"This mind of mine, a wild and rampant elephant,
I'll tether to that sturdy post: reflection on the Teaching.
And I shall narrowly stand guard
That it might never slip its bonds and flee."

--The Way of the Bodhisattva by Shantideva

Email: wildandrampant.elephant [at] gmail.com

The Elephant Twitters
The Wild Elephant...

    follow The Elephant on Twitter

     

    The Herd
    Coming Soon.

    Right now The Elephant is solo

     

    An Elephant Never Forgets

    Archives

    Wild and Rampant Thoughts

    Monday, February 23, 2009
      song of the week - a place to hide by white lies
    Tuesday, February 10, 2009
      song of the week - sad sad city by ghostland observatory
    "Outerspace, it's a lovley place,
    long lost love in flower vause,
    laying on the floor shatterd, battered and bruised."

    I wish I could dance like this guy.

    Sunday, February 08, 2009
      outside a bar last night
    At 1:30 a.m. on the curb in front of the bar, ready to go home...but kind of hungry

    Wild Elephant: Hey how much for that whole pizza?

    Russian Immigrant Pizza Dude: $7, you want one?

    Wild Elephant: Sure, you got a cheese?

    RIPD: Let me check [shuffles through all his Pizzas]. No man all I got is beef and pepporni.

    Wild Elephant: Awww, no thanks man.

    RIPD: It's beef you can eat that.

    At this point I wanted to educate him to the fact that I am not Muslim, I am supposed to be Hindu, that I don't eat pork because I don't like the taste, and that I prefer to avoid ground beef because multiple cows are involved. But before I could...

    Flirtatious Girl Who Used Her Large Chest to Get Me in to Previous Bar: Hey come inside with me [as she grabs me]

    Wild Elephant: No, [our mutual friends] are all inside but I think I am calling it a night.

    Flirtatious Girl Who Used Her Large Chest to Get Me in to Previous Bar: Oh no are you sure [big hug]? Good luck on your race. Find me on Facebook tomorrow.

    Wild Elephant: I will. Have a good time in there.

    Then I checked my text messages

    Wild Elephant's Ex-gf: Somebody insulted me tonight and you weren't here to defend me. One of my friends defended me but sometimes a girl just wants her superhero and not a fill in.

    Sigh.
    Monday, February 02, 2009
      song of the week - lovers in japan by coldplay
    This song soothes my elephantine heart. It makes me feel like running endlessly, heedless into a sun. I need this kind of feeling with the marathon approaching...

    Wednesday, January 28, 2009
      my campaign poster...
    ...if I was running for President
    Tuesday, January 27, 2009
      song of the week - ladies of the world by flight of the conchords
    In keeping with this week's theme...

    Monday, January 26, 2009
      assumes many forms...indulges in sex
    I have been intimate with a different woman every night for the last ten nights. I am not prevaricating, and I will confess too, that this has never happened before. I know. You must think my mind to be rampant and untethered and avaricious. A detail more relevant than the quantity of women I have been with is their diversity. Each woman has been almost completely unique. The one last night had long straight hair and was dressed like a character out of a Harry Potter book (which I feel compelled to point out I have never even read). Cosplay is not my thing but I was in to her innocence and had hope that magical things might happen when she used her wand. I saw a reflection of me in a mirror and I was wearing those circular dark-rimmed glasses.

    A couple nights ago I bedded this short spunky girl with wild curly hair who liked to intertwine her legs with mine as we sat on the couch. I just liked how she made me laugh which doesn't happen often anymore. I felt like the world was that couch and nothing that didn't lay on top of it or in between it's cushions mattered.

    Eight other women left their marks upon my soul or scrathces on my back and yet I don't miss them or feel any guilt over a one night stand. They were what I needed and I used them without attachment. I am hoping for number eleven tonight. The sage Yajnavalkya speaks in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad about men like me,

    The human being has two states of consciousness: one in this world, the other in the next. But there is a third state between them, not unlike the world of dreams, in which we are aware of both worlds, with their sorrows and joys. When a person dies, it is only the physical body that dies; that person lives on in a nonphysical body, which carries the impressions that determine his next life. In this intermediate state he makes and dissolves impressions by the light of Self.

    In that third state of consciousness there are no chariots, no horses drawing them or roads on which to travel, but he makes up his own chariots, horses, and roads. In that state there are no joys and pleasures, but he makes his own joys and pleasures, In that state there are no lotus ponds, no lakes, no rivers, but he makes his own lotus ponds, lakes, and rivers. It is he who makes up all these from the impressions of his past or waking life.

    It is said of these states of consciousness that in the dreaming state, when one is sleeping, the shining Self, who never dreams, who is ever awake, watches by his own light the dreams woven out of past deeds and present desires. In that dreaming state, when one is sleeping, the shining Self keeps the body alive with the vital force of prana, and wanders wherever he wills. In the dreaming state, when one is sleeping, the shining Self assumes many forms, eats with friends, indulges in sex, sees fearsome spectacles. But he is not affected by anything because he is detached and free; and after wandering here and there in the state of dreaming, enjoying pleasures and seeing good and evil, he returns to the state from which he began.

    Tuesday, January 20, 2009
      song of the week - empty by ray lamontagne
    Because a cup must be emptied several times over before the last time you fill it.



    "Well I looked my demons in the eyes,
    laid bare my chest, said 'Do your best, destroy me.
    You see, I've been to hell and back so many times,
    I must admit you kind of bore me.'"
    Tuesday, January 13, 2009
      00
    I just received my double zero creds, my license to kill. Each zero represents a heart I took, ones filled with love for me. I will tell you about the second one, the one that solidified my status as a soulless bastard. She was a lovely girl. She wore her heart on her sleeve and spontaneously closed her eyes whenever she smiled and laughed aloud. She did a little dance every time she said her nickname for me and really truly inexplicably believed I was the hottest guy she had ever seen. She was smart too. The kind of smart that doesn't see they are smart...which is the best kind. When she saw the end was upon her she asked "why?" I told her, "because I love you." She replied, "I know...its because I didn't hold up my end of the bargain." I didn't say anything to that. Fate is what it is. You reach for explanations but all you find is a cold glass of whiskey at the tip of your outstretched hand. Her body is still cold. I came straight to confession. May God have mercy upon my soul for now I am lost.
    Sunday, January 04, 2009
      song of the week - love that girl by raphael saadiq


    Sometimes you just lose sight of what it should feel like
    Sunday, December 28, 2008
      year end haiku
    Time sweeps me aside
    From the edge I look back in
    I never mattered

    -

    Albino squirrel
    Saw you while eating breakfast
    Is your nickname "ghost?"
    Tuesday, December 23, 2008
      song of the week - we own the sky by M83
    Wednesday, December 17, 2008
      three years later
    I shouldn't have written her after these three years. She tells me she's engaged to someone who likes science fiction and has gotten her into it despite her best efforts to resist. If only I liked science fiction less it might not sting so bad. She knew what she was doing though. She always was cruelly poetic that way, her emails standalone works of art. Like the time she sent me that random picture of her gazing off into the distance just before she knew we weren't going to speak again. I knew that picture was the end. Now I recognize that I'm one of the final five. I wish I could go back to before the music began playing in my head.
    Wednesday, December 03, 2008
      song of the week-brooklyn we go hard-jay z ft santogold
    Tuesday, December 02, 2008
     
    The bone above the right tusk has a chronic infection. The loss of structural integrity is witnessed as a blackness that surrounds the infected roots. The mighty crown offered no defense. The two root canals offered only brief respite. Sometimes its like that. The blackness wants what it wants. If I pull the tooth out the hole it will leave will be un-fillable. If I leave it in and pursue a surgical approach the contagion may spread. The darkness has already spread to my mind though. It envelopes my every waking thought.