The Year in Daryl

2014, the Year in Daryl

This was such a great year, so many lessons learned, obstacles overcome, so many great things happened this year and I am bringing such powerful and empowering energy with me into the new year.

The year started off fun. I had a Star Wars-themed Birthday Party this year, which was so fun, I felt like a little kid again, and it's exactly what a birthday party should be all about.

Next up, I made a really tough decision, left my part-time jobs at BHCC and WIT to take a full time job at Regis College. This ended up being a wrong decision to make, but I bring a lot of lessons from the experience with me. I was embattled in my position from the first day, the whole experience ended up being very medieval, abusive, and it was great to finally have a full-time academic position but HEARTBREAKING to not be able to do it because of the intrigue and in-fighting and incompetence of the people around me. This difficult job was further complicated by three health emergencies:

1. I broke my left shoulder and damaged a disc in my neck getting out of the transport van at Regis College my second week there. I never filed a report, didn't want to lose a new job, but I lost feeling in three fingers, part of my hand, and it took over three months of PT to get my shoulder fixed, feeling back in my hand and fingers, with no pain killers (I don't believe in them).

2. I also got bit by a spider my second month there, some kind I ended up being allergic to, and that led to a staff infection, which wiped out my immune system, and I ended up really sick.

3. From that sickness I ended up with pneumonia, was mis-diagnosed for two weeks, was given the wrong medication for one week, and then missed 10 days of work (finally, time to heal!) while I fought to recover my health. 

This ended up being the sickest period of my life in the last 5 years, and it was a struggle to overcome.

On a positive note, I went to Providence, RI for the first time, fell in love with it, and it has become a new mini-get away location for me.

However, if not for being unhappy at the job, being sick and injured all the time, dealing with really terrible and incompetent people, I wouldn't have put the time into discerning my future, my vocation, the course of my life a bit more, and I wouldn't have realized that I wanted to work with international and first generation students, and that I want to be a full time professor more than anything else. The tough experiences empowered me to work hard to overcome my situation and get into my current positions and directions.

In May I went away to a writer's conference at Vermont College of Fine Arts, where I did my MFA degree, and it was the first time I was back in four years and it will be the last time I will go back (unless they pay me). The experience brought up all the tough memories of how poorly I was treated there as a student, how it damaged my love of writing and literature, and really took my decision to leave philosophy to become a writer, and give me twice the heartbreak in return. On the positive side, I realized that I don't want to go back there for writing ever again, that I need to heal and reclaim my power back from that experience, and I used that week to focus on and create the vocational opportunities that I have now.

In June so many good things happened for me:

First off: I got to go to the Yale Writer's Conference, which was the BEST writer's conference I have ever been to, I made good friends, had a great mentor, and felt that there was some good healing as a writer going on there. Bonus points that Yale is so freaking cool! I wish I could go back there again this year!

Second, I got married to the most beautiful woman, the most complex and difficult, the most inwardly creative person I have ever met, and it was four years of struggling to come together, seeing it actually happen, and it was definitely a great day, a real highlight of my life. I am honored to be married to a muse! I am so honored and humbled by all the great friends and family who also made this such a special day.

July saw more struggles with the Regis job, I made my decision to leave around the 4th of July, began interviewing for jobs immediately, and soon enough, two great jobs (that I have now) surfaced. I am totally blessed for the people who gave me such great recommendations for those jobs, and to have the opportunity to have those jobs today.

August arrived and two wonderful things happened as well:

First, I got to go back to Paris, and also, for the first time, Rouen. France is such an amazingly beautiful, romantic, creative, cultural country, I would LOVE to live there someday, and the wonders of France just keep calling me back on a regular basis. It was the best honeymoon, the best vacation, and the best place to visit.

Second, I began training for my new jobs at NEU and MCPHS, quit my job at Regis (and was chased off campus as I left--robbed of $2000 by my boss and HR). There was not much time off at all this summer, I was a little burnt going into the semester, but these jobs working with International Students, teaching Philosophy, and back to teaching Composition and Rhetoric, were so empowering for me, I learned so much from these students, and I LOVE these teaching jobs. I was meant to be a teacher and a mentor and I really feel that in my bones.

This Fall was all about work, I taught five days a week, I was constantly teaching, emailing, grading, evaluating my life, and I feel like I did some good teaching, grew as a person, and strengthened my relationship as the year came to an end. Once again, grateful for my students, my wife, my cats, my jobs, my health, as the year moved along.

Speaking of strengthening my relationship, this was also the year of realizing how I need to be careful who is and who is not in my life. We had some douchebag try and sabotage our relationship, I had a false friend (and tattoo artist) show their true colors, I lost a lot of friends this year (on Facebook) when I started to talk openly about politics, religion, philosophical questions, and that really showed me how important it was to follow Nietzsche's advice to not divide myself by others, but to increase myself with my own wild wisdom. This was a year of me protecting me from others and having a real zero tolerance policy of taking shit from people that I shouldn't have to, and looking out for my own best interests.

Other awesome stuff that happened this year:

* I sponsored lots of new music and art projects on Kickstarter.

* I got interested in new bands and new styles of music

* I got a new, awesome tattoo artist (from Japan!)

* I got my beautiful mandolin, "Chapel," this year

* I broke free from my atheist phase, and fell ever deeper in love with Ganesh

* I took three vacations to Maine this year, two to Providence,one to Montpelier, one to New Haven, one to Paris, one to Rouen.

* I ate lots of GREAT Vegan food this year.

* I discovered Wittgenstein for myself, and am in LOVE with his philosophy and example

* So much great TV, Comics, Movies, I am not ashamed of being into them once again at all

* I am ending the year with a renewal to return to BHCC to teach, a place I really missed teaching at, and a place I would like to make a greater impact at

* I went to a few Yoga classes this year, scattered over four Yoga schools, and a new Hot Yoga school opened up 15 minutes from my home

* I had the fortune of good friends in my life that I could count on

* I got into a Philosophy PhD program (in England) although I will have to delay entry until the Fall of 2015 due to current finances

* I affirmed for myself and discovered ever-deeper the things I believe in, the things that I stand for, and the things I want to do with my life

* Both of my cats are alive, playful, and healthy!

* During Xmas this year, I felt like, for the first time in at least 15 years, I had a "family" to base my life around and with

There were things that I wish I had done differently this year, and that I plan to work on and overcome in the next year:

1. I started the year at 316 pounds, was down to 289 at one point, but finish the year at 333 pounds. Whatever it is that I have created that has changed the course of my relationship to food and weight and eating, I need to turn that around this year. I am up 90 pounds now in three years. I really do miss being thin and healthy.

2. I wish I had put more time into mandolin, really leave this year as a "musician" and that I stop putting my musical self off for another year

3. I wanted to learn French, I didn't. I wanted to get back into German, I didn't. I would like to learn Farsi, but I haven't. 

4. I broke my Veganism several times this year (shellfish, dairy in baked goods, imported cheese), when I was really sick, as I was worried my body wasn't healing, and as I have developed some health issues in the late Fall, all based on poor nutrition, I am really struggling to recommit to Veganism for another year of it means my health will continue to suffer. The only time I lost weight this year was when I was NOT a Vegan, and while I will never eat chicken, pork, beef, turkey, (I never ate duck or goat or lamb or veal, so no worry there) eggs, drink milk or cream again, I am concerned for my health that unless I can clean up my eating and make a Vegan diet healthy for me, that I will have to go back to being a pescetarian. This is the hardest decision I have sitting before me.

5. I wish I had done more Yoga. Since starting Yoga in 2009, this year I did the least amount of Yoga (21 classes total!) than in any other year. Granted I have been sick, injured, broke, conflicted about the Yoga world, over-worked, but there is no way I can't make room for at least 3 (4) days a week of Yoga practice. 

6. I leave the year with no completed Novel, notebooks filled with writer's notes and character sketches, wasted retreats and conferences, and I keep waiting for the moment that I feel healed from VCFA, I have the time to write, and I can focus on being a writer. This recovery process feels way too far and way too long.

My intentions for the coming year:

1. Lose and keep off 101 pounds.

2. 150 Yoga classes (that's just 3 classes a week)

3. Four short stories (12-20 pages)

4. One Novel manuscript; and the signing of publication for that manuscript

5. One International vacation (most likely London this year), at the least

6. No Alcohol this year (except on Vacation)

7. A year where I am impervious to injury, severe colds, viruses, and sickness, and my body heals

8. One big tattoo on my right ribs, and the filling in of my sleeves on both arms (getting my Phoenix fixed?)

9. An ABUNDANCE of wealth, so much so that I can help out friends and family and struggling musicians

10. A full time academic TEACHING job

11. Increased Mandolin Mastery (at least three, 30-minute practices a week), joining an Americana band to perform with.

12. Begin my Philosophy PhD OR get my TOEFL Certification and learn fluent German

Thank you all for sharing my life with me.

I look forward to being a better person, a kinder person, a more patient husband, a wiser teacher, a stronger friend, a more passionate writer, a deeper thinker, and a healthy Yogi.

Best of luck, health, and happiness to you all in the coming New Year!

Reflecting on "Decoding Deepak"

If I didn't hate Deepak Chopra before watching, "Decoding Deepak," I have all the ammunition for a lifetime now. The documentary, made by his own son, which offers itself as a glimpse into the inconsistencies of his father's lifestyle vs his teachings, ends up as nothing more than apologetics, aimed at removing some of the spoiled rich guilt from the son, and making every excuse possible of why Deepak says one thing, does another thing, and the great secret to his spiritual teachings is nothing less than network with the wealthy and famous, dumb down ancient wisdom until it lacks all transformative power, offer yourself as a champion of the spiritual seeker while collecting their tolls and fairs along the way, and smiling about your wealth and empire, your vast Indian legacy, while doing jack shit about the conditions in India, the conditions in any location he exploits for his own gain, but does nothing to remedy. 

Just when you think you can dislike someone more, they show you just how deep that vacuous tunnel goes. He's just one more link in the chain of what has happened to Yoga over the last 50 years, to make it a sickened shadow of corporate and pop culture America, cashed in for sexual celebrates, chic studio celibates, trendy manufacturers, the at-the-moment thin and young and shallow. It makes me wonder all-the-more, "where is real Yoga hiding today?" 

Perhaps the Deepaks and Mastin Kips and Jois family and Back Bay Yogas of the world serve one important purpose: obscure Yoga's true body and spirit, so the sincere seeker will still have to seek hard, pay for it's true initiation. Sometimes, the degradation serves a higher purpose: behind the tourist-driven ruins, lays the garden of eternal wonders.

Vegan Seitan Stew

Vegan Recipe of the Week from the House of Mor-Gor

Using this cold and rainy day to make my Seitan Stew.
Want to make it for yourself? Here's how you do it:

1. Get your slow cooker! (I prefer to make stews in a slow cooker, the flavors come together better, but you can do it in a big soup pan if you want, just brown the onions, carrots, celery, mushrooms first, add the other ingredients, the liquid last, cook on medium until it comes to a boil, then med-low for another hour, simmer beyond that).

2. Saute 1 large yellow onion (diced) and 5 chopped (1/2 inch) stalks of celery, in 1 tbsp of olive oil, on the stove until the onion becomes slightly browned.

3. Take 1 small can of organic tomatoes paste, put it in a bowl with 3 cups of boiled water, 1/4 soy sauce--I use Braggs, 2 tbsp wine vinegar, 1 tbsp cumin powder, 2 tbsp smoked paprika, 1 tbsp thyme.

4. In your slow cooker, layer the food in the following order:

2 tbsp olive oil
1.25 pounds of potatoes (cut into 2 inch wedges)
8 ounces of Turnips (I cut them into "french fries")
6 carrots (cut into 3/4 inch pieces)
Add the sauted onions and celery
10 ounces of sliced white mushrooms
2 Cups of petite or regular size peas (I use organic frozen)
16 ounces of Seitan (make your own or use Upton's Naturals)
Add the tomatoes paste mixture

5. Fill the slow cooker with cold water so that the water level comes 1/2 inch from the top

6. Cover and seal

7. Cooking time: High for 5 hours and Low for two if you want it to eat it on the same day you make it. If not, it can go on med-low (not warm!) before you leave for work or before you go to sleep, and be ready to eat when you come home from work, or to put in the fridge and re-heat, on the stove, when you come home. On low it takes at about 10 hours to cook. This stew gets better the longer it sits so I will often make it the night before, put it in the fridge in the morning, then put it into a soup pan when I come home to cook it quickly for dinner.

8. Serve with bow-tie pasta (we use whole wheat), vegan egg noodles, french bread, French/Italian crackers, a scoop of vegan sour cream if you want to make this more "Eastern European."

Looking Down the Long Dark Highway

I just saw the last episode of Sonic Highways. If you haven't seen it, on HBO, I cannot recommend a show about the history of American music more. I wish it were longer, I wish they went to more cities, but 8 cities, 8 episodes, and you really get this connection of Americana-Folk-Blues-Jazz-Bluegrass-Soul-Rock-Punk-Hip Hop (the last one, of course, you know I hate) and just how much so many of these streams are connected, how much respect so many of the Punk musicians have for Americana and Bluegrass (which is where I've been the last 5 years of my life) music. 

Most powerful, the importance of believing in your dreams, following your creative dreams through, is so moving and essential, such a guiding message, and finding that dream in the cultures and contours of the USA, the good parts of it, where artists and writers and musicians and creatives all network together, create their own scenes, their own sounds and sights, it's such a powerful message for me, especially because of all the musical and artistic dreams I have had during my life that I let die, for other people, for other obligations, and never really believed in myself and my own vision enough to see into reality. I think that so much of this show came through in all of my drunken realizations and confessions and insights the other night, and have suddenly dumped the responsibility back on my lap again, challenging me to do something with these visions and dreams and ideas and make something out of them, something that is lasting and transformative and ME. And of course, here I am, wondering "yoga, novel writing, travel writing, poetry, cross genre, philosophy, music--mandolin, rest, blues guitar?---, art, vegan cooking, ceremonial magick" all these doors I've stormed open and then freeze in front of like a scared deer, like I can't go in without watching the others crumble. I think some people are fortunate enough to know what they are passionate about and then they do it, but for me, I have several things and I mourn the others dying whenever I give myself whole-heartedly to just one or two. And yet I know that, it's not what you fling at the castle walls that really matters, it's that you fling at all, well, and with all your heart and might.

I'm really protective of my time these next few weeks. It feels like I am so close to seeing inside of myself for the first time in a long while, and getting on path, making that leap, that charge, that does give me the focus and force to pick a path or two and really commit to it. When my energies are channeled into one direction, they are quite unstoppable. Leaving behind the fear and the anger and finding ways around the seeming obstacles ( i am NOT a people person) may not be as much of a challenge as simply trusting the path itself to provide the true way.

A long time ago, when Daoist Martial Arts were my life, my master told me, "If you trust in the Way, the Way provides everything you need for the journey." I have found this to count for just about everything I've ever fully given myself and my heart to, taken on to master.

So, yes, this show kicked my ass over the last eight weeks, and I feel so exposed and open to change, to following the flow of my changes and callings and see them through to a happy and stable and empowering life.

Today's darkness and isolation are welcome. Life is a long, dark highway, and the sound of your soul, is what you have to most learn to listen to and discern, follow.

 

“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your
thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your
consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new,
great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive,
and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed
yourself to be.” --Patanjali

Vegan Quiche

Pre-heat oven to 375

Cut into small pieces:
4 cloves garlic
1/2 Italian zucchini
1/2 red pepper
1 small vidalia onion

Salute in 1 tbsp of olive oil over medium heat, sprinkle with salt and pepper, cook until onion becomes translucent. When it's done, add 1/2 cup of water, 1 tbsp olive oil, set aside

In a blender, add:
1 package of silken tofu
1/4 nutritional yeast
2 ounces of soaked raw cashews (you can also use pine nuts if you choose)
1/2 cup Chickpea flour (or any gluten-free flour will do)
1 tbsp Turmeric powder
1 tbsp corn starch
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp thyme
The vegetable mixture from the pan

Option: I didn't do this today, but you can add 6 soaked and diced sun-dried tomatoes, 1 tbsp chopped fresh basil, 1/2 cup of Daiya or other Vegan Italian cheese.

Blend all ingredients in the blender on medium until smooth.

Spray the saute pan (provided it is oven safe) from before with olive oil. If you aren't counting calories then you can add in 2 tbsp of olive oil instead. You could also put parchment paper into a 9x9 pan, spray it, and pour the mixture in there, you can use quiche pans, you can also spray muffin cups and make these as muffins.

Add mixture!

Option: I didn't do this today, but you could add 1/2 cup of homemade bread crumbs to the top, thin tomato slices, chopped basil leaves, drizzle with olive oil. 

Bake in center rack at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. 

Note: Don't worry about the sides browning, they will brown early and then stop browning as the center catches up to the rest of the pan.

Let sit for 30 minutes

Serve with:

Dark, flavored coffee (with coconut milk creamer!)
Tomato slices
Toast with butter
Rosemary Home Fries
Vegan Sausage
All the above!

Neither Guest Nor Ghost

Today begins the last week of teaching for the semester. I have been fortunate enough to have had the time to stay home these last few days and let the withdrawal process pass. Every study I have ever seen on food addiction shows that the brain relates to food addiction just as severe as it does to Heroin addiction, so this has not been an easy last few days. I feel unready to go out into the world at this stage, especially into the midst of something that triggers my eating (academia) so severely, something I have woven into my eating problems, but I have no choice, it's going to be an easy week overall (student presentations, summaries, meetings, grading, final grades), and then I get a few days off, head to New Haven (CT) to visit the grandparents (which will more than likely cost me three days off of plan and diet), and then come home, get back into a groove, then we have a mini-vacation before Xmas (my present to my wife), and then Xmas itself, which will end up being a joyous time with family, but definitely off plan, eating and drinking, before I get to really focus and get deep into reclaiming my health and body back from all this fat and addiction and poor health.

Having time to reset the clock is really important. I feel like you need a lot of down time at first when overcoming an addiction, time to think about who you are and how you got here and what you are willing to do to change your situation. For me, I keep coming up with Yoga, that I used to be a very serious and intense Yogi, that I once wanted nothing and did nothing that interfered with my desire to be a Yogi long into the rest of my life. A lot of things changed that, my lifestyle and relationship status changed, and then I had to be social again, and then my time needed to be, I chose for it to be, divided up more fairly for others, and that is fine, it was fine, but unless you are on the path with another Yogi, it becomes hard to justify spending all of your time at class, reading about Yoga philosophy, going to events, going on retreats, saving to get to India, when you end up starving a non-Yoga relationship in the process. But I think I would feel this way if I did Daoist Martial Arts or Aikido or Kendo, anything else that would be a lifestyle to embrace, and not some part time thing I do everyday to keep my trendy sexy thing going. The big problem with all of this diet and health and body reclamation is I'm not a part-time, half-assed person, and I can't do this on a part time, half-assed basis, and now I find myself asking myself if I'm serious enough to risk losing a relationship I really enjoy so that I can be in control of my eating, exercise, and health. That's a tough question a lot of people have to ask themselves you find themselves in a lifestyle that is happy, in a relationship that is loving, but is going to kill them in a few years if they don't make major changes to how they are living. This current life is really loving and really supportive, but as someone who struggles with diet and health issues, who can struggle to be a shut-in eater and run his body to the ground, this is a life that supports that sort of action as well, I must admit that I am terrified that the start of a serious push to reclaim my diet and health, reclaim a Yoga practice, reclaim some personhood, is the beginning of the end of my relationship, and I have to ask myself if I would rather have 5-6 years of this relationship, and then die of heart and liver disease, or risk losing the relationship, and live into my 90's. The answer may seem obvious, but then again, what is a life without love? I wouldn't trade places with some of my perpetually single, unsexed, un-dateable, scared of intimacy, come home alone and eat Kitchari life for one minute, don't even get me started on the bullshit idea of a bramachara lifestyle. I see the damage it does to my friends, the mental damage, the loss of fire and life from their eyes because no one has gone down on them in 10 years, and that shit scares me just as much as death; they might as well not be alive at that stage they look so ghoulish and lost.

But back to me, this journey here, this path, I also know that I have unlimited control on how it works, the roles people play, and if I set up a life where my partner comes along, then that's the role I've asked her to play, if she leaves, I asked her to play that role as well. The role I want myself to play in my own life, that's the important thing here, that's what's at stake here, this is what I need to be focused on as I survive this Holiday month, as I pass through all the trials and obstacles to my momentum and inertia over the next month, and figure out how to make a new start, but a start that doesn't burn down the entire house I dwell in now, just gets rid of the ghost (guest) house I've made in the back, to hide in. Be neither a guest nor a ghost in your own life.