Mindfulness by John Kabat-Zinn

It's a little bit odd that Google (or God as somebody called it the other day given how many requests we make) is responsible for me actually making a little time to see what meditation is all about. I don't remember how this tipped up on my screen but the reality is that John Kabatt-Zinn is like a black belt meditation zen master or something and paid by Google for this session which is about as simple as it gets with a few thoughtful comments. Who knows you might find someone you don't recognise or even better forget someone you know quite well. I think most importantly is timing for this so if it isn't the right time then you know where to find it in the future (or not).


Correction: He implies he isn't getting paid in this. He's still like the Ultra fight Club champ of meditation. Soothing voice.

Must Affect The Brain In Some Way.

Classic. I remember the first time Michelle in the office near Bournemouth where we worked gave me an acid music cassette and I played it in my car for a few weeks on the daily drive on the M27 from Southampton. It was like nothing I'd ever heard and my brother thought it was his sanity he'd lost when I woke him up from a nap by playing it at home. I still like acid loops and riffs in music as it's a distinctive sound but I've moved on to the jazz of electronica otherwise known as minimal tech. Probably boring to most and so now I listen to the youngster rave on about dub and it's not the same is it? OK just kidding.

Via Richard Buchanan (I've forgotten your twitter account you use it so seldom)

McKenna On The Money #1

It seems like most of McKenna's stuff is turning up on Youtube these days as I just completed a marathon 62 item playlist set from one of his workshops recently. It's an awkward way to listen to a long long podcast but there are so many gems in there its worth the effort.

I intend to try and make clips of some of the shorter and more interesting soundbites that are more in the way of cultural observations as a 'gateway drug' to his longer sets like the one above which is touching, as I think it was organised by the Mathematician and friend Ralph Abraham at Berkeley where McKenna left his studies early in the late 60's and if I'm not mistaken Ralph still lectured. (Incidentally Ralph appears in the Spirit Molecule documentary too)

McKenna is unsurpassed when up against a home crowd of entheogen aficionados but here he wasn't always so sure of the crowd temperature and is thus slightly more cautious than usual though still connecting warmly with the mainly campus crowd. The full set is called Taxonomy of Illusion on Youtube.