A poem continued. An offering of hope. Like so many of you I have been on a spiritual journey the past year and a half. New Wisdom has been given to me. Words of truth our souls are aching to know. Thank you so much for reading these frail words which are spoken through me. May you be uplifted. I love you all!
Lightbringers, grow not you weary!
Break Powers of Impotence!
Deny Inequities of Intolerance!
Free your Vibration!
Go to places your Soul Sparks!
Emerald Lake, Colorado w/ Violet.
We are here to ask
the questions
no one else is asking!
There is no Judgment!
There is no Dark Future!
There is only LIGHT
and gradients of its absence!
Emerald Lake, Colorado August 2021.
Revolutionaries,
Ascend
the Cosmic pathways!
Transcend
past the
old Revelations.
Rino Arts District, Denver, Colorado. August 2021.
Your love upends
Egoic Ambitions
Your soul
speaks through
Religious Cacophonies.
We Burn Walls
built by men and
Systemic Oppression!
Rino Arts District- Denver, Colorado.
Demolishing the Walls
We’ve Built
inside and
surrounding Ourselves!
Rino Arts, Denver, Colorado. August 2021.
Denver, Co- Santa Fe Arts District. August 2021.
In each breaking;
Parallel Promises
Abound in your
Bright Future!
Mount Adams, Washington. August 2021.
Painter, You are broad strokes.
You are the hero
of your own life.
You have every right
to be on this planet.
You are the soul of Earth
in human form.
Now Crack Your Acrylic Open!
The Future is Female, Violet, & Dara in Denver
Cheetah Power! Rino Arts District. Denver, Colorado.
Lana in an art gallery. August 2021. Denver, CO.
Seeker, come forward
walk out from your solitude!
This has been the year of
Sirens Singing us
the Subtle Signs.
Synchronicities are
Silent Directions
Guiding you through to
Your Higher Dimensions!
Me at Mount Adams, Washington. July 2021.
Humming, “Ommani padme hum,
shravanam;
amen” and-then
’round again.
Violet meditating at Rocky Mountain N.P.
There is no Judgment!
There is no Dark Future!
We are all just Stars,
Just Colors breathing.
Just Gradients between
Momentary Absences
of Light;
Going back ’round
and to god Again.
Lana, me, Violet, and Dara. Denver, Colorado.
Shoshone Falls, Idaho; June 2021.
All things are
merging together
into greater
Perfection!
Humming, “Om mani
padme hum Kwakwhay,
Tao te
and amen”
The whole world’s
Going back ‘rou
D
Jut
Rino Arts District, Denver, August 2021.
Dara and I at Underground Music Festival Denver, CO. August 2021.
Bear Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park.
Me and Emily, Denver, Colorado’s Dara and I, Underground Music festival. Denver, Colorado. Mural, Santa Fe Arts District
We hiked in a 108 degree Utah sun. The journey itself a sort of tribute to 2 sandstone sentinels of the desert. But what is heat to 65 million years of stratified rock? To Earthen towers whittled into brittled brilliance by erosion, by wind & rain?
Quick Blog Entry! We hiked in a 108 degree Utah sun. The journey itself a sort of tribute to 2 sandstone sentinels of the desert. But what is heat to 65 million years of stratified rock? To Earthen towers whittled into brittled brilliance by erosion, by wind & rain?
You have to be patient with this part of the continent. In silence, in arches, the desert secrets reveal themselves to you.
Arches National Park, Utah
Nature revels in taking various physical forms. Earth bares her soul through expanses of sand and scrub trees.
The significance of duality hidden in her barren places. The moral of rom-coms and confidence- the edifice of true beauty will always remain.
In turn we also bare ourselves before her. Why else would we come if not to offer a salute, an homage, to honor two sienna colored outcroppings?
Do we see ourselves, our collective future, mirrored in these lone survivors of an evaporated sea?
I am coming to know the desert as a subtle teacher. She left us Earthen statues as reminders of our temporal existence. The stubborn ingenuity of land which is shaped by elements, tools on a planetary workbench.
We are also clay upon the potter’s wheel. We are being guided to new revelations of understanding of how humans fit into the convoluted Cosmos.
Check out the hieroglyphs!
Earth isn’t dying, but the ecological effects on the planet are a result of humankind’s selfish and disconnected behaviors.
Were we to raise our collective vibrations we would change our behaviors on a global scale. The Earth would no longer need to force homeostasis upon us. Once we bring ourselves into submission the natural order will return as well.
Dust be dust but we are towers rising from ochre ashes. Monuments hedging their bets; living on edges of the human spirit. Steadfast warriors guarding the vast sand-baked sinews of our souls.
This is just one interpretation extrapolated from a Universe, a planet, a human race arching out in constant fluxes of creation.
We exist beyond gutters and starlight. And I’m aching to know it all.
Get out of your thunderdome! You get to create the rules and tools to get you to the next part of your life. Beyond the ideas we’ve been programmed to believe. Past our personal and societal impositions.
Belief in your future before it has happened is the most powerful instrument in your toolbox of creation. When you continue to walk in the direction of what you want and what you are being called to the way presents itself to you. You are always walking on your path.
I’m coming to learn the detours just means you are in the process of creating what you really want, and hopefully finding the fun of it all along your way forward.
So I began to settle into the beauty of the desert. Letting go of the fears of possible outcomes I cannot control. Realizing my brief fear of camping in the desert was also symptomatic of unconscious fears of my upcoming future.
Much of our anxiety comes from previous trauma or unprocessed past events. Once you are able to pinpoint the source of uncertainty you can be guided to a solution.
I am leaving my career soon. Moving from Portland at the end of June. Taking a break before moving to San Francisco. Again the next steps of my journey unclear. Ready for this record of unsure futures to be taken off of repeat.
I reminded myself that are many subtle signs from the Universe I am going in the right direction even if I can’t perceive it all right now. The unsure are new steps to pathways I haven’t crossed yet.
This is true for all of us. The more we learn how to communicate with the Universe and are open to guidance- it will be revealed to you. Our finite understanding says more about us than it does of Universal limitations.
I sat present in a Utah desert canyon. Watching with the land as sunlight fades. Being present & mindful wherever you are guides you to finding beauty in places you would not have dared to go.
I did some grounding work. Deep breaths and opening of the root chakra. Opening of the mind and heart. I was reminded we are part of this planet and we each have a right to here. The anxiety began to fade as I watched the sunset slip beneath the horizon.
Out here you see the Earth for who she is without a facade. Rugged, unyielding, resilient. Life goes to incredible extremes to exist. Without the assurance of trees, water, and trappings of civilization you also see yourself for who you really are in that moment.
The desert teaches anyone who takes time to be present with her. You find love that transcends the physical and material world. A love that one must take time to observe, to appreciate, desire and allow.
The more purposeful you become in your expansion- you can attain most anything you desire or put time into creating. For I found that there were trees, and scrub bushes, and small animals- rabbits, lizards, even deer living out here.
If the smallest of creatures can find a way to survive- how much more prepared for survival we humans must be? There is much brilliance in this world of which we are also a reflection.
The challenges you face may be larger than a desert or more long term and discouraging. Systemic injustice is so prevalent and larger than anyone of us alone. How can we achieve our goals and societal transformation with so much outward oppression?
There is no simple solution or answer to our ceaseless quandaries. But we must know that we are always part of the Earth even if it seems she has forgotten us.
When we feel this way it just means we need to take a breath, let go of the fears, use the tools we have to get us to the next moment, remember our true power, rinse, and repeat as necessary.
When you surrender into the acceptance of your present reality- that’s when true freedom comes. Releasing the resistant thoughts and feelings about your own life and about others will free you in ways you didn’t even know were holding you back.
The journey to our freedoms have all been individually tarried and carried often alone. Those of you who are on difficult journeys remember your light. Be encouraged that life exist everywhere.
The edifice of true beauty will always remain even after the surface is washed away. It is in the crucible, the mortar pestle, you find who you really are. Isn’t that a great place to be?
Once I let go- camping in the desert ended up being my favorite part of this roadtrip from Portland to Texas. A reminder that your whole life is out there waiting to be lived and great possible futures ready to expand into reality.
Hikers used the chain at Angel’s Landing because it was a 1,488-foot fall to the ground, but also because the chain existed. Simply looking at the chain caused many people to become fearful. For inexperienced climbers- having a “safety net” of sorts was important.
Of course I went off leash most of the time. Not for a contrary purpose. I just didn’t need the chains to guide me. I barely have a grip on this version of reality, but I have a grip on nature & treading where angels dare to go.
We often hold to the things we’ve outgrown out of duty and familial obligation or material security. It’s okay and important that chain, the religion, the support exists. Sometimes we need that validation and security these things offer.
Still when we are attached to our expectations, relationships, professions- anything outside of us we can become chained in forms of mental and emotional slavery.
These sentences of servitude are subtle and reflect enculturation of societal norms. They are not easily broken and often take years of meditation, therapy, and re-education. Just desiring liberation is one of the most important part of “the work.”
There is more knowledge readily available to humans now than there has been in any other time in recorded history. Yet our cultures are not up to speed with the technological breakthroughs which have come at such an advanced pace. The proliferation of hints about misinformation are almost worse than the actual misinformation itself.
Propaganda from all sides keep pointing out false ideologies. Take your pick of soups and conspiracy theories du jour. But there is no inherent sense of fascism in this type of soup nazi. A problem with taking in so much information is that we don’t know where all to put it. That at the end of the day- people are forced into camps and baskets of good and bad.
We praise logic and lucidity when it matches up with the general consensus of the day. Scientists and theologians start out with the intent to discover something new or to come to greater understanding of their chosen discipline. Yet many observers, of both spiritual and scientific leanings, tend to maintain the status quo- to becoming maintainers of the knowledge instead of advancing it further.
It’s been proven throughout all of history that those in power attempt to maintain that power by adhering to the science and religion that best benefits the perpetuation of that culture’s ideals and motivations.
In his famous allegory, The Cave, Plato presents several chained prisoners who are forced to look at a fire casting shadows/images reflected on the back of a cave wall. He said, “On the walls of the cave, only shadows are truth.” We see mere reflections of the Forms- beauty, truth, life but do not actually ever see “Truth,” “Love,” “Mercy,” as they exist on their own. Everything is just a reflection of an ideal and we cast our own assumptions, experiences, desires and label it good, love, bad.
Objectivity of the material world becomes more apparent in nature. The riddle of “if a tree falls in a forest” becomes more clear when you’re the only one in the forest to hear its silence.
Almost all of us live this way to some extent. Not asking questions which would shake the foundations of our societies, are homes, relationships, and selves. I’ve literally known self-actualized people who said they don’t want to ask the hard questions because they don’t want to know “the answer.“
Often I wish the desire to ask these questions did not burn within my heart because life would be a lot easier to take at face value. But to stay in this false safety net would be boring, predictable, and antithetical to the propagation of life on this planet.
We spend half of our lives deprogramming ourselves from the bogus agendas of lack based mentalities that were socialized into us. But now that we know this- we have a chance to create the life which works for us and for the greater part of human civilization.
I used to think I was in the craggy places because of judgment and worthlessness. I was too precious to be planted in a garden but my heart would not be content alone in the alpines. Hearts have a way of wandering around until they find each other.
Brave hearts are not made for fences, chains, or cages. When we become less dependent on the chains we have grown accustomed to we move into bolder power.
We have the freedom to taking art, thought, life farther than it has been before. Keep following the freedom which is calling within you.
Unchain yourself from relationships, expectations, governments, and jobs which do not serve you. For each step forwards expands creation farther than it has been before and closer to where you want to go.
I didn’t know I had fear of camping in the desert until confronted with the reality of its stark dry silence. The solemn landscape loomed with limestone and clay towers. Canyons leftover from a former ocean.
Approaching the desert, I suddenly became claustrophobic, small, and unsure. Surprised by my reaction, I thought,“those feelings happen in the city. Not out in the sanctuary I’ve found inherently in Nature.
I took a puff from my emergency inhaler, long breaths. AC on blast. Windows down. Whispering affirmations. Just real sexy adventurer stuff going on.
My personal wilderness street cred crumbling. A mild panic attack creeping on the edges and being quickly held at bay. Then a thought flashed: “OMG Furiosa would’ve left me out on Fury Road.” A laugh bringing a brief return to normalcy, grounding, and humbling of self.
Hurricane Flats, Utah
After two years of living in a lush pacific rainforest, I was struck by the seemingly barren landscape outside Zion National Park. The vegetation and landscape across southern Utah swiftly becoming arid, cracked. All moisture was sucked from the whipping 50 mph winds.From my breath. It’s like Earth had suddenly shed her brilliance and exposed the fragility of life just a few exits down the highway.
On a conscious level- I knew I could survive in the forest for several days if stranded or lost. I’ve picked up wilderness skills the past couple of years and could survive out in the mountains for several of days if needed. (Pick me for your Zombie invasion Team!)
The desert is a different ballgame. It’s you against the elements. There’s no direct access to water. No forests to provide protection or berries, fish, or other immediate food sources.
What you bring is all that you can carry. What you don’t have you will not find it in here. Was I ready or responsible enough for that? It is okay for a moment I was too in my head about all this?
And there was no one else who could help me were I to need assistance. I was camping solo. Just me out in the wilderness. Just as I have been a lot of times since leaving Texas. Mostly due to necessity and convenience. I travel the way I live: with a loose knit plan going a million possible directions at once.
Yet, in those anxious thoughts one can remember to access our mental health toolbox: mindfulness, meditation, medication. As well as employing holistic coping strategies like actually calling your support system and being open to guidance.
Some of the strategies which work for me may also work for you: reaching out to my support system, affirmations, remembering how much I’ve overcome while also being present, letting the feelings wash over, not attaching myself to thoughts or outcomes, radical forgiveness, attempting unconditional love, forgiving myself when that doesn’t happen.
I called my sister for reassurance. She said she could talk, but was on her way to pick up her son from daycare. I told her just hearing her voice was enough. She spoke affirmations to me. She told me I could leave the desert. That it would be okay if I kept moving. She told me I would also enjoy it if I gave it a chance. I listen to her talking to the daycare as she picks up my nephew, placed him in the car, and while she goes to pick up the dry-cleaning. She kept apologizing for having to interrupt our conversation. I told her it was perfectly fine- to just keep me on the phone. It was comforting to hear her perform these every-day tasks. It grounded me to Earth to myself to family.
Even with our recent disagreements and misunderstandings- our love for one another transcends the differences. I listen to the sound of family in a different room. Because that’s all that we are when we’re away from each other right? We’re on the same channel just on a different frequency.
Maybe that was one of the lessons I was supposed to learn in the desert. This part of the Earth is still the same Earth. Life and landscape existing and abounding in different ways. I needed to adjust my perception and unpack fears of the unknown.
Take the break which life is giving to you in the moment of your discomfort. A pause is just an opportunity to prepare for your next adventure beyond things like fears, and desires and personal Thunderdomes.
I was sat in meditation upon a plateau full of rock labyrinths in the sacred heart of mysterious Mt. Shasta. Asking the Universe for answers, as always, and waiting for a sign that I was on my path. Knowing this time I was not the crafter of my life disaster. This time the fuck- up truly was not my fault.
Setting the Record Strait
It’s no small irony that April Fool’s marks both my 2nd year of life on the American West Coast; and the closing of my chapter in Portland & the job in social work I started two years ago, today.
It’s a fitting reminder that things aren’t quite what they seem at first. For a fool’s heart can lead you onto paths of great adventures, broad exhilarations, and deep despairs.
Tomorrow I leave for Mt. Shasta and a 2 week trip to California. I find myself being beckoned back to this legendary mountain. I’m reminded of the surreality of an experience that occurred there late last September, within riddles and stone labyrinths.
In the wake of the California wildfires, and amidst several personal and societal devastations, I received a message from something higher than myself. Thankful for reasons and second chances to fly.
The mountain itself was parched but unscathed from the flames which had vociefrously consumed so many of its neighboring forests. The scorching of the West seemed symbolic of the combustible state of America. George Floyd couldn’t breathe when he was murdered by police.
Many populations across the West breathing in masks and the worst air quality in the world. The tyrannies of systemic injustice and police brutality were punctuated by Covid, and continued collapsing of civil liberties and crises.
I was sat in meditation upon a plateau full of rock labyrinths in the sacred heart of mysterious Mt. Shasta. Asking the Universe for answers, as always, and waiting for a sign that I was on my path. Knowing this time I was not the crafter of my life disaster. This time the fuck- up truly was not my fault.
Like our embattled country, My heart had been healing from twin aftermaths: the events surrounding my first book. And more intensely the accompanying fallout from being drugged by gay white supremacists after a Black Lives Matter rally in June 2020. Yeah, I know how crazy it sounds.
I looked up from my perch and saw the answer in the form a dark long-haired woman walking 1000 feet away, along the horizon of Mount Shasta. Little did I realize pieces of my future would soon come clearer into view.
Perhaps we are briefly guided by signs from another realm. Maybe our trials double as secret Talisman readying us on the next leg of our journeys. And as I set out on a new one, it’s time to clarify my truth which has been misconstrued. It’s finally time to set the record strait.
Let us give thanks then- instead of to a nation, but appreciating unto each other and loved ones who came before. Let us be thankful for the abundant beauty, biodiversity, sustainable resources, justice spread out in every movement of our planet spinning on an axis- as fractured as it all may seem.
It is from the agnostics, shamans, queers, the “reprobate” of polite society- I have felt at peace with. The awakened, pagan people, inner-city yogis, backpacking explorers, Indigenous spiritualists, those seekers of the divine mysteries, the humble-hearted outcasts are the ones whom I instantly love.
This shaman gave blessings to all without judgement or persuasion of conversion. Love was given without a conversation. In the process to unconditional love- there is radical forgiveness. When we give empathy and understanding to those we deem not worthy of forgiveness- we bring grace incarnate into the world.
For we are still bound to promises
made with those borne of this land.
The promises of your ancestors “Come, now!”
Before we betrayed traded hands.
In achieving equity for all, the co-creative diverse cooperation of humankind will push us father into echelons of brilliance & sustainability. For the porches of our hearts are where we always meet one another; beyond superficial labelings like racial ethnicity, citizenship, or time.
We are united in the pursuit of human rights. And when we achieve justice for and with another person we have seen and honored the image of god who is represented by their being.
Every Mountain calls you home in different ways. St. Helen’s is a mountain of contemplation & rebirth. The felled forests enables one to see out in vast distances. The ghostly backdrop enables one to project your thoughts and hopes onto. Engulfed in barren rugged crust of Earth.
In fact the desolation of Mt. St. Helen’s makes it among the most human of mountains on Earth.
Does Nature forgive the Earth for causing destruction to itself? Does Earth require some karmic debt to repay its own soul? What penance can one offer for the cycle between life and rebirth? In nature they are one in the same.
It made me wonder what one would do if stranded on an alien world.
Would we not be so grateful so thankful to see a whisper of life of something reminiscent of home?
Wouldn’t you gasp from the side of your mouth just to marvel at some thing real? A bed of lichen would be a forest. To see a moth flying like small prayers.
It’s because of abundance that we are even able hurt each other & plunder the planet. Even during its explosion the mountain & its forests were living. We live through our own circles of destruction.We are part of the greater whole.
So as Earth forgives itself through homeostasis: parched in some places, flooding, engulfed by fire others- humans have a very real part in healing or destroying the planet we live on- in thought, deed, and action.
Yet existence on Earth is so fragile. We take it for granted. We turn the inner world outside & vice verse. Humanity will come to peace when we each have come to inner peace w/ ourselves.
Perhaps personal catastrophes aren’t as cataclysmic in scope although they often feel like that in the middle of it all. St. Helens is an offering of contemplation & infinite redemption.
A warning tongue to be the guard of your emotions. To remember that life will come again but there our consequences to regrowing. There are scars and places within you which may never be the same but life returns.
The infinite spiral. You’re coming you’re going you go back round again on another rung of the circle. Some part of you will lives on. We’ve all affected our world by the people who are in it.
We are the closest beacon of lights but we often to look the night sky or artifice to fill the very place we should for each other. We are too worthy of so much more than we accept and give to one another.
But for those who take notice and take charge of their minds, emotions, and desires- your life can become a veritable heaven on Earth- even if in your own mind- because that’s where everything had to begin.
Let us take inspiration from nature. Let us become like the Earth’s friction and raze the skyscrape bureaucracies we created and build something better for us all.
This year of chosen solitude has been a solace- a beautiful clearing in the wake of abandoning attachments. To walk in mountains is to walk in part of your soul. Returning to your breath is a returning to your life in this present moment. Everything else is an adornment distracting us from the real essence of life.
Time spent in Nature brings you into connection with Earth which helps you connect with your own self. You realize all creatures, plants, humanity are having a tangible experience with and on a living planet. You begin finding life can be lived in harmony even if weekend wanderings are few and the work week, the day to day drudgery, the bills are coming to kick your ass. You start bringing mindfulness into your every day life.
Nature is the Great Soul Kitchen where I have become more unconditional, steadfast, trusting in my approach to life than ever before.
You realize this moment is not locking you down, nothing is holding you captive. You hold no one accountable for your emotions. You stop looking for others for validation. You stop needing to be all things for a given period of time. You become content to be here now, be present, to see how things go without attaching immediate judgment to our fleeting thoughts. That’s how life is supposed to be.
Cubicle walls may contain you from 9-5, but a backpacker’s soul, like Nature, is eternal.
To sit alone with Nature is also to sit with your own self. You eventually come to find a deeper love and acceptance for yourself. you see the beauty in the craggy lone wolf places in your heart. You become broken down to love or else your screwed into hanging out 24-7 with someone you don’t even like or want to be around.
You learn to become your own best friend and it’s this surreal process of being muddled and molded in big secret gulps.
Nature offers one the vantage point of interacting purely with your environment. Being part of the land makes one feel in touch with all of life. Scientifically speaking we are biologically hardwired to live in union with our Earth.
Nature isn’t the escape. The escape was moving to the cities and deciding to erect stone walls. The disconnect from nature is what also stonewalled the collective human heart. Returning to Earth melts the Western illusion of segmented life experiences. It’s a return to the heart of all creation.
I’ve begun hiking trails with the intent to love everyone in my heart as they walk by. Sometimes this translate with me saying hello and a smile.
Even if there’s no reply I felt lighter in my heart just giving love without the expectation of return. I realized how quickly we start to seek others to fill that void and become mad at others when they don’t close the a gap we find within ourselves.
I found to be thankful for whatever is in the present moment is the secret to becoming unconditional which in itself is the ability to love freely and without needing the conditions to change to feel love. It is the holding each other responsible for how we feel how they made us feel how they’re supposed to make us feel that we become resentful and can no longer tolerate the people who meant the most to us.
A life of attachment to people, possessions, money, and conditions will be a life of constant lack, reaction, non-fulfillment, and blaming others for our unhappiness.
I still don’t always greet everyone with love in my heart. At times I forget as this rambling mind would would begin to think about other things and kind of tune other people out. But Nature is the great soul kitchen place for solitude for contemplation for peace. It also brings out the best in each other. Hiking outdoors is one place where we meet each other no matter our class or cast for the most part when you see her you’re on the same level ground.
You begin treating others better as you intentionally take time to connect to this alive, beautiful, sprawling Earth. Hiking and being in nature feels more than an addiction it has become a way of life. Nature can be volatile, unpredictable, dangerous but those fears lessen as you discover each one of us is part of this grand creation.
This great separateness is a societal illusion which will continue to be perpetuated until humanity collectively reconciles the Otherness within our own selves.
Can you love all sides of yourself? Without judging your faults without conditions to make loving yourself easier? If the answer to that question is not yes- you’re not going to find love from another person to fill the places you can’t even love.
Humanity will collectively find peace only when we stop looking outwards for people to change. Self acceptance brings inner-peace which is reflected outwards. Choosing to love when it’s not warranted elevates consciousness which changes your life and affects all those you touch.
It’s an ongoing process we must be consciously aware of but not attached to. it’s easy to get caught up in the flight of thoughts and day to day circumstances that need our immediate attention. Coming back to the breath to the now several times a day will begin to open you to allowing yourself to see the bigger picture the greater whole. This state of grace allows us to live our true potential and serve as reminders when we feel like failures and have hurt one’s we love. As important it is to extend an olive branch to others how much more we must first extend unconditional love to ourselves.
It’s because of abundance that we are even able hurt each other & plunder the planet. Even during its explosion the mountain & its forests were living. We live through our own circles of destruction.We are part of the greater whole.
JoshovasWitness 