Excerpt from a Letter, May 2006

Allowing, letting, letting go, surrendering. I couldn't agree with you more. Our layers of stories, habits, desires, defenses, fears ... aka thoughts, can be pulled away to reveal the ever-present happiness which eludes no one, yet is habited by few. Awakening, awareness, enlightenment are acts of surrender not force, of shedding not accumulating, of vulnerability not defense.

"Vulnerable and protected" ... I look forward to finding synergy, simplicity there. Masks are fascinating, intellectual, creative catalysts for storytelling, perhaps for teaching and translating. I wonder how mask is involved in the arts of warriors. Is mushya shugyo a process of honing mask, or discarding it? What do warriors chose to be open and vulnerable to? I've found models in yoga (strengthful surrender), zazen (disciplined mindlessness), and other .... ummm .... more obscure practices, but failures to produce that balance can leave one feeling like a tin duck, at the mercy of the shooter's quality of aim. ... Hmm, it just occurred to me that shifting my thinking from defense to protection opens up possibilities :-) .

Your sailing/woman metaphors triggered some questions and thinking for me and I find I actually have a lot to say regarding that and feminine and masculine energy in sea imagery (and in general) ... but then I'd be rambling. Suffice it to say I'd been wondering at the caricature of the lone woman in sea imagery (lighthouse, siren, widow on the shore...), and what you wrote opened up a new image of the porousness of the feminine, so pervasive that language can only approach it in metaphor ... hmmm. I've been building a boat in my mind for some months, but I think it's actually a metaphor for a man (or maybe masculinity), and, notably, I'd never pictured its sails!