Thoughts

Image:
The beginning of a new cycle, taken from 30,000 ft.

Building the Light 
  
Now is a time to recall with gratitude how things have
grown and changed this year.
More than New Year’s Eve, when we
are so accustomed to think this way.
This is a time for the following:
during dawn and dusk to meditate,
be introspective as you gather your first morning thoughts,
light a candle or candles,
have yagyas performed (let me know if you need a connection),
renew your intentions (then burn them signifying past to present),
transform weakness into strength,
write morning papers…

Honor Nature at this time of alignment.
Take walks, touch the trees around you. 

This winter, Solstice occurs at 10:03 a.m.,
when the Earth’s North Pole tilts furthest
away from the Sun.
The Sun, as it gains its presence and now begins
to return our Northern Hemisphere to more light.
It’s thought of as the shortest day, longest night.
It’s a transition point. 

This is the beginning of a new cycle.
Solar is reborn and a rekindling of the
inner self.
Have the courage to steer through the dark and
open to the experience of the light. 

12.21.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com

Image:
864 threads of metallic fiber.
The open shed for hand weaving.

The Open Shed

This is what the channel looks like, that I feed the sustainable 
materials through. For each weft material, I meticulously
use this handmade (Thank you @DanielMoyer) 9-ft lease
stick through every other warp thread, to open it.
This way I can feed the material through. 
This is repeated for each weft material.
 
Honestly, if I had not learned the technique of
Vedic Meditation, I would not have found
the state of mind to do this form of weaving.  
My mind would be in battle with the physicality of it.
And I would have called it quits.
To experience the calm reality required to weave this piece,
it is necessary for our attention to be led through
all the subtle strata of creation that make us…
And to arrive at the subtlest layer of who
we really are… What we call our Being. 

Our experience in the field of perception shows that we
experience gross and subtle things. Our eyes see, our
ears hear sounds, we are touched by memories-stories.
We know that there are subtle fields beyond what’s on the
surface. Finer than what we can perceive. 

We also know, when we get activated by too much commotion
in our minds, our senses go into a hyper-alert state that
makes it impossible to simply Be. Loss of appetite, or the opposite.
Need for a drink or the opposite – head for bed.
These reactions activate the fight or flight chemistry within.

It’s Easy, It’s Simple, It’s Natural. 

We find that the regular practice of Vedic Meditation, together
with natural unstrained activity (weaving) in life, is a shortcut
to living a life of Being your pure self in the field of natural law.
Where the Open Shed is the pathway to the subtle layers of
what makes us relative in the field of all possibilities.
And creation becomes a nature stepping stone
in our life story.
We are all capable of getting there.  

12.14.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com

Images:
1. Single strand of Counterbalance
2. 7 Strands of sheath core fiber with Dry Cleaning Hangers 
3. Close-up of Counterbalance 

COUNTERBALANCE 

In 2010, my father came to NYC
to see my doctors, as his health was failing.  
While he would rest, I was developing textiles
and began weaving dry cleaning hangers.
 
Counterbalance was the reflection of what I pertained
from these doctors’ visits.  

My father’s nervous system was weakening.  

The nervous system of humans is the most complete system in all of creation. 

It stimulates the senses and the body
and brings the mind into contact with the world,
through hearing, feeling, seeing, tasting, and smelling. 

All of this moving-energy-in-action is a balancing act. 

Like the quest of quarks (energy)… consciousness conceives, constructs and governs all matter.
And it prints itself out as matter.

So when we begin to weaken,
our ability to be conscious weakens along with it.

My conscious mind connected with a thought
of wanting to see how small could I warp up the loom
and weave these misshaped pieces,
depicting the frailty of the spinal column
which houses the wires of the nervous system. 

It was while observing this decline, I recognized 
my own anxiety and frailty in coping. 

This is how picking up a practice,
that produces an experience of our waking
state of mind — that will help us be rested, observant,
sophisticated in thought processing and a joyful person
to be around — is essential, as we age (evolve).  
I realized, as long as my mind was discontented,
it would continue to be active. 
And I would become exhausted, begin missing things
in business and be cranky to be around…

Counterbalance is the wonderful weight of the
Vedic Meditation practice,
balancing the activities of the body and mind. 

12.07.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com

Images:
1 Blue Square – woven Mylar Balloons
2 Knotted Spectrum – strips of recycled textile samples from Luum
3 Abundant Reflections – woven recycled Mylar Balloons

Creation Roots 

Creation is the source of all life;
and for many, our life’s work centers on creative endeavors.  
The Veda, the body of knowledge from India, dating back 5,000 years,
from which we have yoga, Vedic Meditation, Ayurveda
and many eastern philosophies,
describes the laws of Nature by which all of life is governed…
Creation is merely one of the governing principles — then 
there’s maintenance and then there’s destruction.

We all relish a deep meditation over a thought-filled meditation. 
We all want to feel the frictionless flow of time whisking by
without all of the thoughts.  
It’s the thoughts, we realize, that cause the friction. 
Instead of leaping into the unknown and not worrying
about the outcome. We begin to react
and intellectualize our behavior. 
Going against the laws of Nature. 
When we resist, it will lead to discomfort.
This is one of the markers, indicating that we have stepped 
out of the flow. Once out of the flow,
we find ourselves either in…
Maintaining the ever-repeating known or
in destruction… Removing irrelevancy.

When we allow ourselves to be in the vast organism
that we are and to take one step after another into the unknown… 
only then will we realize why we are there.  
The flow of Nature is always giving.
Our mission in life is to give to ourselves, to 
others, to our families, to our friends. 
Being aware of our hesitation, losing our enthusiasm,
is a signal to look deeper.
Resisting this is resisting change. 
In turn, this will invite suffering.

Expand the view and see how 
destruction is part of progressive change. 
Allowing the cycles to play out, to show us
what we need to see at any given time.  

Enabling new information to be put into action,
to engage ever more fully in a creative life.   

11.30.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com

Images:
1-3 Island Totem Skidaway, 2025
Sheath core warp, recycled
Mylar balloons and dry cleaning hangers


TOTEM TRANSFORMATION

This week of gratefulness began months ago
when a friend asked for a weaving for their
sanctuary on Skidaway Island,
where their family would gather for Thanksgiving.

Island folk have a certain bond,
a special relationship, especially when it comes to the water. 

We all collect Mylar balloons from the beaches of fire island and my
dharma, ever since I was a wee little one, was to protect the water. 
Never keeping the water running while brushing my teeth…

So, no surprise when I saw all these battered
mylar balloons washing up on the beach,
I would grab them, primarily to
keep the waters clean of them.

Then my awareness kicked in and I realized I could weave them. 

Wire Hangers from the Dry Cleaners had been an obsession as well.

So I collect them, and thanks to many friends near and far, I receive
nice bundles for my weavings.

Transformation of materials has also been an obsession.
A priori knowledge between material transformation
and meditation transformation
is an alchemy that I look at on a daily basis. 

There is so much around us that can be reused. 
Weaving, like meditation, when firmly rooted
and done consistently, settles the mind.

Happiness emerges when we settle the mind,
first on the gross level,
by doing our 2 x a day practice. 

Weaving, on a subtle level — when I see the alchemic qualities of the 
materials turn from something on a gross level into something on a 
subtle level, after being cut and woven into a piece — brings pure joy.
 
Also recognizing that the consistent practice 
of both meditation and weaving brings about
stability, organizing power, perfect orderliness, infinite creativity.  

All aspects of the excavation process that happens in our daily 
meditation ritual. 

On an aspirational level, I am not only helping our dear planet 
and water by cleaning it up,
but also by transforming materials into works of beauty that
can be shared with my friends and family members.

For this I am truly grateful. 

11.23.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com