Learning to hear it as music

It is as if each of us were always hearing some strange, complicated music in the background of our lives, music that, so long as it remains in the background, is not simply distracting but manifestly unpleasant, because it demands the attention we are giving to other things. It is not hard to hear this music, but it is very difficult to learn to hear it as music.

Christian Wiman

Hunger for Something

Sometimes I long to be the woodpile,
cut-apart trees soon to be smoke,
or even the smoke itself,

sinewy ghost of ash and air, going
wherever I want to, at least for a while

Neither inside nor out,
neither lost nor home, no longer
a shape or a name, I'd pass through

all the broken windows of the world.
It's not a wish for consciousness to end.

It's not the appetite an army has
for its own emptying heart,
but a hunger to stand now and then

alone on the death-grounds,
where the dogs of the self are feeding

Chase Twichell

Wiman on Incomprehensibility

The frustration we feel when trying to explain or justify God, whether to ourselves or to others, is a symptom of knowledge untethered from innocence, of words in which no silence lives, of belief occurring wholly on a human plane. Innocence returns us to the first call of God, to any moment in our lives when we were rendered mute with awe, fear, wonder. Absent this, there is no sense in arguing for God in order to convince others, for we ourselves are not convinced...

There is no clean intellectual coherence, no abstract ultimate meaning to be found, and if this is not recognized, then the compulsion to find such certainty becomes its own punishment. This realization is not the end of theology, but the beginning of it: trust no theory, no religious history or creed, in which the author's personal faith is not actively at risk.

Christian Wiman


The comprehensible slips away, is transformed; instead of possession one learns relationship, and there arises a namelessness that must begin once more in our relations with God if we are to be complete and without evasion. The experience of feeling him recedes behind an infinite delight in everything that can be felt; all attributes are taken away from God, who is no longer sayable, and fall back into creation, into love and death.

Rainer Maria Rilke - as quoted by Christian Wiman

...And that is where the joy came in.

Incurable and unbelieving
in any truth but the truth of grieving

I saw a tree inside a tree
rise kaleidoscopically

as if the leaves had livelier ghosts.
I pressed my face as close

to the pane as I could get
to watch that fitful, fluent spirit

that seemed a single being undefined
or countless beings of one mind

haul its strange cohesion
beyond the limits of my vision

over the house heavenwards.
Of course I knew those leaves were birds.

Of course that old tree stood
exactly as it had and would

(but why should it seem fuller now?)
and though a man's mind might endow

even a tree with some excess
of life to which a man seems witness,

that life is not the life of men.
And that is where the joy came in.

-Christian Wiman

Window in Time

The old windows drip. Surrounding me on three sides, I lay still in the moonlight a reflection of my waking self.

The bedroom was slapped onto the side of the house to raise it's market value. There is not much privacy, for them either.

The rain is relentless tonight. Once barking proud dogs, they now lay cowed in the street-lit shed. I wake many times in and out of various lives of questionable form and meaning.

For a moment I am the same as I was staring through that window. In what could be a memory, or could have been a dream, shadows of women are storing herbs and grains in large jars which slowly dissolve into the cupboard. They only emerge during sunset when the dusk intrudes on both sources of light.

I am the same as I was basking in the ray of light coming through the large sliding glass door. I am sharing the warm spot with Sambi, our black Labrador Retriever. Her name had been Sambo until my mom was told that it had a negative racial connotation. I was once envious of her four-legged life. I needed to understand her secret, take in the subtle exhilarants waiting beyond the backyard fence near the abandoned buildings and warehouse alleyways. Maybe dig a hole in the backyard and relish the cool earth on a hot day.

Vines hang down from the ceiling. Little plants are being raised in tofu containers and the water is draining through the punched holes. The electric light is a surrogate father until they peek through the window and delve into the universal soil of their kin.

Sapling

The Word of God may be likened unto a sapling, whose roots have been implanted in the hearts of men. It is incumbent upon you to foster its growth through the living waters of wisdom, of sanctified and hold words, so that is root may become firmly fixed and its branches may spread out as high as the heavens and beyond.

-Baha'u'llah



Taking root, satiated no longer, the rotten stump has finally released its burden and we realize the ontological bankruptcy. There is no more power that can be willed without a heavy dose of nausea. But here we are, every moment is a potential foundation for something.



The world's equilibrium hath been upset through the vibrating influence of this most great, this new World Order. Mankind's ordered life hath been revolutionized through the agency of this unique, this wondrous system-the like of which mortal eyes have never witnessed.

-Baha'u'llah



Something is happening in the world right now that is being overlooked by the news media and its obsession with the snarky politics born of a lower nature. It is being missed because it is taking root in the hearts and minds of the most vulnerable, receptive, and pure hearted among us, slowly maneuvering through the forgotten soil of forgotten potential, gaining strength in a process which is a reflection of the original divine impulse. It cannot be, will not be belittled, will not be disregarded as we disregard our corrupted leaders. Of what would be perceived as a threat to the decomposing heroes of world order, it is just beneath the surface.



A new life is, in this age, stirring within all the peoples of the earth; and yet none hath discovered its cause or perceived its motive...O friends! Be not careless of the virtues with which ye have been endowed, neither be neglectful of your high destiny. Suffer not your labors to be wasted through the vain imaginations which certain hearts have devised. Ye are the stars of the heaven of understanding, the breeze that stirreth as at the break of day, the soft-flowing waters upon which must depend the very life of all men, the letters inscribed upon His sacred scroll. With the utmost unity, and in a spirit of perfect fellowship, exert yourselves, that ye may be enabled to achieve that which beseemth this Day of God. Verily I say, strife and dissension, and whatsoever the mind of man abhorreth are entirely unworthy of his station. Center your energies in the propagation of the Faith of God. Whoso is worthy of so high a calling, let him arise and promote it. Whoso is unable, it is his duty to appoint him who will, in his stead, proclaim this Revelation, whose power hath cased the foundations of the mightiest structures to quake, every mountain to be crushed in to dust, and every soul to be dumbfounded. Should the greatness of this Day be revealed in its fullness, every man would forsake a myriad of lives in his longing to partake, though it be for one moment, of its great glory-how much more this world and its corruptible treasures!

-Baha'u'llah



There are no news cameras in the room where hearts are met, where intentions among enclaves are woven with the divine spirit into collective action. There are no cameras in the world that will capture the groundswell until it is sudden and shocking. The trust of God is in our hands, and as we build so shall we become the trust of God.

I fear that we will forget and lose our sight...

The sun is setting and we chase the Kingdom's shadow.

Disjoint

Mindful of the loneliness, Everything I love is so fleeting.

Who are you? So you are happy huh, sitting there in grave confidence, creating the stage for which people laugh in giddy relief? And you, always smiling, always playing the shallow yet lovable narcissist? You are excused, for now. And I, never making much of an impression, always distant (I am painfully aware), holding onto the moment with a white knuckle, too often sinking into a third reflection, cycling loneliness, alienation, love, contempt, respect, and despair.

The only language I speak in is salvation and tears. That is, when I am awake!

Too easy to shrivel up and release the form always being projected. Every comforting morsel is a mockery, an illusory attempt. Even writing these horrible words...A despicable mockery!

How can words capture a human being? Why do we feel that we are the only ones who are bewildered by the sheer enormity. All I want is to wipe away all defenses and be taken, with everyone.

Most aspiration is smitten with form, a tool of the spirit and a hologram otherwise.

Hidden Saga

We tend to forget whole sagas of ourselves. Either they get pushed away, or there is an ever so subtle change in focus and they drift, leaving behind some residue of opinion on the matter. Then one day, in a sudden, inescapable, and inconvenient moment...

Pulling up to the house of the sector Feast, it is early evening and the sunlight has faded just enough that the rich colors of this quaint Albuquerque neighborhood can challenge the tyranny of the dominant sunlight. Looking towards the door of the house, a small Indian lady with a warm smile is greeting people at the door. Planning to return the smile, I find her vaguely familiar, too vague and too familiar for comfort. Hmm, The moment has passed. I greeted her, but my thoughts were distant and my expression was probably blank. I walk in to a crowd full of people, some familiar, some vague...

Some people just give you an instant impression. As I look outside through the sliding glass door, I see what should be a normal middle aged man moving a chair and doing other normal things. But part of me knows that there is some issue with him, he seems to be avoiding the crowd. I can definetely relate to the social anxiety. There is something about his posture that...

Oh my God! Wait, could it be...(sigh) it is. And that was his mom. Oh my God, this can't be real. That has to be him.

I have been asked to read a prayer, but I am frozen. From the corner of my eye, I see him standing in the back as I start reading. Words evaporate out of the moment as I seem to be speaking them. Other prayers are said as a flood of emotions swirl, anger, sadness...I miss my mom. I want to give her comfort as her part of me faces this symbol of abandonment that is knocking down my doors. I am frozen. A long winded story is now being told about who the hell knows what...

The choices are clear, I can either avoid him by striking up a conversation with that person over there, or...okay lets do that.

Me: Hi, how are you

...(response)...

Me: I know I have met you before...

...(response)...

Hmm, that probably seemed a little over eager. Lets try him, we have known each other for a while, this might have potential.

.......

Or not. He Just turned away, okay, well I can't just stand in this living room and hide out. Screw it. I am going to face this thing head on.

Me: Hi Chris.

Chris: Uh, your Jason right?

Me: Yeah, how are you doing.

Wow, I am surprised by how warm my greeting was to him. I don't know if I really meant it or not.

Chris: I am doing well, wow, you've grown quite a bit.

Me: Are you, where are you living at? Do you live here in Albuquerque?

Chris: No I am living in Tuscon now, I just came to help my mom make her move up to Taos, She is the Indian lady outside.

I know that. she is the one who treated my mom like she was an inconvenience, an unworthy bride for her son. she was the one who tore you away from her...

Chris: We were here for the Gathering of Nations.

I remember once that she gave me a single marble for my 12th birthday present. I had hundreds of marbles already; one more was like a drop in the bucket. I remember that I had to put on a smiling face and feign excitement.

Me: Cool. Wow, Its nice seeing you guys here. What has it been, like 10 years?

Chris: Something like that, yeah.

Me: What are you up to these days?

I feel like we are two adults, with some mixed history, catching up on old times. This is definitely a change from the sorta fatherish sonish relationship before...
Okay, concentrate. He is saying something about working for a machining company, that he helped to grow it and then he trained people who became his replacements. I am not totally sure, just keep eye contact.

Me: Man, that's really messed up, so you help him develop the company, and then when you ask for more money, they replace you with the people you trained?

Why am I just repeating what I thought he just said? Maybe to let him know that I am paying close attention? I am starting to get nervous now.

Chris: Yeah man, but the experience was good. I want to get back to making jewelery full time. So what have you been up to?

Me: Well, um, I have been going to school for quite a while, I am actually getting ready to defend my thesis sometime in July."

Chris: what is your degree in?

Me: Well my focus has been in geographic information science, which is in the department of geography.

I have practiced how to present my studies to people. I used to just say geography, but people hearken back to their 5th grade days and assume that I spend sleepless nights memorizing capitals. That's pretty much what I thought until I found out about GIS.

Chris: What kinds of jobs are out there for that.

Another frequently asked question. My ego has learned to just assume that they are ignorant for not knowing that this is a fascinating and prospective field.

Chris: Is it mainly for the government?

Me: There's really a lot that can be done. Yeah, for the government but also the private sector. Um, I just interviewed with a company that does modeling for homeland security, they create probability scenarios, they essentially model all the different ways that certain key sites, like uh, you know military and also some political, are vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

Phew, that was convoluted, I am really starting to get nervous now, I know that he can see it too. I am wondering if he is proud of me. He looks a little bit nervous also. He is probably wondering what I am thinking about him, about this encounter. So far I haven't betrayed any hard feelings, I think.

Me: There are also a lot of jobs for environmental organizations, doing environment modeling, and compliance. Also with urban planning, disaster relief, stuff like that.

Chris: Wow, that's really cool. I always knew that you were smart.

Me: Yeah well..

Chris: Are you married?

Me: Yeah, that's my wife right over there. In the pink shirt talking to that lady.

Chris: Oh wow. That's really cool...well it looks like you have grown up to be a fine young man.

Me: Well, I don't know, we'll have to see about that.

A part of me hates when people make judgments about me after only a brief acquaintance or re-acquaintance, even when they are positive judgments. It is always based upon a superficial assessment of how I'm dressed maybe, the fact that I am married, the fact that I am getting a master's degree. These "stats" seem to suggest that I am a fine and wholesome young man, yet reality is always more mixed. I still have my issues, similar ones that I had before the "stats".

Nevertheless, a coating of ice is melting from my heart. He is truly happy to see me, and is truly impressed with how I have turned out. I can remember now what I loved so much about him. He was fun. He coached my Jr high basketball team, he collected sports cards, we went hiking, fishing, camping. He was often caring and mindful of what the family needed, he was industrious around the house, he was truly loving. Most of the time.

The last time I had seen him, he was barnstorming through the house, with that bandanna he wore when he was callous. His mom had wanted him to move back with her to Arizona; we were in Oregon. There had been fights, my mom had said some things that were harsh. Then out of the blue, when we were both gone, he had left. Only a note.

And that's how I had remembered him. Selfish, aggressive, somebody who had abandoned my mom. There had been no closure. Everything that I had loved about him had been inaccessible until now. A hidden saga of wonderful memories had been tainted and locked up. As I look at him now, I love him, and I know that he loves me, and I know that he knows that I love him.

Chris: And how is your mom?

I knew this would come up sooner or later.

Me: She's doing good. Yeah, she's going to school right now, studying electrical engineering.

Chris: Wow, that is a change...So is she still married to that guy, what's his name McGettigan?

Me: Yeah, it's going well, they are doing well.

Wow, that this is surreal. But nice, we are both smiling, just need to keep up the good feelings.

(time passes)

Me: This is my wife, Sjona.

Sjona: Hi, how are you doing.

Chris: Hi, I'm Chris.

Me: I knew him a long time back, we haven't seen each other for like 10 years.

Okay, I'll tell her who he is later

Chris: Yeah, I haven't seen this guy for a long time, I was actually married to his mom.

Sjona: Oh, ok. Wow that's cool that you guys have met up again.

Chris: You have found yourself a good catch. He was always really smart, and he had a lot of friends.

Well, actually, I didn't really have any friends most of the time we were both in Oregon. My weekends were spent alone, looking out the windows into the eternally gray Oregon skies. Oh well.

Chris: I remember that we would go riding our bikes along the beach. Do you remember that?

Me: Yeah yeah, that was fun.

I remember the beach, but I don't actually remember the bikes...

(time passes)

Me: I hope that your business idea works out. That would be really cool if you could go to Hawaii and do that.

Chris: Yeah, who knows, you know, I have a dream at least. Only God really knows what we are doing. I now know the reason I came here tonight, it was to see you again.

Me: Yeah, same here. It's funny, I wasn't actually wanting to come tonight, I, well I knew that I needed to come.

(phone numbers are exchanged. We hug and then we leave)

As I think about him now, I can finally understand that we are both human and we have both made mistakes. Many of my fondest memories involve him. He is like my brother. It didn't work out between him and my mom...

And that's okay.

Dishes in the Eye of the Storm

Cutting through the tomato and hamburger infusion of grease and gristle. Hands scrubbing not fast enough, but content, slopping around the sink full of brown-water mystery chunk. It's disgusting, that is true. But I am happy.

I remember the first times, I would cry and whine as my mom insisted with the horrible yellow gloves locked and loaded. It all seemed so cruel, so unnatural then, when so many things were on TV or alive in my closet ready colonize the floor. Sometimes my step-dad would offer to help after about 20 minutes of melodrama. Clever as I was, I would suggest that the best way to get done would be to hide some of the dirty cups and dinnerware among the mess of junk and appliances that always seemed to accumulate in every corner of the house."No, we're going to do it all, it's no big deal", he would say with a hint of disgust at my worthlessness. He never seemed to fully realize that I was a kid, and therefore he would hold me to the standard of an adult. I hadn't realized that he wasn't a kid. It made no sense why he wasn't interested in fooling my mom to get out of work. It turns out he was the kid however. Pouting around the house, going out to the truck to smoke a cigarette, cursing at the suggestion of my mom to take out the trash, donning the bandanna when he wanted to be an independent badass. Leaving my mom...as she had left the man before him, for him.

What is it that makes me so uncomfortable with dishwashers? My younger self is still steaming with jealousy, and is incredulous that I take such a miracle machine for granted. I often feel compelled to use it because it saves time, but I look forward to the situation in which it can't be used, like in the case of big greasy pans which cannot be processed so efficiently. I know it's going to be nasty, and it is. But to actually get it clean again, after such a feast that should rightly require a sacrifice or two, the process is deemed worthy to be an analogy for the soul.

A very different situation, with a very different response, and no more than a day might have separated the two. When my dad asked for a glass of water, I jumped up and got it, no questions asked. Likewise, when he asked me to wash the dishes, the same action applied. It wasn't so bad though, dishes didn't pile up in his house. In fact, nothing piled up. Two forks, two knives, two plates, a pan, maybe two bowls, that's about all that would need to be cleaned. It was not something that required a willful forgetfulness of the precious time I was missing (and when there is a clear bedtime, you better believe time is precious!). It was over and done, and I felt like a king, not a crybaby. Oh, there were never those horrible yellow gloves.

A Heart is Beating in the Dark Chilled Night...

Close my eyes and go to sleep...

A heart is beating in the dark chilled night, rhythmically, frantically, and without permission. It is alone, and in this moment there is life. Amazing, what are the odds?

From a birds eye view, pan out into a speck, the scariest hilarity that I can think of is a brief pondering of an infinite universe. To scary to maintain, to epic to handle and categorize, but yet there is life, what are the odds?

In every body, a heart is beating in the dark chilled night, rhythmically, frantically, and without permission. They are alone, and there is life in this moment, and these moments cannot be captured. Amazing, what are the odds?

We are alone. But we have each other to be alone with. If only we are brave enough to impale ourselves onto the spears of our intimacy fears. To finally confront, and to keep confronting those parts of ourselves that insist, scratch, scream, tear, bite, ravage, spit, sputter, spittle, spatter, spite, anger, agitate, and lobby for the advancement of the cause: a stoic self perception of being distant and autonomous. This is incredibly difficult and the odds are remote.

Broken into my waking...

to find a warm body and two hearts beating in the dark chilled night, rhythmically, frantically, and without permission. We are alone and there is life, and we are in love in this moment. And in this moment we have captured each other. Amazing, what are the odds?

Commentary on "until you find an angle or two"

It occurred to me (through a friend) that my last post, "until you find an angle or two", was written in an overly cryptic manner, reflecting a context that was sensible only to myself. I decided to write a commentary on it because I feel that the concepts are more universal than the writing was.

The main theme of this post is the often cyclical journey of spirituality. We can only hope that we spiral upwards.

How can is act decisively in eyes that stare form other angles?

Is refers to what is, the steady flow of day to day life. In my mind, it carries an aura of mediocrity, of existing in a comfortable bubble. Day by day, week by week. There are no decisive steps, no grasping of true conviction. Therefore, Is can be swept away in a myriad of different thought processes, stare through eyes from other angles.

Why does is always assume there is time to spare?

A continuation of mediocrity. It is easy to assume that we have all the time in the world. With every passing day, we lay our heads to rest; always assuming there will be many more tomorrows to make up for what we didn't do today.

There is no more time, there is no more spare.

Kind of a wakeup call. True spirituality doesn't live in the future, it is right now, or never.

Despair is, is it not? Unless there is time, In which case is can continue watching on the sly.

If judged with urgency, we realize with despair that Is is the world of unreality, the precious hours that slipped through our fingers. At this point we can either confront it (next part), or we can ignore and forget it-believing the misguided notion that there is time to spare. The relative world will filter back in almost unnoticed, on the sly.

Is, the pretense past. Or is the pretense past? In any case (and at this point is can only hope) the scraping is enveloping the desolate heart; appealing to, or emoting into that rugged gatekeeper of childhood; morphology of dreamscape.

This refers to the next stage (at least for me) of despair, after I have realized the Pretense of Is (maybe, Is is tricky, hence the statement and the question). It becomes a very intense, tumultuous, emotion time for me. The scraping of the desolate heart. It reminds me of mortality, and rotting flesh, which to me is all tied up in the landscape from which I came and to which I will return. It is tied up in memories of my childhood, which takes on a mythical aura. The landscape of my childhood has morphed into a dreamscape.

Unexpected, unassumed, and unheralded. That waffling film is being grasped. Being, with the orthodox vantage, sees is clinging, but whatever. That's and was.

Being in this case refers to a spiritual state in which all directions are merged into the eternal present. Where there are no longer any angles, only the oneness of God. The waffling film refers to that thin veil that blinds our eyes, and it is being grasped, crumpled into our fists. There is still a scent of Is, which is clinging, but it is insignificant.

Being...absolute clarity, unflinching vision, pure spirit, nowhere and no chance to run. Unless you find an angle or two. Is, is it not?

The world of Being is very hard to withstand. It requires constant and continual vigilance and self-sacrifice. It is easy, even when you are maintaining that state, to fall off your guard. To let songs slip into your head that seem perfectly rational, and little comfortable, and are very interesting angles that can take root and be justified with time. Is, is it not?

unless you find an angle or two

How can is act decisively in eyes that stare from other angles? Why does is always assume that there is time to spare? there is no more time, there is no more spare. Despair is, is it not? Unless there is time, In which case is can continue watching on the sly.

Is, the pretense past. Or is the pretense past? In any case (and at this point is can only hope) the scraping is enveloping the desolate heart; appealing to, or emoting into that rugged gatekeeper of childhood; morphology of dreamscape.

Unexpected, unassumed, and unheralded. That waffling film is being grasped. Being, with the orthodox vantage, sees is clinging, but whatever. That's and was. Being...absolute clarity, unflinching vision, pure spirit, nowhere and no chance to run. Unless you find an angle or two. Is, is it not?

Broken Into My Waking

A loom to climb upon between layers of lint and dust atmosphere, a toy to fight for-cry over. Big energetic snow dog, tail wagging against the flattened tire, is only a symbol of much needed warmth. "Your teeth are strung with tendons, does this mean you have to leave? No, please, don't 'leave', run away, into..."

The sky dominates the vast, empty, long transformed, shrubby excuse for land. Broken and vulnerable. Streaks of light discover themselves illumined orange on the abrupt white peaks, reflecting and being absorbed into the supple and defiant storm clouds. Abyss. Isolated rain bursts alternate preseance of the horizon. The dream landscape has escaped its prison, has broken into my waking. Turned inside beyond.

"Is the spiritual world this beautiful?"

"Can it really be this lonely?"

The Rambling Brink Mirage

slog along towards the brink; "just over the hill now". Through the footsteps in the wilderness. Towards "I am what I am to be". Formation of energy- solid grip of sand.

"That is safe, there must be a meticulous foundation, so much wasted time, how depressing, what a scandalous thought."

"What is scandalous is your envy of freedom and reliance."

"oh is that so? You mean reliance on God? You have no idea my tests!"

"Sorry, I didn't mean..."

"No, I can be a little dramatic, and...I'm sorry too. It's just that..."

"What?"

"Well, I hope this doesn't sound pretentious, but they are a very peculiar"

"Your talking about tests?"

"Yea, I have never known anybody else who has had them. I suffered almost as much from, you know, the lack of understanding, um...the misguided diagnoses, the cross-eyed looks, as I did from, from the test itself."

"I take it by your use of the past tense that these tests are past?"

"Well, sort of, ok. My original plan was, and I know this sounds cliche, but it was synergy. There were no details, but I knew that the world would bend to the spirit that I was tapped into. That's it. Now when the tests came, and the particular situation circumstance of these were not important, though I did think so at the time, it was more like what I can describe as a conceptual catch 22 way of addressing the moment...of which any circumstance could be the culprit. Anyway, I prayed and prayed, screamed, and when others were around, inside. It was really the only hopeless time I have felt in my life."

"Was anybody aware of what, or, how you were doing?"

"Well again, either I couldn't verbalise, or it just wasn't like other...um...I have never really heard of being stuck in competing conceptual, um, mindsets when being just in a regular circumstance, does that make any sense?"

"Sort of. Your descriptions are kind of vague, I wish it made more. "

"So do I. Thank you for listening to me, I wanted to answer your original question about still being tested, um we were talking about reliance on God and tests in relation to freedom. I got over this test by accepting that I couldn't apply my enlightenment to the world how I had thought. I think it was a prayer by the Ba'b that did it. I forgot which one, or what exactly it was about, but I got from it that I needed to let go of my need for synergy and freedom."

"That seems kind of counter-intuitive. It seems like those are things you would want"

"Well, I know. It was more like, I needed to accept my limitations, build within them, and somehow leverage them for my long term growth. I felt that maybe I could, well, I realized that I couldn't act with the freedom and spirit, even charisma, that I might have wanted, but I could do the things that don't require that so much. More things to do with patience and diligence. Such as reading, studying, planning, and these naturally applied to what I pursue now, from going through school, to being available, maybe not effective, but available and present, for faith activities, to carry out the plan. I think getting married is a part of that. It allows me to be more comfortable, and time, to be myself, to share with someone, and to love someone beyond the remote ideal of love for mankind."

"And to be loved."

"yes. Absolutely...I want to say that how you approach life is very inspiring to me."

"Thanks"

"I am sorry for my condescending tone earlier. Part of it I think is jealousy. I seem to have developed a lack of patience for those attitudes that I have resigned to be, well what I think is not possible for myself. I think that this mode I have been in, now I am near the brink. Soon I can be the final definition of what I have settled for desperately. But now I think, why settle. It has almost become too easy to fall back on the crutch of what God has ordained, in my view, that I cannot do, and that I can. I don't feel that I am ready to form."

"Hmm, I am glad you are realizing this, though I am not totally clear on what you are talking about exactly, a lot of your descriptions are kind of vague."

"I know, they were more for me to better understand this brink that I am supposedly standing on. Thank you for listening, for drawing me out and asking questions. It is not always easy...Some people can easily express themselves. I need people to ask questions, to dig deeper."

"I didn't do very much."

"But you did. You listened, and I don't know where this torrent came from."

"I am not quite sure what you mean by 'being on the brink of form."

"It doesn't exist, it is a mirage."

Moment

Awake...again...but from where? The gray skies, the muddy memories. What have I done now, at this moment (the only one that matters), to deserve the events drawing me into these warm blankets. What does it mean, standing here, eyes fixed in the mirror, this flesh is still so young, someday old with rot. He couldn't understand. The mold in the corner. How every indication of age and growth all boiled down to the single moment. Now cold, damp, alone. Alive, terribly. Exhilarating sadness.

Written a while ago

Things Fall Away...

I was only a boy; I was impressionable; I greatly desired true acceptance which was never fully given to me except for periodic moments, out of time experience. The more I tried, the more I was embarrassed. I'd study the people who I thought could give me this gift. I sang and danced for their amusement; they hated me, laughed at me, they were determined to create the conditions of my everlasting banishment...

...Things fall away when your not even trying. Things fall away so easily that we have to bring them back, remember our suffering. The more we push things away, the more they become our reality. The more we fight them, the more they devour us. Pain is an illusion, created at the first morn of human consciousness. We love our pain. When it begins to fall away, when we stop fighting it, we are frightened. We fear the nakedness of our banal understanding; we fear the exigency to be nothing. humiliation incarnate.vulnerability incarnate.creativity incarnate.

The Morphology of Landscape

This weekend I had the chance to bike ride a trail that runs along the East Side of the Rio Grande. On Friday, Sjona and I rode way down into the South Valley, and today I rode way up into the North Valley


The trip was exactly what I needed. I have been so immersed in academia, that I need to realize again what it is I study. Why I study
Geography. A study of landscape. Humans in their landscape
Nature, a prisoner of its landscape.

Humans in the landscape. Are we prisoners?
Humans changing their landscape. Is this an expression of culture? Free will? Our we prisoners of our own devices? Derivatives of a landscape we left behind so long ago?
Don't forget the human spirit...
Human destruction...
Human civilization...
To reach beyond our own prisons...
Into a fairytale. The mysterious path...
The endless labyrinth...
The illusion of freedom...
What is beyond?
a glimpse here or there...
back to reality, the human landscape...
The natural landscape...sort of.
Camel transplants. What is this new landscape to them? Are they overwhelmed with a sense of liberation?
The fabric of human beings. Humans being. Grasping.

Day by day, in real time...
All but a moment...
timeless.



As children we think so much about being grown up. As adults, our pursuit of happiness is a proxy for ceaseless nostalgia...tied up in the landscape, the gatekeeper of childhood, the gatekeeper of mystery, the gatekeeper of death.

The morphology of landscape

sponge

assumption.

universal.
objective.
language.

the assumption of meaning.
words.
unconscious.

the assumption that the explorer is being found.
the direction of insight.
the assumption that absorption is.
a two way street.
unconscious.

conscious of a narrative.
tangential.
offspring.

acquired.
sponge.

lucidity clouded in narrative.
projection.
vault.

subjective.
subjection.

please.
inquire.
squeeze.

Old Writings

Looking back at old photographs led me back into some old writings as well. This first one took me back a ways, back to high-school in Taos, back to my experimental, searching, intense days

Nov. 9 1999

Run Like Hell!
Running through the lights and feeling periodic flashes of human emotion. I ingest an acid that changes the wellness of my being. I laugh, relax, crawl through tunnels made by quick orgasmic achievements that feel ones body as a serpent. It then controls you, and leads you around like a puppet in search for a cause that is instilled into you. A cause that they want you to achieve, thus adding to their game to destroy you. As these thoughts pass through my head, I yearn to speak but my speech is slurred, and I see my sanity, I am taken into a snake pit and slithered around like a rag doll. My thoughts are eaten by hypnopaedic phrases that give warm sensations of security, as my eyes see blood I see a beautiful creature, my last chance for a life of eternity. Another chance of a sanity that can be achieved by draining myself of earthly desires, going to the mountains, feeling the ground and becoming a potential that is everything.

Sept. 13 2000

I see all of you through a limited vision, through a veil clouded with the dust of myself. My love is improving though-there have been times when I see every ray of light and I transcend relationship politic and become your ray of light. We are thrown in a mountainous sky to enjoy the vast deep blue mountains. Every current relativity is trivial and a drunken giggle comes out through an eternal euphoric smile. I love you, all of you, my tears stream down as each drop reflects your beautiful eyes.