, spirituality, sustainability, technology, and culture. For me, it feels like a step towards convergence and consolidation of effort with repect to my interests and for the benefit of others in practice and example.

Feel free to comment here or email me at dmdanyluk@yahoo.com

living life is the amazing thing

2005-03-26T15:33:00.000-06:00

I haven't posted anything for a while because I have been living and exploring life in wholy new ways. I have found happiness in living and experiencing life itself. That's it.

I used to want to understand life, though now, I simply do. There's a great little Buddhist book entitled "That Which You Are Seeking Is Causing You to Seek" by Cheri Huber & June Shiver, which I lent to a wonderful person I need to see soon. I was so consumed with the egotistical task of trying to understand life that I was missing out on all sorts of joyful simple living. I feel free now. I am no longer seeking that which is irrelevant to living a happy good life. Now I'm energized and connecting with life energy. The answer is yes, thanks Ted. Thanks go out to everybody and everything.

I'm just so flipped out over gapping, as I call it. Gapping is taking a big leap of change at one time that significantly alters your life.

Listening to: Dieselboy, Jeekoos, NoMeansNo

My Festive Tree

2004-12-16T22:16:00.000-06:00

This year my tree is made from a book I bought at the local thrift store. "The Macabre" is a 1987 collection of classic scary short stories. I read a couple before cutting the pages out of the book. I designed the reused cardboard skeleton made of 8 thin supports. An old bicycle tire holds the bottom together with a little weight. Then, I simply taped each curled page to the skeleton. Assembly started from the bottom with the last page of book. I circled the tree 8 times and ended at the top by covering a reused paper coffee cup. All 173 pages of the book were used perfectly. I tied a couple extra pieces of ribbon on the coffee cup for a little color. It only took about 3-4 hours total.

This wasn't really my idea. I saw a very creative display at the Chicago Anthropologie store which had something similar. I loved the way it looked and realized it could be done in a sustainable way at home. What a great holiday replacement for the ol' chopped down Christmas tree people tend to put up!

Original vs. Creative

2004-11-17T18:08:00.000-06:00

Creative:
I've been working on the final details of two websites I launched over the past couple months. http://www.teddrums.com and http://www.tropicofcoffee.com I have about another week or two to go. http://www.textpattern.com is working very well for teddrums. Plus, I started a mini-booklet addressing formatting issues on the admin side for Ted.

Original:
I had an idea-in-the-rough while biking to work this morning: "Let culture be mantra."

Everymoment, life is infused with culture. A dialogue exists with or without realizing it. It is impossible to be devoid of it--just like life itself, reality, or to the faithful, God. Mantra is the repetitious use of words, ideas, concepts, sounds to consciously change.

So, in seeing culture with openness and freedom, the unique dialogue unfolds. One can listen rather than speak, and learn from what is revealed in any given moment. This stuff is the mantra. It will be repeated as long as life exists.

Now, what if I listened more than spoke, thought, or wasn't aware of life. What is being communicated, from culture to mind, is important and what is being done is important too.

Busy Life, but Good

2004-10-31T23:59:00.000-06:00

Full time freelancing, designing and producing websites through halfofone, practicing life awareness, maintaining positive activity, at least weekly meditation, and bike transit.

CMS decision

2004-08-13T13:30:00.000-05:00

In an effort to learn and to understand more about Content Management Systems and find one or two that I would like to continue using, I have decided to use TextPattern for a new client website I am designing (teddrums) and for my new business oriented website (halfofone). TextPattern utilizes a MySQL database, which is brand new territory for me. I've been looking into CMS's for a couple months trying to sort out the functionality, stability, workability, and usability. I've used TikiWiki for a previous client's website (Wicker Park Grace). So, onto more fun with new things.

Awakening: in process

2004-07-20T19:44:00.000-05:00

Awakening. Opening the self to the fullness and unbiased existence of reality. No easy task. No problem either. Though, once you decide to embark on the journey, you are hooked. I know I am.

A description of reality may be useful here. Provided by the author Stephen Bachelor, reality is interworkings of contingency, ambiguity, creativity, and change.

While listening to a very good segment about exploitation on Chicago Public Radio today, I was struck, however briefly, by understanding a little more of the dynamics of human situations, interactions, transactions, limitations, and possibilities. Evaluating exploitation is difficult especially when the actions fit within the cultural paradigm. I think intention underscores exploitation. Like karma, when someone acts with positive or negative intentions, the action itself is likewise colored to match. Interestingly enough, this is usually easy for us to see when we mindfully look deeply into it.

Planning Projects better through a game

2004-07-08T09:35:00.000-05:00

Perspective can provide positive change and better, more realistic planning.
Planning Game

Today, I started a free BasecampHQ account to organize my project planning and management for websites and design projects. Wicker Park Grace is launching tonight, which is the reason for me being up so very late/early. I'll start using BasecampHQ this coming week when I begin working on teddrums.com. If my experience goes well, I may use it for Phase 2 of Wicker Park Grace.

Well, here's another fun, well designed interactive game. http://www.operationslaps.com

amazing concept, well done

2004-07-08T00:23:00.000-05:00

looptracks.net
Interact, create, and be mesmermized by sound & visual motion.
Thanks for the link, VInce.

welcome to living life

2004-07-01T15:51:00.000-05:00

Life practice, awakening, reality, knowledge, culture, relationships, sustainability, and human living issues are my main interests. As I live life, I change, and so does reality. In this step of starting a blog, something I've considered doing for a couple-few years, I am reminded of something KRS-One said; "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten."

I'd like to thank Vince Scarlata for helping me take this step. I'd also like to thank Sarah Jane Danyluk, Ted Danyluk, Nanette Sawyer, and one of my first favorite blogs, camworld.com.

I hope you enjoy what you see, read, and experience.
David M Danyluk