Thoughts

Torah Series Weaving 
Made from recycled Torah scroll
saved from the landfill
and dried parrot tulips coated with silicon

Seeing Beauty in Everything

The daily news can be excruciating. Creating
fear and anxiety in our nervous system with 
all of the unknowns.  
What is happening cannot be ignored. 
We must do all we can to support
ourselves and human(kind).
see #below.
And CREATE!
This is the reason to share beauty in everything
and to keep our physiologies upbeat.
And HYDRATED!

Happy Valentine’s Day!
A day not unlike every day, to share love with all.
Whether it’s flowers or Chocolates…
I share these flowers.

This Torah portion, Lev. 17-19 describes 
young women, cleanliness
and sexuality.
Where is the discussion of elder women?

Like what is happening in today’s climate—
lgbtq, immigrants, women’s rights,
you name it… could all be forgotten.

We all need to stabilize. 
The release of stress is physical.

Physical activity causes
mental activity.
It’s the quality of the stress that
structures the mood of the mind.

Mind can’t have a mood 
on an abstract basis.

If one is guided by thought,
then one is completely misled.

In meditation we release stress 
by not paying attention to all of those thoughts. 

So in our active state we can see clearly
the actions we want to take.

We don’t act on our thoughts that
arise during meditation.

When we want to act, we consider it 
on the level of commonsense afterwards.

CREATing beauty, of withered
and gorgeous remains,
symbolizes the beauty we all carry
within us. 
For wisdom will not be forgotten.

Let’s create, let’s act with stability.

#Free Arts NYC
#Arts for Art
#Lawyers for Good Government
#Glad Law 
#Transgender Law Center
#Earth Justice
#Center for Reproductive Rights

02.16.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com

Close up of Weaving commission started 8 months ago.
Made from recycled paper materials,
saved from the landfill
48″ h x 256″ w

Being Thinking Action

This woven sculpture started a year ago.

That’s 730 meditations ago, in terms of being a 
meditator with a 2 x a day practice. I can’t brag 
that I have never missed a practice, like David 
Lynch. RIP.  But I can say I have done at least
700 🙂 most years.
Like weaving, meditation helps us in the stabilization
of our nervous system.
Our world needs to stabilize.
Let’s start with ourselves.

Everything comes in layers.
Especially weaving.
In Meditation, there is no getting
around or ahead
of it without doing the practice.

The layer of Being, in weaving parlance,
is the foundation. For this weaving…
It’s the frame, the warp and the weft. 
The Being layer is who we truly are, in our
least excited state.

The thinking layer is based on Being.
In order to think, we have to be conscious.

In the creative weaving process, thinking is
the selection of each weft strand and weave
structure that will make up the piece.
Without that, there wouldn’t be a piece of art.

Happiness comes from our direct contact with Being.
If our Being is stable, our thinking will be stable.
If we are not truly thinking about the active part
of our lives, 
we are simply Reacting to what’s happening, without 
awareness of what we are thinking.
This happens when we are filled with stress. We
are unaware of the stress that we 
hold onto.
In the weaving process, this happens when
we don’t take our time to build and make each
layer work as one together. We aren’t organized.
Like our thoughts…
they become jumbled and we can’t focus. 
We become messy and distracted.

As we integrate a stable Being with the thinking layer,
our thinking becomes
clearer and more creative.
And from that, our action becomes more
effective.
These layers, like the weaving, cannot be independent
entities. 
The active layer in this weaving is the 
grand texture that is added as the last
process. 
Like the last Active layer in
this weaving… it becomes the true Being 
of the work. Like ourselves.
I simply had to take the 
time to make the strands long enough,
to create the texture that creates the 
essence of what is.
Like meditating… We take the time to 
integrate our Being our thinking and
our actions.
So the outcome is what we want in our lives…
Our true sense of Being.

02.09.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com

Weaving from recent India trip entitled
”Ganga, Jan. 2025”, woven from recycled paper strips.

Lila = a play or divine story

You can’t make up what we hear, feel and see 
each day in our world news.  These days, many
meditators find it harder and harder to
simply sit and do their practice and get
to that state of Samadhi=no mantra/no thoughts
because of the theatrics going on all 
around us.
It feels more interesting to interrogate our
selves with watching the actions of others that
create their own narrative/story, which reminds me
of Epic dramas like Ramayana or 
Mahabharata. Or passages of Exodus,
with Moses and Pharaoh negotiating for
food and the first born sons.

The thing is… every time we sit to meditate, we
reset our Dharma. 
Dharma is our true sense of Being. 
If you are feeling lackluster… It’s best to get to
your practice.  2 times a day.  Simple and Easy.
Our Dharma is in 
constant flux… it’s dynamical.
We want to rid our core of the detritus we 
accumulate in our day to day activity.
So we meditate to clear our minds; we 
feel settled and happy.

Like Weaving… Each time I sit down at the loom
or work on a piece of art,
my Being is reset and I learn something new. 
It brings me joy.

This past trip to India was more challenging
than any other trip I have taken.
Maha Kumbh Mela was eye opening, beautiful in
many ways and intense by sheer numbers.
As I ponder what
divine story the trip held for me,
along with this weaving woven at
the side of the great Ganges, I see our lives
are plays. Stories to be told. The more we activate our
lives with our least excited state (meditation) and
our active eyes open state, the more  
Lila Shakti = Play Power we have, 
to enjoy our lives and to tell our stories.
Creativity is a prime product of our practice.
Let’s Activate that.

02.02.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com

Image from a new commission for an 8′ X 52″ woven recycled
dry-cleaning hanger strip weaving.  To be installed in February.

Meditation is the incubation of our brain.
It’s the perfect prototype for Creativity.
Have you ever read a book (or watched a movie)
for the second time and realized that
you hadn’t understood or caught what you
were reading and the second time around
you totally get it?

Creative processes are made up 
of examining problems. 
Our twenty minute twice-a-day meditation practice
allows the brain to subtly examine the problem. 
In our practice, we forget the problem and 
let go of all of our thoughts.
Truly… we can all let go of our thoughts!

In this incubation phase, comes illumination.
Somewhere a wellspring of our consciousness
solves the problems.  

I recognize this every time I begin a new weaving.  
While I have been weaving with recycled dry cleaning
hangers for 15 years, 
each time I begin a new weaving, the processes
and technique, concentration and my abilities
are stronger and
more resolute.
After 8 years of meditation,
Life, working, relating and
the weaving process becomes simpler. 
It feels like a light bulb goes on and I’m at ease
and happier. 
Like rereading a book. The clarity is much stronger.
And each strip that comes off the loom
is more beautiful than the last.
The difference is the meditation practice that I now 
live with. 

The restful quality of this practice gives
way to creative stimulation. 
Like a stone creates a gentle ripple in a serene pond, 
our daily choices can send waves of positivity into the universe.  
Our daily practice, settling the brain to incubate,
gives way for creativity, clear thinking,
a happy heart and to stabilize, illuminate
and permeate all that we touch.

01.26.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com

Full moon Image over the Triveni Sangam
a place to bathe and flush away the
old habits and mis takes of the 
intellect. 

Saddhus of the Niranjani Akhara
at a hosted dinner with Swami Kailashanand Giri
photo by Hardy Weaver

Out of the darkness comes Light!

The Triveni Sangam is the confluence of three rivers. 
The Ganges (Ganga), the Yamuna and the sacred Saraswati River.
In Prayagraj. 
The Ganga flows with clear water, while the Yamuna is greenish, The Saraswati has no color. 
Where the two colors flow together there is a myth – 
where the darkness and light meet-
when bathing there, you awaken your consciousness.   

The energy is palpable and the water
has no taste or smell. It actually tastes
like what I imagine chalk would taste like.
As it’s filled with particles, like silica, that leaves 
your skin feeling remarkably soft.  

The last 16 days traveling in India for an Advanced
Teachers retreat, and then going to both Varanasi and Prayagraj
for Maha Kumbh Mela 2025 and watching our Teacher
being inducted as one of 12 Mandaleshwars of our tradition, 
are memories of a lifetime.
All spent with dear friends and cohorts.

Traveling and camping in India takes
a certain amount of perseverance and 
patience.  Both adaptations that this meditation practice
has truly taught me. 
From there, with your meditation twice-a-day practice, 
You begin what can be described as the wringing out 
of old habits of the mistaken intellect and 
making a clearing in your nervous system
for joy in all shapes and sizes to emerge.
You become aware of the “I should do this” and
before you know it, you see the change
of “I don’t want to do that, but feel charmed
to do this”. 
No more dodging bullets, simply Being in the world,
making the decisions that feel right 
for what is necessary and helpful for yourself
and the Collective. 
Learning from other devotees of our tradition
and 
being around the families of India in such Abundance
was truly breathtaking.
Correct inquiry, and knowing
how to decipher what is right and
what is wrong at any given time… 
Q + A 
is the foundation of the teaching.

01.19.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com