I used to listen to Alan Watts' radio show every day when I drove back to work from lunch in the late 1990s. (He was on a local station in re-broadcasts.) I only ever understood about ten percent of what he said but his presence was somehow mesmerizing.
Ah, you remind me of my Alan Watts story. Back in the early 1970s I was living on a 14 acre farm and reading Alan Watts all the time. I heard that he was going to be speaking at a small college about 50 miles away, so I made it a point to go. That summer was the very first time I had ever had a vegetable garden. On the day we drove to the college to hear Alan Watts speak, I went out into the garden and picked the biggest zucchini I had ever seen to bring to him. (I had never grown zucchini before, I guess I thought bigger was best!) I got to that college and asked if I could give Alan Watts the zucchini, and they said YES! I handed it to him and he looked at me quite surprised. I said, "It's a zucchini!" Hah! My one and only conversation with Alan Watts. I still laugh about it.
Love listening to the music of Vivaldi as I think about that quote and about Alan Watts and how his writing came into my life when I was 17 years old.
Haven't thought about Alan Watts for awhile, but he comes up again and again. My mother had a great interest in the writings of Alan Watts. I might have first heard about him from her. I also remember being introduced to The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are in 1967 by my college roommate when I was a freshman in college. My roommate was in her junior year. I read her paperback copy of the book. What a concept -- I'm God and so is everyone and everything else.
Interesting to remember that Alan Watts was a priest in the Episcopal church until August of 1950:
Our family attended a Episcopal church beginning in 1957. Before that we went to a Lutheran church. My mother was an Episcopal church secretary when she married my father. My father was raised Lutheran. They had both been divorced and were given permission by the Episcopal church to remarry in 1948 but attended the Lutheran church after their marriage. My mother stopped going to the Episcopal church after I stopped going in 1967. I wonder how much that had to do with her reading everything she could find about Alan Watts.
"The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance." "No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now." "I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is."
Oh how I love both the quote and the glorious music! I used to listen to Alan Watts tapes in my early twenties -- I can still remember him talking about Catholic mysticism and feeling for the first time that there was something beyond the dull religion that I had been forced to practice for my entire childhood.
I love the quotation!
ReplyDeleteI used to listen to Alan Watts' radio show every day when I drove back to work from lunch in the late 1990s. (He was on a local station in re-broadcasts.) I only ever understood about ten percent of what he said but his presence was somehow mesmerizing.
Ah, you remind me of my Alan Watts story. Back in the early 1970s I was living on a 14 acre farm and reading Alan Watts all the time. I heard that he was going to be speaking at a small college about 50 miles away, so I made it a point to go. That summer was the very first time I had ever had a vegetable garden. On the day we drove to the college to hear Alan Watts speak, I went out into the garden and picked the biggest zucchini I had ever seen to bring to him. (I had never grown zucchini before, I guess I thought bigger was best!) I got to that college and asked if I could give Alan Watts the zucchini, and they said YES! I handed it to him and he looked at me quite surprised. I said, "It's a zucchini!" Hah! My one and only conversation with Alan Watts. I still laugh about it.
ReplyDeleteLove the quotation, love the music, love them both together
ReplyDeleteBest advice I've heard in ages.
ReplyDeleteA truly Zen moment, Robin Andrea!
ReplyDeleteLove listening to the music of Vivaldi as I think about that quote and about Alan Watts and how his writing came into my life when I was 17 years old.
ReplyDeleteHaven't thought about Alan Watts for awhile, but he comes up again and again. My mother had a great interest in the writings of Alan Watts. I might have first heard about him from her. I also remember being introduced to The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are in 1967 by my college roommate when I was a freshman in college. My roommate was in her junior year. I read her paperback copy of the book. What a concept -- I'm God and so is everyone and everything else.
Interesting to remember that Alan Watts was a priest in the Episcopal church until August of 1950:
http://www.yin4men.com/files/b0f09249af99a337e7264d8fc826a694-129.html
Our family attended a Episcopal church beginning in 1957. Before that we went to a Lutheran church. My mother was an Episcopal church secretary when she married my father. My father was raised Lutheran. They had both been divorced and were given permission by the Episcopal church to remarry in 1948 but attended the Lutheran church after their marriage. My mother stopped going to the Episcopal church after I stopped going in 1967. I wonder how much that had to do with her reading everything she could find about Alan Watts.
"The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance."
"No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now."
"I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is."
Yes!
ReplyDeleteOh how I love both the quote and the glorious music! I used to listen to Alan Watts tapes in my early twenties -- I can still remember him talking about Catholic mysticism and feeling for the first time that there was something beyond the dull religion that I had been forced to practice for my entire childhood.
ReplyDelete