Letter to Suzanne Stein in praise of her book New Sutras

Thank you for this amazing book.

                                                     “Mood pens” [30]

& alas I am born on the cusp of

                                                Lostand selfish

Though, if pressed, I’d have to side with

                      Lost

just as I feel more of a generation X

but then so many baby boomer icons

were really war babies

calling MLK and Malcolm X 

                     & Bob Dylan & Aretha Franklin

the silent generation

                        kind of cracks me up

So on safe trivia terrain

            of attempted entertain wit…

but yes your Baldwin quote on pg. 22

                   “any real change”

Reminders, reminders…

The do you see what I meanvoice

And the repeat after me voice

Possibilities of 

Mutualities

           Fragmentsflow,

                          flow    flow

fast                        slow

    playful       pain

detoxifying

                 chastising

                               politico

                      [redundant as breath

                       so the laugh takes a bath]

aggrandizement   arrondisement

                                         alternat

                                                ive

                                                   ing

past pssts & pests

                  of online presences

can I say soul

                     sustaining refreshing

image level for most of page 34

though last 3 lines intrude debased human transactional zone

“Bride staircase…”

                                35 the hedonic loop!

“faintng couch”

 All the warm sad mysteries bypassing my “analytical understanding”

“as we speak,” like burrowing or dreams, as soon, a trumpet scream

Surface another depth, depth another surface…

or as you say much better later---nothingness and appearance

to the extent inhaling is knots

         and exhaling untying

years                between           lines  

“…to lower one’s voice to raise it…”

The parable of radical and conservative

aphorisms on par with paintings…

Museum          lung     mind      

                       not confined

          to illusion of indoors..

divided from mature…

                       “soft science!” [39]

Noticing “indictable mint”. 39

       recalling “Christian-like mint” 35

something’s up with the mint…

When Suzanne Stein writes, “I stopped selling everyone short!” (40). I step back

and remember she spoke of a Memento-like backward frame of past & present

and make a note to look out for any indication at the end that is really the beginning

for a sign that maybe the speaker once did that, as if that is the crisis that precipitated the book—

But then, DOWN, DOWN, PLOT MIND!

And I love the [suggestive] space between—

“Suzanne, what are you doing to resist capitalism?”

And

“I dreamt someone rendered my silk slip in leather…”

Like making me want to add the word yummy to

                         osteophytic purply pink

the feeling of having been

         too naïve

for earnest kindness

The crescent moon water region Varuna

Nor is it safe to say Stein’s book enacts the “six modes of consciousness”

Affection, pitilessness, feeling of all destructiveness, delusion, disdain, and suspicion [42]

But it feels medicinal….  On 45 hysterical and relaxed….”in defense of nuamce”

Remember, remember—

“self hatred is a shield against coming to terms with the truth of itself…”

Liz Kinnamon refers to “lovably cliché” qualities of New Sutras…

                                          “develop a personality of your own”

Singing

Love without clinging…

          I think it’s a warm hearted book too [51]

The teaching of yoga…

        To get beyond mere patternings of consciousness

to pure awareness…

            even right perception from direct observation,

inference, or the words of others……a mere pattern

and Diane Wakowski says seeing goddess instead of enemies rewards her

               “this is a psychotronics”

Kinnamon says “choosing awe without forfeiting negativity…”

Laura Moriarty says, “one feels understood in a way that is loving but a bit scary.”

and I can’t say it any better….

Thank you for this awesome book Suzanne…

Chris